Month: January 2023

USI will provide event monitoring, market intelligence and fraud prevention for all of Elys’ growing US facing operations, including Nevada-based USBookmaking, which it acquired in 2021.

In the US, Elys’ focus is to provide end-to-end sportsbook services to business operators across the regulated market. The news of this partnership follows the recent announcement that Elys secured a licence in Ohio’s newly legal sports betting market.

USI’s integrity monitoring services from its proprietary dashboard to Elys Game Technology conducts analysis across dozens of data sets to identify any possible irregular sports wagering-related patterns. 

Michele Ciavarella, executive chairman of Elys, said the partnership will help the business detect suspicious betting.

“We are very pleased to be engaged with US Integrity as we prepare to expand throughout the North American regulated sports betting market in 2023,” he said. 

“We expect that our partnership with US Integrity could give us the ability to identify possible betting abnormalities in real time and enable potentially suspicious wagering activity to be identified immediately, creating a safe and engaging betting environment for our patrons as we implement our vision throughout the massive restaurant and bar market in the fast-evolving regulated US sports betting market”. 

USI’s co-founder and CEO Matthew Holt said Elys had shown commitment to a high standard of integrity.

“US Integrity is proud to partner with Elys Game Technology and assist them with integrity monitoring. US Integrity’s mission is to provide a conflict-free, best-in-class insights & compliance solutions to our clients,” Holt said.  

“We are looking forward to working with the exceptional team at Elys Game Technology and their expansion strategy throughout North America as the market continues to evolve. All of our partners are committed to the highest integrity standards, and Elys’ commitment is no exception.

“These types of partnerships help ensure sports betting integrity and strengthen the unique & proprietary anomaly-detection tools we have developed at US Integrity.” 

Under the terms of the deal, GiG’s will provide the operator with its player account management platform (PAM) for an initial term of five years, with options for renewal.

The gaming supplier has stated that the full contract is set to be signed in Q1 2023, with an estimated launch date of Q1 2024.

“Partnering with an established and well regarded retail partner in the Swiss market has long been a goal of ours, and this opportunity will allow us to showcase our market leading technology in another highly regulated but growing market,” said GiG CEO Richard Brown.

The agreement will see GiG’s entry into the country’s gaming market. Due to country’s chosen “ring-fenced” regulatory model, only existing operators of land-based casinos in Swtizerland may receive licences.

Swiss market

In 2018, Swiss voters approved the country’s Gaming Act, which created the provisions of the Swiss regulated market. Following the market launch on 1 January 2019, foreign operators were banned and the offering of online casino games was limited to domestic land-based casino businesses.

There are currently 11 online casinos licensed by the Swiss Federal Gaming Board. According to H2 Gambling Data, Swiss gross gambling revenue (GGR) is projected to grow to €400m (£354m/ $430m) by 2024.

Board shakeup

GiG has also announced that the company’s board of directors is to change following the resignation of Michael Ahearne.

Ahearne – who is CEO of SkyCity Entertainment Group – joined the board on 1 April 2022 following the company becoming a GiG shareholder in connection with the supplier’s acquisition of Sportnco Gaming SAS.

SkyCity remains represented in GiG’s nomination committee and will be involved in the proposals for board composition that will occur at the annual meeting of shareholders in May.

“Ahearne has closely followed the development of GiG during this period and is pleased with GiG’s operations and the Company’s position within the igaming industry,” GiG said.

“As SkyCity’s Chief Executive Officer, Ahearne will now focus on his commitments to SkyCity in New Zealand and Australia,” the provider continued.  

“The board of directors thanks Michael for his contribution to the company.”

DoubleDown chief executive In Keuk Kim said the SuprNation offering complements the existing DoubleDown free-to-play business.

“We are pleased to announce the first acquisition since DoubleDown’s IPO that we believe complements our existing social casino franchise well and exposes DoubleDown to new growth markets,” Kim said. “The acquisition of SuprNation increases our presence in the European igaming market with other geographies expected to be added over time. 

“Their gaming titles and captivating gamification features have created a loyal customer base that we aim to grow while capturing synergy opportunities, including incorporating our deep online gaming experience. 

Further DoubleDown acquisitions

After announcing DoubleDown’s Q2 financial results, Kim said the business was evaluating M&A opportunities “outside of social casino”. Upon announcing the SuprNation deal, he added that DoubleDown will continue to look for possible acquisitions.

“As we evaluate inorganic growth opportunities, we will continue to focus on gaming businesses that offer clear synergies with our existing strengths.”

SuprNation expansion

SuprNation owns the VoodooDreams, NYSpinz and Duelz brands, and is licensed in Malta, Sweden, the Isle of Man and Great Britain.

Joakim Stockman and Henric Andersson, co-chief executive officers of SuprNation, said the business is set to expand more rapidly as part of a larger group.

“We are extremely excited to become a part of DoubleDown and are looking forward to leveraging the obvious strengths of both companies in the years to come,” he said. 

