Category: News

Online sports betting and gaming launched on 22 January, when nine operators were granted approval by the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB) to offer online products. 

From that date until the end of the month, sports betting brought in $13.3m on handle of $115.2m. Online gaming revenue, meanwhile, came to $29.4m over nine days.

Looking at sports betting, FanDuel’s sportsbook in partnership with MotorCity Casino led the way in handle, at $32.6m. However, the operator took in only $622,371 in gross revenue.

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The deal will see Codere become the team’s main sponsor from July, with the operator’s logo to appear on the club’s kit and shirt.

Codere said the agreement would allow it to advance its strategic project of international expansion and brand consolidation, thanks to the visibility gained through marketing and promotional actions planned together with the club.

Codere has been operating in Mexico since 1998, after being granted permits to offer betting and raffles from the country’s Ministry of the Interior.

Its permits allowed the company to install terminals and gaming halls, betting points and to operate the Hipódromo de las Américas racecourse in Mexico City.

In addition to the racecourse, the operator currently runs close to 100 gambling halls, the Granja de las Américas family park, the Citibanamex convention centre and online gaming in the jurisdiction.

Codere said that at the end of 2019, Mexico accounted for 22% of the group’s global revenues.

“It is a pleasure for CFM to begin a relationship with an international brand like Codere, which will help us both to continue consolidating our growth and achieve our goals” said Pedro Esquivel, executive vice president of the Monterrey Rayados A.C. Football Club.

“We believe in long-term alliances with business partners who share our values and objectives, for which we thank Codere for their trust and we are sure that great things will come for the future.”

Alberto Telias, Codere Marketing Director, added that the operator and football club have similar values.

“The agreement with Rayados de Monterrey is an extremely exciting project,” he said. “We believe that we have common brand values, which we want to exploit together.

“Partnering with such a successful and important team as Rayados, after a period of pandemic with great impact on the game, is confirmation of the strong proposal that Codere has for Mexican players.”

Results published in November showed that Codere’s revenue in the third quarter of 2020 declined 58.4% to €143.0m (£124.2/$172.1m). The operator made only €20.9m from Latin America for the quarter, down 89.5%.

Later in November, the operator set out a new standardised corporate social responsibility and responsible gambling strategy to use across all markets in which it is active.

Under the agreement, Inspired will supply its virtual sports products in Cage’s retail outlets and its V-Play Plug & Play (VPP) online and mobile solution for Cage’s interactive channels throughout the region.

VPP features a number of custom sports variants for Cage customers, including virtual cricket, which Inspired will introduce for the first time as part of its VPP solution.

Cage and its affiliates will also be able to sublicense the products to third-party operators in the Caribbean.

“The Cage Companies have established themselves as the Caribbean’s premier gaming route operator and we are looking forward to working with them and extending our partnership to deploy our leading content into the market,” Inspired’s president and chief operating officer Brooks Pierce said.

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The KKV’s overall assessment was that the reform of Finnish gambling was “on the right track”. However, it said, there is still room for improvement and that Veikkaus should have prevented and reduced gambling-related harm “in a more targeted way than has happened”.

It said that one way to facilitate this improvement would be by making Veikkaus revenue go into the treasury instead of directly towards certain funding areas.

Currently, just over half of Veikkaus revenue goes to the Ministry of Education and Culture for sports, science and arts funding, while 43% goes to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health for improving health and social welfare. A further 4% is used to fund horse racing through the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

However, the KKV said this created a situation where any efforts to reduce gambling harm risked leading to underfunding for these areas.

“If active efforts are made to reduce gambling disadvantages, Veikkaus beneficiaries will not be able to anticipate their funding, as reducing gambling disadvantages is likely to have an impact on the amount of Veikkaus revenues distributed to beneficiaries,” KKV research professor Mika Maliranta said. “On the other hand, if the gambling monopoly does not actively seek to reduce harm, the monopoly system does not meet the purpose or justification of the law. 

“This contradiction has hampered the social debate about Veikkaus’ responsibility”.

The KKV added that the change would bring “predictability and stability” to the funding of Veikkaus’ current beneficiaries.

In addition, the KKV said Veikkaus’ governance should come under the power of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (STM) rather than the Prime Minister’s Office.

“STM is already responsible for monitoring, researching, evaluating and developing prevention and treatment of gambling disorders,” the KKV said. “Thus, it would be best placed to steer the company in a direction where gambling causes less harm to individuals and society. 

“This is also in line with the state’s corporate governance principles. The solution would be in line with the alcohol policy, as STM is also responsible for [state-owned alcohol retailer] Alko Oy’s corporate governance.”  

In addition, the KKV said further reform of the Finnish monopoly system should be undertaken in a data-driven manner, and that Veikkaus’ own data should be made available to the research community.

