The $296.6m (£216.3m/€253.0m) lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York in March by casino management business Global Gaming Asset Management (GGAM).
GGAM is a joint venture that manages casino resorts, set up between private equity business Cantor Fitzgerald and a number of former Las Vegas Sands executives – which had managed Bloomberry’s Solaire resort.
The business called for $296.6m in damages from Razon, the second richest person in the Philippines, arguing that he exerted dominant control over Solaire owner Bloomberry, and that therefore GGAM could file damages against him personally.
In previous documents, GGAM had alleged that although Razon engaged GGAM to provide “substantial assistance” in developing the Solaire, Bloomberry’s first casino, the deal was terminated and fees owed to GGAM were withheld.
The suit claims that Razon blocked trading in Bloomberry shares in order to prevent GGAM from selling an equity interest in the Solaire it acquired as part of the deal.
Now, revised documents allege that this was only possible due to an “undisclosed financial relationship” between Razon and Hans Sicat, former president of the Philippine Stock Exchange. It claims that Sicat was being compensated for bringing “investment opportunities” to Razon and Bloomberry.
“Thus, Sicat had a strong financial incentive to do Razon’s bidding,” the lawsuit claims.
The amended documents also claim that Razon deliberately obscured the ownership of his assets within the US, making it harder to sue him for damages.
The agreement will cover franchises such as The Walking Dead, Marriage Boot Camp and Bridezillas.
Playtech will now start to develop the new titles, with the aim of releasing the online games to the market later this year and in 2022.
“We are honoured to have been chosen as AMC Networks’ exclusive partner to bring their flagship brands to the online gaming market,” Playtceh’s chief operating officer Shimon Akad said.
“Playtech has a long and proud history of combining the very best brands with our industry leading products; this new partnership demonstrates our continued commitment to delivering an entertainment-led experience to key strategic audiences across regulated markets.”
AMC Networks’ vice president of games Clayton Neuman added: “From undead hordes of flesh-eating walkers to an army of enraged brides, AMC Networks is home to some of the most explosive dramas on television.
“We are delighted to partner with Playtech to deliver that same action and excitement from our iconic brands for the first time in a world-class online gaming experience.”
Located in Rock Island, Illinois, Jumer’s features a 40,000sq ft casino floor with more than 870 slot machines and 25 table games, as well as a 205-room hotel with 11 luxury suites, an events centre, sports bar, nightclub and four restaurants.
Bally’s said that it expects the deal to be immediately accretive to earnings, based on the property’s adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in its 2019 fiscal year 2019 and performance since reopening during the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
In addition, Bally’s said the acquisition also provides it with the opportunity to capitalise on sports betting opportunities by further expanding its geographic footprint into the Illinois gaming market.
GREF is an association for Europe’s gaming regulators and has 41 members from 34 jurisdictions. The members exchange information and experiences via the forum, including through working groups.
Jansen has been vice-chairman of GREG since May 2019, and now takes over as chairman from executive director of the Alderney Gaming Control Commission, Jorn Starck. It is customary for a chairman of the association to remain in the position for 2 years.
Commenting on his appointment, Jansen said that “Protecting consumers, preventing gambling addiction and combating illegality and crime are of paramount importance to all regulators.”
He went on to say that the regulators can learn from one another by exchanging experiences and by confronting similar challenges. With reference to the upcoming regulation of online gaming in the Netherlands, Jansen said:
“Online games of chance will be legalised and regulated in the Netherlands this year. Other countries preceded us in this; it makes no sense to reinvent the wheel everywhere. We can learn from the experiences of others. It is also important to work together in tackling illegal online games of chance.”
The amendments to the gambling act call for “special moderation” in ads, with the intention of classing gambling similarly to alcohol due to addiction risks. Currently, law simply calls for “moderation”.
The amendments have been put out for consultation, with responses due by 14 October.
First suggested in Sweden’s Gambling Market Inquiry, the proposal suggests that gambling marketing should be exempt from the Freedom of Expression act, as it contains a commercial element which means it should be regulated by ordinary law.
Instead, gambling would be marketed similarly to how alcohol is in Sweden, whereby the marketing “must not be intrusive, include outreach or urge people to use alcohol”. The Ministry of Finance added that the requirement for special moderation applies to the medium in which ads are displayed, the content and design of the advertising and any other marketing methods.
In addition, the detail, typography and layout “must be assessed in the light of the requirement for special moderation”.
