Month: June 2023

An investigation by the Authority found Baltic Bet published information on its website that it said encouraged people to gamble. This information appeared between 3 November 2022 and 28 February this year. 

The Authority ruled that this was a breach of Article 10, Paragraph 19 of the country’s Law on Gambling, which prohibits operators from encouraging gambling. 

The regulator also flagged an issue regarding Baltic Bet’s use of key words on search engine Google to promote its Optibet brand.

According to the Authority, when the key words “Optibet casino” and “Optibet live betting” were combined, this drew attention to the operator’s website. As such, this was deemed another breach of Article 10, Paragraph 19 of the Law on Gambling.

In response, the regulator used Baltic Bet with a fine and also warned the operator that it could face further action if repeat offences occurred. The Authority gave Baltic Bet until 7 July to address these measures. 

Baltic Bet has the option to appeal against the ruling.

Triple fine for Top Sport

The latest fine comes after the Authority earlier this month issued three financial penalties in the space of a week to Top Sport.

An initial  €25,000 fine related to allowing underage individuals to enter one of its slot salons.

An investigation found three people, at least one of whom was a minor, were able to enter the facility and remained inside for more than two hours. The Authority said Top Sport did not take any measures to remove the three people from its premises.

Top Sport was then fined a further €15,000 after it breached regulations on mobile betting.

The Authority found that bets were being automatically placed on Top Sport’s betting app. 

After a user placed bets on a live roulette table supplied by Ezugi, once they had locked their phone, the app automatically repeated the bet.

Finally, the operator was fined €15,000 for a breach related to payments and depositing into an online account. 

An individual had been topping up the balance of two other players’ accounts with Top Sport using his own payment cards.

The regulator said that as Top Sport did not ensure only the accountholder was depositing into their own account, this was in breach of gambling law. 

In March, the operator said that there had been no rise in this behaviour in the first quarter despite increased financial woes in the country.

This trend, Svenska Spel said, continued in the following two months, with risky behaviour levels lower than the same period last year.

Key figures noted by the operator included a decline in risky gambling at its online casino sites. Risky behaviour was also lower on slot machines at its Vegas and Casino Cosmopol venues.

In addition, Svenska Spel said risky gambling levels remained “extremely low” across its Turspel business, which includes Triss, Lotto, Keno and Eurojackpot.

Svenska Spel’s head of sustainability Kajsa Nylander said while this was good news, efforts to combat risky gambling behaviour must continue.

“As with all statistics, it is difficult to make interpretations before a long period of time has passed,” Nylander said. “Until then, it’s more about snapshots. But what we can ascertain is that risk gambling at Svenska Spel has not increased, but on the contrary shows a certain decrease.

“We would like to emphasise it is not possible to draw conclusions about Sweden’s overall risk gambling based solely on how they play at Svenska Spel. We can only report how our customers behave when they play with us, right now.

“We continue to closely monitor our customers’ gambling, while continuously measuring the effects of our measures. We will return here on the blog with more insights and results in the future.”

Combative measures

Nylander said one of the main reasons for this decline was the implementation of stronger gambling responsibility measures.

These include a mandatory income review for customers aged 18 or 19 who want to impose a gambling limit of over SEK1,000 (£73/€85/$93) each month. This also applied to other customers who want to impose a gambling limit of over SEK100,000 per month.

The operator also implemented a mandatory 10-minute break for players using its Vegas slot machines. In addition, it introduced a rebranded version of gambling harm prevention tool Min Spelkoll.

“Several independent studies have evaluated the effect of Svenska Spel’s measures and concluded that they make a difference,” Nylander said. 

“In an early analysis, we can see that it is relatively common for customers who are in the risk zone to change their gambling behaviour in time. Our gambling monitoring tools and care talks help them break negative patterns.”

Swedish channelisation “critically low”

Last week, Sweden’s Online Gaming Industry Association (BOS) raised concerns about the percentage of the country’s online gaming market that is channelised.

A report by BOS found this level was 77%, a figure it described as being “critically low”.

While 77% of participants said they knew the website was licensed, 11% said they knew the site they had bet with was not licensed. In addition, 12% said they did not know if the site had a licence.

The survey also revealed lotteries have the highest channelisation rate, at 91%. Both online casino and poker have channelisation rates of 72%.

Betting on harness racing has an 89% channelisation rate, while sports betting sits at 84%. 

The follow-up call for evidence will invite interested parties to send in their views on three questions on their views regarding the recently published white paper into regulating the gambling sector. The committee has set a 14 July deadline for stakeholders to send in their response.