The KKV has issued a series of reports on Veikkaus in the past. In September of last year, it determined that the monopoly broke Finland’s Procurement Act by making substantial changes to its supply contract with International Game Technology (IGT).

In 2019, the KKV argued that there should be a central regulatory body for the country’s gambling sector as it said the current framework was not fit for purpose.

The permit will enable Spribe to offer its portfolio of games and content to more operators covered by MGA licences.

Spribe offers a range of ‘Turbo Games’ including Aviator, Mines and Dice, with each game of these built for mobile play, while the developer also has a series of skill games including poker, backgammon, bura, seka and domino.

“This will significantly increase the reach of our games, allowing us to work with more operators and to provide their players, and especially those in the Millennial demographic, with a unique, exciting and thrilling online casino experience like no other,” Spribe managing partner David Natroshvili said.

“The Spribe team has worked incredibly hard to get to this stage and to secure approval from the Malta Gaming Authority and armed with our licence we will continue to deploy or ambitious growth plans for this year and beyond.”

The new licence comes after Spribe last week also announced plans to launch its content in Great Britain for the first time after it secured a licence from the GB Gambling Commission.

The licence enables Spribe to roll out its content with operators that also hold a permit to offer online gambling in Great Britain.

FY20 is the twelve-month period ending 30 June, 2020 in each of the states except Michigan, which concluded the fiscal year on 30 September.

The Michigan Lottery achieved a total sales increase of 86% and since its launch has contributed over $500m before operating expenses to the Michigan School Aid Fund.

The Virginia Lottery saw growth of 29% in online subscription sales in FY20, the supplier said, and the New Hampshire lottery recorded over 142% growth in sales in its first full fiscal year of ilottery operations.

North Carolina’s program, which was converted by NeoPollard to enable the sale of draw games online, was live for eight months in FY20 and achieved top line sales 57% higher than the full FY19.

“Since its inception, NPi has been dedicated to delivering the most entertaining, engaging, and profitable ilottery programs to our customers,” Liz Siver, general manager of NeoPollard Interactive, said.

 “We are proud that our industry-leading products and services have helped our ilottery partners continue to drive sales, engage with players, and maximize revenue for the many good causes they support.”

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The #OpenDoors 2021 campaign will aim to raise awareness of how others can affect people’s professional development and recognise the fact that some do not progress in their careers without the help of someone.

The campaign, which also ran last year, will ask contributors to thank someone who opened a door for them, as well as pledge to do the same for someone else.

It will this year run alongside a new scholarship fund, developed to support aspiring leaders from under-represented groups. The All-in Diversity Project has set a goal to this year raise enough to be able to fund at least two scholarships for University of Nevada, Las Vegas International Gaming Institute and University of Nevada, Reno College of Business and Extended Studies’ Executive Development Programme.

Penn National Gaming, Hero Gaming, Interactive Gaming Group, Insight Global, Playtech, Pronet Gaming, and Facebook Gaming are among the first corporate sponsors of the scholarship.

“If we really want to progress and be a more diverse and inclusive industry, we need to recognise that we did not get to where we are in our career without the help of someone along the way,” All-in Diversity Project co-founder Kelly Kehn said.

“By celebrating someone who supported your career, you are also pledging that you are willing to hold the door open for someone else who might need it. Donations to the scholarship fund are a true action where we can hold the door open for the future leaders of our industry.”

The new campaign comes after the All-in Diversity Project this week also signed a signed a new strategic partnership with the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA).

The IBIA said it teamed up with the body as part of its plan to expand its network to meet the challenges of a changing world of customers and products and the increasing spotlight on equality issues within the world of sport.

While gaming continued to make up the vast majority of Boyd’s revenue, this was down 28.5% to $1.78bn.

Food and beverages brought in $178.8m, down 60.0%, while room revenue dropped 55.8% to $105.0m and other revenue was down 24.4% at $119.3m.

Almost three quarters of revenue came from casinos in the Midwest and South regions, which brought in $1.52bn, down 30.5%. Las Vegas local casinos saw revenue decline 36.2% to $94.5m.

Boyd’s casinos in downtown Las Vegas were hit hardest, with revenue down 63.3%

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Revenue was up more than tenfold from $222,392 for the first quarter of its 2021 financial year, ended 30 September, which was the first quarter for which the group reported revenue following its acquisition of online operator Argyll Entertainment in July 2020.

Turnover, net revenue and gross gaming revenue (GGR) returned to pre-Covid levels in October, the business said, with total handle above $16m for the month and GGR above $700,000.

Total handle for December was $20m, with revenue over $850,000.

Operating expenses for the three-month period came to $8.1m, up from just $700,000 for the same period in 2019. The increase was primarily attributable to the increased payroll, stock compensation, marketing, legal and professional service fees related to increase business activity, the group said.

