Smyler became a member of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) in 2019, following a spell as General Counsel of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As General Counsel, Smyler oversaw the provision of legal services to the governor, his senior staff, and more than 30 executive branch and independent agencies.
Smyler was appointed by Pennsylvania’s Governor, Tom Wolf, following the departure of Barasch after nearly six years leading the board, which limits Members to two three-year terms.
Fubo TV already has a strong foothold on the Pennsylvanian market through its carriage agreements with regional sports networks including NBC sports Philadelphia and AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh. Now, however, Fubo may launch its betting products in the state using licenses held by the Cordish Companies’ Live! brand of land-based casinos.
The sports-focused streaming provider entered the world of sports betting through its recent acquisition of sportsbook operator Vigtory. Following this acquisition, the provider introduced free-to-play predictive games, acting as an initial bridge between its streaming and sportsbook services, until it received a license.
Under this agreement, Fubo plans to bring together its live sports streaming with mobile betting so that users can place bets while watching matches.
Gansmo has joined the casino content developer following an 11-year spell in the same position at Wynn’s Macau operation.
During his tenure, Gansmo played a leading role in Wynn Macau’s initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and helped lead the company’s Macau operations through a period of substantial growth.
The Gameboard solution is built on microservices, a platform style which allows a collection of services to deliver information efficiently.
The platform will be on display and in operation at the United Tote’s self-service betting terminal at the NIGA trade show.
The Player Protection Team blends anti-money laundering with responsible gaming in an attempt to curb excessive and criminal spending within the industry.
The team will work closely with and train other departments such as customer service to ensure that responsible gaming practices are employed across every facet of the business.
SlotsMillion’s CEO Charles Gross said: “The past year has been enormously ambitious and significant for SlotsMillion. We have redefined our product, revamped our brand, and completely rethought the way we operate in an increasingly saturated market.
“It could even be said that it has been one of our most important periods in terms of reshaping our modus operandi, our objectives and paving the way to an entirely new phase marked by innovative projects and the recruitment of new talent to join our team in order to achieve our many goals.”
SlotsMillion announced the Player Protection team launch on the back of what it described as the company’s “most transformative and significant year to date”, which included going live in Sweden, and rebranding of its user interface. The launch of the SlotsMillion app is also on the horizon in the coming year.
Gross added: “Despite RG always being at the core of our business, one of the main objectives this past year has been to refine and perfect our approach to Responsible Gambling.
“We are proud to see that the hard work put into the last year has paved the way for a very promising future for the brand in which our capacity for innovation will continue shining while we keep working toward offering our players the best possible gaming experience.”
The bill sets a 10% tax rate for all forms of gambling, while gambling winnings of more than eight months’ minimum wage (currently UAH48,000) will be taxed as income.
The legislature first voted to approve an “abbreviated procedure” for the bill, which would allow it to be adopted with a single vote.
The bill had faced an earlier vote last month, also to pass the bill at first reading, but this did not achieve the required vote threshold, despite receiving a majority of votes. It did, however, pass a vote to advance the bill to a second reading.
After final updates from the country’s Finance Committee – such as a rule supplementing an earlier decision to remove a clause to temporarily triple licence fees until a nationwide monitoring system comes into effect – it was adopted.
As some operators, such as early licensees Parimatch and Cosmolot, have already paid these higher licence fees, the amended bill clarifies that these extra payments will be counted against future renewal fees.
In addition, the legislation changed details regarding the country’s tax on gambling winnings, allowing players to deduct losses from their taxable winnings if they occur within the same 24 hour period.
Following these changes – and after the Rada Committee on Integration with the European Union determined the bill was compliant with EU law – the Rada again voted on whether to adopt the bill with a single vote.
This time, 252 deputies voted in favour of the bill, above the 226 votes required for the bill to be adopted. 73 deputies voted against the bill, while 15 abstained.
Previous versions of the tax bill had proposed a rate ranging from 10% to 30% of gross revenue depending on vertical. The bill follows the Gambling Act‘s passage last year, which legalised various forms of land-based and in-person gambling in the Ukraine.
The survey of 1,703 Gamstop users included 1,576 respondents who had an active exclusion in place.
Of the 1,703 respondents, the vast majority – 1,231 – said that they were now not gambling at all, while 471 said they were still gambling in some way.
