Month: May 2023

Payments were derived from a range of RMG businesses including via betting shops, online bookmaker streams, the Racing TV pay TV channel, international betting, non-betting distribution, the mainstream TV agreement with ITV and data sales.

The payment total represents a 6.9% increase from £110.0m paid out in the previous year.

“The RMG model has once again proved to be resilient and reliable – in the face of significant challenges – producing record results, and performing ahead of expectations,” RMG chairman Roger Lewis said.

“The results are a testimony and tribute to the vision and dedication of those racecourses who came together and stuck together to create, grow, and develop the RMG business.”

Lewis will step down from the RMG board this year and will be replaced by former Flutter UK and Ireland chief executive Conor Grant. The change will come into effect from 1 October. 

Future

Looking ahead to the future, RMG chief executive Martin Stevenson said innovation will be key for both RMG and racecourses to grow appeal and engagement with the sport, as well as provide a platform to deliver growth in licence fees to racecourses and racing.

“A fundamental building block in technical innovation for the business is the deployment of a highly reliable and accurate tracking system, which we have achieved via the award-winning Coursetrack,” Stevenson said.

“Beyond purely providing timing, the importance of tracking is that it provides a wealth of real time data that the business can now utilise to develop new products and innovations. These include the roll-out of in-play betting on RMG’s content, currently deployed by BetVictor and William Hill, and with more bookmakers in the pipeline.

“Another key application of tracking data is to help create stimulating, insightful data – a suite of new facts and statistics – to engage our audiences and support betting markets.”

Stevenson also referenced the upcoming roll-out of RMG’s self-service betting terminal racing product this month, as well as improvements to broadcast output, including the introduction of augmented reality graphics and gradual move to remote production.

He also noted the impact of the #raceday social media initiative, which has surpassed 20 million views and helped engage with a young demographic. In addition, free-to-play games, run in conjunction with Paddy Power, have generated two million entries.

“With media increasingly being consumed through digital channels, driving innovation is key to growing audiences and engagement through these platforms,” Stevenson said. “This approach blends well with our focus on strengthening the core capabilities which have enabled us to grow to where we are today, ensuring the business remains ready for the future.”

In the four months through to the end of April, revenue for the special administrative region of China was MOP49.23bn (£4.88bn/€5.53bn/$6.12bn), which was 16.7% higher than the MOP42.20bn reported in all of 2022.

The year-to-date figure was also 141.4% ahead of where the market was at the same point in the previous year.

Macau experienced year-on-year growth in each of the months, with the latest figures for April showing gross gaming revenue was 449.9% up at MOP14.72bn.

Revenue in January was 82.5% higher at MOP11.58bn, while February revenue increased by 33.1% to MOP10.32bn and revenue in March hiked 246.9% to MOP12.74bn.

The improving figures came as the region continued to feel the impact of relaxed Covid-19 restrictions, many of which have now been removed, allowing more visitors to enter into Macau.

Visitors from outside of China who enter the country no longer have to quarantine, while the number of flights into China is no longer be capped. This followed major nationwide protests against the length and severity of the government’s “zero-Covid” policy.

Concessions

The start of 2023 also marked the beginning of new concessions for gaming operators in the region.

Seven applicants applied for the new concessions: incumbents Galaxy Entertainment Group, Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts International, Melco Resorts, SJM Resorts and Wynn Resorts, plus Genting Malaysia. However, the six operators already doing business in Macau were chosen, meaning Genting missed out.

The new concessions began on 1 January 2023 and wull end on 31 December 2032.

This was down by 16.6% compared to the alerts IBIA recorded in Q1 2022, and 20% from the previous quarter.

Sport-by-sport, football generated the highest number of alerts at 15, representing 37.5% of the total. Tennis was close behind with 12, representing 30% of the total. Combined, football and tennis made up 67.5% of the alerts in the first quarter.

Table tennis accounted for four of the alerts. Basketball and esports generated two alerts each, while volleyball, boxing and snooker accounted for one alert each.

By continent

A total of 24 alerts took place in Europe. Six took place in Asia, while four took place in Africa. North America and South America accounted for two alerts each.

Two esports alerts were not included in this breakdown as IBIA said it was unclear where the alerts took place.

IBIA noted a particular trend in Spain. Eight alerts took place in the country during the first quarter, which was 20% of the total alerts in Spain for all of 2022. Four of these alerts were in football, and four were in tennis.

During the quarter, Simplebet and Fanatics joined IBIA.

IBIA also renewed its partnership with H2 Gambling Capital during the period, and Stats Perform received IBIA’s mark of data quality and integrity for the third year in a row.

