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The sportsbook will offer customers the opportunity to bet on major sports competitions including professional and college American football, basketball, baseball and hockey, as well as a variety of other domestic and international events.

When the ship is in international waters, or where permitted by law, guests will be able to wager on sports events via the MedallionClass app, as well as place prop bets during live events taking place during the cruise.

Ocean Sportsbook has been built in partnership with software developer Miomni, and will be available on all Princess MedallionClass ships upon approval to return to service in 2021.

“On Princess MedallionClass cruises our guests can stay connected with their friends and family around the world, and now with Ocean Sportsbook, they can also stay connected to their favorite teams and wager on a host of events whenever they sail with us,” said Jan Swartz, president of Princess Cruises.

“Taking a cruise vacation no longer means being disconnected from a big game, an iconic event or friends and family.”

Read the full story on iGB North America.

The record revenue came on bets worth $149.5m, also a record, after an 157.8% increase from January 2020 and a 42.7% jump from December 2020’s previous high.

With players able to register for a betting account at home rather than traveling to a land-based casino for the first time, online betting skyrocketed 257.1% year-on-year and 54.7% from December 2020’s record, with $120.8m worth of bets placed online. 

These online bets produced $8.4m in revenue, up 513.9% and more than the amount made through online and retail channels combined in any previous month.

Read the full story on iGB North America

The group is engaged in junket businesses at casino VIP rooms in Macau, and in receiving trade debts from customers through subsidiaries. It operates businesses mainly in Macau and Hong Kong.

It said that according to the information currently available to management, the company expected to record a loss of at least HK$18m (£1.7m/€1.9m/$2.3m) for the six months ended 31 December 2020.

The loss was caused by several factors, it said, including the absence of revenue from its gaming and entertainment business, as the group’s junket operator in Macau had remained inactive since April 2020.

In comparison, for the six months to 31 December 2019, the junket operator brought in revenue of around HK$18m.

The group also suffered a decrease in revenue from its hotel operations business of at least HK$2m in the 2020 interim period, compared to in the previous year, due to a significant drop in the number of tourists visiting Hong Kong.

In addition, it made an expected impairment loss on properties held of around HK$12m, and a further expected fair value loss of the group’s investment properties of approximately HK$6m.

The group said the losses were partially offset by an increase in revenue from its money lending business of around HK$5m, and the absence of amortisation of intangible assets from its gaming and entertainment business, compared to 2019.

Final results for the 2020 period are yet to be released.

Surfing the wave of interest in US sports-betting-related SPAC floats, betting-data supplier Genius Sports looks set to ride all the way to the lower reaches of the NYSE in the coming days on the back of a deal with the blank check company dMY Technology.

In doing so it will further demonstrate the enthusiasm among US investors in all things sports-betting, a trend which shows no sign of abating any time soon. But of more interest is the insight to be gained into the data rights market as detailed in the prospectus for the deal which was published in mid-January.

In a press release accompanying the publication of the document, Genius Sports talks about being a “true partner to sports leagues, sportsbooks and media groups worldwide.” Central to this is the deal with English and Scottish football league data rights owner Football DataCo (FDC).

The subject of an ongoing legal action brought by Sportradar, it has been widely assumed the deal which came into force at the beginning of the 2019/20 season represented a huge increase financially on the previous arrangement with STATS Perform.

Now, we have confirmation from the Genius Sports prospectus of how much is now being paid for data rights to English and Scottish league competitions. Data rights costs in 2018 came in at $9.1m but soared by 160% to $23.8m in 2019, an increase which the prospectus says was due “primarily” by the FDC deal.

The numbers indicate that Genius Group is laying out $10m-plus a year for the rights which sources suggest is a big increase on previous levels. It is also an ongoing financial commitment. The cost of current data rights deals – i.e. without any further data rights being added – is forecast to hit $30.5m in the last year of the FDC deal in 2023.

Confirmation of the hefty price-tag demanded by FDC comes later in the prospectus where it states that previous owners Apax provided Genius Sports via affiliated investment funds with a £30m letter of guarantee which was given to FDC as part of a “commitment letter.”

End user
The price for these escalating data rights is ultimately paid by Genius Sports’ clients. In a customer case study in the prospectus it says it achieved 36% growth in FDC betting data revenues after the first season of the deal while the number of clients for the official data grew from 17 to 80.

