Month: January 2023

The operator said it delivered against a number of key strategic initiatives in 2022, which in turn led to net revenue reaching $1.44bn, based on estimated figures published in a trading update. This, BetMGM said, was ahead of guidance for the year of $1.30bn.

While BetMGM also forecast an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) loss for the year of approximately $440.0m, this would be in line with its prior guidance and the operator expects to be EBTIDA-positive by H2 of 2023.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Spillemyndigheden, the Danish gambling authority, said total gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the year to 31 December 2022 came to DKK6.70bn ($991.4m/€910.1m/£799.8m), which was up 7.5% on the DKK6.23bn recorded in the previous year.

Online casino was the largest segment, comprising DKK2.88bn, which was up 2.1% on the 2021 figure. The segment was worth DKK272.3m in December, which was the largest amount since records began in 2012, and up 3.4% on December 2021.

The second largest segment, sports betting, was down 3.6% to DKK2.32bn despite the FIFA World Cup taking place during the year. December’s GGR figure of DKK135.5bn was the lowest return since October 2021 and down 35.0% on December 2021.

Slot machines generated DKK1.15bn in 2022, which was up considerably on the Covid-impacted 2021. Some DKK99.2m was taken in December 2022, up 44.5% on the same month in 2021.

Land-based casino also saw big gains in 2022, with DKK349.2m up 59.3% on 2021. The December figure of DKK34.2m was more than double the DKK14.7m reported in the same month in 2021.

“If you compare gaming consumption in December 2022 with the same period in 2021, the figures show large percentage changes from 2021 to 2022,” read a statement from Spillemyndigheden. “This is due, among other things, to the fact that physical casinos and gaming halls were closed in December 2021 due to Covid-19.”

Last month, Spillemyndigheden launched a revamped version of the country’s Register of Voluntarily Excluded Players (Rofus).

This means that a total of 341,365 people are now self-excluding from participating in online gambling activities with the platform.

In July, Gamstop announced that it had reached 300,000 users. The organisation also launched a campaign promoting self-exclusion in December.

Gamstop said that of new users in the last six months, 30% have been women, and 48% have chosen to exclude themselves for five years – the longest possible timeframe. This compares with 24% of users who decided to self-exclude for a year.

Gamstop users continue to be registered by the platform when their exclusion expires, unless they request to be removed.

While Gamstop CEO Fiona Palmer did not single out a single factor that contributed to the rise in registrations, the former Sky Betting and Gaming head of compliance said that it was “likely” that the economic climate and cost of living crisis are influencing the decisions people are making about their lifestyle.

“In 2022 we saw more than 80,000 new registrations, which is a positive step towards supporting even more people,” she said.  

“However, as we see an increase in the number of those with gambling problems, it’s important we continue to raise awareness amongst friends and family of those who most need it, and that we continue to work with bank blocking and other support services to provide a comprehensive solution”.

Seasonal variations

Gamstop reported that all age groups tended to use the scheme, with 40% of users typically in the 25-34 age bracket. This contrasts with around one quarter who were aged 35-44 and just below one fifth of individuals aged between 18-24.

Since the platform’s launch, seasonal variations in the data have been observed in the registration patterns, with the highest volumes typically occurring during the winter months.

This trend changed in 2022, with the highest number of registrations happening on a single day taking place on 1 July, with more than 371 people enrolling in the scheme.  

Scully advised on the timeline of the white paper at the Betting and Gaming Council’s annual general meeting earlier today (26 January), where he spoke of the need to balance both industrial and consumer interests.

The white paper has been delayed a number of times, including as a result of the changes in government in 2022.

But Scully hinted that the white paper could come sooner rather than later, saying: “we do want to have the white paper out in the next few weeks”.

iGB understands that Downing Street may step in to advise on revisions of the document if it is not happy with the contents, and that ministerial consultations have not yet begun.

The minister also warned that the publication of the white paper would not be the end of the process.

“I want to be clear though, that the white paper is not the final word on gambling reform,” he said. “It will be followed by consultations led by both DCMS and the Gambling Commission. I want the industry to stay engaged as policies are refined, finalised and implemented.”

“We are putting the finishing touches to our white paper, making the final decisions and preparing for publication. We’re a matter of weeks away from you all seeing it, and then we can start the process of nailing down details and implementing reforms.”

