Month: November 2021

The operator sent multiple emails from October 2020 to March 2021 to customers who had withdrawn consent to receive direct marketing.

“Repeated attempts to unsubscribe were unsuccessful due to the confusing functionality of the unsubscribe option,” Liquor and Gaming NSW said.

In addition, between 2 and 24 November 2020, an audit of the Sportsbet social media feeds found that “prohibited gambling advertisements” were posted related to the “Treasure Punt” promotion that saw random customers receive large bonuses.

While the regulator did not mention the nature of these ads, it noted that “it is an offence to publish a gambling advertisement that offers any inducement to take part, or take part frequently, in any gambling activity, including an inducement to open a betting account”.

It is the second fine issued to Sportsbet in 2021, after it was hit with a $22,000 penalty for advertising regulation breaches in March.

Liquor & Gaming NSW compliance director Marcel Savary noted that some operators had continued to break advertising laws despite already facing action from the body.

“So far this year Liquor & Gaming NSW have started more than double the number of prosecutions compared to last year with 119 different counts of breaching the provisions brought against 14 operators, up from 31 counts against seven operators in 2020,” Savary said.

“Research by the NSW Office of Responsible Gambling in 2020 revealed the vast majority of the community is not happy with the current style of wagering advertising, with 81 per cent believing gambling advertising increases the risk of people developing a gambling problem.

“Liquor & Gaming NSW consistently expresses concerns to industry about gambling advertising and will continue to monitor compliance with these laws and take strong action for serious and blatant offending.”

Other operators to face action for ad breaches include Topsport, which was was fined AUS$60,000 in August after it also published an inducement to bet. Tabcorp, meanwhile, was ordered to pay more than AU$30,000 after an ad campaign was sent to used who had closed their accounts.

Under the agreement, BetMGM will become an official sports betting partner of National Basketball Association (NBA) team the New York Knicks and National Hockey League (NHL) franchise the New York Rangers, both of which are owned by MSG Sports.

The deal also covers Madison Square Garden Arena, which, owned by MSG Entertainment, is home to both the Rangers and the Knicks.

BetMGM will receive substantial brand integration inside the arena including courtside and ribbon LED signage, basket stanchion signage at Knicks games, along with side-of-risk dasherboard signage and Zamboni branding at Rangers games.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

The operator said ‘EnTrain’ will focus on positively impacting the lives of over one million people in regions worldwide – either directly or through their families and dependents – by 2030. 

Entain said this represents the global, strategic commitment from the Entain Foundation to a single initiative supporting people across all under-represented groups in the areas around the world in which it operates.

“I passionately believe that we have a vital role to play in inspiring the next generation to pursue careers in technology,” Entain chief executive Jette Nygaard-Andersen said. “Our new EnTrain initiative provides the building blocks to help, through access to academic and vocational courses and the technological expertise and equipment needed to succeed.”

Meanwhile, Entain has – for the first time – published its full Social Impact Report, setting out its social contribution to global communities and breaking down how its has allocated funds to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives.

This comes after Entain last year also launched a Sustainability Charter and announced that it would commit £100m (€117m/$136m) over five years to ESG initiatives.

In addition, Entain will today (10 November) publish the first set of results from trials of its Advanced Responsibility and Care (ARC) technology-led approach to personalised player protection.  

Trials began six months ago in the UK and Entain said that a major milestone has now been reached with results showing that ARC is successfully limiting potentially risky behaviours among players.

Findings will be discussed at ‘Entain Sustain’, a spcial event in London that will set out the group’s commitment to safer betting and gaming, as well as the ways in which the Entain Foundation supports local communities and sports in regions worldwide.

“I have a personal ambition that Entain should become a leader in the critically important area of ESG,” Nygaard-Andersen said. “Doing so will not only benefit the many communities in which we operate around the world, but also our customers, our people, and our business. 

“Our commitment to safer gambling is a crucial component of this ambition. The findings of our ARC trials show that the programme is delivering unprecedented levels of change in protection for those at risk, using our proprietary technology to do so.”

Gaming Innovation Group (GiG) reported a 19.7% year-on-year rise in third quarter revenue yesterday (10 November), with its media services unit accounting for €11.2m (65.9%) of the €17.0m total. 

