The Category 1 Sports Wagering Operator licence will allow Encore to operate in-person sports betting at its casino property, as well as on up to two online platforms.
Encore must now secure a certificate of operations and meet additional conditions in order to launch sports betting.
Basaloco officially took office on 7 December, at a swearing-in ceremony that was witnessed by the organisation’s director Adriano Marques Ho.
During the ceremony, Ho said that the Gaming Inspection Department was an “essential unit”, adding that he hoped Basaloco would carry out his duties “faithfully”. Ho also said that he hoped Basaloco would be “efficient” in carrying out the rules outlined in Macau’s new gaming laws, as well as create a cohesive work team in the office.
Basaloco first joined the DICJ in 1988, initially working in its Gaming Contracts Inspection Department. He has a degree in physical education and sport from the Polytechnic Institute of Macau.
In June, the Macau legislature approved the biggest shake-up in the Macau regulatory regime since the sector was liberalised in 2002.
The bill, which had been under discussion since the previous year, reformed the special administrative region’s licensing and tax rules. While the number of concessionaires is to stay the same – at six –the new laws includes a general tax rise, as well as giving the Macau chief executive more power to act with discretion when setting the concessionaire tax rate.
In November, the Macau government officially issued all six gaming concessions, with one operator – Genting – missing out.
Norway remains one of the last European countries with a state gambling monopoly. Lottery Norsk Tipping is the only body permitted to offer online casino gaming, while Norsk Rikstoto has the exclusive rights to take bets on horse racing.
The government said that the monopoly system is necessary because the types of games offered by Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto “have high prizes, high turnover or a high risk of creating gambling problems”.
Norsk Rikstoto’s monopoly will now last at least 10 more years, as the government announced that its licence would be extended until at least the end of 2032.
Minister for Culture and Equality Anette Trettebergstuen said that she felt that Norsk Tpping understood its role as a monopoly operator and that its goals were aligned with the government.
“Norsk Rikstoto shows that they take the role of exclusive rights provider seriously, and that is good,” she said.
Trettebergstuen also said the Norwegian government’s top priority in gambling policy is preventing addiction.
However, she added that raising money to support sports and good causes was also a government goal. Norsk Rikstoto’s profits go towards supporting the Norwegian horse racing industry.
“Many Norwegians struggle with gambling problems, and the most important thing about gambling policy is to prevent all the negative gambling that gambling can bring,” she said. “The Norwegian Parliament has implemented a number of measures to reduce the risk of gambling problems and gambling addiction.
“At the same time, we want to ensure that sports and volunteering can still benefit from the profits from gambling.”
Norway’s monopoly system has faced strong opposition from some international operators, and has led to a long-standing dispute between authorities and Unibet operator Kindred.
In September, regulator Lotteritilsynet warned Kindred that it would impose a fine of NOK1.198m (£98,902/€113,930/$116,930) for every day it did not withdraw from Norway.
However, the next month, Lotteritilsynet said the daily fines would cease after Kindred said it would move to only passively taking Norwegian players.
Last month, though, the regulator restarted the fines, claiming Kindred’s offering still targets Norwegian residents. Kindred, however, continues to appeal the fines.
Cybersecurity is often in the headlines, and when it is, it’s always bad news.
The gambling industry has not escaped this – last month, a mass hacking took place on a number of DraftKings accounts, affecting $300,000 in customer funds.
To Continent 8 chief commercial officer Brian Koh, the first thing operators look for when they entrust a company with its cybersecurity is reputation.
“The igaming market is complex and highly competitive,” he says. “So businesses have to work harder than ever to stand out.”
Luckily Koh believes that his business has already secured this reputation.
“For us, our reputation is something that is important to us,” he continues. “We’ve worked tirelessly to keep that reputation in the industry. Our strategy to expand with our network that’s ever-growing, that’s highly secure, is that we’re going to obviously continue that – to be able to drive that strategy, to be able to expand into different markets.”
Being thought of as reliable and safe has had a practical effect on customers. Koh says that this, coupled with recognising consumer trends, has benefitted Continent 8’s offerings.
“Our customers, they really need secure, reliable facilities and networks to provide critical online operations,” he says. “Continuing to drive innovation from a product perspective for us, strong customer service and really bringing the customer experience to a level of excellence – I think that’s what’s going to move the needle for us.”