The new proposals have been rejected by Sweden’s online operator association Branschföreningen för Onlinespe (BOS).
BOS secretary general Gustaf Hoffstedt said: “Swedish-licensed gambling operators have since a peak in 2018-2019 halved their advertising purchases. I do not understand how low the investments in marketing must be for the government to be satisfied.
“Gaming advertising from Swedish licensed gambling companies fulfills an important function for a safe and secure gaming market. Advertising strengthens the motivation for gambling consumers to choose Swedish-licensed gambling instead of the alarmingly high proportion of unlicensed gaming. “Already today, every fourth gambling krona leaks out of the licensing system when it comes to online casino, and with that, the strong consumer protection also sips away.”
Over a decade on from the inception of Bitcoin in 2009, cryptocurrencies are emerging from their infancy, becoming an increasingly used method for the buying and selling of products, from coffees to cars to yachts, as well as being able to fund recreational activities such as sports betting.
Indeed, while crypto-usership was once seemingly limited to coding enthusiasts and speculating students, it is now exploding as tech savvy Millennials are being joined by Generation Z to push the number of cryptocurrency users beyond an estimated 100 million globally.
Jack Byrne
This growth in demand, and speculation of future demand, pushed the often-volatile price of Bitcoin to a high in excess of $60,000 in April 2021, with the total Bitcoin in circulation worth above $1000 billion in the same month, an increase of over 200% from early 2020.
Innovation in sports betting… and in sports manipulation
New start-ups have seized on this popularity, and in sports betting the demand from customers for funding accounts through cryptocurrency has led to the rise of a parallel industry, with over 120 operators, operating outside of the licensed markets of Europe or the US, offering a bitcoin payment solution and over 25 operators offering a crypto-only ‘end-to-end’ service. The growth of this crypto-sportsbook market has the potential to impact the scope of sport and betting related fraud.
Number of indentity-verified Cryptoasset users, 2016- Q3 2020
Technological innovation through the last two decades has revolutionised an age-old industry, and as the scope of what to bet on, how to bet, who to bet with, and the way to make financial transactions has changed, the manipulation of sporting events has also evolved.
Market capitalisation of Bitcoin, 2013-May 2021
Advancements in data gathering and real-time data transmission have been the catalyst for improving the offering to customers in recent years, with a broader range of markets and events available to bet on. And while this enhanced offering has improved the customer experience, it has also created a new opportunity for those small number of people intent on manipulating sporting events for profit.
While an athlete, official, or group of either, may be responsible for the success of any sporting manipulation, the assumed method of modern-fixing places them in a networked organisation of individuals with various responsibilities, including fixers, bettors, money launderers, agents and club officials as well as a boss.
This method, which has to financially benefit so many parties, has been enabled by the ability for large quantities of money to be staked on known outcomes with multiple bookmakers in regulated and unregulated markets and the way in which new technologies have facilitated cheap, fast communication and money transfers.
Having a layered network has been a requirement, as to insulate the different parties from detection. Most obviously, it has been necessary for an organisation to ensure that the bettors and the player cannot be linked, and indeed for the player not to have to bet on their own match, something easy to detect, particularly for bookmakers in the regulated sports betting industry with effective KYC and risk management processes in place, as well as processes to report any concerning activity to the relevant regulator and sporting body.
The anonymity that the bettor has when betting at a crypto-sportsbook, where there are no identity requirements to open an account and no straight-forward link to the owner of the cryptocurrency wallet used to fund it, allows for a change in match-fixing methodology.
Added anonymity
Although large match-fixing networks may continue in a form similar to that outlined, it is likely a different method has developed and will continue to become increasingly prevalent alongside it, operating on a smaller scale, thanks to the new-found opportunity for the athlete, or official, to bet easily and directly on their own events with little to no risk of their identity being linked to the bets placed.
While the anonymity provided to the bettor can be regarded as similar to that of an agent system of betting, associated with the unregulated Asian sports betting market, the crypto-sportsbook market can act as a more accessible alternative to that market, offering not only anonymity but also the ease of direct, instant bet placement with an online operator rather than using an agent or online broker, often having to use a messaging service in order to place bets and provide personal details.
And, although sportsbooks in the unregulated Asian market generally accept higher stake wagers than elsewhere, as usage increases and recreational betting grows in the crypto-sportsbook market, the ability to place large wagers will also likely increase as crypto-sportsbooks increase the limits on stake sizes to accommodate genuine high-rolling bettors and provide a more attractive product than their competitors.
