Month: January 2023

According to a recent study by Sentio, carried out on behalf of Lotteritilsynet, eight out of 10 banks in Norway have routines in place to contact customers when transactions are made to and from illegal operators.

This, Lotteritilsynet said, was an increase from six out 10 banks that had such systems in place when the last study took place in 2020.

The survey also found that almost seven out of 10 banks inform their customers about the consequences they may face by interacting with unlicensed sites, although only one in four banks offered general information about problem gambling.

In addition, of those banks featured in the report, two out of three said gambling problems were rarely or occasionally a topic in loan meetings with customers.

“Our experience is that customers change their playing patterns when the banks see them and inform them,” Lotteritilsynet lawyer Silje Sægrov Amble said. “Either they stop playing altogether or they stick to legal gambling sites under public control.

“We believe that problem gambling should become part of the compulsory training in the bank, and we are happy to help with information. Problems with gambling are a public health problem, and the banks can contribute to helping people who have these problems.”

Kindred Lotteritilsynet dispute

Lotteritilsynet was engaged in a protracted dispute last year with Unibet operator Kindred, over whether the operator was targeting the country.

In September Lotteritilsynet warned Kindred that it would impose a fine of NOK1.198m (£98,902/€113,930/$116,930) for every day the operator did not withdraw from Norway, after it previously warned it would issue fines if the operator failed to exit the market.

The daily fine was due to come into effect three weeks after the day Lotteritilsynet decided to implement the fine. That decision came on 14 September.

In October, though, Lotteritilsynet announced the daily fines would cease after the operator said it would no longer target consumers in Norway. At the time it noted that it took these steps merely as a show of goodwill and said it was confident its previous position was still correct.

However, in November, Lotteritilsynet restarted the fines after determining that Kindred still targeted Norway.

Last month, the regulator once again reversed its position, and said it will again postpone the fines.

The 51,466 square metres of net space exceeds the previous high of 49,690 set at 2020’s show. In total, ICE will occupy 41 halls of the ExCeL London, with the business’ sister show iGB Affiliate London taking up the remaining three halls.

“ICE London and sister show iGB Affiliate London will be occupying the entirety of ExCeL,” said Clarion Gaming managing director Stuart Hunter.

“That means all of the north and south side exhibition halls, every meeting room and all of the International Conference Centre at ExCeL which will host ICE VOX, the World Regulatory Briefing and the International Casino Conference. In very simple terms, there’s not a square millimetre of space left.”

In addition to connecting the industry’s major brands, Clarion Gaming’s Pitch ICE programme offers 14 start-ups the opportunity to showcase their work in front of investors and visitors attending the show.

Pitch ICE

Successful Pitch ICE applicants receive a free-of-charge pod on the Pitch ICE Pavilion for the duration of the event, as well as having the opportunity to take to the ICE stage and pitch to investors.

Clarion has not hosted a full-sized ICE London show since before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in February 2020. Continued concerns about the virus led to the cancellation of the 2021 show and a smaller edition in 2022.

Hunter outlined his view of the significance of the show.

“ICE is vital to the global business. More so because the industry has waited three years for its return,” Hunter said.

“As a consequence, the eyes of the gaming world will be focused on what many industry commentators are now referring to as World Gaming Week a description based on the volume and variety of high-level meetings, sector-leading conferences, content masterclasses and networking that takes place over the period that the global industry meets and comes together in London.”

To register for ICE London 2023, click here

Starburst finishes the year at the top while the likes of Book Of/Legacy Of Dead (Play’n GO), Bonanza (Big Time Gaming), Gonzo’s Quest and the Fruit Shop (NetEnt), Piggy and Dynamite Riches (Red Tiger) plus the 9 Masks/Pots family (Games Global) have all been holding their ground.

But there’s no denying it has been another successful year for Pragmatic Play which once again holds around 50% of the top spots at year-end, and half of these are part of the Big Bass family. Its latest release Bigger Bass Blizzard Christmas Catch (Pragmatic Play) joined Gold Blitz (Fortune Factory Studios) as the only new entries this month.

Look out for our full review of the world of casino games in 2022, including game production, game performance, market share changes and of course game feature trends – all to be published end of January on iGB.

In the meantime, let’s turn to the much-awaited Christmas charts.

Operators had less than a week to swap out their World Cup games for Christmas crackers. The extra seasonal event was a headache for the studios too, many of which were scrambling to launch tailored games, albeit some repackaged as “Slot ABC: Football Edition” then “Slot ABC: Xmas Edition”.