Continent 8 has been in operation for more than 20 years, and does business in 85 locations across Europe, Asia and the Americas. In terms of new markets, Koh has his eye on Latin America as a potential new area for expansion.
“The LatAm market; we possibly want to be kind of first to the market from a geographical perspective, but also in terms of product development,” says Koh.
And with a number of Latin American countries – including Brazil – opening up to regulation, keeping the region in mind is a good way to keep on top of new developments.
“Asia and Latin America are interesting markets. With LAtAm, we’ve got tailored solutions in Colombia and Puerto Rico, with Peru next, and then probably Argentina. Brazil is in the pipeline.
“[In] Asia, we’ve seen a lot of growth primarily from a security perspective, we’ve seen a lot of requests and demand for security solutions within igaming with various customers.”
But despite big changes in gaming laws in some of these countries, Koh’s responsibility in his role isn’t necessarily about viewing emerging markets from a gaming perspective. Instead, he says, he tends to view the markets from a cybersecurity point of view.
“We’re seeing a lot of opportunity to grow and support our customers with cybersecurity solutions,” he continues. “The ever-changing cybersecurity landscape that we’re seeing, it’s super complex and we’ve built layered solutions to protect those businesses.”
“My responsibility is driving growth into geographical markets, driving growth from a product portfolio perspective and seeing it continue. What’s fantastic is there’s been a tremendous amount of growth and we see that trajectory continue.”
Koh understands the need to put customers first in the cybersecurity debate, particularly as demand for the service ticks upwards.
“Cybersecurity has been a major demand that we’re seeing in the market,” says Koh. “You’re seeing large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that are happening all over the world, and we’ve been able to protect all of our customers.”
Koh sees how this tumultuous landscape has influenced how customers are treating their money, and what lengths they will go to ensure it is protected.
“We’re starting to see customers being more intentional in spending money and really trying to protect their assets,” Koh continues. “We’re kind of at the forefront. We’re securing them, and we’re providing the hosting and networking.”
“We’re seeing customers that are turning to us to provide that security protection. That’s something that we’re seeing at lightning speed.”
For those in the gambling industry, efforts to protect websites from cyberattacks isn’t just a case of protecting an operator’s own assets. Koh says operators have become more concerned than ever with protecting their own customers too.
“One of the trends that we’re seeing now over the last several years is the demand to increase the security with our customers, not only from a gaming perspective, but even outside of that in terms of their network,” he continues.
“A heightened awareness of that being our current reality is something that we take with a lot of pride in, in terms of being able to protect those customers and having conversations educating them about the threat.”
In her new role, Lee will oversee Bally’s legal and public affairs teams, as well as support the operator’s ongoing global strategic initiatives.
Lee joins Bally’s from International Game Technology (IGT), where she had served as vice president of diversity and inclusion for five years.
The government of Sweden announced a bill that would – among other things – require B2B online gambling suppliers to obtain permits to do business with licensed operators. This, it hopes, will reduce illegal gambling in the country, as suppliers that offer their services to operators targeting the Swedish market could have their permits revoked.
Yesterday, Spelinspektionen held an information session on these permits.
Gustaf Hoffstedt, secretary general of Swedish trade association Branscheforenigen för Onlinespel (BOS), was present at the meeting. He said that the industry supports the B2B permit system, but that he felt Spelinspektionen’s expectations of how useful they will be in tackling illegal gambling may be too high.
“I perceive that there is a generally positive attitude towards B2B permits from both the industry and Spelinspektionen,” Hoffstedt said. “Possibly there is a deviating picture of expectations in that we on the part of the industry have lower expectations that this will really be able to block the larger outflows from the Swedish licensing system.
He said that a major challenge could be that the supplier permitting system will still not have an impact on businesses that accept Swedish customers but are not considered to be “targeting” Sweden.
“The area of application is the same before and after the introduction of the B2B permit, which in plain language means that in Sweden unlicensed B2C companies can still accept Swedish customers as long as the company in question is not considered to target Sweden.
“Having said that, I believe and hope that the B2B permits will contribute at least one or two percentage points in strengthened channelisation, which is the only stated goal of the introduction according to the legislator.”
