Month: July 2022

The operator was one of nine approved to launch through the state’s tender process, after the state approved two bids which each included a group of operators. The first operators in the state were approved to launch in January, with others following in February.

However, amid competitive marketing and the state’s 51% tax rate, Bally’s chair Soo Kim said the business was waiting until things looked more favourable before it would launch.

Now, though, the business has officially started taking bets in the empire state via its BallyBet sportsbook, powered by the Bet.Works platform it agreed to acquire in 2020.

“We are live and taking bets in the big apple on all the major sports,” Bally’s said. “NY-area sports bettors can now download our app on Android or iOS and start wagering today.”

New York is the sixth state in which BallyBet is live, following Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Indiana and Virginia.

BetMGM, another of the operators approved for a licence in New York, has been active since January but with a minimal marketing presence. According to chief financial officer Gary Deutsch, this will be the strategy for the MGM-Entain joint venture until the state’s tax rate changes.

Bally’s had been the subject of a proposed acquisition earlier this year from Standard General, the investment fund led by Kim which already held a 20% stake in the operator. However, this was ultimately rejected.

The NLC announced the shake-up in a press release where it stated that the developments add impetus to efforts to improve the regulator’s governance and performance. This follows local reports of a 2021 corruption scandal involving construction company Upbrand Properties.

According to local media, the company – which had links with a senior board member at the NLC – was accused of making dubious seeming payments to several board members at the commission.

The minister of trade, industry and competition, Ebrahim Patel, tapped human rights lawyer Dr Barney Pityana as the new chairperson of the NLC, with a start state of 1 August.

The appointment is result of a nearly two-year long parliamentary process that began towards the end of 2020, with multiple shortlisted candidates interviewed by the parliamentary portfolio committee.

The decision included a public nomination process that identified 41 possible candidates, with three names ultimately submitted by the minister for parliamentary consideration.

Dr Pityana is a well-known academic, theologian and anti-apartheid activist, with experience as the chairperson of former national lottery operator Uthingo.

He holds a master of laws in labour law from the university of South Africa and a PhD in Religious Studies from the university of Cape Town, as well as being a member of the academy of science. Dr Pityana is also an ordained priest of the Anglican Church and an admitted attorney of the High Court.

Additionally, Pityana has a lengthy record of involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle, in which he served as the president of the SA students organisation.  He is widely published in multiple fields including human rights law, theology and in public ethics.

Minister Patel commented on the scandal in his appointment speech: “I am pleased that we have a distinguished, ethical and experienced person to lead the new board of the NLC. Following allegations of corruption involving grants made by the NLC, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition instituted a forensic investigation into the funding approved by the NLC and subsequently the president appointed the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to probe the NLC funding decisions.”

“The law enforcement agencies have acted on the preliminary findings of the SIU and further action can be expected as more information of wrong-doing becomes available. I look forward to the new board ensuring that all monies corruptly taken by individuals are recovered fully and that implicated persons are held to account by the law enforcement agencies.”

Additionally, the minister has extended the licence of the current operator, Ithuba Holdings, for a two-year period, following a request from the NLC.

The NLC cited the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the operator’s business in its request and advice to the minister. During the period of the extended licence, Ithuba will be required to pay a higher rate of contributions to the NLC, that should be distributed to good causes.

The board also state that it has undertaken a review of the process of appointing future operators.

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The lawsuit – submitted by pari-mutuel operator West Flagler Associates – deals with the question of whether the Seminole Tribe is permitted to offer online sports betting statewide through a new tribal compact that came into effect last year.

The Florida constitution says that an expansion of gambling on non-tribal lands would require a referendum, but the Tribe contends that online bets placed on non-tribal lands would not violate this clause, as they would be accepted via servers in Seminole territory.

Rather than being against the tribe though, the lawsuit is filed against Debra Haaland, Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior, which reviews and approves all tribe-state compacts in the US. As a result, it is being heard in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Read the full story on iGB North America

Okada Manila had been owned and operated by TRLEI, though a recent court ruling has since created a dispute over who currently controls the property.

The results were originally scheduled for August 9, but have been delayed indefinitely.

In a statement, Universal Ent said Kazou Okada has refused to give any financial information to the company, meaning that it cannot release any Q2 results.

Kazou Manila was removed from the role of chief executive role of TRLEI 2017, with TRLEI citing a “misappropriation” of funds. This year, after an appeal, the Philippine Supreme Court reinstated Kazou Okada by issuing a status quo ante order.

