Month: April 2023

The basketball, MMA, esports, table tennis and igaming content supplier said that it desires to have greater control over the distribution of its content among its network of operator partners.

Beter has enjoyed “incredible success” in recent months, it explained, and intends to strengthen its existing partnerships, as well as work with more tier-one brands globally.

“We have made the strategic decision to take more control over the distribution of our content,” said Beter CEO Gal Ehrlich. “This decision is not a reflection of the incredible work our partner has done on our behalf, but rather an opportunity to align our distribution strategies with our long-term goals.

“We are confident that by taking a more active role in the distribution of our content, we will be better positioned to deliver on our commitment to provide the best possible experience for our customers and their players.”

Previously, the provider worked with sports data giant Sportradar to distribute its basketball, table tennis and esports products. That deal will expire at the end of May.

Prior to this date, the company’s products, including matches conducted within the ESportsBattle and Setka Cup tournaments, will be available via Sportradar.

“I […] want to express my gratitude to the Sportradar team for the incredible collaboration and teamwork we have enjoyed over the past three years,” Ehrlich added. “Throughout our partnership, our focus has always been on providing the highest quality content to operators and ultimately players, and I can say with great pride that we have achieved this.”

Beter extends esports partnership

In February, Beter announced it would be extending its deal with Fortuna Entertainment Group (FEG) to supply the operator with its esports offering. Under the terms of the agreement, Beter will provide the operator with an esports odds feed and full coverage of esports events and tournaments.

“Working with leading operators gives us an excellent opportunity to continue driving the igaming industry with the best possible esports betting product,” said Beter esports general manager Evgeniy Bekker at the time.

“I am confident that our product will help FEG to enhance its position as a market leader while providing a significant boost to the quality of the services it brings to its customers.”

The withdrawal of Premier League shirt gambling sponsorship will come into effect from the end of the 2025-26, meaning deals with operators can stay in place until that date. 

Clubs met earlier today (13 April) to take a final vote on the issue that had been the subject of discussion for some time. Talks were also held with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as part of the government’s delayed review of gambling legislation.

The Premier League said it would look at working with other sports on the development of a new code for responsible gambling sponsorship across the professional sports sector.

“Premier League clubs have today collectively agreed to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of clubs’ matchday shirts, becoming the first sports league in the UK to take such a measure voluntarily in order to reduce gambling advertising,” the Premier League said in a statement.

A total of eight clubs currently have shirt sponsorship agreements in place with gambling operators including Aston Villa, Everton and Brentford. A number of teams also have partnerships with operators that do not include shirt branding or logo placement. 

Campaign groups had called for an end to gambling-related shirt sponsorship agreements for a number of years. In July last year, The Big Step, a campaign dedicated to stopping such deals, wrote an open letter urging clubs to drop these types of partnerships.

In an iGB op-ed piece published shortly after this, it was suggested that operators begin making concessions on gambling shirt sponsorship deals, rather than being forced into it.

The original consultation paper submitted to European Commission said that Norwegian regulator would be given authority to DNS-block unlicensed gambling websites. This would be accomplished through an amendment to the country’s then proposed Gambling Act to allow Norway to impose the blocking orders. Under current law, only the country’s state-backed enterprises are permitted to broadcast online gambling to domestic consumers.

Now the Ministry argues that the original consultation did not sufficiently consider the privacy implications of the change. The government body said that it has come to conclusion that the personal and communications protection aspects of the proposal “should have been heard,” and therefore would be adding an addendum to the original proposal.

Privacy implications of Norway blocking order

In the original consultation note, the Ministry proposed that internet providers – as part of the DNS blocking – should forward users to a landing page operated by the Norwegian Lottery Authority, one of the state-backed entities cleared to offer online gaming.

However, the Authority – unlike the internet providers – is not subject to Norwegian rules on confidentiality. The proposal to redirect users to the landing page of the organisation’s server may have had the unintended consequence of capturing electronic traces left by the user, including information about IP address, time of visit and type of browser.

According to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority’s opinion to the 2021 consolation, this would conflict with the principle of “data minimisation” in the country’s data regulations.      

“The ministry proposes that the landing page should be owned and operated by the internet providers, and not by the Norwegian Lottery Authority, as was originally proposed in the consultation note of September 2021,” said the addendum to consultation note. “If the landing page is added to the internet provider’s server, personal information about the users who try to contact the website will be DNS blocked.”

Gambling sites to be blocked

Despite the original consultation taking place close to two-years ago – since when there have been two new Norwegian governments – the government does not as of yet have the power to block foreign sites from broadcasting unlicensed gambling to Norwegian citizens.

However, that may be about to change. According to Norwegian business news site E24, the country’s minister of Culture is going “all in” on the proposal, and from the new year such sites are to be blocked via DNS-blocking orders.     