Hoffstedt added that one potential complication with the law as currently written was that there was no provision for so-called “umbrella permits” in Sweden. These permits would allow a large supplier with many different subsidiaries to apply for a single permit, rather than submitting many applications.
Hofstedt said that allowing umbrella permits would lead to a greatly reduced administrative burden.
“An important and unanswered question concerns so-called umbrella permits,” he said. “The legislature does not allow any such. At the same time, it is set for an administrative nightmare if the smallest subcontractor of, for example, audio files has to apply for a Swedish B2B permit.
“Our message to the SGA is to work for and find a system that in practice allows umbrella permits, even if in the sense of the law this is not the case.”
The requirement for B2B supplier permits in Sweden is set to come into force on 1 July 2023. Spelinspektionen is planning to open applications on 1 March.
Other aspects of the bill that require more simple changes will come into effect from 1 January.
An earlier version of the bill included new requirements for “adjusted moderation” in gambling marketing, which would have meant that products seen as higher-risk like online casino would face tiger marketing rules than other types of gambling.
However, the Riksdag Culture Committee removed this provision when reviewing the bill, arguing that it was an attempt to implement a risk classification for types of gambling by the back door.
Esports Entertainment Group has faced a turbulent time in recent years, with brand closures, a debt default and large operating losses. In May, within the business’ quarterly financial report, EEG said that there had been “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern for a least a year.
In October, the group then announced that it was effectively at the mercy of an unnamed creditor after the business defaulted on its debt.
Earlier this week, the business revealed it had escaped delisting, but must drastically increase its share price by February to remain on the Nasdaq exchange.
Given these financial woes, the igaming business will now be restructured, with the sale of its online casino business in Spain expected to close by 12 December. Proceeds from the sale will mainly be used to pay down the principal on a senior convertible note.
Meanwhile, Esports Entertainment Group closed its Argyll iGaming operations – which operates RedZone and SportNation – in the UK and Ireland with effect from yesterday (7 December) due to high operational costs and an inability to generate profit. EEG had already announced that it would be shutting its RedZone and Sport Nation brands in the UK.
Now, EEG has revealed it will will evaluate further strategic options for the igaming business, including exploring a potential sale of igaming assets due to increasing regulatory burdens and competition.
This process will be overseen by Esports Entertainment Group’s new CEO, with the operator’s board having identified a number of candidates to replace the outgoing Johnson and an evaluation of individuals is now taking place
Earlier this week, it was reported that the EEG board had asked to Johnson to resign, with his departure having now been confirmed by the operator.
Esports Entertainment Group said its board has identified a preferred candidate to serve as acting CEO, and will make a formal announcement regarding the appointment in the coming days, pending formal approval by the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.
In relation to this, Esports Entertainment Group announced Jan Jones Blackhurst as the new chair of its board.
“Grant recognised the value of esports and online gambling and founded EEG on that basis,” Blackhurst said. “On behalf of the board, we wish him well.
“The company is looking forward to bringing in new leadership to work with Board to realise the full potential of our acquired esports businesses.”
This new CEO will be tasked with determining the value of the group’s igaming assets and evaluating any opportunities to sell them.
In terms of wider business operations, Esports Entertainment Group revealed it also recently received a non-binding letter of intent from a third party in relation to a potential merger. EEG did not disclose the identity of the interested party, but did state that should the deal go ahead, the combined business would focus on growing esports revenue.
EEG is currently in the process of evaluating the proposed merger.
Esports Entertainment Group also announced that it is in discussions with its debt holder to restructure payment obligations, including eliminating derivative liability on its consolidated balance and addressing its default status under the debt.
EEG said it remains optimistic an agreement can be reached to the benefit of both parties in the near term.
Cassie Stratford has painted a colourful legacy for herself in the industry. As the president and chair of Global Gaming Women – an initiative that champions female representation in the gaming industry – and senior vice president of legal operations and regulatory compliance for Boyd Gaming, Stratford is expert at keeping many plates spinning at once. This, plus her outstanding reputation in the industry, makes her an ideal candidate for Most Influential Women 2022.
