Category: News

Johnson has senior leadership experience in the commercial sports and media sector, currently serving as chair of the Rugby Football League and also a non-executive director at chartered accountancy firm HW Fisher.

Prior to this, Johnson had a spell as director of corporate affairs and company secretary at the English Football Association, and as chief operating officer for England’s 2018 World Cup bid.

Johnson also spent time as chief executive of Business in Sport & Leisure, as well as director of rights and business affairs at ITV, and chief executive of The Jewish Leadership Council.

“I’m very pleased to be joining SIS, one of the industry’s most recognisable and trusted brands,” Johnson said.

“SIS has made great strides in extending its presence around the world through quality and engaging products.”

SIS chief executive Richard Ames added: “The appointment of Simon is most welcome and follows the successful globalisation of SIS in recent years.

“Simon has extensive experience in working for some of the leisure industry’s biggest bodies and his leadership qualities will prove invaluable to SIS. We are now in an even stronger position to build on our recent momentum and further grow the company’s position within the global betting industry.”

Under the arrangement, data will be used to power Sportradar’s in-play tennis odds and trading services outside of the US.

Sportradar sports betting customers that hold a Stats Perform WTA data licence will have access to in-play WTA tennis odds, powered by Stats Perform’s new scout-collected detailed data or the umpire data feed.

The new deal comes after Stats Perform in November agreed a six-year deal to become the official data supplier of the WTA, delivering an exclusive umpire-derived data feed for WTA matches and an ultrafast data feed collected by Opta analysts.

“Our ground-breaking approach to collecting and distributing high quality official WTA data as part of our exclusive agreement is not only broadening the appeal and accessibility for fans and bettors, but also making it more accessible to them. Our progressive deal with Sportradar exemplifies this,” Stats Perform chief betting officer Andrew Ashenden said.

Sportradar’s managing director for sports content and partnerships, David Lampitt, added: “This deal delivers a great enhancement to our extensive portfolio of tennis content. But more than that, it demonstrates what can be achieved through a constructive and innovative commercial approach, even between fierce competitors.

“Collaborating with Stats Perform in this way improves our live odds and managed trading services for WTA events and represents a significant development for the industry more broadly.”

The budget reflects many of the stipulations published earlier this week in the State Assembly’s proposed budget, including a $12m licensing fee for the operation of mobile sports betting, to be secured through one of New York state’s land-based casinos.

For land-based sports betting, the Senate has proposed a tax rate of 8.5% of GGR, while for mobile a tax rate of 12% is proposed, as was also recommended by the State Assembly in its budget proposal.

In addition, it has passed a proposal to include a “sports wagering royalty fee” of 0.2% of the total amount wagered, to be remitted to the gambling regulator.

State senator Joseph Addabbo Jr., a long-time supporter of the introduction of sports wagering to New York, commented on the proposal.

“I appreciate the efforts of my Senate colleagues and staff for all the work that produces the Senate One-House Budget, especially in terms of including mobile sports betting and the expediting process for New York State’s three unused downstate casino licenses,” he said.

“This brings us one step closer to giving people a way to responsibly, legally and safely place bets from anywhere in New York.”

Read the full story on iGB North America.

In Touch was found to have breached the Social Responsibility Code (SRCP) and Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) , as well as failing to take steps to prevent money laundering.

The SRCP violations included a statement in its responsible gambling interaction guidance that allowed bonuses to be offered for customers that verify their identity.

In addition, the operator failed to implement its interaction policies and procedures for seven customers, despite concerns that their behaviour indicated problem gambling.

In Touch also failed to use all relevant sources of information to ensure effective decision making for these seven customers. The Commission argued it should have given more consideration to limiting deposits to their accounts.

Its anti-money laundering (AML) risk assessments were also found to be lacking. This was down to the operator failing to take into account risks associated with allowing customers to use a payment provider that also acts as an exchange for cryptocurrencies.

In addition, it did not conduct appropriate enhanced due diligence checks and failed to critically review source of funds information that was provided.

These failings amounted to a breach of LCCP 12.1.1, which states operators must have “appropriate policies, procedures and controls to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing” and ensure these are implemented correctly.

The operator’s marketing also came under scrutiny, as it failed to be “fair and transparent” – as required in licence condition 7.1.1 – in a SMS message for a bonus offer. The text did not state minimum and maximum deposits or time limits for the offer in question.