This increase is reflected in group revenues. From $87.6m in 2018, revenues rose 31% in 2019 to $114.6m. According to a presentation which accompanied the news of the float, they are forecast to rise a further 27% in 2020 to $145m and another 31% to $190m this coming year.

However, costs are rising in lockstep. Yes, that presentation forecasts adjusted EBITDA to hit $14m this year and $35m the year after. But to get to the adjusted EBITDA figure Genius Sports reverses the interest, tax and depreciation and amortisation elements – worth a combined $26m-plus. Not for nothing does the prospectus admit its definition of adjusted EBITDA isn’t “in accordance” with official UK or US accounting measures.

This is EBITDA not so much adjusted as filleted. In reality, pre-tax losses for the nine months to September 2020 came in at $20m while losses from operations were $14m. No wonder the prospectus warns that Genius Sports has a “history of losses and may not be able to achieve or sustain profitability in the future.”

Indeed, the company forecasts operational costs to increase in the years to come. “We also expect our operating expenses to increase in the future as we continue to invest for our future growth, which will negatively affect our results of operations if our total revenue does not increase.”

The increase in the cost of the rights to official English and Scottish football data is being paid by the global sports-betting operators who will no doubt be wondering where the inflation baked into Genius Sports’ prospects will lead them.

The question boils down to whether this is a one-way ratchet and a lot depends on what happens next. The whole data rights market is much more than Genius Sports and as it admits in the prospectus: “Increased competition amongst sports-data providers for data-collection rights granted by sports organisations could lead to an increase in the cost of those rights which we may be unable to pass on to our customers.”

Balancing act
All this is happening at a time of flux in the wider relationship between sports and the betting companies. In the UK, the Gambling Act review could well introduce a ban on gambling-related advertising and marketing spend, severely disrupting the current ecosystem of money following from bookies to teams and leagues.

Moreover, the UK might not be alone in going down this path. At which point, when the cost of data becomes a more important line item in the average bookmakers’ P&L, rights inflation and other arguments over data might be seen in a different light.

The global betting industry has consistently proven itself to be adaptable when it comes to costs and there is no reason to suspect that habit won’t continue. In this sense, it might be Genius Sports have kicked off a data price war without really knowing what the result of that might be either for the betting sector or the sports themselves.

Scott Longley has been a journalist since the early 2000s, covering personal finance, sport and gambling. He has worked for a number of publications including Investment Week, Bloomberg Money, Football First, eGaming Review and Gambling Compliance. Scott now runs his own editorial consultancy, Clear Concise Media, and writes for a number of online and print titles.

The ‘Notice on the surrender of cross-border gambling-related criminal suspects’ was jointly issued by the Ministry, the Supreme People’s Court, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and forms the latest step in China’s ongoing crackdown on gambling.

It targets individuals that would face charges of organising or facilitating illegal gambling, as set out in Article 303 of China’s criminal laws, as well as the customers of these operations. 

Any of those people, provided they come forward by 30 April this year, will be handed a lighter punishment, and in some cases no punishment at all, in return for confessing their crimes. 

They will be permitted to surrender either directly in person, or through a third party communication such as a letter, email or phone call. 

How much they are able to mitigate their crimes – by providing information on the criminal activity of others evidence that helps shut down illegal gambling operations – will influence how lenient a punishment they receive.

The individuals that cooperate as fully as possible with operators may then be exempt from any punishment for their “significant meritorious service”. 

However those that fail to surrender by 30 April will instead face “severe” punishment from the Chinese authorities, the notice warns. 

Finally, the notice looks to encourage individuals to report crimes involving gambling by offering police protection from threats and retaliation. Any threats issued in the wake of the individuals cooperating with the authorities will also be investigated in full, the Ministry added. 

Liao Jinrong, director general of the Ministry of Public Security’s international cooperation department, said the notice demonstrated the Chinese government’s ongoing commitment to cracking down on cross-border gambling crimes. 
The new notice looked to offer those directly involved in illegal gambling a clear and unambiguous way to “step away from the precipice” of criminal activity, he explained.

Furthermore, this would help deter those gambling via illegal sites or overseas providers, Liao said.

For the players that regularly travel overseas to gamble large sums, a pilot programme is being run in three provinces, including Zhejiang, to restrict their travel and financial transactions. To date, more than 35,000 individuals have been identified and punished through this initiative. 