Of those who still gambled, the majority either did so in person or used sites that were not licensed to operate in Great Britain, options where Gamstop is not available.
More 300 people who still gambled did so in person and just under 200 did so using offshore sites.
The report noted that the number of people who did use UK sites, at more than 200, was still greater than the total who didn’t have an active exclusion in place, and said this may be due to certain workarounds.
“We note from our interviews that it is not a safe assumption that those who are continuing to
gamble using UK-regulated websites are an indication that Gamstop’s blocking system has failed,” the report said. “We are aware of approaches that some consumers have taken to work around Gamstop that could not be prevented by the self-exclusion scheme.”
Gamstop added that it did not ask respondents if they used workarounds, in order to avoid publicising them to customers who may be unaware that they exist.
In addition, most people who reported continuing to gamble said they now gambled less than they did before signing up to self-exclude.
The report also said that the majority of those who did still gamble reported feeling more secure while doing so.
Survey respondents also said that Gamstop has led to a “significant improvement” in a wide range of areas in their wellbeing, such as their time with family, time with friends, quality of relationships and control of finances.
Similarly, more than two thirds of respondents said that Gamstop “completely” delivered the results they were hoping for, while just over 10% said that the exclusion scheme either slightly or completely didn’t deliver the result they hoped for.
Those who used Gamstop either to stop online gambling or stop gambling were the most likely to say it delivered the intended result. Of those who said it did not deliver the intended result, the majority said they were either looking to only stop online gambling or to just take a short break from gambling.
The survey also asked customers of their views on Gamstop’s exclusion lengths. While the largest group of respondents said that the current exclusion lengths of between six months and five years were appropriate, just under 200 called for shorter exclusions, and more than 400 each said they wanted to see slightly longer exclusions such as ten years and much longer exclusions such as a lifetime option.
In addition, 89% of customers said that registering for Gamstop was either easy or very easy.
The report then offered eight recommendations. The first was that the provider should offer a wider range of self-exclusion options.
A second called for a “targeted engagement strategy” to reach age groups where Gamstop uptake is lower, such as older men and younger women.
In addition, the report said that Gamstop’s website should be reviewed to make content more accessible, as only 49% of users rated the website’s appearance positively. Similarly, it said Gamstop should seek out a more prominent position on operator websites.
Further recommendations said that the service should seek out more customers who have not accessed specialist support for gambling harm, and should seek out the friends and family of those who show signs of harm.
In addition, it said further steps needed to be taken to address the issue of unlicensed gambling.
Finally, though not directly related to Gamstop, the report said that further research into advertising was required, as many respondents had complained of viewing gambling ads while self-excluded.
The group has upped its revenue guidance to as much as $105m following the completion of the deal for the Swedish business, which generated $31m in revenue in 2020.
The transaction, first announced in May, includes a €16m cash payment and a 12% net gaming revenue share for two years. In total, the deal is thought to be worth approximately $27m.
“This is another great addition for Esports Entertainment Group that substantially increases our revenue and available markets,” said Grant Johnson, chief executive of Esports Entertainment.
“We will gain two new gaming licenses from this transaction, including one in the strategically important Swedish market. With these additions, we’ll have a total of six tier one licenses globally.”
Bethard is based in Malta and licensed in both Sweden and Spain and Johnson said in May that these two licences would play an important part in his business’ continued growth.
The deal to acquire Bethard was announced soon after European football governing body Uefa announced an investigation into AC Milan star Zlatan Ibrahimović over an alleged ownership share of a betting operator. While it did not name the operator in question, Ibrahimović is a Bethard brand ambassador and reports in Sweden claimed his Unknown AB business owned a stake of Bethard.
Esports Entertainment has made a number of major acquisitions in the past year. These include acquiring Lucky Dino Gaming Limited – operator of Lucky Dino, Olaspill, Kalevala Kasino and Casino Jefe – in March of this year in a deal worth around $30m and SportNation and RedZone operator Argyll Entertainment in 2020.
In its financial results for the quarter ending 31 March, Esports Entertainment generated total revenue of $5.4m, after not generating revenue in the corresponding quarter of 2020. The business made a net loss of $12.4m for the quarter, up from a $6.3m net loss for the same period in 2020.
