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Low betting margins continue to hinder Spanish industry in Q1

Gambling revenue in Spain was down year-on-year again in Q1 of 2022, due to continued anaemic sports betting margins.

According to data from regulator the Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ), gross gaming revenue was down by 14.8% to €204.4m. However this marked a 16.3% quarter-on-quarter increase.

Revenue fell despite an increase in stakes, which grew 5.3% year-on-year to €7.41bn, a new record high. Deposits, meanwhile, grew by 4.3% year-on-year – or 7.1% quarter-on quarter – to €769.8m.
A similar trend emerged in 2021, when revenue was down despite a significant increase in stakes.

Breaking down revenue by vertical, sports betting revenue continued to be low at €65.2m, a 40.9% fall from Q1 2021, but up 49.1% from Q4 of that year.

Sports betting stakes remained high at €3.06bn, up 10.6% year-on-year, as it had done in H2 2021. This suggests a sports betting margin of just 2.1%. Margins were low across all sports, but lowest in horse racing at 1.4%.

House-banked casi..

June 17, 2022

Kindred to withdraw from Germany

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Kindred brand Unibet will exit the German market on 1 July blaming the slow progress of licensing and onerous regulatory restrictions.

The operator said it had taken the “difficult decision” to withdraw its application for sportsbook and virtual slots licences, and cease all operations from 1 July.

“Our long-term strategic direction sets out locally regulated markets as the core engine for our growth, however licence application procedures, licence conditions, and the regulatory environment need to be transparent, sustainable, and financially viable for a market to be competitive,” Kindred explained.

It said the current application processes, and the terms and restrictions for product offerings, meant the regulated market was not sustainable nor competitive enough to withstand offshore competition.

“Therefore, we do not see a foundation for long-term shareholder value and customer experience at the moment.”

As its current operations in Germany are limited, the withdrawal would ..

June 16, 2022

Audit claims Colorado regulator “did not complete” background checks

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The Colorado office of the state auditor released a report criticising the state regulator for limited background checks and failures to investigate temporary licensees, as well as raising questions about the operator tax filings.

The regulatory failures documented by the report places into stark relief the first years of legal sports betting in the state.

“During the first year of regulating sports betting, the Division of Gaming, within the Department of Revenue, did not have an effective process to investigate sports betting operations for temporary licensure, or to collect sufficient documentation to determine if sports betting operations’ monthly tax filings were accurate,” the report states.

The audit found the commission issued the majority of operators only temporary licences. With these licences, the operators receive the same privileges as permanent licences but with far less stringent background check procedures.

“As of March 2022, 35 out of the 39 licensed retail and i..

June 15, 2022

Early takeaways from Ontario igaming

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With the first regulated igaming market to open to non-monopoly operators launching in a province with nearly 40% of the Canadian population, Ontario was always going to be an enticing prospect. Geoffrey Smorong provides analysis of the opening two months for iGB Affiliate.

On 4 April, the first Canadian province went live with a regulated igaming market for private operators, as Ontario officially opened its door to non-government operated online casinos and sportsbooks.

Ontario boasts a population of nearly 15 million, making it one of the largest new North American markets for regulated online gaming. The Ontario iGaming market will likely be a sizable one financially, as it’s expected to generate gross revenues of CA$989m by the end of this year and CA$1.86bn by 2026, according to VIXIO.

A couple of months have now passed, making this an ideal time to assess how the launch of the expanded igaming market in Ontario has gone so far.

Early engagement

The Ontario igaming marke..

June 15, 2022

Acies Investments leads $4m Tally Technology funding round

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Fan engagement platform Tally Technology has announced the closing of an oversubscribed $4.0m (£3.3m/€3.8m) series seed funding round led by Acies Investments, the venture fund led by former MGM CEO Jim Murren.

Founded in 2018, Tally develops free-to-play prediction game for brands, professional sports teams, leagues and media platforms, while it also gathers data on users’ gaming, wagering, brand preferences, consumer spending and other insights.

Tally currently works with a number of leading sports teams including National Football League franchises Los Angeles Rams, Green Bay Packers, Buffalo Bills, as well as National Basketball teams the Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Hawks.

Acies Investments has previously committed funds to the sports betting, sports technology, igaming and esports industries

With the closing of the series seed investment, Tally said it will use the funds continue to invest in its data platform, expand its operations and build a wider variety of game types.
..