This will be followed by ramping up efforts to identify and punish online gamblers. The Ministry will look to use technology to identify and track players, punishing those spending large sums, and running education programmes for low-level customers. 

For the upcoming Chinese New Year public holiday, a particularly busy time for overseas gambling, Liao said the Ministry would from strike teams, to crack down on illegal junkets.

This continues a series of government efforts to restrict gambling in China, which have been stepped up in recent years. 

This has included the authorities putting pressure on their counterparts in other countries such as Cambodia and the Philippines, as it pursues those operating the illegal businesses. 

State Councillor and Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi was appointed early in 2020 to lead a drive to step up enforcement activity, and promote the Sports and Welfare Lotteries as the only forms of legal gambling in the country. As part of this Zhao aims to set up a blacklist of banned sites.

The Ministry of Public Security then warned in April last year that it would look to block transactions to offshore sites, and freeze bank accounts. This followed a rise in illegal gambling as the country went into lockdown as a result of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

In the three months to 31 December, 2020, the Unibet and 32Red operator said 4.3% of gross winnings revenue came from at-risk gamblers. The group added that it had achieved an improvement effect after interventions figure of 75.7% in the same period.

Nasdaq Stockholm-listed Kindred said it has decided to publish the figures as part of its commitment to achieving zero revenue from harmful gambling by 2023 and increase knowledge and transparency about the company’s sustainability work and contribute to a fact-based dialogue about harmful gambling with decision-makers and other stakeholders.

“Our ambition is that zero per cent of our share of revenue should come from harmful gambling, which we have worked towards for several years,” said Henrik Tjärnström, Kindred’s chief executive.

“We constantly strive to become even better at identifying players that exhibit risky gambling behaviour and guide them back to healthier gambling habits. We want gambling to be simple and enjoyable for everyone.”

The figures concerning improvement effect after interventions are particularly interesting as Kindred outlined its system of identifying changes in a player’s behaviour and then informing them about tools that can be activated to limit his or her gambling.

In 2020, Kindred conducted approximately 55,000 care calls to inform players about how they can gamble safely and responsibly, and how they can introduce restrictions to their own gambling, such as deposit limits. 75.7% of Kindred’s detected players displayed a healthier gambling behaviour after being in contact with Kindred’s Responsible Gambling team.

Tjärnström added: “Reducing harmful gambling in society is a long-term process which requires a fact-based, open, and constructive dialogue, not least with decision-makers. We want to contribute to that.

“The most important thing decision-makers can do right now is to reduce the flight to unlicensed gambling operators, who fail to provide players with any safety measures whatsoever. The so-called channelisation must increase.”

The latter point comes just days after a study published by professional services giant PWC found that gambling via unlicensed websites has grown significantly in Britain since 2018. The amount of individuals that used an unlicensed site more than doubled from 2.2% to 4.5%.

In response to the PWC findings, BGC chief executive Michael Dugher said: “This new report by PWC is an impressive and comprehensive piece of work which demonstrates how the unsafe, unregulated black market is a growing threat to British punters. “These illicit sites have none of the regulated sector’s consumer protections in place, such as strict ID and age verification checks, safer gambling messages and the ability to set deposit limits.”

In a separate study published last week, the University of Oxford’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention found that the top 1% of gamblers’ deposits averaged 58% of their income.

In 2020, German operator Tipico published the percent of its turnover that comes from problem gamblers, arriving at a figure of 2%, which is lower than the German government’s estimate of the overall rate of problem gambling in the country.

The developer had previously announced plans to list on the exchange, offering 33.3m shares. Of these 33.3m shares, 15m will be newly issued, while 18.3m are existing shares, mostly held by major investors such as Big Bets OÜ, which is owned by company founder Anton Gauffin and holds 42% of Huuuge shares.

Institutional investors will be offered 31.6m of the shares, with the remaining 1.7m offered to retail investors.

“We are a global company on a mission to empower billions of people to play together,” Gauffin said. “Today we are taking a major step forward by welcoming all our new shareholders, who will join us as we bring social gaming to an ever greater number of players around the world. 

“We are delighted with such a positive response from investors across the globe, which we believe reflects the confidence in our growth plan and strength of Huuuge’s social and global business model.”

Following the completion of the IPO, Gauffin’s Big Bets OÜ will hold 30.7% of Huuuge shares, having held 42% before it began.

