Month: August 2022

Under the agreement, an extension of an existing partnership between GiG and Novibet, the operator will be able to use GiG Comply to scan web pages for content including links, igaming “code red” words and regulatory requirements across multiple jurisdictions

GiG Comply works by using a rules engine to analyse snapshots from affiliates’ campaigns and providing operators with promotional content being used in their brands’ promotions.

Users can set their own criteria and checklist parameters to cover any market-specific requirements in regions around the world.

“Providing an engaging yet safe and fully compliant gaming experience is the trifecta of our operations, at Novibet,” Novibet’s international affiliate manager George Gerakanakis said.

“We set the standards of compliance very high and as we move forward, we are confident to have built such a strong partnership with GiG. With the recent extension of our partnership, the relying GiG Comply tool will continue to support the affiliate compliance team across the regulated markets we operate in.”

GiG chief marketing officer Jonas Warrer added: “Extending the partnership shows that our marketing compliance tool reflects Novibet’s commitment to sustainability and responsible gaming. We look forward to continuing to support them with their affiliate marketing compliance.”

The deal comes after Novibet this week also announced three major milestones in North America, securing market access in New Jersey and Mexico, while also submitting a licence application in Ontario.

In New Jersey, the operator secured market access through a partnership with Caesars Entertainment – which, as a land-based operator, can offer three online betting “skins”. The operator also secured market access in Mexico through a partnership with Big Bola Casinos, a major land-based operator in the country. 

Finally, the operator submitted its licence application in the Canadian province of Ontario. If approved, it plans to launch in Ontario in the fourth quarter of this year.

Revenue increased from $41.5m (£34.0m/€40.2m) to $71.3m for the three months to 30 June, a 72% increase year-on-year. This compares with the $60.6m the business generated in Q1, a 15% quarterly increase.

In a statement accompanying the financial results Inspired executive chairman Lorne Weil pointed to the “resiliency of our [company’s] diversified business model” and the “continued strength of consumer spending across our segments – notwithstanding ongoing macro trends” as being behind Inspired’s performance.

The business highlighted its growing virtual sports vertical in its report, noting that revenues from the division rose 71% year-on-year to $14.0m, a quarterly record.

”Virtual sports was, once again, the standout in the quarter, producing its fourth record-setting revenue and adjusted EBITDA quarter in a row, with online virtual sports doubling year-over-year versus strong comparatives, speaking to our strong product development and increased market penetration,” said Weil.

The company’s leisure and gaming verticals also both saw large increases in revenue, with leisure increasing from $11.3m to $26m, and gaming from $16.2m to $25.5m. This can largely be explained by last year’s continuing Covid-19 restrictions in the UK affecting retail operations. With restrictions completely lifted in the UK in Q2 2022, there has been a large recovery in the segment.   

Meanwhile, Interactive revenue remained stagnant with business shifting from a declining UK sector to a growing trade in North America and Greece. Inspired blamed self-imposed enhanced customer protections that UK operators placed on their systems ahead of the upcoming UK Gambling Act review white paper for declines in that market.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased 227% from a year earlier to $26.1m. Inspired also reported net income of $13.4m compared to the previous year’s loss of $9.7m.

Year to come

For the coming months, Weil pointed to rising activity in North America as well as renewed long-term strategic partnerships with large retail organisations in the UK as sources of future growth.

“We are very excited about the current trends in our business and what’s to come, including our recent Interactive launches in Ontario and particularly in Pennsylvania, where we are witnessing strong results with only one customer live and we have several additional customer launches to follow in the year, and the launch of virtual sports with the DC Lottery, our second North American lottery,” he said.

“We have also successfully negotiated a long-term strategic partnership/extension with William Hill on the gaming front and signed key contract extensions with customers in the UK pub industry, including Greene King and Mitchells & Butlers.

“The long-term fundamentals and health of the business are the strongest they have been in my tenure. The growth dynamics of our markets remain compelling as a wider audience engages with online betting and gaming and new jurisdictions open up, creating further opportunities. With the return of our retail customer base, we remain confident that our diversification and proven ability to grow our business will enable us to deliver further progress against our strategy.”

Starburst is finally off the top of the charts and not felled by a Bonanza either. Book Of Dead by Play’n Go takes the top spot, yet, when looking at game performance in a bit more detail, we expect Starburst to return very soon and for a number of reasons. If we consider all subpages, not just the main homepages of casinos, Starburst would still be number one. In addition, it still leads the pack in terms of the number of unique operators as opposed to total game positions across sites.