It probably felt a bit rushed this year but some were up to the task. So, which Christmas slot had the widest distribution? Which studio made the most Christmas titles? Do Christmas ‘editions’ of existing games work as well as brand new Christmas titles and what insights into the life of seasonal titles can we glean this year?

Top 20 games by distribution

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If we were to give our main charts a Christmas overlay, five groups – Pragmatic Play, Evolution Gaming, Play’n Go, Games Global and Inspired Entertainment – would dominate the top 20 spots (and Pragmatic actually the top 5).

However, to ensure variety and also in keeping with our Halloween and Christmas leaderboards from last year, we limit our official Christmas charts to the single best performer from each studio.

Games are ranked according to their distribution across the casino pages of more than 2,000 operators.

Topping the table this year is the new Christmas Blizzard variation of Big Bass Bonanza and, whilst not appearing on our charts due to the one title rule, last year’s number one Christmas Big Bass Bonanza would have been in second place. But it’s still fish two, Santa nil this year as another fishy sequel from Gameburger Studios reeled in second place.

Game (Studio)PositionBigger Bass Blizzard Christmas Catch (Pragmatic Play)1Fishin’ Christmas Pots Of Gold (Gameburger Studios)2Jingle Spin (NetEnt)3Moon Princess Christmas Kingdom (Play’n GO)4Piles Of Presents (Just For The Win)5Big Santa Fortune (Inspired Entertainment)69 Gifts Of Christmas Epic Strike (Aurum Signature Studios)7Jingle Ways Megaways (Red Tiger)8Christmas Bonanza (Big Time Gaming)9Fiona’s Christmas Fortune (Gold Coin Studios)10Slingo Bells (Slingo Originals)11Buffalo Power Christmas (Playson)12Christmas Plaza Doublemax (Yggdrasil)13Santa’s Big Bash Megaways (Iron Dog Studio)14Saint Nicked (Lucksome)15Sleighin’ It (Betsoft Gaming)16Christmas Krampus (Light & Wonder)18

Good to see some fresh names in the chart, not least Gauselmann’s new studio Lucksome and Games Global’s Gold Coin Studios.

Focusing just on those titles released this year, our second Christmas chart below shows the best new performers, again limited to one title per studio.

Game (Studio) launched in 2022PositionBigger Bass Blizzard Christmas Catch (Pragmatic Play)1Fishin’ Christmas Pots Of Gold (Gameburger Studios)2Wonder Of Christmas (NetEnt)3Piles Of Presents (Just For The Win)4Big Santa Fortune (Inspired Entertainment)59 Gifts Of Christmas Epic Strike (Aurum Signature Studios)6Santa Spins (Red Tiger)7Christmas Bonanza (Big Time Gaming)8Fiona’s Christmas Fortune (Gold Coin Studios)9Naughty Nick’s Book (Play’n GO)10Christmas Plaza Doublemax (Yggdrasil)11Saint Nicked (Lucksome)12Sleighin’ It (Betsoft Gaming)13Christmas Krampus (Light & Wonder)14Xmas Secret (Synot Games)15Wins Of Winter (Fantasma Games)16Down The Chimney (Indigo Magic)17Million Christmas (Red Rake Gaming)18Cash Truck Xmas Delivery (Quickspin)19A Winter’s Tale (Blue Guru Games)20

The top two new releases are also those that made the top two spots in our main Christmas chart earlier, suggesting that new titles (whilst costing more) do work better than those resurrected from previous years. But the back catalogue still rolls out nicely: two-thirds of all Christmas games in the top 100, for example, were launched before 2022.

Again, it’s great to see some new names here too: Synot Games, Fantasma Games, Indigo Magic, and Blue Guru Games all had Christmas releases that performed well.

Overall, we considered 423 Christmas titles, of which 111 were launched this year. It looks like a bumper festival in fact, compared with the 98 releases in 2021. However, a couple of studios that took a ‘Christmas edition’ approach certainly bumped up those bumper numbers.

The most prolific developer of Christmas slots of all time has been Spinomenal. They not only launch many new seasonal titles each year but also revamp existing games with Christmas (and other seasonal) variations. Games Global is always well represented with their seasonal games sourced from several in-house studios, whilst Playtech, normally fairly prolific, was a bit quiet this year, other than their Cash Truck Xmas Delivery (Quickspin).