At her time with Boyd Gaming, Stratford has been an essential part of the company’s legal department. Throughout her ten-year stretch with the company, Stratford has overseen data security and privacy strategies, marketing initiatives and licensing and regulatory compliance efforts. She has also consulted on a number of other legal advisory matters.
Before this, she worked as a commercial litigation attorney at Snell & Wilmer LLP in Las Vegas.
Stratford recently spoke to iGB about the landscape of diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in gaming, stating that the attention now paid to inclusion was not always there.
“I think when you looked around – and this was sort of an industry norm – there was a real lack of diversity when you looked particularly at leadership roles,” Stratford said at the time. “There was a real lack once you started to get into supervisory, and then the higher you went, the less and less diversity you saw.”
This only pays testament to the necessity of initiatives such as Most Influential Women, which promote and celebrate inclusion efforts across the industry.
Since Tatyana Kaminskaya took charge of Softswiss’ aggregator division at the tail end of 2020, the business has continued to go from strength to strength. Her first full year in the job saw an acceleration in its dealmaking, the 18 new studios added in 2021, up from nine the previous year, making it the most prolific company in the space and breaking it into the top three aggregators measured by their speed at integrating new content, according to iGB’s casino data partner, eGaming Monitor. It now stands in eighth spot overall in terms of the studios it currently offers.
Upon meeting her, Kaminskaya exudes the self-assuredness of someone who has been occupying senior positions and leading teams for much longer than two years.
But it wasn’t always this way, she tells iGB. “I suffered from [a lack of confidence] and while this isn’t a female-only issue, I have noticed that girls actually need more approval, more courage and more support.”
Consequently, this is something she works hard on instilling in her female colleagues, especially the more junior members of her team.
“They are all very talented girls and sometimes they just they need positive experiences from achieving something and knowing that they did well. It’s important to frame learning on the job at work as an experience. You need to focus on being successful and doing things well, but also to realise that mistakes happen, they are part of the journey. Switching my brain to understand and face up to that was one of the challenges for me.”
Another factor she sees as having been instrumental in her success is being consistent and transparent in her dealings with others: “To say what you mean and to do what you do what you promised are very important to me and I think this helped me a lot along the way.”
Recognising and building teams around people’s strengths, weaknesses and competencies is also identified by Kaminskaya as having played a part in her trajectory over the last two years. “It’s very important to acknowledge what every individual is good at and put the right people in the right places and to help them shine and grow. I’ve been focusing on that the last couple of years and it has helped us a lot.”
As for how the sector can do better in creating a more attractive prospect for female talent, in light of the number of females entering the industry having fallen according to the last All-Index, for Kaminskaya this boils down to how it advertises itself.
“When you are choosing your next employer and place of work, you can’t possibly know from the outside what it is like to actually work there. So I think it’s important to actually show some successful cases of women working in your business, to get across to strong potential candidates this is a professional and understanding workplace that they can thrive in.”
Again, this is rooted in the personal for Kaminskaya. “I for one want to see those cases before I consider joining a new company. If I see, for example, that 50% of the senior management team are women, that ratio is highly attractive. I think this is something the sector needs to focus on.”
Luisa Woods’ nomination for iGB’s Most Influential Women of 2022 noted that multiple people have said that if she were a man, she would have been offered a CEO position a long time ago.
But Woods says that, for much of her career, whether she was treated differently to men wasn’t something she spent much time thinking about.
“In general, being 25 years into the digital gaming space and 30 years into digital marketing, I spent most of my career being the only woman in the room so I didn’t spend much time thinking about it,” she said. “It was the only choice. I loved what I was doing, I was passionate about my career path and I happened to be a woman.
“I didn’t initially think a lot about how that impacted how people responded to me.”
But her selection, she says, has helped her to reflect on how she got here – and how much the industry has changed since she first entered gaming 25 years ago.
“I think it’s very easy to get swallowed up in the sound and fury of the everyday demands on your time, your talent and your energy,” she says.
“So it is nice to realise that your efforts have had an impact, to be able to step back and look back and see how far the industry has come, how far all of us have come from those early days – certainly in my case in the late 90s – where there was no road.
“It was like cutting through the jungle with a machete. There was no path to follow on the digital gaming side.”
A career that brought Woods around the world has also made her notice the subtleties in the ways she may sometimes face resistance.