In May, Universal Ent filed a motion for the Court to reconsider. If the Court retracts its status quo ante order, Universal Ent said it would “promptly move forward with reclaiming the Okada Manila facility, guaranteeing the safety of its employees and normalising its operation.”

After he was reinstated, it is alleged that Kazou Okada – along with a number of others – “entered and occupied” the Okada Manila resort.

In June TRLEI announced its intent to file charges over the incident, which it called an “illegal occupation”.

Kazou Okada has strenuously denied the allegations, stating that he had entered the Okada Manila resort to negotiate and that “no slanderous or violent acts” ever took place.

The remarks were made at the annual event Almedalen Week in Sweden, one of the most important political forums in the country, during a gaming policy discussion arranged by Paf titled: “The industry we love to hate”.  

The operator’s policy recommendations included a call to expand Swedish self-exclusion program Spelpaus to work preventively by centralising the players limits so that it applies equally to all operators.

More notably, though, it argued that gambling ads should be prohibited on TV and outdoors as well as any sponsorship and exposure of gaming ads connected to sports.

The discussions included members of parliament (MP) from the Centre Party and the Moderates, as well as the Sweden Democrats. While all politicians on the panel agreed that the situation with licensed online gaming is better than when the market was unregulated, they said improvements are still possible.

Catarina Deremar, member of parliament for the Centre Party said: “It was a broad majority who adopted the gaming law and we established the law on what we knew right then, in order to get law and order on the gambling market. Then of course you need to try to be as clear as you can so the law can be interpreted well.”

In addition, it called for an increase in the gambling tax rate from 18% to 21% – with the increased income used to compensate for the loss of sponsorship money for sporting organisations.  

“Our party supports the regulation we have today and we want to appoint a proper investigation after five years to fix what is needed,” added Sweden Democrat MP Angelica Lundberg,

“The regulation we have today, I would give it 2.5 points on a five-point scale. You need to adjust the margins in it,” said Daniel Wykman, MP for the Moderates.

Sweden recently announced rules to reduce the amount of gambling advertisements in the country, but the government declined to go through with attempts to ban all daytime ads, optiming instead to introduce a requirement for “adjusted moderation”.

The discussions come after the recent banning of all gambling advertising in Belgian as well as all broadcast ads in the Netherlands.

In a message to customers, Bet-at-home said that it has not been possible to place bets with the company since 6 July.

This is because the British Gambling Commission suspended Bet-at-home’s operating licence on 7 July, citing suspected social responsibility and anti-money laundering failings as key elements in its decision.

At the time, the Commission also announced a review into Bet-at-home’s operations.

Although the business could have been permitted to operate again following completion of the review, it said it will not do so.

“Unfortunately, we’ve decided to surrender our operating licence granted by the UK Gambling Commission and to exit the British market,” read a statement on the operator’s website.

“Therefore it hasn’t been possible to bet, play or deposit with us as of 6 July, 16:20 UK time. Furthermore, new registrations are not allowed.”

Ahead of the licence suspension, Bet-at-home suspended its GB Affiliate programme, which was its only marketing channel in the country.

Bet-at-home said that players can withdraw directly from their betting accounts until 10pm on 30 September. From this date, players will have to contact Bet-at-Home directly for their funds, with a deadline of 30 June 2023.

Following this, the operator said that all remaining funds will be transferred to gambling harm charity GambleAware.

The party – which dominates California elections, having controlled both houses of the state legislature since 1996 – announced its official list of endorsements for ballot measures that will appear in the 2022 November election.

That election will include two ballot measures related to sports betting. Tribe-backed Proposition 26, titled the California Legalize Sports Betting on American Lands Initiative. would allow for retail sports betting only on tribal lands. 

Read the full story on iGB North America

Sands China released the information in a press release to investors, detailing the terms of the subordinated unsecured term loan. The amount is $1bn (£845m / €998m), lent on 11 July, 2022 to be repayable on 11 July, 2028.

In the first two years of the agreement, Sands China will have the option of either paying cash interest at 5% annually or payment-in-kind interest at 6% annually by adding the amount of such interest to the then-outstanding principal amount of the Loan. Following those two years, only cash interest will be payable.

In February, S&P downgraded LVS’s bonds to BB+, below investment grade; meaning that credit from alternative sources may be hard to find for the subsidiary. Currently LVS owns 70% of the issued share capital of Sands China.  

LVS stated that the loan was provided in order to support the “working capital and general corporate purposes of the group.”

Left unstated was the difficult business environment for the sector in Macau, with the government of the special administrative region only yesterday announcing the closing of the city’s casinos in the face of a rising Covid-19 case count.

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