Studio GroupTotal no. of Christmas titlesSpinomenal45Games Global21Playtech15Fazi15Evolution Gaming13Wazdan13Proprietary12Inspired Entertainment11RTG10Novomatic10Pragmatic Play10Light & Wonder10Betsoft Gaming9Play’n GO8IGT7NeoGames7Spinmatic7Evoplay6Skywind Group6G5

Wazdan often likes to release a handful of Christmas editions and they were joined by Fazi for the first time this year, who launched a massive 15 Christmas variations of their portfolio. It’s easy to get a bit snooty about the value of new titles versus Christmas editions of existing games but a few considerations here…

Most of the biggest Christmas titles over the last couple of years have been ‘editions’ in all but name. A Bigger Bass Blizzard Christmas or a Fishin’ Pots of Gold Christmas game is, after all, a very close sequel to an existing title. Regardless of title, players seem to like spruced-up versions of something they’re familiar with and operators are always keen to refresh the seasonal or new sections of their site.

Overall, new editions perform only slightly worse than new titles but, as with many issues relating to game design and distribution, the devil is often in the detail. There are always exceptions and you really need to filter by country, by studio, by operator group, by site, by page type or even by position on page to get the full picture of what works best.

No surprise that a game called Christmas Bonanza by Big Time Gaming performed well and Belatra Games launched the Christmas Jackpot. Reindeer Rampage (Spinomenal) promised a bit more than it delivered but Naughty Nick’s Book (Play’n GO) offered us a taste of ‘Rude Olf’ mischief: clearly a cracker joke challenge has been thrown down to all. Puntastic stuff!

Biggest studio dealmakers

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On the deals front, there’s change at the top. Lady Luck Games has sealed two more distribution deals taking it to the busiest studio dealmaker in recent months. Meanwhile, Relax Gaming’s aggregator arm was plugging in yet more content, such as the Air Dice portfolio, meaning that they now share the top spot as the busiest aggregator over the last 6 months.

A belated happy New Year to all and look out for our 2022 casino review in the coming days!

Biggest aggregator dealmakers

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*Please note these are live charts that update every month so please ensure the month of December 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 2,200 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 44,000 games, 1,300 suppliers and 2,200+ 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.

Financial details of the arrangement were not disclosed, but SkillOnNet said the investment would allow Peter & Sons to grow its team and accelerate its journey towards becoming a fully independent studio, as well as allow it to create new tools for operators.

Peter & Sons which has offices in Spain and Armenia, has already produced more than 20 games, while the studio is also part of the ‘Silver Bullet’ partnership with both Relax Gaming and Yggdrasil Gaming’s Masters programme.

SkillOnNet is the business behind brands such as PlayOJO, DrückGlück and Genting Casino, while it also supplies software and turnkey products to brands including Slotstars, Mega Casino, Spin Genie and Metal Casino.

“Our new partnership will allow P&S to extend its reach and allow tier 1 operators to enjoy the studio’s best-performing games, such as Johnan Legendarian, MonsterBlox  and The Legend of Musashi,” SkillOnNet’s senior vice president of corporate development Maor Nutkevitch said.

“We’re delighted to be working with such a rising star within the game studio community.”

Peter & Sons co-founder Mitri Wiberg added: “This joint venture will allow us to speed-up our growth and extend our fantastic and innovative games to industry-leading operators and their players.

“We are delighted to be working with SkillOnNet, whose status as a major global operator will help us to enhance the reach of our quality games to an even wider audience.”

After rising financial problems, Genesis Global announced on 23 December that it was going to be wound up and that all of its staff would be laid off.

In a letter to all staff, it added that “the company may not be able to pay all or any of the dues that are due to you in terms of law”. This, it said, included December salaries as well as notice pay.

With the business now being wound up, the Malta Gaming Authority said it had breached Malta’s gambling regulations, which state that an operator that is “bankrupt, insolvent or is being wound up” may not hold a licence.

“The Authorised Person is thus no longer authorised to carry out any gaming operations, register new players or accept new customer deposits, and must continue collaborating with the Authority,” the MGA said.

The collapse of Genesis Global came soon after chief executive Ariel Reem departed as the business announced its exit from the UK gambling market.

Reem did not disclose the reasons for his departure at the time.

Genesis Global previously had its UK licence suspended in 2020, though it was later reinstated.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was confirmed that the Greentube Austria arm of Greentube will hold a majority stake int the Malta-based business.

Greentube said the acquisition will significantly strengthen its own B2B offering by giving it control of the Alteatec Olympus One igaming management system and platform technology, which includes bonus engines, duel tournaments and other gamification tools.