Based on the PLN50 offer price, Huuuge’s market capitalisation would total 4.20bn

Last month, Huuuge revealed that it intends to use more than 90% of the PLN565m it raised through the sale of new shares to pursue acquisitions of other social gaming studios.

It said it was hoping to target established studios with both “compelling return on advertising spend” and potential for further growth and valued between $20m and $300m, and had already identified around 60 possible acquisition targets.

Huuuge shares will start trading on the exchange from 19 February.

“Becoming a public global company starts a new chapter for Huuuge,” Gauffin said. “It means we are ready to accelerate our build & buy growth strategy, building our smart network and portfolio of games, continually advancing the social gameplay experience with new innovations and ideas, and realising new opportunities to bring people together.”

Featuring gaming content from software providers such as TrueLab, GameArt and BGaming, users will be able to play wide range of slot games.

GamblersArea.com has its own unique currency known as ‘Diamonds’, which users can earn by playing games and swap for more gaming coins.

Members will also have the opportunity to bet along famous streamers such as DeuceAce and PressPlayTTV.

In addition, for players that want to gamble with real-money, GamblersArea.com features links to other casino sites, where members will have access to welcome offers and bonuses.

“Our vision is to create an innovative social casino platform for the live streaming community and players,” GamblersArea.com chief operating officer Martin Edwards said.

Operators offering virtual games would have to pay 10% tax on gross gaming revenue from these games, should the Board’s recommendations be adopted.

The Board is responsible for the regulation of gambling in Tanzania, while the organisation also advises the national government on taxes, levies and fees for gambling.

The government approved the legalisation of virtual gambling games as part of a number of amendments to the country’s Gaming Act announced in October 2019. However, a tax rate for these activities is yet to be confirmed.

Stakeholders wanting to comment on the proposed tax rate must do so by 7 February.

Aside from virtual games, the 2019 amendments also set out a number of other changes, including new licence categories for profit lotteries, service providers, entities supplying goods or services to operators, and gaming consultants.

The Board was also given new powers to approve operators to advertise their products, ending a partial bans on advertising in the country.

Total revenue across all verticals and channels declined 8.1% year-on-year to €103.5m (£90.7m/$124.4m), with the online advances accompanied by a 39.1% drop in land-based revenue to €43.9m.

With customers confined to their homes between March and May as a result of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, igaming participating grew sharply. 

Total customer spend surpassed $1bn, a 64.3% year-on-year increase, while total revenue grew to €59.6m. 

Category A slots – with uncapped payouts and stakes – were the primary source of online revenue, after the product’s total almost doubled year-on-year to €29.4m. 

Despite major sporting events being suspended between March and mid-May as a result of Covid-19, sports betting contributed the second largest share of any vertical. 

Betting revenue was up 10.5% to €26.5m, on stakes of €444.1m, a 5.2% improvement on 2019. 

Online table game revenue soared, albeit from a low base, to €1.9m, while revenue from Category B slots was up 47.4% to €1.2m. 

After Covid-19 pandemic forced in-person facilities to shut their doors from 16 March to 17 May, Lithuania’s land-based market struggled, however.

Customer stakes across all products fell 39.5% below the prior year’s total, to €288.6m.  

Category B slots – which limit stakes to €0.50 per spin and have win amounts capped at 200 times the original stake – made up the majority of revenue for the year, at €20.3m, down 37.9%

Table games followed, though again revenue fell, to €10.2m. Category A slot revenue – with uncapped stakes and winnings – dropped 36.1% to €7.8m. 

Retail sports betting’s contribution, meanwhile was almost halved, to €5.7m. Not only did the sector face the Covid-19 shutdown, but also saw most major sporting events suspended as a result of the pandemic. 

The country’s national lottery Olifėja also reported a year-on-year decline in revenue for 2020. Ticket sales fell 6.7% to €106.3m, and after payouts to players, this left revenue of €46.9m, down 5.9%. 

The country’s regulatory body, the Gambling Supervision Service within the Ministry of Finance, is preparing to tighten controls for the industry in the wake of allegations of gambling being used to launder money.

This will see licensees required to implement new KYC processes, while land-based venues must only allow registered customers to gamble.

Last month, the regulator also reported a year-on-year rise in people signing up for its self-exclusion register. By the end of 2020, 17,348 individuals had voluntarily blocked access to gambling.