E24 said that the proposal will be presented to the Norwegian parliament the Storting in November, and would be set for a probable launch date of 1 January 2024.

Wagering handle for the month amounted to $433.0m, down 9.1% from $476.8m in March 2022 but 21.5% higher than $356.2m in February of this year.

Basketball remained by far the most popular sport among bettors, drawing $224.3m in total wagers for the month. Players also spent $71.7m on baseball betting, $1.6m on football and $71.7m on other sports, as well as $127.9m on parlay bets.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Player spending on sports wagering in March across online and retail amounted to $232.6m, down marginally from $233.5m in March 2022. However, this figure was 20.0% higher than the $193.9m bet by consumers in February this year.

Of this total, $209.0m was wager with online sportsbooks, while the remaining $23.6m was spent at retail locations.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Table games and slots at the Detroit casinos dominated the total, generating $117.8m as opposed to the $1.4m received from retail sports betting.

During the month, MGM Grand Detroit achieved the highest market share at 46%. This compared to the 30% won by MotorCity Casino Hotel and the 24% attributed to the Hollywood casino at Greektown.

Monthly table and slots revenue fell 2.6% compared to the $120.9m achieved by the casinos the previous year.

Total revenue increased 12.2% when compared with February’s $105m total that it achieved.

In March, Hollywood Casino at Greektown reported a 7.5% year-on-year increase in revenue to $27.6m. This compares with the 2.7% decline experienced by MGM to $54.4m and the 9% fall to $35.8m reported by MotorCity.

The three casinos paid a total of $9.5m in gaming taxes to Michigan for the month, compared to the $9.8m paid in march 2022.

[Read full story on iGB North America]

New York opened its legal online sports betting market in January last year and the state’s 2022 financial year ran from April 2022 through to the end of March this year.

During the opening year, Flutter Entertainment-owned FanDuel Group led the market with $756.0m in gross gaming revenue from $6.82bn in total wagers.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Heap will oversee ProhiBet’s strategic direction and operations, working closely with S3’s executive teams from Odds On Compliance and U.S. Integrity to further expand the client base for its sports betting technology solutions.

He brings with him almost 30 years of regulatory experience, including more than 28 years as chief and deputy director of operations for the State of Colorado’s Department of Revenue.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

The London-based company will supply Atlas World Sports with its product, which was created to display sportsbooks, igaming and paid fantasy offers to users based on their geographical location.

Atlas World Sports will be using the product to provide its audience with the ability to make more informed betting decisions. The product has also been custom-built to match the branding of the US-based affiliate.

Dan Williams, vice president of client services at SSG, believes that Atlas World Sports will find its growth accelerated with this new deal.

“We are beyond excited to be working with Atlas World Sports and implementing the Affiliate Management Services system onto their platform,” said Williams.

“They are growing fast, and we are supercharging that growth trajectory with our expertise and technology to manually cut out the time-consuming nature of managing sportsbook offers,” he went on to add. “This system will allow their team to focus on other essential tasks as they look to scale.”

Robert Kraft, the founder of Atlas World Sports, also believes the deal will help the company’s desire to scale up.

“As we continue to expand as a sports betting affiliate, our partnership with Spotlight Sports Group will be essential,” said Kraft. “Their innovative and fast-paced capabilities are a key reason why we partnered with them as we look to scale rapidly.

“We are confident that our partnership with SSG will allow us to achieve on all levels of sports betting affiliation,” Kraft concluded.

Recently, SSG entered into a content partnership with XL Media, in which SSG’s racing content will be integrated into some of the affiliate company’s domains.

The company is backed by funds from MIXI, Inc., Ninjabet.com and Chicago Trading Company. In a statement by Prophet Exchange, it says the backing by these companies is “a validation for their peer-to-peer exchange model.” 

In regard to the peer-to-peer model, chief operating officer and co-founder, Jake Benzaquen states that “to be frank, something has always bothered us about ‘the house always wins”. 

“At Prophet, we win only when the user wins,” Benzaquen said. “As the first pro-consumer betting exchange in the country, we believe it’s time for the house to lose a few hands.” 

Prophet aims to use these funds to work towards profitibility and grow its tech offering. Additionally, it is to develop consumer-based functions such as increased liquidity, growing the roster of events and affing smart-wallet technology. 

Chief executive and co-founder Dean Sisun added that “as excited as we are to enter the emerging market of sports betting, we are a tech company at heart”.  

“We are a scrappy, lean and agile firm in a sea of behemoths, which allows us to respond to changes and capitalise on opportunities at a moment’s notice,” he said. “This round of funding will let us continue as disruptors in the betting space and push our fast-moving product forward in this blossoming market.”  

The company added that to hopes to expand its technology into new markets as it continues to progress.