Betfred’s physical sportsbook will go live from today (November 18), while DraftKings’ sportsbook app is set to launch on November 23.
Both operators completed the mandatory early access test period, a measure implemented by the Maryland State Lottery & Gaming Control Agency, and paid the $500,000 application fee.
As an approved member, Mohegan will now work with the IBIA and its network of members to protect sports integrity.
Established in 1996, Mohegan is an extension of the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut and is the owner, developer and manager of gambling and entertainment resorts across the US, Canada, and Northern Asia. It also offers online gambling via its Mohegan Digital brand.
“Digital gaming and sports wagering will continue to grow as cornerstones of the entertainment industry over the next few years,” Mohegan president and chief executive Ray Pineault said.
“Becoming a member of the IBIA allows us to confidently remain at the forefront of these trends and innovations, while knowing we have strategic partners in this highly-regulated industry.”
IBIA chief executive Khalid Ali added: “The addition of Mohegan to IBIA’s ranks is an important boost for the association, maintaining our strong growth globally and particularly in North America.
“IBIA welcomes the support for, and commit of, companies like Mohegan to betting integrity and to working in partnership with our leading monitoring network covering many of the largest regulated operators in the world.”
The news comes after the IBIA this week also announced a Memorandum of Understanding with the German Sports Betting Association (DSWV).
Under the arrangement, the DSWV and IBIA will work in partnership and coordinate their activities on betting and related integrity issues in Germany.
The regulator said casino personnel permitted the individual to enter the gaming floor and place bets. This breached Pennsylvania law that states players must be at least 21 to legally access the casino floor and gamble.
The fine was presented by the regulator’s Office of Enforcement Counsel (OEC) and issued to Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment, which operates the casino.
The transaction places ZEturf’s value at €175.0m (£152.7m/$181.0m), with FDJ saying that additional consideration may be paid depending on performance in 2023.
The announcement comes after FDJ in September entered into exclusive negotiations over a potential deal, with FDJ saying the purchase would form part of wider plans to expand its presence in France’s online gambling market.
Founded in 2001, ZEturf employs approximately 100 people and generated almost €50.0m in revenue during 2021.
“With this transaction and the launch of our poker range, which together strengthen our growth prospects, FDJ is optimally positioned to become a major player in the French market for online games open to competition, while remaining true to our recreational, responsible and redistributive gaming model,” FDJ chief executive and chairwoman Stéphane Pallez said.
ZEturf founder Emmanuel de Rohan-Chabot added: “12 years after online betting was opened up to competition in France, the tie-up between the ZEturf group and FDJ Group’s online sports betting business marks a new stage in our development, bringing together the strengths of two complementary operators.
“It’s also an opportunity for our staff to bring their expertise to bear as part of a highly engaged, ambitious group and to benefit from the synergies created by this tie-up.”
FanDuel owner Flutter Entertainment provided details of the future of the brand at a capital markets day yesterday (16 November).
Flutter said it believes FanDuel could deliver between four and a half and five times its 2022 revenue total when the US online betting and gaming markets mature.
“We do believe that we’ll be on the higher end of the range, more like five times,” FanDuel chief executive Amy Howe said.
Maturity, the business outlined, would include 80% of the US living in states with legal sports betting and 25% living in states with legal online casino.
This, it said, could be achievable by 2030. Under this scenario, Flutter said the total addressable market in the US would be worth $40.5bn annually.
In Q3, Flutter projected FanDuel’s 2022 revenue to fall between $2.95bn and $3.20bn.
As a result, this would suggest that the business expects revenue could fall between $15bn and $16bn by 2030.
The business also said it believed FanDuel could deliver a long-term earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin of between 25% and 30%, which it said was in line with other Flutter brands. Given the revenue projections, this would suggest EBITDA could fall between $3.7bn and $4.8bn.
Flutter also pointed to FanDuel’s dominant market position in US sports betting, holding a 42% market share in states where it is live. This would be more than its two largest competitors – DraftKings with a 24% share and BetMGM with 15%.
The operator also said it was the market leader in twelve different states.
In the shorter term, Howe said FanDuel was “extremely confident” that it would turn a profit for the full year in 2023.
Breaking down FanDuel’s revenue for the first nine months of 2022, New York was the largest contributor, bringing in $428m. New Jersey and Pennsylvania followed with $244m and $181m, respectively, and were also the two states in which FanDuel had the largest market share at 50%.
“We’re leading in nearly every state we operate in,” Howe said.
Looking by product, 66% of FanDuel’s projected $3.0bn in 2022 revenue is set to come from sports betting, 23% from igaming, 4% from daily fantasy sports and 7% from racing and sponsorship.