Fedrorov – who also is Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation – proposed the draft law due to the regulator’s ongoing failure to issue gambling licences in a timely manner.

KRAIL operates as a collegial body consisting of a chairman and six members, with the committee’s meetings only valid if five members are present, which is necessary for an application for a licence to offer games of chance to be approved by the body.

However, as a result of the country’s invasion by armed forces of the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the decree “On the introduction of martial law in Ukraine” that resulted in some members of the Commission being mobilised into military service.

This made it impossible to continue KRAIL meetings, and therefore caused pauses and delays to a large amount of the normal work undertaken by the regulator; including on the issuance of licences.

“Blocking the work of KRAIL leads to complete instability of the market, as well as loss of revenues to the budget,” said the Ministry. “The current format of KRAIL is imperfect and needs to be reformed.”

Ukraine proposes to amend gambling law

The draft law proposes to resolve this issue by revising “the principles of the formation and functioning of KRAIL”, by transforming the organisation from a collegial body into a more centralised executive.

The goal of transforming the regulator from a committee to an executive structure is to improve governance by making a single individual responsible for the regulation of Ukraine’s gambling.

The new organisation would be “responsible for the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of organising and conducting gambling and lotteries” – which the Ministry believes required the introduction of new primary legislation.

Under the new regime, applications for gambling licences are to be largely automated. The Ministry argues that this would make for new budgetary savings, as well as mean that licensees will be able to obtain them much faster.

“[Automating the licensing process] will make corruption schemes impossible and ensure stable revenues to the budget from market players,” said the Ministry in a statement.

The Ministry also made clear that the mitigation of corruption – which is characterised as endemic in the licensing process – was a secondary goal of the law.

“Licensing is one of the most corrupt processes in gambling,” said the Ministry. “[KRAIL] is responsible for this.”

KRAIL head criticises law

In media comments published by KRAIL, the chairman of the organisation Ivan Rudy responded to the draft law with confusion, making clear that the regulator was not informed prior to the Ministry submitting the legislation to the Rada.

“To be honest, I didn’t understand what this story was for, what the final efficiency was. After reviewing the main theses, I saw that the proposed changes are, in fact, current legislation,” said Rudy. “I didn’t understand what we are changing.”

Rudy admitted that the problem with the lack of members of the Commission was an issue, but laid the blame for that on central government, claiming that KRAIL had been writing letters to Cabinet for two months with a request to nominate an additional one or two members to the body.

Rudy also queried the wisdom of the introduction of an automated process, highlighting the relatively small number of licence applications received by KRAIL.

“How many new licenses do we expect to receive? About 36 have been issued in three years for operating rights, as well as a large number of licenses for gaming equipment.

“Why waste money and create an automation product for something that has a finite small numerical significance, relatively speaking,” said Rudy.

Under the three-year arrangement, the Entain Foundation US non-profit organization will become an official responsible gaming partner of the NHLAA and support the association with a range of initiatives.

Entain Foundation US will contribute to the NHLAA’s health and wellness programs as well as make its responsible gambling education programs available to all NHLAA members.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Revenue was higher across all segments for the three months to March 31, with one of the main highlights for Caesars being its digital business reporting positive revenue. Last year, the operator posted a loss for the division.

Caesars also reported growth within its Las Vegas segment, to the point that the division was able to significantly close the gap on its regional operations division, which remain its primary source of revenue in Q1.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Kindred established the bond as a provision of the original agreement to spin Kambi off from the Swedish gaming business. After satisfying “certain financial performance criteria” Kambi announced in 2022 that it had secured the right to repay the bond at a time of its choosing.

The bond’s repayment means that the provider will no longer be required to seek Kindred’s prior consent for “certain events”.

Kambi also said that the repayment eliminates the prospect of the operator converting the bond into shares, which would have meant that Kindred would have attained a controlling influence over the supplier.

Kambi made clear that the repayment of the convertible bond has “no impact” on the partnership between the two businesses, which was renewed in 2022 and will run until the end of 2026.

Kambi initiates share buyback program  

Kambi also opted to exercise an option to repurchase €7.2m of shares, having granted a mandate to do so at the business’s 30 June 2022 Extraordinary General Meeting.

The provider said the scheme – which is set to run from 3-23 May 2023 – is intended to achieve added value for Kambi’s shareholders as well as giving the board “increase flexability” for the company’s capital structure.

For example, the business may want the extra equity as part of an acquisition or employees may exercise share options.

In order to facilitate the repurchase, Kambi has entered into an agreement with Carnegie Investment Bank AB to conduct the scheme on its behalf.