In addition, Greentube said that it will use Alteatec’s key live dealer streaming and voiceover technology to improve its content portfolio. This will include combining Alteatec technology with its Novo Unity electronic table games offering.  

Alteatec has made a major splash since the launch of nationwide regulated slots and poker in Germany. The supply provides it platform to brands owned by both Novomatic and Gauselmann Group, which dominated the early list of licensees.

As part of the acquisition, Greentube chief executive Thomas Graf and chief operating officer Georg Gubo will become managing directors of Alteatec, alongside current MD Christian Sael. 

“I am delighted to start 2023 in such momentous fashion,” Graf said. “Alteatec is a market-leader in igaming technology and being able to utilise its talented and experienced team is going to be game changing for Greentube going forward.”

Alteatec’s Sael added: “Greentube is a company that needs no introduction, so to become part of that storied brand truly is an honour. We’re all incredibly excited about this partnership and we can’t wait to get to work, delivering all the services we’re recognised for in order to help the company grow.”

The deal comes after Greentube in October also acquired San Francisco-based Present Creative for an undisclosed amount.

Present Creative has experience creating content for the igaming and ilottery segments, with experience in both real-money and casual gaming offerings, having had a number of its products approved to be released by the Michigan State Lottery.

The Gambling Commission said an investigation conducted in 2020 and 2021 uncovered “significant weaknesses” in the operator’s processes in relation to its anti-money laundering and safer gambling practices.

Vbet will make the payment in lieu of a penalty package with the money being directed to socially responsible causes.

Of the total, £302,500 will be allocated to National Gambling Strategy projects to pay for research and treatment of problem gambling. £35,131 will be also voluntarily divested, and £15,606.50 will go towards the Commission’s investigation costs.   

Vbet AML failures

The Gambling Commission determined there to be a number of deficiencies in Vbet’s policies and processes when it came to to anti-money laundering (AML) practices.

Not only were customers able to deposit significant amounts of money before “know your customer” checks kicked in, but the business also did not provide sufficient guidance within its policies regarding how employees should verify sources of funds, as well as what supporting documents should be requested.   

The regulator also said that – based on the degree of customer spend – AML trigger levels were too high, and were “were therefore not appropriate to effectively manage associated ML risk”.

The Gambling Commission outlined specific examples illustrating this in action. In the span of two months, one customer was able to deposit £14,850 “with insufficient SOF being established.” While Vbet had triggers in place for checks, it said that most of these were set too high, and that the checks that did occur were not enough.

“It is the Commission’s view that whilst some checks were conducted, these were not sufficient until the customer had met the ‘very high AML threshold’ set by the licensee,” the regulator said.

Recycled winnings

It continued by noting that “Vivaro were overreliant on the customer’s net gambling position,” having allowed customers to pass checks based on past gambling winnings.

The GC also pointed to another case were a customer provided a bank statement that listed a balance of over £270,000 which the customer claimed originated from winnings from a separate betting site.

The regulator said the company “failed to sufficiently consider the risks associated with recycled winnings,” taking particular aim at the operator’s failure to conduct additional checks confirming the origin of the funds that had been used to gamble.

“Customers could be misappropriating funds and re-depositing fresh criminal spend,” the Gambling Commission said.

Additionally, the Gambling Commission noted the licensee’s failure to consider the risks stemming from gambling based on money that had originated from cryptocurrency trading. The Commission considers that cryptocurrency as a “high-risk” product.

Despite these failures in processes, the Commission said its review of the specific customers identified during the Compliance assessment “found no evidence of criminal spend with the licensee”.

Social responsibility

Vbet was also found to have committed a number of social responsibility failings.

The company did not have sufficient controls in place to protect new customers, the regulator said, and did not properly take into account high velocity spend and duration of play. In one case, a player deposited and lost £4,000 within a four-day period.

The regulator determined that there was a poor level of record keeping, as well as no evaluation of customer use of responsible gaming tools. The operator also failed to review high levels of spend compared to income.

“One customer with a salary of £5,000 a month, was able to deposit £20,000 between 9 September 2020 and 5 February 2021- this amounted to circa 80% of the customer’s salary and the Licensee did not sufficiently review this level of spend,” the Gambling Commission said.

Vbet Swedish licence

In September 2021, the Swedish regulator Spelinspektionen decided to revoke Vivaro’s licence after it had not begun operating after a year of receiving its licence.

The operator cited staffing issues associated with the Covid-19 pandemic as a reason of its delay, as well conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where the company was based, which led to 50 staff being called up to serve in the Armenian armed forces.