Top 20 games by distribution

Sister product Legacy Of Dead also performed well though, which would suggest some aggressive marketing by the Play’n Go team.

Pragmatic Play’s Big Bass Splash is popular, netting them once again three Big Bass games in the top 10. Their Gates Of Olympus sits just off the podium but seems to be a consistent performer since launch and we suspect this one hasn’t peaked yet…

As for new releases, there was a handful that performed well outside of the top 20, including the likes of Amazing Link Bounty by SpinPlay Games, Gorilla Mayhem by Pragmatic Play and Starlite Fruits by Neon Valley Studios.

Biggest studio dealmakers

PariPlay remain top aggregator in recent months yet Relax Gaming are in their rear-view mirror, signing up new content partners such as Hölle Games, Apparat Gaming, Mascot Gaming and Peter & Sons in recent months. German studio Apparat continue to extend their distribution reach, this month adding Hub88 and so remain top studio dealmaker over the last six months.

Biggest aggregator dealmakers

* Please note these are live charts which update every month so please ensure the month of August 2022 is selected in the drop-downs to match the analysis

**The interactive games chart at the top excludes live games and table games. Game rankings are determined by the number of game appearances on the casino homepages of more than 2,000 casino sites. To access many other charts including game rankings, live and table games, positions on subpages or to filter game performance by game theme, game feature or by operator type, get in touch with our partner, egamingmonitor.com. Egamingmonitor covers 40,000 games, 1,300 suppliers and 2,000+ operators. 

***Data on deals by month was collected from April 2020 onwards and the rolling chart reflects current dealmaking performance, i.e. how many deals were signed over the last 6 months. Note that only deals either a) on company websites or b) in the gaming press or c) reported to us by studios and aggregators, are collated. Deals between studios & aggregators (and aggregators & operators) from all time are available via egamingmonitor.com.

The revenue total was down by 1.4% year-on-year, though within the guidance for the quarter.

Digital commerce made up a majority of revenue, at $191.7m, while revenue from the Paysafe US acquiring division was $187.1m.

During the quarter, Paysafe launched a VIP platform for high-roller US players through its Skrill USA digital wallet.

Cost of services amounted to $158.9m, up by 2.0% year-on-year. Selling, general and administrative costs amounted to $134.7m, while depreciation and amortisation costs came to $69.5m.

Paysafe also noted in its expenses $676.5m worth of goodwill impairment. The business was required to perform a goodwill impairment test because of a slide in its share price. After starting the quarter trading at $3.55 per share – itself a decline of more than 80% from highs achieved in early 2021 – Paysafe ended the period at $1.95.

This impairment test resulted in goodwill being written down by $676.5m, leading to the expense. Further details of this write-down will be released in a future SEC filing.

After other costs, which came to $8.6m, the business reported an operating loss of $669.4m. The business had made a profit of $39.6m a year earlier.

Following other income at $56.1m and interest expenses of $28.4m, the pre-tax loss for the quarter was $641.7m.

After tax at $10.2m, the total net income for the period was $631.5m – a fall of $624.7m from the small loss recorded in Q2 of 2021.

Meanwhile, half-year revenue was $746.5m, down by 1.9%. The business faced a number of costs, the highest of which being impairment expenses at $1.88bn – which was the result of a $1.2bn impairment charge in Q1 alongside the additional cost in Q2. As a result, the business made a pre-tax loss of $1.86bn.

After considering other income, interest expenses and income tax, the net loss for the half-year was $1.80bn, after making a profit in H1 of 2021.

Alongside its Q2 results, Paysafe revised its full year 2022 revenue to be between $1.47bn and $1.49bn. This number was originally set to be between $1.53bn and $1.58bn.

The full-year projection for adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was also lowered, from between $440m and $460m initially to between $400m and $415m.

Paysafe said the lowering of revenue and adjusted EBITDA was to “reflect the impact of foreign currency as well as macroeconomic uncertainty”.

According to the regulator, Smarkets allowed customers to gamble without carrying out sufficient source-of-funds checks, while the operator was also found to have failed to identify and interact with customers at risk of experiencing harm.

Specific examples published by the Commission included one customer being allowed to deposit £395,000 during a four-month period, without appropriate source of funds checks being carried out by Smarkets.

The Commission also highlighted a case where an individual was able to transfer significant levels of funds between accounts without scrutiny or source-of-funds checks.