Indeed, while the crypto-sportsbook and unregulated Asian market are regarded as separate here, the adoption of cryptocurrencies as a payment solution by online brokers ahead of the regulated markets would increase the potential for betting-related fraud further due to the added layer of anonymity.
Can data be the answer?
The growth in cryptocurrency usage, and the corresponding demand for crypto-only-sportsbooks, therefore, presents a challenge to the regulated sports betting sector, with the incorporating of a crypto-payment solution perhaps regarded as necessary to retain and attract crypto-enthusiastic customers. Indeed, some regulators are in the process of building a framework for how operators can integrate cryptocurrency payments into their product with early indications that there will be the understandable, and seemingly unavoidable, need for the customer to register their identity and link it to their crypto-wallet, albeit perhaps through a third-party provider or crypto-token mechanism.
Although this is a responsible action, in order to know the customer for their own consumer protection as well as for anti-money laundering purposes, it highlights the conundrum facing the regulated industry. Will there be a demand to use cryptocurrencies in a sports betting market that has KYC requirements if the popularity of cryptocurrencies and the demand for them, and for their use in sports betting, is related to the system being relatively anonymous?
Indeed, if crypto-bettors remain outside of the regulated market the opportunity for a new, largely player-led, method of match-fixing poses plentiful questions for an infrastructure that has been developed to detect and tackle integrity issues in sport. And while these questions may be difficult to answer, solutions are likely to be found in the regulation of the supply of data to crypto-sportsbooks.
Data suppliers enable the cryptocurrency bookmakers to offer betting markets, akin to those of regulated operators, in an unregulated and opaque space, and perhaps limitations need to be placed on whom such data can be supplied to, in order that the methods in place for detecting match-fixing remain relevant.
Jack Byrne has over ten years of experience in the sports betting industry, joining the International Betting Integrity Association in early 2021. As IBIA’s Integrity Analyst, Byrne is responsible for analysing irregular betting activity reported to the association by their membership, made-up of sports betting operators in the regulated betting market, as well as identifying trends and assessing future risk to sport of betting related fraud.
Revenue in 2020 amounted to €19m (£16m/$23m), up 35.7% from $14m in the previous year.
Sportnco said while there was a relatively even split between B2B and B2C revenue in 2020, it experienced significantly more growth within its B2B segment.
Revenue from B2C activities in the 12-month period climbed by 89% year-on-year to €10m, whereas B2C revenue edged up 3% to €9m.
Sportnco also noted the impact of its acquisition of Spanish igaming platform provider Tecnalis, which it said helped drive revenue growth in 2020.
Aside from revenue, Sportnco reported a 68% year-on-year rise in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) from €3.7m to €6.1m, while post-tax net profit increased 50% to €1.8m.
By the end of the year, Sportnco was managing 36 real-money gaming clients across 13 regulated markets in Europe, Latin America and the US.
“The past 12 months have demonstrated the strength of the Sportnco group,” Sportnco chief executive Hervé Schlosser said.
“As a business we were Covid-resilient and provided further proof of our ability to accelerate growth through M&A operations with the acquisition of Tecnalis and its award-winning Alira player account management platform this year.
“Regulation of sports betting and gaming markets continues to spread worldwide and we are extremely excited by the opportunities that Sportnco will have to benefit from these developments in the coming months and years.”
Earlier this year, Sportnco also took its first step into the US igaming market with the launch of a free-to-play sportsbook app for daily fantasy sports provider SuperDraft.
SuperDraft is the official draft fantasy sports platform of Caesars Entertainment, which invested in the company in January of this year.
The fine was issued alongside a warning by the regulator last year, in relation to what it saw as breaches of Sweden’s Gambling Act, but was subsequently appealed by Betsson.
Spelinspektionen had determined that, by selling vouchers used to top up customers’ online gaming accounts, local convenience store chains Pressbyrån and 7-Eleven had acted as gaming agents on Betsson’s behalf without being registered as gaming agents, which is contrary to a provision in the Gambling Act.
The Administrative Court, however, determined that the situation was not covered by the Gambling Act’s provisions on gambling agents, as the sale of vouchers does not constitute the sale of gambling products, the receipt of bets or the mediation of winnings.
The court also found that Betsson has neither received payments from anyone other than a gaming service provider or received cash as payment for online games through the sale of the vouchers.
Betsson had also launched a payment card in March 2019, in collaboration with Mastercard, which it said would allow players to gain access to tickets to sporting events and other offers.