“I’ve lived and worked in five countries, so I’ve had the opportunity to work in a lot of different cultural environments,” she said. “And I think that there’s a benefit in that you need to get good at understanding the unspoken assumptions.
“You need to get good at reading whether there is underlying resistance.”
Looking to the next generation, Woods says that there’s still plenty of work to be done, though. In an industry often defined by connections, how do you carve out a path for those who may not see many people like themselves?
“It’s a small industry,” she says. “A lot of us already know eachother. And I have to imagine that for anyone coming into this industry today it feels intimidating.
“And for someone who walks in, looks around the room and doesn’t see someone they feel that common connection with, how do you break in?
“Step one is acknowledging and articulating that diversity is not just about improving equality in the workplace. It’s about elevating what we do. We are made better when we have a wider range of experiences and talents.”
For Kim Barker Lee, the timing of the announcement of iGB’s Most Influential Women of 2022 was perfect.
This week, Lee – previously global head of diversity, equity, and inclusion at IGT – joined Bally’s as its new chief legal officer, making the recognition a perfect opportunity to reflect on how she got to this point.
“The timing of this recognition is profound for me personally,” she said. “It represents a convergence of my passion to lead and foster spaces where everyone belongs.
“Representation does still matter and like the other women who received this honor, the fact that we are being recognised for our business acumen and results is a reminder that diversity in all forms represents the best of our industry.”
Lee’s accomplishments are inseparable from her status as a trailblazer for diversity. When IGT set up an office of diversity and inclusion, she was brought in to head it up. Joining in 2018, she worked to create a more inclusive company at a time when companies across all sectors began to place more emphasis on the subject.
The reason she’s worked so hard to improve workplace diversity and inclusion? She knows what it’s like to be a woman of colour in a mostly white, mostly male industry.
“The reality of being a woman of colour in this industry is that there are so few of us and that can at times feel isolating,” she said. “Redirecting misconceptions of my capabilities and entitlement to have a seat at the table is like breathing professionally – it just is.
“You overcome them because you have to. You fortify your personal relationships and professional connections, so you have safe space to exhale. But you never forget to be there for others and focus on results – both personal and professional.”
So when Lee does reflect on how she got here, how does she measure her success?
“One of my colleagues said one of the biggest testaments to leadership is that you leave a place better than you found it – for me that is one of the ways I measure my success,” she said.
As she moves on to her new opportunity with Bally’s, it would be hard to say that Lee didn’t tick that box at IGT.
Laura Da Silva Gomes, director, SGCertifiedIonna Fiakkou, president, National Betting AuthorityClemence Dujardin, managing director, MyaffiliatesMarija Hammon, head of marketing, Relax GamingDaria Zaika, HR and ops manager, Aspire Global
Ewa Bakun is the director of industry insight and engagement at Clarion Gaming. She is in charge of key industry relationships and market intelligence to identify industry trends and ensure the editorial integrity of the educational content presented through Clarion’s brands. Ewa has been tracking industry developments since 2009 and has seen the rise (and sometimes fall) of trends, brands and people, a testament to the pace with which the industry evolves.
Britt Boeskov is an independent advisor and a non-executive director on the boards of Racecourse Media Group and Gaming1 Group. She has served as SVP Strategy at Better Collective, and previously spent 17 years at Kindred Group in various executive roles.
Andrew Bulloss is a partner at search firm Odgers Berndtson and has been placing directors, senior executives, C-level and non-executive directors in the gaming and gambling industries for a decade. Prior to joining Odgers, he spent eight years leading recruitment in the technology/online, consumer goods and financial services industries in the UK and Europe.
Stephen Carter oversees the digital output and growth strategy for Clarion Gaming’s iGB Affiliate brand. Prior to that, as editorial director he was responsible for the growth and launch of digital properties including iGB, iGB Affiliate, iGB North America and ICE365. He has worked for a number of B2B publications and affiliate portals since he started covering the sector in 2007.
Christie Eickelman is vice president of global marketing at Gaming Laboratories International, directing and implementing all marketing programmes for the company’s worldwide locations. She has been blazing a trail for women to follow in the gaming industry since 1992, having begun her career at Sodak Gaming before moving to Wolf Gaming, then to GLI in 1999, where she has progressed through the company. Giving back to her community is a passion for Eickelman and she sits on the board of directors for Global Gaming Women, of which she is a former president.