As such, the regulator ruled Smarkets breached licence condition 12.1.1, which concerns anti-money laundering procedures and practices. Smarkets was also found in breach of social responsibility code of practice (SRCP) 3.4.1 for customer interaction and failed to act in accordance with ordinary code provision 2.1.2, which is also related to money laundering.

The operator has also received a formal warning and will undergo an audit to ensure it is effectively implementing its anti-money laundering and social responsibility policies, procedures and controls, in line with section 117(1)(b) of the Gambling Act 2005.

“This case was identified through compliance checks and once again highlights how we will take action against gambling operators who fail their customers,” the Commission’s deputy chief executive Sarah Gardner said. 

“Our investigation into Smarkets unearthed a variety of failures where customers were put at risk of gambling harm. It was obvious that poor systems and processes were in place which contributed to these breaches, driven by the company’s failure to effectively implement its policies and controls.”

In a statement issued to iGB, Smarkets founder and chief executive Jason Trost said the business fully accepted the ruling and said it would continue to work with the regulator to further improve its processes.

“We have worked cooperatively with the Commission throughout the process and taken significant measures to implement their recommendations, investing substantially in our compliance function,” Trost said.

“We take our responsibility to have appropriate compliance policies in place extremely seriously. We will continue to work closely with the Commission and other relevant stakeholders, and will take proactive steps in order to ensure further improvement to our procedures on an ongoing basis.”

The financial penalty comes after the Commission last week also handed a £1.3m fine to online operator LeoVegas for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failings.

Entain will partner with Czech investment firm EMMA Capital to create a new venture named Entain CEE, in which Entain will own a 75% stake. 

This new business – intended to make acquisitions in Central and Eastern Europe – will then acquire SuperSport, which is the largest betting and gaming brand in Croatia.

While Entain cited SuperSport’s 54% market share as one reason for doing the deal, it also suggested that the deal will just be the start of a flurry of M&A activity targeting Central and Eastern Europe.

The Entain board said the business would create “an exciting platform” in this region, led by SuperSport CEO Radim Haluza.

“The combination of Entain’s global scale, access to capital and content, EMMA’s regional knowledge and connectivity, alongside the expert local operational knowledge of Radim and his team, makes Entain CEE uniquely positioned to unlock the significant opportunity across the region,” the board said. “This bespoke structure will allow Entain to join with further leading local operators through Entain CEE to continue to grow this unique platform across the region.”

Entain chair Jette Nygaard-Andersen said there was a serious opportunity to expand across the region beyond the SuperSport deal.

“By bringing together Entain’s global expertise and EMMA’s regional investment track record, we are creating a growth platform with considerable opportunity,” she said. “Expansion across CEE [Central and Eastern Europe] is a core component of our growth strategy, and we look forward to having Radim on board to help drive this opportunity.”

Pavel Horák, EMMA’s chief investment officer, said Entain was well-positioned to take advantage of the opportunities in the region.

“EMMA is very happy to be partnering with the leading global betting, gaming and interactive entertainment business to unlock the opportunity posed by the CEE betting and gaming market,” he said. “We see the Entain CEE structure as a clear opportunity for creating value for shareholders, and we look forward to working closely and collaboratively with Entain”.

Haluza said he was excited to lead the new venture.

“I am looking forward to joining with Entain and further building on the significant opportunity presented in this region,” he said. “The prospect of leading Entain CEE to drive expansion in fully regulated markets is an exciting opportunity, and EMMA’s investment expertise combined with Entain’s world-class platform will give us the competitive edge in delivering on the CEE opportunity.”

The Entain board said that while there are a number of businesses in the region that are strong in one market, these operators have struggled to expand further. This, the board said, presented an opportunity for Entain to help these businesses expand.

“The CEE market is currently led by local operators who have often struggled to scale or consolidate across the region, providing a compelling opportunity for Entain with its industry leading capabilities,” Entain’s board said.

The operator will also have an option in its contract with EMMA that will allow it to buy out the entire venture after three years. The business did not disclose how much it would have to pay to do so.

Entain also owns Enlabs, which operates in Eastern Europe, though did not mention if it will become part of Entain CEE.

Local hero

Entain will pay €600m in cash to EMMA for the 75% stake in SuperSport, and a further payment depending on SuperSport’s financial performance this year. This contingent payment is expected to be €90m. This would value the entire SuperSport business at €920m.