As a result of these failings, In Touch must pay a £3.4m fine and at its own expense, bring in a team of independent auditors to carry out an audit to make sure that it is fully compliant with the licence conditions and codes of practice (LCCP).

“Through our challenging compliance and enforcement activity we will continue our work to raise standards in the industry and continue to hold failing operators to account,” RIchard Watson, executive director of the Gambling Commission, said.

Earlier this week, Gambling Commission chief executive Neil McArthur stepped down after four years in the role. Deputy chief executive Sarah Gardner and chief operating officer Sally Jones will serve as joint acting chief executives until the Commission finds a permanent replacement.

Total gambling revenue for the month was $288.3m (£207.3m/€242.3m), which was only marginally higher than the $287.3m posted in the same month last year, but down from $346.4m in January 2021.

Sports betting revenue came in at $46.2m, an increase of 171.8% from $17.0m last year, but some way short of the record $82.6m recorded in January of this year.

Players spending on sports betting jumped 50.2% year-on-year to $743.0m, but this was the lowest monthly handle since August 2020, even after taking into account betting on the National Football League’s Super Bowl showpiece. Some $689.2m was wagered online and $53.7m at retail sportsbooks.

FanDuel and PointsBet at Meadowlands remained by far the market leaders in February, posting $27.2m in revenue, up 147.3% on last year. Resorts Digital and DraftKings followed with $7.7m, then the Borgata on $5.0m.

Looking at online casino and revenue here reached $93.8m, which was up 80.4% from $52.0m last year, but down 9.6% from January’s record of $103.8m.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Dealmaking is back after the chilly break with double the number of partnerships announced vis à vis January. Blox had a busy month although BlueOcean Gaming was the busiest aggregator in February, announcing a flurry of new content deals with CandleBets, GivMe Games, Golden Hero, Peter & Sons and Stakelogic. On the rolling six-month view, this takes them into second place after PariPlay.

Biggest aggregator dealmakers

From a studio perspective, Matrix Studios are now distributing their product via new partners BetConstruct, Emara Play and Slotegrator. As Booongo also notched up another couple of deals, they now occupy ‘pooole’ position for busiest studio dealmaker in the last six months. And deals mean revenues if you missed our piece on the correlation between studio deal-making and game distribution across operator sites.

Biggest studio dealmakers

On the games front, there’s no change at the top this month but a new trio of hopefuls…

Adventures of Doubloon Island by Triple Edge Gaming is this month’s hottest arrival, grabbing fifth spot whilst two other new and exclusive titles for Microgaming, 3 Devils Pinball (Crazy Tooth Studio) and Chicago Gold (PearFiction Studios) also made it into the top 20.

Top 20 games by distribution

Perhaps a consequence of confined couples and stymied singles, Valentine’s had a bloodthirsty take this year, with the top romantic titles all combining a bit of gore and passion.

Vampire Kiss by Leap Gaming, Romance V by Fugaso and Blood Lust by Elk Studios satiated many but it was the wild desires of Microgaming’s slot, the remastered Immortal Romance, that savaged, or ravaged them all – even making it into our top 20 games chart too.

A few tender souls did opt for Chocolates (Big Time Gaming), For Love And Money (Rival Powered) or Tweethearts (Just For The Win) but they were easily outnumbered by Vlad and his fans.

Last month’s stars, Gonzo’s Quest Megaways and Twin Spin Megaways either crept in or fell just short of the top 20 but sister products Piggy Riches and Fishin’ Frenzy benefited from the interest in Red Tiger Megaways titles.

Barcrest had two Rainbow Riches titles in February’s top 20, presumably with players and/or operators building up anticipation ahead of Rainbow Riches Race Day, which launched just at the end of the month. We expect to see it off the bridle in time for next month’s dashboard review.

*Data on deals by month was collected from April 2020 onwards. Deal relationships between companies from all time are available on other charts. Note that only deals reported on company websites or in the gaming press are collated.

**The games chart here excludes live games and table games. Game rankings are determined by the number of game appearances on the casino homepages of more than 1000 casino sites. To access the full detailed database and see many other charts including live and table games, or to filter by operator type and size, see our partner’s site, egamingmonitor.com.