Flutter also boasted that FanDuel was ahead of the market in marketing efficiency and margin. It said the brand’s cost per download was 24% less than its competitors, while its margin per $1 of handle was 43% higher than the market, at 9.7% compared to 6.8%. Flutter said there was room for further margin growth, and that it was aiming for a 12% margin by 2025.
The business said it received 80% more revenue per $1 of marketing spend than DraftKings.
As a result of its high margins and marketing strategies, the business said its average customer pays back any acquisition costs within 18 months.
The investor day comes soon after an arbitrator in New York ruled media conglomerate Fox Corporation can exercise an option to acquire a significant stake in Flutter-owned FanDuel from a $22.0bn valuation.
Fox will now have a 10-year period from December 2020 to exercise the option to buy an 18.5% stake, subject to an annual compounding carrying value adjustment of 5%. This can only be settled in cash and in full while, should Fox not exercise within the timeframe, the option would lapse.
As of 4 November, the option price is set at $4.1bn. This is made up of the $3.7bn exercise price for 18.6% of FanDuel plus the 5% annual carrying value adjustment, increasing the overall value of FanDuel to $22.0bn.
The court also said that it would decide in 2023 under what conditions Fox may participate in a potential FanDuel IPO.
In addition, Flutter last week forecast a 31% year-on-year increase in revenue for the third quarter of its 2022 financial year, as its US division became its largest.
The KSA said that its attention had been drawn to a number of affiliate sites that had been created with seeming intent of circumventing regulated offerings and directing consumers to gambling sites that do not abide by Dutch gaming law.
The KSA provided examples of such sites with domain names including phrases such as casinozondercruks (“casino without cruks,”) and casinozondervergunning (“casino without licence”). The Centraal Register Uitsluiting Kansspelen (Cruks) is the Dutch self-exclusion platform that allows players who have experienced harm from games of chance the opportunity to put themselves on a blacklist preventing them from accessing certain sites for a pre-designed time period set by the user.
The KSA has cracked down on affiliates before, taking action against 15 sites in December 2021.
Under the provisions of the Remote Gambling Act, which set out the conditions of the market’s regulatory regime prior to its launch on 1 October 2021, all legal offerings must have Cruks integration as a condition of their licence. An operator who did not comply with the law in this area would be at serious risk of having its licence suspended or cancelled.
The regulator emphasised that its main concern is that these affiliate sites focus on problem players, highlighting that the promotion of illegal offerings is just at prohibited as the offering of those services to begin with.
The KSA has previously made clear how serious it takes any breaches to the self-exclusion system. In June, when announcing an investigation into land-based operators who had been accused of bypassing Cruks, the regulator warned that sanctions would be on the cards in the case of any violation of the rules.
“Failure to check players or ignore a Cruks registration is very serious,” the KSA said. “These players registered with Cruks precisely because they have problems with gambling and are no longer in control.”
Alex Morgan-Moodie, senior director at Worldpay from FIS, talks to iGB about the Global Gaming Payments Report, which covers current industry fraud statistics, emerging markets and trends, and the adoption of cryptocurrency.
The regulator said it performed an inspection of the Luckycrypto website after suspicions arose that operator SG International NV was providing games aimed at the Swedish market without the necessary licence.
During this inspection, it found that Luckycrypto has information in Sweden, has a Swedish version of its terms and conditions and that it “directs its marketing towards Swedish customers”.
In addition, Swedish customers were not prevented from registering on the site.
SG International, which is based in Curaçao, was given the opportunity to respond to Spelinspektionen, but the regulator did not receive a response.
As a result, it added the operator to its list of illegal sites.
According to the regulator’s strategy for tackling unlicensed activity, the order to leave the market is the first step in the enforcement process. Those that fail to comply will then be hit with fines, and should this fail to deter the operator, it will turn to the police.
In September, Selinspektionen ordered Casineia.com operator Ease Gaming NV, also based in Curaçao, to exit the market.
In June, the Swedish government announced that it had scrapped plans to give authorities the power to block all offshore unlicensed gambling, regardless of whether or not the site is specifically aimed at Swedish consumers.
Toney last week admitted he was assisting the FA with an investigation amid newspaper reports he bet on football matches earlier in his career.
The Daily Mail said the FA has been investigating Toney for seven months over allegations he was betting on games during his time playing in the lower leagues. It is not thought Toney ever placed bets on the team he was playing for at the time to lose.
The FA has now confirmed Toney was charged after its investigation uncovered that he had breached betting rules 232 times between 256 February 2017 and 23 January 2021.
The specific breach was in relation to FA Betting Rule E8, which states any player, match official or coach must not bet, either directly or indirectly, on any matters related to football anywhere in the world.