The report was split into two sections- one for the Monzo portion of the study, and one for the HSBC UK findings.
It is hoped that the results of the report will lead to developing prevention of irresponsible gambling and provide support for those who require help.
Monzo shared anonymised daily transactions for 10,000 of its customers, spanning an average period of 10 months, for the purpose of the report. It also shared age and postcode data, and the amount of gambling activity happening on the accounts.
The Monzo study was split into four themes – gambling behaviour, spending behaviour, savings behaviour and use of gambling block.
The study showed that in addition to their gambling spend, gamblers also spent more than non-gamblers in cash withdrawals, eating out, entertainment, groceries, shopping and general expenses. It also found that gamblers’ non-gambling spend tended to be higher in months in which they gambled.
However, gamblers also had lower savings than non-gamblers on average. While the average non-gambler had £208 in savings pots, for gamblers it was £169.
The report asked whether this finding suggests that those who gamble more tend to be impulsive spenders in general.
“A further open question is the extent to which this kind of trend could be driven by more psychological factors,” the survey said. “That is, could changes in psychological mindset be associated with, or triggered by gambling behaviour? The latter, in particular, has implications for financial harm-identification, and reduction interventions.”
GambleAware found that on average, gamblers made five gambling-related transactions per month, spending an estimated £22 per transaction.
It was also revealed that people who gambled less frequently, labelled “below-average” gamblers in the study, contributed 42 times more money into external savings pots than they spent on gambling.
In addition, it was found that one third of above-average gamblers lifted self-imposed blocks on gambling sites for longer than 30 days at a time. In the week before the blocks were implemented, the average daily spend tripled from an average of £6.90 to £22.90.
“Our work with the Behavioural Insights Team has provided us with important insights into gambling behaviour and the impacts of gambling,” said Natalie Ledward, head of vulnerable customers at Monzo.
“At Monzo, this is an area we care deeply about and we’ve had amazing success so far with our gambling block, which has been used by more than 350,000 customers since its launch in 2017. We’re excited to use these insights to inform future work in this area, further reduce gambling harm and provide our customers with even more control over their financial lives.”
In response to the study, GambleAware has commissioned the Personal Finance Research Centre at the University of Bristol to create a guide for finance companies who wish to protect customers from gambling-related harms.
“This research from the Behavioural Insights Team is a good first step to explore how bank transactional data may be able to identify behaviours indicative of gambling harm,” said Zoë Osmond, CEO of GambleAware.
“While more research is needed into this area, we encourage all financial institutions, including those from non-bank settings, to make the most of the new guide to see what they can do to protect their customers from gambling harm.”
In the HSBC part of the study, GambleAware found that the group categorised as “in control” had a low ratio of gambling deposits to disposable income. However, almost half of this group’s income was spent on essentials.
Also, GambleAware found that customers who had ‘very concerning’ gambling behaviour had a high ratio of gambling spend to disposable income. Although, the charity said it it is likely that these customers were spending within their means, as each of them ended each month with £200 in remaining income.
Other areas of the HSBC study covered themes of socio-economic characteristics, overall gambling behaviour, spending behaviour and gambling in relation to account income, and financial standing and credit use. HSBC gathered data from anyone that had made a gambling transaction between March 2019 and February 2020, and analysed the 1.5m relevant HSCB customers internally before providing the data to GambleAware.
In evaluating the data, it was found that men appeared more frequently in the ‘concerning’ and ‘very concerning’ groups used to categorise gambling habits, with 18-30 year olds primarily represented in the ‘very concerning’ group.
“Our research with GambleAware helps us to understand gambling-related behaviours so that we can provide the best support to our customers,” said Maxine Pritchard, head of financial inclusion and vulnerability at HSBC.
“We continue to work with charities such as Gamble Aware on other ways in which we can ensure these customers have access to the right support.”
In March, a survey commissioned by GambleAware found an increase in the amount of problem gamblers seeking help.
OpenBet-powered FanDuel sportsbooks are now live in a total of ten states, after successful launches in Iowa, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The launches are the latest in the partnership between FanDuel and Scientific Games, as the former’s OpenSports-powered sportsbooks have launched across markets within the US – two of them launched in Illinois and Indiana back in April.