That €11.2m figure, a 30.2% improvement on Q3 2020, once again set a new record for the division. And while many of the industry’s super-affiliates – such as Better Collective, Catena Media, Gambling.com Group and XLMedia – are yet to report their performance for the quarter, the one that has, Raketech, reported revenue of €9.6m. 

In what is traditionally a quieter period in the summer with a lack of sporting events, GiG may be one of the standout performers. 

Chief executive Richard Brown says it wants to continually challenge for top place, and challenge the affiliate market. At a time when affiliate M&A has slowed from the regular flow of new deals seen a few years back, GiG’s growth has been totally organic. 

“We felt we had a really competitive position from which to develop in the coming years,” Brown continues. “The strategy we’ve taken continues at force, and it’s a testament to the team who over the past couple of years have pushed the business of what we thought we could achieve.

“A lot of work goes into the product and technology, how we can roll out new features and enhancements, and our paid media team has done a fantastic job of identifying good markets with strong ROI, as well as identifying where we need to step back and rethink. That team’s attitude has been a really positive driver – it’s the root cause of why that business has performed so well.”

That business, he notes, is at a different part of its lifecycle to GiG’s platform business, which saw revenue grow 5.6% year-on-year to €5.7m in Q3. It may be smaller but there is a clear path to build it going forward, with long term software-as-a-service revenue building, and targets for expansion into new markets identified. 

The business has set a long-term earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) target of 40%. Group EBITDA for Q3 was €5.3m, with EBITDA margin increasing to 31.3%, though this was derived largely from media, which reported a 45% margin for that period. EBITDA margin for the platform business was 6%, so the improvements are still to come from that division. 

Brown remains confident that the platform unit is on a trajectory to achieve this, as it’s building for the long term. That does occasionally mean some near-term pain; re-regulation in Germany cut €0.8m from platform revenue in Q3. 

“It was a large market for us last year so it had a large impact, particularly on the platform side of the business,” he says of Germany. “But it is a large addressable market – potentially one of Europe’s largest – so regardless of the conditions you face there is a structure and a market that provides a lot of value.”

There has been a lot of interest in Germany, he notes, especially from businesses focusing entirely on the market. This volume will offset the short-term decline in market value. “As an industry we need to work with and educate regulators so they understand what tax rates and structures do to the consumer, so if there’s a hit to the competitive offering you’ll have channelisation issues,” he adds. “There’s still time to work with the regulator to have a healthy regulated market.”

Furthermore, he points out that multiple European markets have had difficult starts. Four or five years ago, the likes of Portugal, Italy, France and Spain may have been considered “unworkable”. Now they are considered huge growth markets. 

Thanks to that long-term view for the platform business, coupled with the ongoing stellar performance of the media division, Brown is “very happy” with GiG’s positioning in the market. 

“I think I say this every quarter but it feels like it’s just the start,” he says. “We have a very clear path ahead of us for the next three years and every quarter is an affirmation of what we are planning. 
“With new market launches for platform and media, and the work we do for existing customers, we feel we are very well positioned and are very excited about what the future holds for us and how we’re going to execute on that journey.”

Maddox will remain on the Wynn Macau and Wynn Interactive boards until the end of 2022, at the request of Wynn’s board of directors.

Maddox has held roles with Wynn Resorts for 20 years. He took over as chief executive in February 2018, when Steve Wynn stepped down.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Revenue for the three months to 30 September reached €9.6m (£8.2m/$11.1m), up 30.4% from €7.4m last year.

Raketech put this rise down to organic growth of 25.6% within its network sales, as well continued strong growth through its previous acquisition of Casumba in September 2019 and progress in Sweden. 

The business also praised the impact acquisitions announced during the quarter, including QM Media AB’s assets in the US and Spanish organic casino affiliation marketing company Infinileads.

Raketech also noted its most recent acquisition, that of US-facing tipster ATS Consultants, which it purchased earlier this week in a deal worth $15.5m.

Casino activity accounted for 83.5% of total revenue, with 16.0% from sports betting and the remaining 0.5% from other operations, while 60.5% of revenue was drawn from the Nordics and 39.5% other markets around the world.

Looking at spending in Q3 and operating expenses amounted to €7.2m, up 22.0% year-on-year, while finance costs were also up 119.8% to €356,000. 

However, such was the impact of the revenue increase that pre-tax profit was 56.7% higher at €2.0m, while adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) also increased 51.0% to €4.4m.