This comes six days after the white paper was released, on 27 April. Although welcomed, it attracted a range of criticism from the industry. Issues spanned marketing, safer gambling initiatives and the land-based industry.

Miller said that the Commission will have less space to address developments not included in the white paper over the next few years. This is due to the magnitude of the policies covered in the document.

“The scale of work outlined in the white paper is significant, and rightly so,” said Miller. “This will be the dominant policy initiative for the Commission over the next few years as we move through the stages of development, implementation, evaluation and review.

“The scale of change, even with increased resources in future, means there will be very little space for the Commission to consider other policy developments not included in the white paper.”

The Commission’s role

Miller said that the Commission understands the breadth of the white paper’s contents. But he added that efforts will be made to begin the process of implementation as soon as possible.

“Whilst the implementation of the white paper will likely take a number of years to fully complete, that doesn’t mean we can’t make rapid progress in a number of key areas,” he said.

However, Miller added that the implementation process will be preceded by a number of consultations. These consultations which were outlined in the white paper and were the subject of judgement by some.

The consultations, said Miller, will begin shortly and will underline the success of the Commission’s implementations.

“It is our intention that the first set of white paper-related Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) consultations will be published this summer and pre-consultation engagement with stakeholders will have begun in a number of other policy areas,” Miller continued.

“Whilst we will move quickly to start implementing white paper commitments, we will also want to ensure that as wide a variety of experiences and expertise inform the way that those commitments are turned into practical reality.”

Additional regulatory powers

Miller said that the white paper gave additional responsibilities and “regulatory powers” to the Commission. He said that these will be targeted towards illegal gambling and collaboration across the government.

“The white paper gave a commitment to increasing our regulatory powers to tackle illegal gambling and to facilitating cross-government collaboration on a number of areas, which will help us deliver on our growing regulatory responsibilities,” he explained.

However, Miller said that the document had not shifted the Commission’s focus on ensuring regulation and compliance from UK operators.

“Of course, this focus on implementing the recommendations in the white paper as quickly as possible will not distract us from continuing to robustly pursue compliance with our existing requirements,” he continued.

“Where gambling operators fail to meet our standards we will continue to take action to protect consumers and raise standards, whilst at the same time playing our part in meeting the government’s ambition of delivering gambling reform for the digital age.”

Hop on board the Money Track 2 and prepare for a journey into the future! This slot has 40 fixed paylines that can reward you with the top multiplier of 50,000x your stake. Keep your adventure on the tracks by landing 6 bonus train symbols to enter the bonus round and collect unlocked special symbols that trigger wins. Be on the lookout for the Train Heist feature while in the base game before the Cash Bonus feature triggers. All aboard for a thrilling ride filled with big wins!

Play the demo for Money Track 2 here.

Game Type:Spinning Video SlotGo Live Date (expected):25/05/2023Game special features:Train Heist | Bonus Game | 4 Bonus Enhancers | Bonus Buy | Spin To WinNumber of paylines:40Number of reels:5RTP% (recorded/theoretical):96%Variance/volatility:5 StarsNumber of symbols to trigger feature/bonus?:6 SymbolsCan feature be retriggered?:YesNumber of free spins awarded?:3Stacked or expanding wilds in normal play?:NoStacked or expanding wilds in feature play?:NoNumber of jackpot tiers?:–Auto-play function?:Yes

The Commission said that the reduction was due to a decrease in the sales of National Lottery tickets between January and February, which the regulator said was 12.0% below the amount announced in the same period in 2022.

The sale was primarily driven by a fall in the sale of instant products, with revenue from scratchcards and interactive instant win games down by £120.5m, or 12.7% compared to the three-month period the previous year.   

Lottery sales also fell 14.0% over the period, which the Commission said was “partly attributable” to a lower number of rollovers associated with high jackpots over the three-month term.

Between January and March, the lottery raised a total of £432.5m, 0.4% below the £434.1m raised by the lottery in the previous quarter.

Overall, the lottery has raised £2.3bn for good causes over the previous five quarters.  

Responsibilities of the Gambling Commission

Since the launch of the National Lottery in November 1994, the lottery has raised over £47bn for charity. These causes have included sports, arts and heritage, as well as health, education and the environment.

Money for charity is raised from the sale of National Lottery tickets, as well as being supplemented by some items such as unclaimed prizes.

One of the responsibilities of the Gambling Commission is to ensure that payments from the lottery operator – which are held in the National Lottery Distribution Fund – are “accurate and on time”.

In September 2022, the regulator formally awarded the UK’s fourth National Lottery licence to Czech lottery conglomerate Allwyn Entertainment, ending the 28-year tenure of Camelot Group, the previous operator.