The role of the gambling industry

While Scully took note of the significant benefits to the UK economy and treasury that the gambling sector brought, he said that part of making sure the sector flourishes is ensuring that regulations are effective in protecting people from harm.

“There are, to be blunt, still too many failings happening,” said the minister. “Some customers continue to slip through protections and are allowed or even encouraged to spend too much.”

“Some go on to suffer real and serious harm, including taking their own life in extreme cases.”

While Scully commended actions that the industry had taken to address the risks, and applauded the efforts of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Gambling Commission in working to improve regulation, the minister noted that the Gambling Act review was a historic opportunity “to make sure we have the balance right”.

Financial risk checks

However, Scully said that it was not the job of the government to decide what a customer could or could not, afford, admidst a rise in industry conversation surrounding affordability checks.

“Let me be really clear here,” he said. “It is not the role of government to tell people how much of their salary they are ‘allowed to’ spend on gambling.”

Scully also suggested a change in language for affordability checks, proposing that the term be dropped in favour of “financial risk” checks.

“The Commission has already identified key areas of concern, for example particularly vulnerable customers who can be harmed by even quite small losses – perhaps they have been declared bankrupt,” he said. “Alongside that is high spending binge behaviour with the potential for lasting financial harm, and high sustained losses over a longer period of time.

“I also think ‘financial risk’ is a more appropriate term, as a consideration of financial circumstances can only ever reveal that one type of risk – financial.”

In May, we discussed the significant opportunity in crypto betting, which is growing gross gaming revenue (GGR) at 36.6% per annum.

Online crypto operators have a similar user experience to online fiat operators. The likes of Stake.com and Sportsbet.io already record extraordinary turnover.

White label platform solutions for crypto betting operators are leveraged to the growth of crypto wagering as a whole. This means they are not exposed to the operational and regulatory risk of a single crypto wagering business.

Existing wagering platforms

Many fiat operators rely on white label sportsbook and igaming platform solutions, such as Kambi, OpenBet and SBTech. 

However, our research concludes that many existing platforms have been built without all core internal needs across marketing, trading, operations, customer service and compliance.

Some lack customisation, while changes typically require further costly development. The customer profiling and risk configurations mean poor experiences for highly profitable players, and deeper losses to negative value customers. Some platforms are unable to keep up with customer demands or provide segmented customer experience.

All of the above existing platforms were founded over 12 years ago. Some continue to rely on legacy technology. Technical debt compounds over time and is a key challenge for platforms, as well as technology companies more broadly.

Crypto: The future of wagering platforms?

There is a significant opportunity to develop a new breed of wagering platforms that combine racing, sports and gaming with both crypto and fiat payment capabilities. Key core platform capabilities are summarised below:

Key points of difference for the next generation of wagering platforms. Source: Waterhouse VC.

We are seeing opportunities emerging to invest in the next generation of wagering platforms. These leverage new technology and embed modern third party integrations. Such platforms integrate crypto at the technology layer rather than as an afterthought.

Considering the continued growth of crypto betting globally as well as all online wagering in the US, we are very excited by the possible opportunities. A key element of our approach will be to identify management teams, with significant experience in the direct build and operation of successful platforms in competitive markets.

The figure included voluntary donations from the markets and additional donations, though the charity noted that no income was received from regulatory settlements in the financial year to date. The total was lower than £16.0m in the first three quarters of 2021-22.

Ladbrokes Coral was the biggest contributor in the nine-month period, donating a total of £7.0m to the charity.

Hillside, operating as Bet365, made three separate pledges of £2.4m, £1.7m and £907,000, taking its overall donation in the three quarters to over £5.0m.

Other stand-out contributors during the period included Petfre, trading as Betfred, which donated £92,541, while a further £50,000 came from its Done Brothers UK-facing arm.

Star Racing pledged £82,172, GAN’s UK business donated £71,540 and Virgin Bet sent over a donation of £68,157.

In addition, Casumo committed to a pledge of £62,378, Betway £43,400, InTouch £42,300, Videoslots £40,000 and City Gaming £36,378.

All those who profit from gambling are asked to donate a minimum of 0.1% of annual gross gambling yield (GGY) each year, and those with an annual GGY of less than £250,000 are asked to donate a minimum of £250.