Photo by Launde Morel on Unsplash

Total gross receipts from online gambling for the month amounted to $89.2m (£64.2m/€75.0m), more than double the $42.7m reported in January.

However, as Michigan only opened its online gambling market on January 22, operators were only able to offer such services for the last 10 days of January.

Revenue from online sports betting dropped from $13.3m in January to $9.5m in February.

Players staked a total of $301.9m on sports wagering in February, an increase of 162.1% on the $115.2m bet in January, but as players won more, this pushed revenue down month-on-month.

MGM Grand Detroit and its BetMGM sportsbook claimed top spot in this market, posting $5.3m in revenue off of $75.7m in total wagers, while Greektown Casino, with its Barstool Sportsbook product, ranked second with $1.9m in revenue and a handle of $40.2m.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Baccarat dealer Richard Quach was captured on CCTV taking five chips off a gaming table and putting them into his sock while dealing a hand at the casino last year.

A subsequent investigation by the casino found that Quach had stolen $11,000 worth of chips over a one-week period in July 2020.

Five of the chips, totalling $5,000 in value were recovered, with the attendant admitting he had cashed out $6,000 worth to play gaming machines inside the casino.

Quach was dismissed by The Star and convicted of theft in the New South Wales Local Court. He was sentenced to serve a two-year Community Corrections Order (CCO) and required to pay $6,000 in compensation.

A CCO involves standard conditions, that an offender must not commit any offence, and must appear before the court if called on to do so at any time during the term of the Order.

Additional conditions of a CCO which may be imposed by the sentencing court include curfew conditions, community service work, rehabilitation and treatment conditions, and non-association conditions prohibiting association with particular people, among others.

In a separate incident, CCTV captured aother employee, Pharadorn Naweesakorn, giving $6,000 worth of chips to a customer in exchange for $1,000 in cash.

A subsequent investigation found Naweesakorn had made a total overpayment of $20,000 to the same customer on four separate occasions.

According to the Independent Liquor and Gaming Commission in New South Wales, the dealer admitted he had colluded with the patron after the scheme “was first suggested to him as a joke”.

He was sentenced to a two-year CCO and ordered to pay $8,550 in compensation to The Star.

“A casino special employee is a licensee engaged to supervise and facilitate gaming activities,” said Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority chair, Philip Crawford.

“These people help safeguard the integrity of casino operations from criminal influence, serious misconduct or exploitation and a special degree of trust is placed in them.”

Crawford said The Star was right to sack the employees after self-reporting the misconduct in line with its regulatory obligations.

In December, two other members of staff at the casino were banned from casinos in New South Wales for five years following serious misconduct.

A gaming attendant, who admitted to having gambling issues, was found to have placed 28 bets on a gambling app while on shift. An off-duty games dealer, meanwhile, was caught disposing of illicit drugs in a public area of the casino.

The Fandom Sports Esports prediction platform is live on Fandomesports.gg, with users able to make predictions on events based around video game titles such as League of Legends, DOTA 2 and CS:GO.

The launch of the prediction platform comes ahead of Fandom’s planned roll-out of an esports wagering platform later this year.

“Our platform is a one-of-a-kind technology and what is live now is only the tip of the iceberg of what we have planned and what our technology is capable of,” Fandom president and chief executive David Vinokuro said.

“We’re currently testing various payment gateways and will launch the full wagering platform in early Q2 2021 once our private cloud infrastructure is deployed.

Vinokuro added that the business planned on minting and deploying non-fungible tokens as rewards on its free-to-play platform.

“Furthermore, we are building out our rewards matrix to encapsulate recent announcements pertaining to our non-fungible token strategy,” he said.

Davis served as Governor from 2016 to 2020 and has also been commandant general for the Royal Marines and the deputy commander of NATO’s Allied Land Command.

Van Almsick won four Olympic silver medals and six bronze medals, as well as two World Championship golds, all representing Germany. She will now act as an ambassador for the foundation in Germany.

Entain have committed to a £100m five-year plan to support a variety of causes through the Entain Foundation, including responsible gambling and diversity in technology.

“We are honoured to welcome Ed and Franziska to the Entain Foundation,” Entain chief executive Jette Nygaard-Andersen said.

“The appointment of such high calibre individuals is a mark of our ambitions for the Foundation’s future. Collectively they bring incredible leadership and organisational skills as well as huge experience in the charitable sector and sporting world.”