Net loss for the period came to $7.3m, up 137.6% from 2019’s loss. This loss was driven principally by reduced revenues related to measures taken after the British Gambling Commission’s audit of Argyll Entertainment.

The group has raised its 2020/2021 revenue guidance to $18m from $13m, reflecting its more recent acquisitions of online casino operator Lucky Dino, B2B software provider ggCircuit and esports centre operator Helix eSports.

Including the acquisitions of Helix Esports and ggCircuit, the business said it expects to report $70 million in revenue in the fiscal year 2022.

The business also completed its acquisition of Esports Gaming League (EGL) in January, and the tournament organiser went on to announce several partnership deals with sports teams including the Philadelphia Eagles, LA Kings and LA Galaxy, to become the organisations’ official esports tournament provider.

The group yesterday completed a capital raise of $30m, in order to build resource for the continuation of its long-term business strategy.

“The foundation we have built is primed to generate rapid growth in the quarters ahead,” Grant Johnson, chief executive of Esports Entertainment Group, said.

“Revenue growth, driven by our Argyll Entertainment acquisition, accelerated throughout the fiscal second quarter. With the acquisitions of Lucky Dino, Helix Esports and ggCircuit, we have raised our revenue guidance from $13 million to $18 million for fiscal 2021.”

“Additional key milestone achievements subsequent to quarter end, including completing our acquisition of EGL and greatly expanding the eligible operating jurisdictions for our VIE and SportNation brands, provide further growth opportunities.”

Johnson went on to describe how the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic had accelerated the growth of the esports vertical, with increased exposure on mainstream television and more interest from professional sports franchises.

“Looking ahead, we are building on our momentum, and with today’s capital raise of $30 million, we have the resources to further accelerate the monetization of our robust three pillar strategy,” concluded Johnson.

Revenue for the 12 months through to 31 December 2020 amounted to €29.4m (£25.6m/$35.5m), up from €23.9m in the previous year.

Casino accounted for 85.1% of all revenue, compared to 68.4% in 2019, but sport’s share was down from 27.0% to 11.5%, with this area most impacted by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. Other activities accounted for the remaining 3.4% of revenue.

In terms of geographical performance, the share of total revenue generated in the Nordics was 80.4%, but this was down from 93.1% in 2019, whereas rest-of-world revenue share increased from 6.9% to 19.6%.

Raketech said the acquisitions it made in 2020 were a major factor in revenue growth, with all purchased assets delivering in terms of growth and anticipated industrial benefits.

These acquisitions included igaming affiliate network Lead Republik, which it purchased for an initial €1.4m in March, as well as US-facing affiliate website American Gambler in November.

“I am pleased to see that the acquisitions we made during 2020 are delivering over expectations in terms of growth and that the anticipated industrial benefits such as knowledge transfer, best practice, overhead costs reduction, central controlling, resource pools, platforms, BI systems and more, so far are being realised to a large degree,” Raketech chief executive Oskar Mühlbach said.

Looking at spending for the year, operating expenses increased 28.1% year-on-year to €22.8m, partly due to higher depreciation, amortisation and impairment costs of €5.4m related to the acquisitions.

Direct expenses also climbed to €7.9m due to increased efforts within paid media, primarily through Lead Republik and the Rapidi white label casino.

Earnings before interest, tax, deprecation and amortisation (EBITDA) reached €12.0m, up 13.6% from €12.0m, while, operating profit also edged up 8.2% to €6.6m.

When accounting for €360,000 in non-operating income and €930,000 worth of financial costs, profit before tax was €6.1m, down 17.6% year-on-year, though the 2019 figure was helped by higher non-operating income, related to party liability waived in Q1 of 2019,

Raketech paid €459,000 in tax, leaving it with a net profit of €5.6m, down 22.2% from the previous year.

“All in all, we can look back at a year in Raketech’s history where we despite Covid-19 successfully executed several operational initiatives of strategic importance,” Mühlbach said.

In terms of the fourth quarter, revenue in the final three months of the year was up 44.7% to €8.5m, primarily due to the impact of the Lead Republik purchase.

Opertaing costs were 3.3% higher at €6.2m in Q4, while was 125.0% higher at €3.6m and operating profit reached €2.3m, compared to a €100,000 loss in the same period in 2019.

Profit before tax stood at €2.3m, compared to a loss of €360,000 in the previous year, while profit after tax was €2.1m, a significant improvement on its €342,000 in 2019.

“Confident by the strong Q4 results and our general achievements during 2020, we will continue our relentless efforts to widen our geographical footprint, our product offering and our asset portfolio.

“Raketech’s sound financial situation furthermore allows us to complement our organic growth strategy with continuous and potentially accelerated efforts within the area of M&A during 2021.”