Raketech paid €151,000 in tax, leaving a net profit of €1.9m for the quarter, up 58.3% year-on-year.

“Q3 of 2021 was another operationally and financially strong quarter for Raketech,” group chief executive Oskar Mühlbach said. “Total revenues amounted to €9.6m which is a new all-time high, corresponding to just over 30% annual growth of which the majority was organic at 26%.”

In terms of the year to date, revenue for the nine months to the end of September amounted to €26.7m, an increase of 27.4% from €20.9m at the same point last year.

Operating costs were 27.1% higher at €21.1m and financial expenses also climbed 56.0% to €958,000, but revenue growth meant pre-tax profit was up 21.6% to €4.5m and adjusted EBITDA 31.5% to €11.0m.

After accounting for €227,000 in tax payments, this left a net profit of €4.3m, up 22.9% year-on-year.

“The world of igaming is potentially facing its most exciting time ever during which affiliation and performance marketing will play an absolute key role,” Mühlbach said.

“With this in mind, and with confidence from our strong organic growth, recent acquisitions, our operational efficiency, scalable tech and our geographically well- positioned asset portfolio, I am very much looking forward to accelerating growth investments to ensure we maximise the opportunity.”

Revenue for the three months to September 30 from continuing operations amounted to $539m (£398m/€466m), up from $432m in the corresponding period last year.

Scientific Games put this increase mainly down to growth within its gaming segment, where revenue jumped 46.8% to $339m, as the supplier reported a rise in its premium installed base, as well as growth in game sales and its table games business.

Revenue also edged up 6.0% to $53m in the igaming segment, driven by original content, elevated US gross gaming revenue and an increase in US market share, though partially offset by seasonal trends.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Just two new entries to the top 20 this month. Netent launched Gonzo’s Gold, another high-variance sequel to Gonzo’s Quest, which means that the adventurer has now conquered three spots in the charts. Veni, vidi, volatiliti. Gates of Olympus (Pragmatic Play) was the only other new arrival and so below the top two spots, it was a month of jostling and reshuffling. All heads had been turned (or rolled perhaps) towards the ghoul of the month.

Top 20 games by distribution

The Halloween charts were indeed a little more startling with a raft of new games plus some less familiar studios to treat us all. Of the 14,000 slot games live on operator sites, around 600 have a horror or scary theme. Each year approx. 60 new creepy titles are released, half during September or October. You may remember that Valentine’s Day was another peak period for creepy content too…

A handful of studios stand out as prolific producers of high-performing Halloween titles and our witch hats go off to Play’n GO, Evoplay and Betsoft Gaming in particular. Play’n Go even launched five frighteners in the last six months. As you’d expect, Netent, Pragmatic Play and Playtech cover the genre well but a handful of smaller studios such as Booming Games, Elk Studios and Thunderkick over-index in the Halloween stakes.

We have listed below the top 20 Halloween performers and to ensure a bit of variety we have limited the list to just the top performing title per studio. Performance is based on game distribution across 1,100 operator sites. Note that some titles such as Legacy Of Dead were (arguably) excluded for not being Halloween-ish enough.

Game (Studio)PositionImmortal Romance (Microgaming)1Day Of Dead (Pragmatic Play)2Halloween Jack (NetEnt)3Esqueleto Explosivo 2 (Thunderkick)4Dead In Mictlan (Play’n GO)5Voodoo Gold (ELK Studios)6Lucky Halloween (Red Tiger)7Book of Shadows (Nolimit City)8Crypt Of The Dead (Blueprint Gaming)9Fat Drac (Push Gaming)10Halloween Fortune (Playtech)11Blood Eternal (Betsoft Gaming)12Anna Van Helsing Monster Huntress (Rabcat)13Reel Spooky King Megaways (Inspired Entertainment)14Howling Wolves (Booming Games)15Lil’ Devil (Big Time Gaming)16Lucky Dama Muerta (Bgaming)17Blood Queen (Iron Dog Studio)18Feliz Dia De Los Muertos (RubyPlay)19Undead Riches (Flatdog)20

Immortal Romance (Microgaming) is the only spooky title to make it into the overall games top 20 and so takes Vlad’s crown this year.

