Category: News

Despite the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) disrupting sporting events and leading to the imposition of advertising restrictions, operators in Spain made revenues of €855.27m during the course of last year, up 14.3% on the previous year.

Unlike previous years, the final quarter turned out to be the strongest of the year and saw the highest revenue total in the market to date, with GGR of €231.28m. This was up 17.3% on the previous quarter and 20.2% on the fourth quarter of 2019.

After picking up significantly in the third quarter, sports betting revenue surged as the year came to a close, with revenue of €103.41m up 21.5% on the previous quarter and 13.1% on the same period of 2019.  

This saw sports betting hold on to its newly regained status as the market’s leading vertical, although casino also performed strongly during the final quarter of last year.

Casino revenues rose 16.6% on the previous quarter to land at €97.82m in Q4, a figure that also represented a 36.8% increase on the final quarter of 2019.

After dropping off significantly in Q3 from the pandemic-fuelled highs seen earlier in the year, poker revenues rose again slightly in the final months of 2020. GGR for the quarter was up 7.7% on the third quarter and 24.5% on Q4 of 2019.

Bingo finished the year flat on the previous quarter but up 46.1% on the same period the previous year.

Both new player registrations and active players were up in the final quarter, suggesting operators may be taking the opportunity to advertise while they still can – the country’s extremely restrictive advertising ban is set to come into effect later this year.

The number of new players was up 18.5% on a quarter-on-quarter basis and 31.8% on a year-on-year basis, while the number of active players rose by 19.2% and 7.9%, respectively.

Ficom Leisure is a leading European corporate advisory firm specialising in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.

Ficom Leisure also provides exclusive monthly estimates on the Italian online market in the Italy iGaming Dashboard, including operator market shares across casino, sports betting and poker.

It also provides monthly estimates on several US states, including New Jersey in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard and Iowa in the Iowa iGaming Dashboard.

Statistics posted within the company’s sustainability report show 293.0% increase in RG interactions with customers from 2019 to 10.834.

Alongside these interactions, LeoVegas saw its total number of self-exclusions reach 275,991 and conducted 24,638 responsible gambling customer reviews – a 185% increase and a 56% increase, respectively.

LeoVegas sought to bolster its RG initiatives with the introduction of the LeoLine gambling helpline in 2019, a new responsible gambling chat service, which may have contributed to the growth in takeup of these responsible gambling tools.

The number of players setting new deposit limits, meanwhile, was down 53% to 418,450, though the operator noted that many LeoVegas players had already set deposit limits in prior years.

Furthermore, the report also showed LeoVegas’s average revenue per customer was €65 (£56.37) per month.

Whilst this figure is up from the last quarter, LeoVegas noted that it represents a downward trend in the long term.

The company attribute this to a combination of higher consumer protection and gaming increasingly becoming a mass market product.

The operator also revealed that around half of its revenue comes from locally regulated markets, and said this figure was likely to increase in the future.

The revenue total represented a 1,025.0% increase on the $1.2m reported in the same month 2020, the month in which the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic shuttered the state’s casinos and saw major leagues suspended.

It also marked a 75.3% month-over-month rise on the $7.7m posted in February this year, as well as breaking January’s $11.3m revenue record.

Online sports betting accounted for $10.3m of total revenue for the month, some way ahead of retail on $3.1m.

Handle also reached a record high of $161.4m, beating the previous record of $149.5m in January by 8.0%%. This total was also 723.5% higher than $19.6m in March 2020.

Consumers spent $139.4m on internet sports betting during March, which is no longer subject to an in-person registration requirement, compared to $22.1m at retail sportsbooks.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

In a trading update, Catena said revenue for the three months to 31 March is likely to amount to between €39.1m (£34.0m/$46.5m) and €40.4m, which would represent an increase of 46% to 51% on the same period last year.

Should Catena reach these expected levels of revenue, it would also represent a record quarterly performance by the group.

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter is forecast to be in the range of €23.9m to €25.0m, which would be between 85% and 94% higher than Q1 last year, and also a record quarterly amount.

Reflecting on the performance, Catena said it experienced a positive start to the year, with the business having since continued to deliver strong performance.

This, Catena said, was driven by the performance of the US business, supported by the launch of operations in Michigan and Virginia during January.

“This trading update reaffirms our strong start to the year, and I am excited and proud of our teams’ exceptional focus on driving our global portfolio of affiliation brands, and the resulting performance,” Catena chief executive Michael Daly said.

Catena plans to publish its full results for the first quarter on 19 May.