Spelinspektionen determined that this constituted the use of unauthorised bonuses, as operators are only allowed to offer a one-time bonus to customers upon sign-up.
The Administrative Court found that tickets and other such benefits would constitute the offering of an unauthorised bonus, but that Betsson’s statements did not constitute offers of such within the meaning of the law.
The court therefore came to the conclusion that Spelinspektionen had no basis for issuing a warning to Betsson and determining a penalty fee.
The Administrative Court’s ruling may still be appealed to the Administrative Court of Appeal in Jönköping, which has several ongoing cases regarding interpretations of Sweden’s gaming law.
Spelinspektionen has had a number of recent decisions overturned or changed upon appeal.
Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal has refused the regulator’s leave to appeal a case against Kindred subsidiary Spooniker concerning a loophole in the country’s temporary deposit cap.
Spelinspektionen had previously issued sanctions against Kindred due to a loophole that allowed players to deposit and play casino games with more than the maximum SEK5000 per month, by raising and lowering their deposit cap. The sanctions were then overturned on appeal, and although Spelinspektionen warned that the court’s interpretation risked making the deposit cap unenforceable, the regulator’s appeal was rejected.
Last month, the Court of Appeal in Jönköping reduced penalties against both Genesis Global and Aspire Global’s AG Communications, after determining that the regulator could not base penalties on turnover for offenses very soon after the Swedish regulated market opened.
Oaktree in April submitted an initial proposal to provide up to $3.00bn in funding for a share buy-back programme. Crown would be able to use the proceeds to buy back some or all of its shares held by Consolidated Press Holdings Pty (CPH) on a selective basis.
The revised proposal sets out details of an increased $3.10bn facility consisting of a $2.00bn private term loan and $1.10bn loan convertible into new shares to be issued by Crown.
Oaktree said the facility would be used to fund a selective buy back of CPH’s shareholding in Crown. The term of the proposed facility is seven years, with a coupon of 6.0% per year payable for the first two years, rising to 6.5% per year from year three until the maturity of the facility.
The convertible component of the facility would allow Oaktree to convert the $1.1bn tranche into new shares in Crown at a strike price of $13.00 in specified circumstances.
The number of new Crown shares that would be issued to Oaktree upon conversion of the convertible component would be capped so that Oaktree would hold a maximum of 9.99% of the total number of Crown shares on issue. The remaining part of the component would be cash settled by Crown.
Any selective buy-back of Crown shares held by CPH would be subject to Crown shareholder approval.
Crown noted that its board has not yet formed a view on the revised proposal.
The resort operator has been the subject of significant interest from investors during recent months, having also received a number of takeover and merger offers.
Rival Australian land-based operator Star Entertainment Group put forward a proposal to merge with Crown and create a combined operation worth approximately $12.00bn, while private equity giant Blackstone Group submitted a takeover offer.
Blackstone in March put forward an offer of $8.02bn to acquire the remaining shares in Crown, having already acquired 9.99% of the business in April 2020 with the purchase of a stake from Melco.
The private equity group then increased its offer to $12.35 in cash for each Crown share, up 4% increase on the previous offer of $11.85 per share submitted, but is lower than both the $14 valuation set by Crown and the cash alternative proposed by Star.
Abios will also produce educational content related to the relationship between esports and betting, including topics such as match fixing and esports integrity.
Clarion Gaming’s head of esports William Harding said: “The interest in esports is growing at an exponential rate among our community of stakeholders and it’s vital that we provide them with a curated insight to the esports betting space as well as the tools they need to explore and develop business opportunities.
“We are fortunate to be able to draw on the breadth and depth of knowledge that Abios has within the esports betting sector. Abios can provide a range of unique services and software applications that will greatly enrich the visitor experience whether that’s to ICE365.com, iGB or to our in-person events: iGB Live! and ICE London. Abios represents a perfect partner for our brands.”
Abios CEO Oskar Froberg added: “Clarion Gaming, courtesy of its digital and in-person events, has an admirable track record of providing the igaming industry with thought-leading content and I would argue that ICE is the most widely recognised exhibition in our industry.
“As an official data partner we are delighted to support, enrich and add value to the ICE365 and iGB esports content and I look forward to progressing what is an exciting partnership.”
The calendar will let readers see a month-by-month list of upcoming tournaments, which may be filtered to only include those with a “significant betting impact”, giving the betting industry an insight into the scope and scale of esports events.