“As part of DoubleDown, we expect to accelerate our expansion and grow our real money gaming foothold through continued development of unique products and efficient marketing strategies.”

The all-cash deal is set to close in Q2 of this year.

NeoGames and Pollard Banknote have been running NPI as an online lottery solutions provider joint venture for a number of years, though the new deal and subsequent amendment to the parties’ Michigan Joint Venture Agreement will formalise this arrangement.

The agreements seek to reinforce the long-term approach aimed to ensure the continued success of NPI and the operations of its customers across a host of markets and jurisdictions.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Under the agreement, Everi will provide its Everi Compliance anti-money laundering software to support the BCLC’s gaming and online operations. This will cover the BCLC’s lottery, casino, bingo and online gaming activities.

Everi Compliance is currently deployed in more than 600 gaming properties across a range of markets.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Senate Bill 1142 – introduced by Democratic state senator Jeremy McPike – would amend the existing code of Virginia definition of adjusted gross revenue. Under current law, “adjusted gross revenue” means gross revenue minus four specified deductions.

The proposed amendment would change the first deduction which allows for allows for operators to deduct all bonuses and promotions from gross revenue. It would seek to impose a cap on the amount that can be claimed beginning at 2.5% of the total wagered by the player in 2023/4, lowering to 1.75% by 2026.

This would have the effect of potentially raising the tax burden on sports betting operators in Virginia, since it is adjusted gross revenue, not gross revenue which is subject to the state’s 15% gaming tax.

[Read full story on iGB North America]

Downey moved into the new role earlier this month, having spent more than 12 years with the Sky-branded betting and gaming business.

He was most recently director of commercial and content for gaming at Sky Betting and Gaming, while he also spent nearly seven years as the head of casino and games for the Sky Vegas brand.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Revenue for the 12 months to December 31, 2022, was $1.28bn, down 1.4% from $1.29bn in the previous year. Slots were responsible for $983.7m of total revenue, representing 77% of the market, then table games with $273.3m (21%) and sports betting at $18.8m (2%).

Analysing the performance by market sector, combined slots and table games revenue fell by 0.8% year-on-year to $1.26bn.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

The acquisition will allow Lion Gaming Group to broaden its content portfolio, which currently includes white-label and turnkey online casino software, lottery software and game aggregator solutions.

“As Lion Gaming Group continues to explore the ways we can enhance our product offering, we’re very excited to add 1Click Games to our portfolio of companies,” said Duncan McIntyre, president and CEO of Lion Gaming Group. “This acquisition instantly brings more than 40 online casino brands directly into our portfolio and further adds to our talented team.”

Maksims Terehovics, CEO at 1Click Games, said that the acquisition will result in a unique offering for the market, as well as giving 1Click Gaming the opportunity to expand in the industry.

“We are excited that our company has joined the Lion Gaming Group family,” said Maksims. “This partnership brings together the strengths of both companies and creates a unique advantage in our global expansion efforts.”

“This partnership allows us to achieve even greater success in the gaming industry. We look forward to working with the Lion Gaming Group team to bring our customers the fullest possible gaming experience.”

In a speech to Danish regulator Spillemyndigheden, Gardner shared the Gambling Commission’s view of the state of the gambling sector 17 years on from the 2005 Gambling Act.

Gardner addressed the issue of the illegal sector, arguing that it will continue to evolve and be difficult to eliminate – and therefore called for efforts to disrupt these sites to be “further upstream”.

The Commission has in the past repeated this same argument that the unlawful sector does not represent a major danger to the UK. In a December 2021 speech, GC chief executive Andrew Rhodes said that the black market was “nowhere near” enough of a threat to deter the regulator from taking strong action when needed.

Gardner noted her familiarity with arguments that the black market was likely to increase in size if certain measures were introduced in the regulated market.

“There is an argument, sometimes made in Great Britain, that just because there are illegal sites and unregulated gambling – with no protections and bad outcomes for consumers – we should scale back or stop some of the interventions we think we need to make in the regulated market to mitigate against the risk of consumers jumping from regulated gambling into unregulated gambling,” she said.

“I cannot accept this argument. Indeed, I believe that no regulator should knowingly allow bad practices of the type we are talking about here, practices which can cause harm, to carry on in the regulated market.”

Novel products

A major theme of Gardner’s speech was that innovation in industry meant that regulators were required to keep up in order to maintain effective regulation. This was of particular relevance in new categories of products that were difficult to classify.  

“Innovation is… leading to experimentation, promotion and use of emerging products such as non-fungible tokens – or NFTs – ‘synthetic shares’ and crypto currency,” she said.

While Gardner did not recommend any specific action, she stated that regulatory bodies need to be on high alert.

“These are products that we think gambling regulators need to be keeping watch on,” she said. “They are becoming increasingly widespread and through them, what products can be defined and regulated as gambling is becoming increasingly blurred depending on each jurisdiction’s rules.”

Gardner said that the Commission was watching and whilst these products were often beyond its remit – it would have “questions” for any operator taking risks in this space.