As for Halloween titles released this year, many made it into the overall Halloween charts above but the top 10 best new shockers of 2021 (again with a max of one per studio) are as follows:

Game (Studio) launched in 2021PositionDay Of Dead (Pragmatic Play)1Dead In Mictlan (Play’n GO)2Crypt Of The Dead (Blueprint Gaming)3Fat Drac (Push Gaming)4Immortal Romance Mega Moolah (Microgaming)5Baron Bloodmore And The Crimson Castle (Thunderkick)6Anna Van Helsing Monster Huntress (Rabcat)7Reel Spooky King Megaways (Inspired Entertainment)8Lucky Dama Muerta (Bgaming)9Feliz Dia De Los Muertos (RubyPlay)10

Fat Drac (Push Gaming) and Vegans Vs Vampires (G) win our completely partial ‘best named Halloween’ slots award. On the deals front, Red Rake Gaming is now equal busiest studio in recent months.

Biggest studio dealmakers

The top three aggregators SoftSwiss, Salsa and Groove all continued to plug in new content and so no shocks in the rolling six-month chart. Boo!

Biggest aggregator dealmakers

* Please note these are live charts which update every month so please ensure the month of October is selected in the drop-downs to match the analysis

**Data on deals by month was collected from April 2020 onwards. Deal relationships between companies from all time are available on other charts. Note that only deals reported on company websites or in the gaming press are collated.

***The games chart here excludes live games and table games. Game rankings are determined by the number of game appearances on the casino homepages of more than 1,000 casino sites. To access many other charts including game rankings, live and table games, positions on subpages or to filter by operator type and size, ask for our demo from our partner, egamingmonitor.com, which covers 32,000 games, 1,200 suppliers and 1,000 operators.

The ads in question, promoting 888 brand 777.com and advertised on Betterdeals.live, claimed that “casinos are trying to shut down a free Android app” which was “allowing everyday people, like Simona Moron, to win huge progressive jackpots using nothing but free spins”.

Text stating “77 Free Spins (*T&C’s apply) ENABLED FOR ANOTHER” was accompanied by a three-minute countdown timer.

After the ads received a complaint, the ASA looked into whether the countdown timer was misleading, by suggesting the free spins were time-limited, in addition to examining the claims in the text.

The operator claimed that the ads were posted by a third-party affiliate publishing service, which it said posted them without 888’s approval.

The company stated that upon discovery of the ad, it was taken down on the same day.

Despite this, the ASA upheld the complaint, deciding that the posting of the ad was still 888’s responsibility as it was the beneficiary of the marketing material.

An ASA statement said: “We considered that consumers would understand that the countdown timer would relate to a specific time limitation in which the ‘77 free spins’ promotion needed to be claimed, and that once it ran down to zero the offer would no longer be available.

“However, we understood that if the page was refreshed, the timer would reset to start counting down from three minutes again. Therefore, because the promotion was not time limited, we concluded the ad was misleading.”

The regulatory body also upheld the complaints regarding the specific wording of the ads.

It said: “We considered that consumers would understand the claim ‘Casinos are trying to shut down a free Android App’ as an indication that action had been taken by casinos to try and prevent the app from operating.

“We also considered that consumers would understand the claim ‘that’s allowing everyday people, like Simona Moron, to win huge progressive jackpots using nothing but free spins’ as an indication that consumers had accrued sizeable winnings using only free spins. However, 777.com provided us with no evidence to support either claim.

“In the absence of such evidence, we concluded the ad was misleading.”

The ASA ruled that the ad must not appear again in the form complained about and that future advertising for 777 did not misleadingly imply that offers were time-limited if that was not the case.

The ASA recently upheld complaints against the likes of Napoleon Casinos and Ladbrokes regarding advertising standards.

Of IGT’s $984m in revenue, its global lottery business brought in $652m, up 14.1%.

Breaking down this global lottery revenue further, operating and management contracts – after accounting for $51m worth of license fee amortisation – brought in $539m, up 14.0%. Other services brought in $78m, up 4.0%, while global lottery product sales were up 70.6% to $35m.

Revenue from its global gaming business, meanwhile, was up 34.3% to $289m. This included $116m worth of terminal service – up 43.7% – plus $56m of systems, software and other services, an 8.2% increase, as well as $81m, up 64.3%, in terminal sales and other sales of $36.2m, a growth of 7.0%.

Digital and sports betting revenue came to $43m, up 36.8%. All of this revenue came from services.

In total, $832m of IGT’s sales were of services, up 16.7%, while product sales were up 46.2% to $152m.

Read the full story on iGB North America.