Anika Howard is the chief executive officer of Wondr Nation, an online gaming entertainment company founded by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. Previously, she spent four years as vice-president of brand marketing and digital at Foxwoods Resort Casino. Prior to Foxwoods, Anika was a a senior leader at IGT. She was one of iGB’s Most Influential Women for 2020.
Richard Schuetz is the owner of Schuetz LLC, a gaming and regulatory consulting entity. He has worked in the casino industry for close to 50 years and his previous roles include executive director of the Bermuda Casino Gaming Commission, commissioner of the California Gambling Control Commission and president and CEO of the Stratosphere Tower Hotel and Casino.
Helen Walton is the founder and CCO of G Games. She started her career at Unilever and has worked with Boots, Frucor, Tate Britain, PZ Cussons and dozens of other brands. She describes herself as a dealmaker, writer and marketer who enjoys solving problems, trying out ideas and making things happen.
Profiles by Stephen Carter, Daniel O’Boyle and Marese O’Hagan
Betting revenue and profit have been below budget for a number of consecutive months, despite Tab NZ reporting strong retail traffic following the easing of Covid-19 restrictions and larger overall field sizes across all codes.
However, other factors such as race abandonments, competitive pressure from unregulated online offshore operators and wider economic conditions impacted operations again in October.
Tab NZ said these factors meant it would have to reduce distributions to racing codes by 9% for the financial year ended 31 July 2023. The body is expected to pay NZ$160.0m (£83.5m/€96.8m/US$101.8m) in distributions for the period.
Looking at the October performance, gross betting revenue reached NZ$35.4m, missing Tab NZ’s initial budget by 3.9%, while turnover was $239.4m and below budget by 2.7%.
Reported profit for the month was $12.0m, behind budget by $3.1m. Betting profit stood at $10.5m, below a target budget of $13.7m, though gaming profit was slightly ahead of its $1.4m budget at $1.5m.
Operating expenses amounted to $11.1m, above budget by $1.1m, while distributions and payments were actually higher than a $16.4m budget and $16.7m, despite the decision to reduce payments over the course of 2022/23.
The rugby league clash between Penrith Panthers and Parramatta Eels drew the highest level of interest among consumers, with $1.5m bet on the game. For racing, the Carlton Draught Caulfield Cup at Caulfield came out on top with $833,000 in total bets.
The lived experience council comprises people with lived experience of gambling harms, including those affected by other people’s gambling habits, and will offer advice to GambleAware’s activities, programmes and strategic development.
GambleAware said the council builds on a commitment to ensuring its approach is collaborative and best placed to help the communities most in need in Great Britain.
“Our new council is further evidence of our proud commitment to engage with the gambling harms community,” GambleAware chief executive Zoë Osmond said. “With the imminent publication of the white paper, and subsequent regulatory reform, this is a crucial time for GambleAware’s strategic development.
“It’s imperative that the voices of those with experience and expertise in this public health crisis guide our future path. My heartfelt thanks to our new council members, and we look forward to working with you all on our mission to prevent and tackle gambling harms.”
The council met for its first session on 2 December, during which they elected Ben Howard as chair. Howard currently volunteers as a peer supporter helping others in recovery and has also been involved in tackling gambling stigma research.
Other members of the GambleAware council include David Quinti, who has been in recovery from problem gambling for seven years and is a founding member of the Gambling Lived Experience Network (GLEN), as well as Mark Conway, another founding member of GLEN.
Leanne Downie, a former hospitality worker that moved into the charity sector in 2018, will also sit on the council alongside Nicola Jaques, a project worker for the Six to Ten project, and Sam Starsmore, head of delivery for education at the Young Gamers & Gamblers Education Trust (YGAM).
Steph Shilton, the wife of former England goalkeeper and recovering problem gambler Peter Shilton, will also join the council, with Suhayl Patel, who works for Beacon Counselling Trust, and Jas Bindarh.
A final member who chose to remain anonymous, was exposed to gambling during her childhood as various family members used to gamble.
GambleAware first announced plans to create a lived experience group in October 2020. In June of this year, it called for applicants to join the council.