In February, Catena reported a 3.1% increase in revenue to €106.0m in 2020, as the impact of sports suspensions and declines in many European markets were balanced out by growth in igaming and new markets such as the US.

BOS’s statement formed part of its response to a consultation on the document that was released in August 2020. The document took two years to publish and dealt with a wide range of issues across Swedish society, including gambling.

Among the proposed changes in the report was a call for the state, through regulator Spelinspektionen, to play a much more hands-on role as a “gatekeeper” rather than generally overseeing the market.

In Jämlikhets­kommissionen’s proposal, all licensed operators’ products would only be available through a single state portal, which it likened to Sweden’s alcohol shop monopoly.

Under this system, Jämlikhets­kommissionenn also called for a limit on the amount players could spend across all operators in a 24-hour period and suggested that gambling could be limited to certain times. It did not provide an amount for this limit to be set at or suggest specific times to limit gambling, however. Currently, Swedish players are limited to deposits of SEK5000 (£422/€489/$581) per month for online casino games, but other verticals are not limited.

The report also said changes were needed in advertising. 

Currently, gambling advertisements in Sweden cannot be restricted as ads covered by press freedom laws. However, the Equality Commission called for a constitutional amendment to change this, similar to amendments that already exist for tobacco and alcohol.

It then called for mandatory warnings on gambling ads, such as “Most who gamble lose money,” “Gambling addiction increases the risk of suicide,”or “Children of gambling-dependent parents are at risk of getting off to a bad start to life”.

In January of this year, more than 300 bodies including BOS were invited to respond to the consultation by 12 April, with BOS submitting its response yesterday (7 April). 

The operator association was strongly opposed to Jämlikhets­kommissionen’s suggestions of a single state portal and a constitutional amendment to allow restrictions on gambling advertisements.

It said the proposals suggested insufficient research on the sector, and that a more informed body would not have made these proposals.

“BOS rejects these proposals and hopes that future public investigations will focus more on the knowledge-gathering phase in an investigative work in the future, so that greater clarity can be brought regarding how gaming on the internet works and what consequences different interventions have,” it said. “It is our belief that state internet portals will then not be relevant to propose again, nor restrictions on the constitutional freedom of expression.”

The trade body also pointed to the fact that the Swedish government did not ask Jämlikhets­kommissionen to investigate gambling policy, and said that the Commission did not consult industry experts for its report.

In addition, BOS pointed to the issue of channelisation in the Swedish market – where BOS chair Gustaf Hoffstedt recently claimed vindication after channelisation as found to have decreased in 2020 – and said Jämlikhets­kommissionen did not show any regard for protection of the licensed market.

“The balancing act for gaming policy is to achieve as high a level of consumer protection as possible without the leakage to the unregulated gaming market becoming unacceptably high,” it said. “It is not an easy task.

“This difficult balancing act is not something that seems to worry the Equality Commission. It now appears that the Equality Commission is coming up with proposals that go much further in a tightening direction than the state’s gambling policy inquiries.”

Board appointees include Katerina Belorusskaya – who has been with the company since 2011 – as a stakeholder, and Marek Šmrha as a non-executive board consultant. Sergey Portnov will step down as CEO and serve as chairman of the board.

Maksym Liashko and Roman Syrotian have been appointed as co-CEOs in addition to roles on the supervisory board. The two will divide operating responsibilities in the position, where Liashko will take on finance, legal and communication roles while Syrotian will focus on IT, product and marketing.

“For Roman and me, a dual CEO structure is a logical move and consolidation of the company’s growth directions,” said Liashko.

“We know our areas well, and we will do everything to implement the company’s plans to enter the next level of development.”

“Being already in excellent shape today, Parimatch has ambitions of achieving top positions on the markets all over the world,” added Syrotian.

“I hope to contribute to this goal by ensuring that we provide our customers with the highest quality entertainment and services.”

This month Parimatch announced a promotional partnership with Ukrainian AI app Reface with the Parimatch x Reface social media challenge.

In March Parimatch received Ukraine’s first ever sports betting license after Ukraine’s gambling act came into law in August 2020.

Introduced in the state’s Senate by Senators Jim Perry and Paul Lowe, Senate Bill 688 would expand the North Carolina sports wagering market to allow online and mobile betting. Sports betting is currently only permitted via tribal operators.

SB 688 would allow the North Carolina State Lottery Commission to issue at least 10 interactive sports betting licenses to operators, but no more than 12 permits would be made available.

These licenses would enable operators to accept online bets on both professional and collegiate sports, as well as esports and amateur sports, such as the Olympic Games.