This decision was reversed the next month by the country’s Administrative Court, following a successful appeal by the business.

Zajdel has worked in the gaming market for more than 15 years, most recently as the group chief operating officer for Fortuna Entertainment Group.

Prior to this, Zajdel spent time as chief digital officer at Intralot following over five years with Ladbrokes Coral, where he served as director of commercial operations, managing director of digital and omni-channel director.

Zajdel’s other industry roles included key account manager and vice president of business operations of turnkey services at Playtech, as well as both affiliate manager and program manager at Partygaming.

“Buff has an innovative product, inspiring founders, a skilled and passionate team and exceptional potential whilst the benefits to broadcasters, sports and viewers are proven,” Zajdel said. “Their real-time fan engagement experience is genuinely innovative, hugely enhancing engagement and monetisation opportunities for content partners.

“Starting straight away, I look forward to working closely with founders Benn and Jonty, the Board of Buff and the whole team, adding my experience from the betting and gaming sector and contributing to product evolution, revenue generation and operational excellence.”

The appointment comes after Buff in August of last year completed its most recent round of seed funding, during which it secured an additional $2.5m in new investment. The business launched in 2019 and has worked with a host of clients in sports broadcasting. 

Buff founder and president Jonty Whitehead added: “We’ve known Nick for a number of years and it’s exciting that we’ll now be working with him inside Buff, as a Partner in our leadership team and as an investor, helping to drive the next stage of our growth.

“He’s taken a keen, long-term interest in the development of our products, followed our journey and clearly likes what he’s seen. We also love what he can bring to this rapidly growing business.

“Buff’s expertise across broadcast and digital engagement is well-known and Nick will add further to our commercial and operational capabilities through his extensive experience in building partnerships, understanding of data, ability to create valuable transactions and knowledge of fuelling both B2B and B2C relationships.”

The project will focus on FDJ’s ParionsSport online and retail sports betting brand, which is a premium partner of PSG, to promote responsible sports betting and discourage underage gambling in France.

The joint campaign, the first of its kind between football club and a sports betting operator in France, will run on television and across social media, with two short films to feature a number of PSG stars.

Players due to appear in the campaign include Gianluigi Donnarumma, Hugo Ekitike, Kylian Mbappé, Nordi Mukiele, Neymar Jr, Danilo Pereira, Sergio Ramos, Renato Sanches and Vitinha.

“We are pleased that our collaboration with Paris Saint-Germain has enabled us today to jointly propose an awareness campaign on a fundamental subject for ParionsSport and the group. FDJ, at the heart of our responsible gaming model,” FDJ director sports betting and poker Richard Courtois said.

“Sports betting must remain a recreational activity and only intended for adults. We want this message, carried by FDJ for many years and today with Paris Saint-Germain, to have a strong resonance with as many people as possible.”

PSG’s director of sponsorship Cynthia Marcou added: “A new generation club, Paris Saint-Germain is particularly sensitive to ethical issues and in particular the prevention of risks in sports betting. 

“We are happy, with ParionsSport, to promote a healthy and responsible practice. We hope this campaign reaches club lovers and beyond, to make a real difference.”

Under the deal, Duelbits will serve as title sponsor of three UK-based WST events: the World Grand Prix, which began yesterday and runs until 20 January, the Players Championship, taking place from 20-26 February, and the Tour Championship from 27 March to 2 April.

The top 16 players in the World Grand Prix will progress to the Players Championship next month, while only the top eight players will go on to compete in the Tour Championship.

Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump, Mark Selby, Neil Robertson, Mark Allen, Mark Williams and Shaun Murphy are among the players due to take part in the series.

“This series of events is unique because the players qualify through their performances during the season, so the players on form are rewarded and we are sure to see snooker of the highest quality,” WST chairman Steve Dawson said.

“Our sport has a massive global audience, including tremendous viewing figures to a free-to-air UK fanbase on ITV. Duelbits have recognised this opportunity to grow their brand and join our journey as we continue to grow worldwide. We look forward to working with them through this series.”

Duelbits’ head of sportsbook Ross Haffie added: “As Steve mentions, this Series rewards the best 32 players throughout the season, and we see this as an ideal opportunity to grow our audience with one of the most prestigious brands in worldwide sport.”

The deal comes after Duelbits in August last year also struck up a partnership with English Premier League football club Aston Villa. Duelbits is serving as the team’s official European betting partner for the 2022-23 season.