The first question asks for people to name the most welcome proposal in the gambling white paper. Secondly, those writing in will be required to say whether there are any significant gaps in the government’s reforms.

The final question asks what are the potential barriers to the government and Gambling Commission delivering on the white paper’s main measures by the previously stated aim of summer 2024.

Race to complete gambling consultations

This date is important as it is before the UK General Election, after which point there may be a different government in place with differing views on how the gambling sector should be regulated.

The government – through both CMS and the Gambling Commission – has a great deal of work to complete before mid-2024. In the white paper the word “consult” or “consultation” was written 150 times.

The number of proposals that require further hashing out has faced criticism from some quarters, with some characterising this as the government punting on the issue.

“How long will it take to have more consultations?” said Conservative peer Lord Grade of Yarmouth in a Lord’s debate in May. “That is a concern.”

“This reminds me of the great saying in the film industry, ‘hurry up and wait’, when you get to the location and everybody is standing around, ready, but nothing happens,” he said. “We are ready to go with this.”

Gambling select committee launches

In December 2022, the CMS select committee launched an inquiry into how the government was approaching gambling regulation “following warnings that more needs to be done to protect people” from gambling-related harm.

The inquiry launched in addition to the Gambling Act Review, the government’s evaluation country’s gambling laws. The long-awaited product of this process was the government white paper, which CMS released on the 27 April.    

In March, the committee released written responses to its initial call for evidence, in which many operators expressed frustration at the Gambling Commission’s capability to implement the white paper’s proposals.

Under the deal, Genius Sports will continue to work with the DFB to combat threats of match-fixing and betting-related corruption.

This will include providing the DFB with its Bet Monitoring System, analysing global odds movements from over 7,500 games a year. The DFB will also continue to receive monitoring and analysis across all levels of German football.

Genius Sports will also use its Intelligence platform, provided in partnership with Clue, to strengthen protection against betting-related corruption.

The platform will offer the DFB a centralised vault of integrity reports, which Genius Sports said would support investigations and the analysis and identification of potential risk areas. 

Protecting integrity

“To protect competition integrity in football, it is important for us to work with professional service providers,” DFB integrity officer Eva Immerheiser said. 

“In the continuation of the cooperation with Genius as well as the intelligence upgrade with Clue, we see the opportunity to detect possible illicit patterns faster and to be able to intervene at an early stage. We look forward to working with Genius on a new level.”

Genius Sports’ director of rights enforcement and integrity, Simon Martyn, added: “Protecting our contract partners and world sport from match-fixing and betting-related corruption requires constant vigilance and product enhancements.

“By expanding our cooperation with the DFB, we will provide rich intelligence, analysis and visibility to help protect one of the largest and most prestigious football associations in the world.”

Genius Sports provides similar integrity services to a number of football associations and organisations around the world.

Last month, Genius Sports entered a long-term data, streaming and integrity partnership with the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA). Genius Sports now provides its data insights and technology to the CTFA with the aim of bolstering fan experiences.

Genius Sports said it would also help the CTFA to commercialise its sports data and promote their streaming content.

Crown reported the error to the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) in March 2020 after a letter about prioritising payroll compliance.

The underpayments impacted approximately 200 employees at the Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth casinos between July 2014 and June 2020.

This, Crown said, was due to it incorrectly identifying some workers as award-free. Thereby, Crown underpaid them by failing to meet its obligations under four different awards that applied. Crown also failed to keep all employee records.

According to the FWO, staff were underpaid entitlements including penalty rates, minimum hourly rates, overtime and paid leave rates. Crown signed an Enforceable Undertaking (EU) with the FWO to rectify the mistake.

The staff in question were underpaid $1.0m, excluding superannuation, interest and gratuity. The additional $200,000 Crown agreed to pay covers superannuation and an additional 10% in interest and gratuity payment.

Crown has made back payments to 192 of the current former employees. The EU states the operator Crown must complete back payments to the other eight former employees within 180 days.

Meeting lawful entitlements

“Under the EU, Crown has committed to implementing stringent measures to ensure all its current and future workers are paid correctly,” FWO Sandra Parker said. “These measures include commissioning, at its own cost, two independent annual audits to check its compliance with workplace laws.

“Crown’s failures to apply relevant awards to some of its employees and to ensure annual salaries met all minimum entitlements for hours worked led to long-running underpayments of its staff, and a larger remediation bill.

“All employers need to invest the time and resources to ensure they are meeting all lawful entitlements.”

Crown acknowledged the EU, with a company spokesperson saying it also apologised to all those impacted by the error.