Operators have until 31 March 2023 – the end of GambleAware’s 2022-23 financial year – to make a donation to the charity.

“All funds donated to GambleAware go towards activity which is delivered against the charity’s commissioning objectives,” GambleAware said. “As part of our commitment to transparency and accountability, we recently published our commissioning intentions which set out our strategic commissioning approach for the National Gambling Treatment Service moving forward. 

“These commissioning intentions support the delivery of our Organisational Strategy and are based on a robust understanding of population needs and the outcomes we need to achieve, to ensure the most cost-effective and impactful use of our resources.”

ITG, which operates 11 websites in Britain including Bonusboss.co.uk, Drslot.co.uk, Cashmo.co.uk and Slotfactory.co,uk, failed a compliance assessment in March 2022 and the Commission took action as a result.

Among the social responsibility failures identified by the regulator were ITG not interacting with a customer until seven weeks after they had been flagged for interaction for erratic play patterns and extended periods of play.

ITG was also found to have accepted a customer’s word that they earned £6,000 a month without verifying this information after the player’s account was flagged due to customer spend and gambling during unsociable hours.

In terms of anti-money laundering failures, the Commission said these included ITG not adequately taking account of the risk of a customer being a beneficiary of a life insurance policy, having links to high-risk jurisdictions, or being a politically exposed person (PEP), family member of a PEP or known close associates of a PEP, within its money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment.

The regulator also flagged how ITG did not have policies, procedures and controls in place to address key risk factors, nor did the operator sufficiently consider the Commission’s money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment or its guidance.

Other anti-money laundering failures included ITG not ensuring its policies, procedures and controls were implemented effectively. An example of this was ITG not following its own policy to request source of funds information from customers who had deposited and lost £10,000 in a 12-month period.

In terms of specific breaches, the Commission said ITG breached Licence condition 12.1.1 paragraphs 1, 2 and 3, in relation to anti-money laundering and the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.

ITG was also found in breach of Social Responsibility Code Provision (SRCP) 3.4.1 Customer Interaction – paragraphs 1b, 1c and 2. Failure to comply with an SRCP, the regulator said, is a breach of a licence condition of by virtue of section 82(1) of the Gambling Act 2005.

As such, the Commission decided to impose a financial penalty of £6.1m under section 121(1) of the Act.

This was the third time ITG faced regulatory action; in 2019 the operator paid a settlement of £2.2m for regulatory failures, while in 2021 it received a £3.4m fine and warning for further failures.

“Considering this operator’s history of failings, we expected to see significant improvement when we carried out our planned compliance assessment,” the Commission’s executive director of operations Kay Roberts said. “Disappointingly, although many improvements had been made, there was still more to do.

“This £6.1m fine shows that we will take escalating enforcement action where failures are repeated, and all licensees should be acutely aware of this.”

Maguire was handed the suspension in August last year after the FA alleged he placed a total of 52 bets on matches between March 2017 and February 2022. 

The FA said that this breached Rule E8 on betting, which bans any player, match official and coaches from level eight in the English football pyramid and upwards from placing bets on games anywhere in the world. 

Any covered person found to have breached this rule face a fine, suspension or ban from the sport.

In its written reasons for the suspension, published in November, the FA independent Regulatory Commission said the issue was flagged by staff at a Ladbrokes retail shop in Lincoln, where Maguire was based at the time playing for Lincoln City, and that he had visited the facility.

Staff said Maguire placed football bets at the shop on two occasions, with one wager being on his club at the time – Lincoln City – to win a certain game during the 2021-22 season. In total, Maguire was found to have placed six bets at the shop.

The FA also contacted all registered betting operators in Great Britain and was made aware that Maguire had accounts with SkyBet, Unibet, Betfair and Boylesports.

Upon being interviewed in April last year, Maguire admitted to having only a SkyBet account he used for casual betting on other sports such as golf and horse racing. 

Maguire denied any knowledge of placing three alleged football bets during the 2016-17 season but did admit to betting £50 on football in March 2021, saying he placed the bet in error and cancelled and cashed out as soon as possible.