SuperSport’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for 2022 are expected to be around €96m, which would suggest an EBITDA multiple of 9.6x. Its EBITDA margin is 52%, suggesting revenue of around €180m.

Entain also expects SuperSport to contribute positive earnings for the group within its first full year of ownership, and expects cost synergies of €5m from the deal by 2024.

The Acquisition will be financed through a €700m bridge loan from Deutsche Bank, Lloyds, Mediobanca, NatWest, and Santander

“We are excited to create Entain CEE with EMMA to underpin our strategy across the CEE region, and to be acquiring the leading betting and gaming operator in the highly attractive, fully regulated Croatian market,” Nygaard-Andersen said. “We see Croatia as an exciting, dynamic country which Entain CEE is perfectly positioned to expand from – we are very much looking forward to growing our business responsibly within the country and the region.”

The deal is set to close in Q4.

Entain announced the deal alongside its financial report for the first half of 2022. As previously announced, revenue grew by 18% year-on-year, but its online segment experienced a decline as the business said inflation prompted customers to reduce spend. With the publication of the preliminary results in July, some investors expressed concern that the online struggles could continue into 2023.

House Bill 5164 will permit any operator of a land-based casino or racetrack in the state to apply for a licence, while an additional seven online-only licences will be made available. Every licence comes with a $5m fee.

Online betting will be taxed at 20% and retail at 15%, while consumers will be able to bet on a wide range of events including college sports, with the exception of matches involving in-state teams.

In addition, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) will be designated as regulator of the state’s new sports wagering market.

“On behalf of my fellow commissioners and the staff of the MGC, we appreciate the confidence the Legislature and the Governor have in naming us as regulator of this new industry,” MGC chair Cathy Judd-Stein said.

“For the past several years, we have been monitoring sports wagering legislation and taking appropriate steps to prepare for our potential role. As soon as this week we will be working to understand the landscape of interest in operator licensure as we move forward with this process.”

MGC executive director Karen Wells added: “As the chair has mentioned publicly, a great deal of work has already been done by our team in anticipation of sports wagering becoming legal in Massachusetts.

“This includes identifying over 200 potential regulations, adopting a framework to utilise industry-recognised technical standards, establishing an infrastructure to investigate and license applicants, initiating the hiring of a chief of sports wagering, and scheduling public meetings.

“Now that we have a law that defines our responsibilities as regulator, we will work with our stakeholders to swiftly stand up this new industry with a focus on integrity, player safety and consumer protection.”

The state legislature passed the bill last week, in the final hours of this year’s legislative session, ending months of deadlock after the House and Senate had each passed their own bills with major differences between the two.

The House had passed a bill in July 2021 in line with other US sports betting bills, featuring a 12.5% tax rate, a $5.0m licence fee and little product or marketing restrictions.

However, the Senate’s version included more restrictions, including a ban on many forms of marketing such as promotional bets. The bill would also have banned marketing during a live sports event and would only have allowed online marketing if 85% of the audience “is reasonably expected to be 21 years of age or older”.

Betting on college sports would also not be permitted in the Senate bill. Meanwhile, online sports betting would have been taxed at 35% of revenue and retail sports betting at 20%.

Due to the differences between the two bills, the legislature set up the Sports Betting Conference Committee, with members from both houses coming together to agree a compromise bill.

Earlier this week, Massachusetts gaming commissioners warned the launch of legal sports betting in the state may take longer than expected, as they prepares to create rules for the vertical.

Commissioner Bradford Hill said that it was important that the state produces a strong set of regulations, even if this pushes the launch date back.

“If we are going to do this right, we need to take our time a little bit,” he said. “I’ve seen some folks in the newspaper that hope to have this up and running in a very short amount of time, and I just want the public to know that in my view – and this is my view, not necessarily that of the Commission – this is going to take a little bit longer.

“And I’m okay with that, because I want to do it right. I think the public needs to understand that this is quite a process we need to go through.”

The multi-phase independent study will explore the current landscape of marketing and advertising on a global scale and provide policy recommendations to address key operating markets such as Ontario in Canada and New Jersey in the US.

Researchers at the RGC’s Centre for the Advancement of Best Practices (CABP) will assess evidence from research featuring best-practice potential for responsible marketing and advertising practices and consider insights from regulators and operators to identify opportunities for quality improvement.

The RGC said it intends to complete the research project by early 2024.