Though the FA did not disclose any further details of the ruling at this time, it did state that Toney has until 24 November to provide a response to the charge.
Toney is yet to comment on the ruling, but his club, Brentford, acknowledged the decision in a short statement on its website.
“The club has been in discussion with Ivan and his legal representatives about this matter and those conversations will continue privately,” Brentford said. “We will make no further comment until the matter has been completed.”
The 26-year-old joined Brentford at the start of the 2020-21 season, helping the team win promotion from the second-tier Championship to the Premier League, scoring 31 league goals in the process.
Prior to this, he spent two years playing for Peterborough United in League One, after a series of loan spells at other lower league clubs while he was playing for Newcastle United.
Toney only made four senior appearances during his time with Newcastle, having joined the club from League Two side Northampton Town, where he began his career.
Toney was among the players being considered for the English national squad ahead of the 2022 Fifa World Cup, which will take place in Qatar. However, despite scoring 10 league goals this season, Toney missed out on the squad.
Catena launched the review in May of this year with the initial idea of selling a number of its division, including the AskGamblers brand. This was then expanded in August to cover its entire European online betting and casino business, while it also announced it was to scale back its strategic investments as part of the process.
The wider review led Catena to begin a consultation process for redundancies in the UK and Malta. It has now confirmed that 25% of its whole European employee base has been laid off, with this to result in €5.5m (£4.8m/$5.7m) in cost savings from Q1 of 2023.
A Catena representative also told iGB that there are no further redundancies planned.
Catena also said talks remain ongoing over the possible sale of certain assets, having last month issued an update to say it was evaluating “multiple options” as part of the review, which had been due to complete in September prior to being expanded.
Upon publishing its third-quarter results, Catena chief executive Michael Daly said that the review is nearing completion, with certain assets currently in a divestment phase. Daly said a fuller announcement over the review will be made in the “near future”.
“Amid significant interest from multiple parties, this process is being managed by an external adviser and is approaching a conclusion,” Daly said.
“The measures being taken, and to be taken, as part of the strategic review are optimising the business to capitalise on the growth of online sports betting and casino in North America, where a wave of regulation continues to open new markets to licensed operators and create exciting openings for Catena Media.
“Other future opportunities include Latin America and esports, both of which offer high potential for profitable growth over the longer term.
“In Europe – the region where the current high-inflation environment is most pronounced and the squeeze on player spending is most acute – we scaled back our operations during the quarter to focus on a smaller core of strategic high-margin brands primarily in regulated online sportsbook markets, and to a lesser extent in casino. The key brands offer stable near-term growth potential and are located in the UK and Italy.
“The restructuring has also seen us offload certain grey-market assets as we transition fully into an organisation focused on the Americas and other regulated and stable markets.
“It is here that the appetite for supporting and extending licensed online sports betting and casino is strongest, and hence where we will be best placed to retain our market leadership and achieve high levels of sustainable growth over time.”
Looking at the Q3 results, revenue for the three months to 30 September reached €32.3m, a 2.4% drop from €33.1m in the corresponding period last year.
Search revenue accounted for €30.8m of all revenue in the quarter, down 2.8% on Q3 2021, though paid revenue increased 7.1% year-on-year to €1.5m. Revenue-sharing made up 38% of total revenue, with cost per acquisition at 54% and fixed fees 8%.
In terms of business segments, casino revenue slipped 10.0% to €17.9m but sports betting revenue climbed 12.9% to €14.0m. Financial trading revenue declined 51.0% to €367,000.
Turning to costs and total operating expenses were slashed by 46.5% to €37.3m. Catena also noted €1.1m in finance costs, but this was more than offset by €1.9m in gains on financial liability at fair value.
As such, pre-tax loss was significantly reduced from €38.7m in Q3 of 2021 to €5.4m this year, a drop of 86.1%. Catena paid €319,000 in tax and after also including a negative €226,000 impact of foreign currency translation and €1.0m in interest payable on hybrid securities, this left a net loss of €6.9m, a significant improvement on €38.5m last year.
However, Catena did also note that adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBTIDA) for the quarter was 28.7% lower at €11.7m.
“Once the strategic review is behind us, I look forward to the organisation redoubling its focus on the highly promising Latin American market,” Daly said. “I fully expect that we will soon begin to see this dynamic region take on a significant role in our Americas story.
“Another exciting area is esports, where our Esports.net brand reported exceedingly rapid user growth in Q3 and where I see rich opportunities ahead.
“We continue to build for the future and do so from a position of unprecedented strength. Our low debt, strong cash flow, organic search know-how and lean organisation make Catena Media uniquely placed to set the pace in lead generation for online sports betting and casino – in North America and beyond.”