“Crown takes its obligations as an employer seriously and self-reported to the FWO in 2020 following a comprehensive payroll review,” Crown said. “Since the errors were identified, Crown continues to focus on reviewing its payroll processes. We are investing in upgrading its workforce management systems and strengthening its compliance framework.

“As part of the EU, Crown will make a contrition payment and has committed to independent audits for the next three years to ensure ongoing compliance.”

Victoria fine

The EU comes days after Crown was handed a $20.0m fine for breaching tax rules in Victoria. This was in response to findings published by the 2021 Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence (RCCOL).

The RCCOL said Crown improperly claimed tax deductions by including the costs of certain promotional activities as amounts paid out as winnings. The operator’s Crown Melbourne operates in Victoria.

The operator was also found to have deliberately concealed the nature of these deductions from the state’s regulator during the focus period of 2013 to 2021.

This was the fourth time the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC) used stronger enforcement powers to take disciplinary action against Crown for conduct uncovered by the Royal Commission. 

Since receiving these powers, the VGCCC has imposed fines on Crown totalling $250.0m.

The joint platform went live yesterday (22 June). Consumers can access slots and casino games such as live dealer blackjack and roulette, video poker and keno.

The Wynnbet Sportsbook will also allow players in the state to place bets on a wide range of leagues and competitions.

In addition, the platform will be integrated with Wynn Rewards. This will enable players to collect points that can be exchanged for real-life experiences and benefits with Wynn Resorts.

Read the full story on iGB North America

German consumers can now find Zeal’s games through the online portal of the provider’s B2C subsidiary Lotto24 and its sister brand Tipp24. The German gambling regulator, The Joint Gaming Authority of the Federal States (GGL), granted the business the licence in April.

The slot developer added that it has already made its portfolio of games available to third party operators “for some time now”, including Lotto Hessen and Park Avenue Gaming.

Zeal said that it intends to expand its range of games to up to 200 titles by the end of 2023.

“The German licence enables us to create entirely new gaming experiences. Our determined investments in this business are now paying off,” said Zeal CEO Helmut Becker.

“Zeal’s clear focus remains online lottery brokerage. With online games, however, we now have another product area that should quickly gain weight.”

Zeal focus on player protection

The company also argued that it was a “pioneer” in the area of player protection and addiction prevention.

“We are aware of the risk for players of addiction. That’s why our clear claim is: we want to offer the highest standard of legal and safe gambling and nothing else; whether in lotteries or online games,” said Zeal Instant Games managing director Julian Tietz.

“That’s why we go beyond regulatory requirements in online games and work with innovative AI applications, among other things, to maximise security for our players.”

When Zeal first received its German virtual slots licence in April, it said the move represented a “strategic milestone” for the business, as it meant the German online lottery market leader would be involving itself in the country’s igaming space.

Elimelech joins the list of four directors on the board nominated by Codere. He previously held multiple positions at 888 including head of US marketing, head of bingo and head of developed markets for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Most recently, he served as COO of Passiflora and CMO of Space Ape Games.

Patrick Ramsay, chairman of the board of directors said that the company was thrilled to have Elimelech join the board.

“Her experience in digital marketing and expanding businesses into new markets is a perfect fit for Codere Online as it continues to pursue its growth plans in Spain and Latin America,” Ramsay said.

Codere also approved the appointment of Borja Fernández as chairman of the audit committee, who was previously a non-voting observer.

The operator also established a compliance committee under its board structure with Ramsay as chairman. Elimelech was also listed as a member along with Rafael Catalá, Mark Dunn and Yaiza Rodríguez.

Revenue increase

Recently, Codere reported that it was able to significantly reduce its net loss during the first quarter of 2023. The company saw a 54.9% increase in net gaming revenue and posted year-on-year growth across all its operating markets in the same period.

Player spending amounted to $26.8m, which was 8.2% lower than $29.2m in May 2022 and also 15.7% behind the $31.8m spent in April of this year.

Revenue for the month reached $3.2m, a 52.4% jump from $2.1m last year but 25.6% less than $4.3m in April.

Coastal casinos were again the venue of choice for bettors, with a total of $16.8m wagered and $1.3m generated in revenue.

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Players in the province will have access to content from providers such as Pragmatic Play, Play’n GO, Evolution, Light & Wonder, Pariplay and Greentube.

Users will also benefit from customer engagement features such as Battle of Slots, Clash of Spins and Wheel of Jackpots.

Videoslots will enter the Ontario market alongside sister brand Mr Vegas.

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