“Through this research, we not only have the ability to affect necessary changes to our marketing and advertising standards here in Ontario, but also the ability to make great impacts to the harm minimisation efforts of jurisdictions all around the world,” RGC chief executive Shelley White said. 

“This comprehensive study truly highlights the culture shift that the industry is currently undergoing, and by leveraging our research partners, we can make greater impacts in protecting players and communities.”  

Flutter International’s vice president of regulatory affairs George Sweny added: “There is a need to better understand the impacts of increased marketing and advertising on all stakeholders.

“This foundational research will help us all make necessary strides towards bridging the gap between best and better practices in an area of significant importance. Leading progress is one of the key pillars of our global Play Well strategy and we are delighted to be working with the RGC to support this important research.”

The promise presented by sports betting in North America has created severe competition. Beyond big casino and media giants like Disney, we see retail companies – such as Fanatics – trying to actively take their place in the market. New York sportsbooks alone brought $425 million in gross revenue in the first four months of 2022. 

However, in a rush to be the first to attain licences and launch, operators often neglect the quality of their platforms. Early in 2022, when thousands of bettors flooded the freshly opened sportsbooks in New York, we saw betting platforms that were glitchy: a direct result of poor development. Bettors experienced technical issues such as login errors, the inability to place a bet or cash out, and more. 

For example, Caesars faced a massive volume of complaints about glitches to the point that their customer service department could not handle the load and they eventually disabled the online chat option.

On average, only fifty-two percent of bettors make more than two deposits, and only four percent stay loyal to a betting company longer than a year. These issues and unpleasant bettor experiences could cost a sportsbook a large sum of money and ruin their reputation, which will result in a loss of bettors. Poor response time, instability, and other factors can lead to millions in losses in handle. 

To mitigate such potential risks, performance testing should be the cornerstone of the development process for any other application within the sports betting stack. It should be included in the overall process to ensure that latency does not appear in new releases.

What is acceptable performance? There are four important parameters: system response, scalability, stability, and capacity. 

Let’s dive into each of them.

Quick System Response

Sports betting is an extremely complex domain dealing with a huge volume of data from big events like the World Cup or NFL games and constant odds changes. Needless to say, it’s an ever changing domain of data which requires lightning-fast decision making and updates. 

Besides, bets are made in real time, so the slightest delays on your platform can totally ruin your bettors’ experience. Additionally, obtaining immediate statistics during live games is critical for in-play odds for both regular sports and esports. 

The streaming of esports matches is usually received with at least one minute’s delay, but it can be up to five minutes in some cases. While sharp bettors are aware of these delays, it may be harmful for newbies betting on a stream. 

The primary causes of delayed response times include heavy and excessive operations in back-end logic, hardware limitations and incorrect configurations of related software, among many others. 

To eliminate these issues, I recommend solutions and technologies such as WebSocket and HTTP 2.0 protocols, and optimizing web servers and databases. 

You should also eliminate bloat – programs, apps and plugins that take up space without providing much value. Third-party apps, duplicate pages, and CSS/JavaScript files can soak up your server’s resources.

Scalability

When we talk about betting platform scalability, we need to first think about transactional scalability.  

If you’re dealing with same-game parlays, you have an enormous dataset that you need to be able to calculate and run your simulations against to determine their price, which returns an enormous set of results. On the prices your sportsbook generates, you need to add scale and you need to make sure you have consistency both at the edge and in the core. 

There are also architectural and geographical challenges. Regulations open up markets, but they also introduce constraints. The Wire Act requires operators to install servers in every state where they are active. You need to deploy and scale in many places and build a cloud-based system that scales on top of AWS or Azure.

Additionally, you need to be able to deploy critical elements of your system that meet regulatory requirements in each jurisdiction. And you must deploy servers and software components into a casino property where regulation requires it. 

So you do not need to run 50 different sportsbooks, but one that scales in order to meet each state’s regulatory requirements. 

Scalability testing allows you to measure the ability of your platform to scale up or scale out during traffic spikes with thousands (or more) concurrent transactions. Among the most common issues that can be detected during scalability testing are:

databases initially built without scaling capabilitiesoutdated deployment solutionsincorrect autoscaling configurationand even the wrong subscription for cloud services.

Nowadays, many autoscaling solutions, such as AWS Auto Scale or Azure Autoscale, automatically maintain your platform’s target performance.

Stability

Stability is the most critical factor for online sportsbook operators seeking to drive acquisition and retention. Operators should ensure that all functionality and features are working properly at all times and that bettors can access the sportsbook and use it as they would expect to, especially when the volume of bets is peaking.