Licenses would cost $500,000, though this would be refunded in the event that an operator’s application is turned down. Permits would run for five years, after which operator would need to pay $100,000 to renew for a further five years.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Alternative Investment Market (AIM)-listed investor Pires in December subscribed for 6,667 ordinary shares in Low6 at an overall consideration of £200,010 (€231,783/$275,340).

Low6 in February then set out plans to commence an initial public offering (IPO) in the second quarter of this year, following the fundraising drive with Pires.

The provider extended its pre-IPO funding round to allow for a “well-respected figure” in the gaming industry to invest in the business and also join its advisory board after the IPO.

Pires invested a further £35,000 during the extended round, taking its overall investment in the provider to £235,010 in. Low6 raised a total of £3.3m in convertible notes during the pre-IPO round.

Other recent developments at Low6 include the soft launch of its PubWars apps on 1 April, attracted approximately £2,000 in wagers in the first seven days of activity, while the Uber Eats Weekly 7 game has also gone live.

Pires said that as Low6 now has over 122,000 users, the provider is looking to bring in a new CTO to scale the business and execute its three-year technology roadmap.

“We are pleased to note that Low6 has continued to make rapid progress since our most recent investment in February, as part of the extension of Low6’s pre-IPO funding round.” Pires chairman Peter Redmond said.

“Recently, Low6 has launched the Uber Eats Weekly 7 game and PubWars app, as well as signing a number of new partners within the sports industry, with discussions currently underway with potential US partners.

“With its IPO still on track for Q2 2021, we look forward to updating the market on Low6’s progress in due course.”

The year included around six weeks of lockdowns that saw all bingo halls shut in Tombola’s key markets of the UK and mainland Europe.

Gambling advisory business Regulus Partners estimates that around 60%, or £72.0m, of this total, came from the UK.

Tombola’s costs of sales came to £85.3m, up 19.7%, leaving gross profit of £34.7m, up 4.3%.

The operator then paid administrative expenses of £22.7m, up 10.8%. Much of this spending was on staff, as wages and salary costs were up 13.3% to £15.3m, while overall staff costs grew 12.8% to £17.6m.

This left £12.0m in operating profit, a 6.7% decline.

The business paid interest income, which dropped 87.2% to £50,000, and interest expenses of £33,000.

It paid a further £2.7m in tax, up 35.1%. Tombola’s total tax bill was £3.0m – of which £1.5m was from UK corporation tax, £1.1m adjustments and £468,000 overseas corporation tax – but £330,000 of this was deferred.

After these costs, Tombola’s profit came to £9.4m. This was down 16.6% from 2018-19.

Regulus noted that given Tombola’s strict player protection requirements, including a £500 weekly deposit cap, may offer a glimpse into a possible future for gambling in the UK given proposed regulatory changes. 

“While this model works extremely well for Tombola and it helps to ensure a safer gambling environment ‘by product’, it also speaks to the fact that the vast majority of addressable customer revenue, even in a ‘softer’ product range such as bingo, is driven by less restricted products,” it said. “Tombola’s business model is therefore something of a litmus test for tough product restrictions in the UK and elsewhere: it might capture a lot of customers, but it does not capture much revenue.”

Though Golden Matrix did not disclose the identity of its first client for the new platform, it said that the customer is an “established” operator.

Golden Matrix chief executive Brian Goodman also said the launch coincides with the start of the new Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket season.

“This is a significant opportunity for the company, enabling us to enter one of the world’s largest markets with a new and compelling sportsbook product,” Goodman said.

“Cricket is not only part of Indian culture that has one of the world’s largest populations, currently 1.3 billion people, but also has 2-3 billion fans across India, UK, Pakistan, Asia, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Australia, New Zealand and Africa.”

Golden Matrix added that it expects to integrate and launch the system with a number of additional clients in new markets over the next six weeks, with the aim of securing approval in certain US states later this year.

The launch comes after Golden Matrix entered a software license and services agreement with sports betting platforms provider Amelco in late 2020. The deal covers the marketing and distribution of Amelco’s turnkey solution to operators in regulated markets worldwide.

“Since we began our collaboration and distribution agreement with Amelco, we have seen significant interest from both current and prospective clients in adopting this dynamic sportsbook engine with associated managed trading services,” Goodman said

“Fully integrated into our GM-X industry-leading B2B technology platform, this new sportsbook offering can now be deployed via numerous gaming operators globally.”

The launch comes after Golden Matrix last month filed with the SEC to raise up to $10m in an initial public offering on Nasdaq.

In November, the supplier also announced a collaboration agreement with Playtech, to expand both companies’ share of global esports and betting markets.