June 14, 2022

Rhodes reveals Gambling Commission plans to “ramp up” enforcement

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Gambling Commission chief executive officer, Andrew Rhodes says the regulator will escalate penalties for failings, adopt more “prescriptive” approach to customer interaction and “ramp up” enforcement if industry continues to fail to live up to the Commission’s standards.

Rhodes made the remarks at the Westminster Media Forum Regulation Conference, where he spoke on the current state of the landscape in the industry ahead of the release of the Gambling Act review white paper. Rhodes hinted that the contents of the white paper should not necessarily be a surprise to anyone paying attention to the GC’s public comments.

“On behalf of the Gambling Commission, without waiting for what the white paper may bring, I can give you an overview on what we think needs to happen to make gambling in Great Britain as fair and safe as it can be, and what our next steps are to achieving that,” said Rhodes.

However, the regulator also said again that the regulator will not wait for the review to chan..

June 13, 2022

Tabcorp-backed body lobbies for higher online betting taxes in Australia

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Tabscorp (TAB), Australia’s largest gambling business, has allied with anti-industry group the Alliance for Gambling Reform as well as the Australian Hotel Association to lobby for higher taxes for online betting operators.

The newly-created trade association, named the Aussie Fair Play Coalition (AFPC), will push for other states to follow Queensland’s lead in harmonising the tax paid by online and land-based operators.

The group pointed to the fact that online operators are principally foreign-owned, and therefore argue that the inequitable tax rates unfairly penalise domestic businesses. While some online operators are from Australia, the majority are not based in Australian territory.

This argument is not a novel one – Victoria introduced the first point-of-consumption tax (POCT) in 2019, in the wake of fears that foreign-owned bookies were not paying Australian taxes.

Currently, the POCT stands at 10% in New South Wales and Victoria, 15% in the Australian Capital Territory, T..

June 10, 2022

Stats Perform to launch Opta Vision

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Sports data and analytics company Stats Perform has announced its new live Opta Vision data feeds for the 2022-23 football season, which will deliver a new series of football metrics.

In combining Opta event data with new tracking data, Opta Vision will provide insights to professional teams.

From this the Stats Perform also aims to deliver new storyline opportunities for broadcasters and publishers.

“We are very excited to be introducing the next generation of Opta data to our customers,” said Nancy Hensley, chief product officer at Stats Perform.

“By synchronising event and tracking data and then utilising our AI capabilities to generate enriched insights, we will be empowering performance analysis departments at teams, as well as a broadcaster’s production team, to identify new performance trends and tell great stories of the game.”

The merged data also uses Stat Perform’s Qwinn AI intelligence to generate more data outputs and deliver a more personalised experience to users.
..

June 10, 2022

BHA appoints Alison Enticknap to new strategy role

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The British Horseracing Association (BHA) has appointed Alison Enticknap to the newly created role of director of strategy and change.

In her new position Enticknap will lead the BHA’s coordination of industry strategy, and work with colleagues across the industry.

Enticknap’s new role will be placed within the BHA’s new strategy and change department, which is currently in development.

The department will oversee cross-industry projects and project delivery, as well as building capacity.

Enticknap has held the role of interim director of communications and corporate affairs at the BHA since 2021, having first joined the company in 2018.

“I see this role as a huge opportunity for racing to work together to address our biggest challenges and to seize important opportunities, ” said Enticknap. “The prize is enormous if we can collaborate as an industry and get this right.”

“I look forward to working across racing, with its wealth of knowledge and expertise, and helping to secure t..

June 9, 2022

NatCen study claims 10% of online accounts responsible for 79% of GGY

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A new study conducted by NatCen for GambleAware claims that 79.0% of online operator revenue comes from the highest-staking 10% of accounts, with online slots showing a particularly concentrated spending pattern.

The study used records from seven online operators, which each provided data about 20,000 accounts active between July 2019 and June 2019. These seven operators together made up more than 85% of the UK betting market, though only 37.5% of the gaming market.

It then weighted the data from these accounts to be representative of the overall online gambling market.

For each customer, NatCen had access to betting data showing the exact date, time and stake of all bets placed by each customer, while for gaming, data was split into 15-minute windows.

For both online betting and gaming, the research found that revenue at these operators was highly concentrated among a relatively small share of accounts.

Overall, it found that the 10% of gamblers with the largest stakes – all stak..

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