In an attempt to engage new players and cross-sell to current bettors, some operators branch out into the online casino sector. This is where the real challenges begin. Besides a vast volume of daily transactions from online bets, and additional spikes during major sporting events, operators who have online casino offerings have a lot more to worry about.  This culmination of transactions can put tremendous strain on a platform.

A large number of third-party plugins accompanied by legacy technology engages some operators into the eternal race for the right balance between functionality and technology debt. Operators need to test and implement new technologies all the time; looking for ways to eliminate glitches and increase speed and tenacity of their solutions. Yet, it becomes imperative to achieve architectural balance where new and old can work together while also being reliable and stable.

Endurance testing allows you to check the stability of your betting platform. During endurance testing, you examine your platform under a substantial load and extended usage time. Memory leakages, database connection closure and connection closure between system layers are all tested, among other factors.

To improve the stability of your betting product, you might consider:

setting up load balancers so new users will be assigned quickly and correctlyadd caching layers that will store a subset of data and serve data fastersetting up proper auto-scaling and more.

Capacity

Driving acquisition during a major sports event appears to be tempting, and we see many betting providers running multi-million marketing campaigns and giving away generous bonuses during this time. But this spending will be for nothing if operators do not get the basics right and their betting platform does not have enough capacity to deal with the influx of new fans and placed bets. The data says that 91% of enterprises have downtime costs surpassing $300,000 per hour. 

By capacity of your betting platform, we mean the number of users and/or transactions it can handle simultaneously and still meet performance goals. The capacity of your betting platform can be hampered by:

a lack of database resourceslimited network and bandwidth capacity in certain locationslow-quality source code that includes restrictions for databasessource code written in outdated language or toolsan architecture that is unable to handle high volumes of transactions

Load testing can help you determine your platform capacity and plan your activities for increased traffic. To enhance capacity of your betting platform, you can change your deployment approach, optimize requests to your databases, configure additional servers, and more.

You should also carefully consider using the services of a third-party technology provider instead of building your own product. However, Super Bowl LV showed vulnerabilities of third-party providers, as some bettors could not place bets.

Build a Solid Foundation

Betting operators constantly find new and creative ways to engage and retain fans, from NFT collections to holograms and live dealer studios. But let’s not forget that technology is at the centre of it all. No matter how many dollars you spend on a new marketing campaign, if your platform is full of flaws, delays are experienced during important moments during events, or your design is not intuitive, you will be losing bettors. Exceptional performance of a platform must be the foundation of any online sportsbook. Operators who create innovative platforms that are secure, scalable, and engaging will be the ones who take home the big win.

Final Thoughts

To summarize, it is imperative for online operators to ensure that their platforms are well architected, secure, scalable, and stable. As the sports betting market continues to evolve and bettors are becoming more demanding, online operators must be nimble and their technology stack must support the ability to quickly adjust.

At the same time, online operators continue to develop new features. There is no shying away from the fact that technology holds the key to the success of these endeavors and must be taken seriously.  Otherwise, the best laid plans could significantly go awry.

Russell Karp is vice-president of media and entertainment at DataArt, a global technology consultancy that designs, develops and supports unique software solutions for its clients. Recognized for deep-domain expertise and superior technical talent in creating new products and modernizing complex legacy systems, DataArt has been partnering with global sports-betting companies for almost a decade. During that time, the firm has helped operators significantly change the sports-betting market by offering broader choices and better pricing to their customers. Clients include Paddy Power Betfair, Evolution Gaming, Glück Games and Playtech.

The order was handed down by Kenya’s Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB).

It took force at midnight today, and will end at 5pm.

A number of operators released statements about the order. Sports betting brand SportPesa placed a statement on its website which read, “Thank you for interacting with SportPesa. Our services are currently unavailable in compliance with BCLC’s directive to suspend all gaming operations to enable you to vote.”

“Our services will resume immediately after 5pm on Tuesday 9th August 2022.”

Betsson-owned sportsbook and online casino operator Betsafe released a similar statement.

“Our gaming services will be suspended from Monday midnight until Tuesday 5:00pm,” it read.

“During this period, you will not be able to place bets or transact. We apologise for the inconvenience.”

Last month, the BCLB found that many of those who applied for new or renewed licences are not eligible to receive them, as did not receive the necessary approvals from the relevant parties.