The FA withdrew all of the other alleged 52 breaches, concluding that Maguire had placed just 10 bets on football. The player, who also spent time with Derby County, Sheffield Wednesday, Oxford United and Rotherham United, was also issued a £750 fine.

Maguire partially denied the charges and requested a personal hearing, which took place earlier this month, where the FA Appeal Board again noted the reduction in bets.

However, the Appeal Board noted that Maguire still breached its betting rules and that the original independent Regulatory Commission fine and warning should remain in place. 

The Appeal Board also upheld the suspension, but as this was backdated to November last year, it was considered to have been served.

Maguire is currently without a club having left Lincoln by mutual consent in September.

December 2022 visitor numbers were significantly higher than 80,000 in the same month in the previous year, while Yield Sec, which carried out the research on behalf of the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), also reported a similar increase in November.

The report looked at certain major sporting events in 2022 including the World Cup, which took place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December, as well as major UK horse racing events the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot.

Overall, the number of visits to black market websites from Great Britain increased by 46% year-on-year in 2022, with approximately 148,000 customers accessing illicit sites each month.

Separate research from PwC found the number of customers using unlicensed betting sites more than doubled, from 210,000 in 2019 to 460,000 in 2020, and the money staked in the billions. 

“This research exposes the dire threat the growing unsafe, unregulated black market poses to punters,” BGC chief executive Michael Dugher said. “These unlicensed sites offer none of the safer gambling tools promoted by our members, they pay no tax and employ no one, they do not contribute a penny to sport or services tackling gambling harm, and they do nothing to protect vulnerable players.

“There has been too much complacency about the threat of the black market. Rather than dismissing the problem, the regulator and the Government need to tread extremely carefully and resist blanket, intrusive affordability checks at low levels that push even more punters to these dangerous sites.”

Focusing on World Cup activity, Yield Sec analysts found that online traffic to websites advertising services to problem gamblers who had self-excluded from UK operators increased nearly 83% during November and December.

In addition, visits to sites not signed up to the GamStop self-exclusion system – something that is required of all licensed operators – was up 82.7% year-on-year from 26.9% more unique customers in the final two months of the year. 

During the two-month period, over 64,500 vulnerable players searched for black market sites offering betting, which circumvents GamStop.

“While the regulated industry was going to great lengths to protect young people during the World Cup and adhering to strict regulations and promoting safer gambling, black market operators were preying on the vulnerable,” Dugher said.

“This data shows the World Cup drove a range of worrying gambling trends in the UK – not in the regulated sector as predicted by anti-gambling prohibitionists – but in the unsafe unregulated black market online.

“There has been too much complacency about the threat of the black market. Rather than dismissing the problem, the regulator and the Government need to tread extremely carefully and resist blanket, intrusive affordability checks at low levels that push even more punters to these dangerous sites.”

Meanwhile, further research found that the number of betting adverts shown on TV during the World Cup group stages fell by 34.0% compared to the World Cup in 2018. 

This, the BGC said, was primarily due to the voluntary “whistle-to-whistle” ban by BGC members, whereby TV betting commercials for regulated operators cannot be shown from five minutes before a match kicks off until five minutes after it ends, before the 9pm watershed.

Under the deal, Jumbo will continue to support the Australian-based charity through its Powered by Jumbo (PBJ) software program.

Jumbo said that the agreement also includes a scale-based, tiered licence fee structure that recognises the size and growth of Mater’s own lottery program.

“Mater was the first lottery operator to utilise the PBJ software platform and is one of the largest and fastest growing lottery programs in Australia,” Jumbo chief executive and founder Mike Veverka said. “The extension demonstrates the PBJ software platform is adding value and I am delighted that we can continue to help Mater grow and raise vital funds for health, research and education services across Queensland.”

Mater executive director Andrew Thomas added: “The adoption of the PBJ platform along with Jumbo’s digital lottery expertise and collaborative approach have helped transform our lottery program. 

“The extension of the agreement provides the foundation for strong and sustainable growth that will raise much needed funds for ground-breaking medical research, investment in world-leading clinical equipment, and developing our healthcare workforce.”

The extended deal comes after Jumbo in November last year completed its acquisition of UK external lottery manager and digital payments business StarVale Group.

Stride Management Corp, the Canadian subsidiary of Jumbo, also secured a gaming services provider licence in British Columbia in December.