Billups, a five-time NBA All-Star, uttered several one-word replies at his New York arraignment in response to a series of questions from US District Judge Ramon Reyes. The 2024 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee is facing felony charges of money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. Each charge carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.

Billups appeared as part of a status conference in US vs Aiello, a sweeping probe into an alleged mob-backed illegal poker network. All 31 defendants in the case were present at Monday’s hearing including Angelo Ruggiero Jr and Thomas Gelardo, two mob figures who have been denied bail. The conference was held in an expansive ceremonial courtroom, usually reserved for immigration naturalisation proceedings.

Billups and attorney Marc Mukasey declined comment as they walked to a van outside a Brooklyn courthouse. Billups retained Mukasey, a former attorney for US President Donald Trump, following his arrest in Oregon last month.

Chris Heywood, an attorney who represented Billups last month in Portland, referred to the former NBA star at guard as a “man of integrity” and denied the allegations against him. Billups also fits the profile of an unindicted co-conspirator described in US vs Earnest, a parallel case being prosecuted out of Brooklyn concerning illegal sports betting.

A complex case

In the poker case, Reyes addressed several procedural matters at the status conference that lasted nearly two hours. Billups and Jones are not the only athletes indicted in the case. An attorney for boxer Curtis Meeks unsuccessfully petitioned the court to modify the bail restrictions for his client. Meeks has pleaded not guilty to charges that he worked with other defendants to provide poker cheating technology for the rigged games.

Reyes declared it a “complex case” of multiple schemes involving the rigged poker games and alleged extortion and robbery. He denied a petition from Assistant US Attorney Michael Gibaldi seeking to break the case into three different groups of 10-11 defendants in order to streamline proceedings.

Gibaldi said at Monday’s hearing that several defendants have begun plea negotiations with the government.

Reyes scheduled the next status conference for 4 March 2026.

Update on Jontay Porter case

Separately, federal prosecutors submitted a pre-sentencing letter against a defendant on Tuesday in an illegal sports betting conspiracy involving former Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter. In July 2024, Porter pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with charges that he manipulated the outcome of a prop bet to defraud a gambling company. Prosecutors charged five other defendants – Timothy McCormack, Mahmud Mollah, Long Phi Pham, Shane Hennen and Ammar Awawdeh – in the brazen scheme.

The government recommended a prison term of 41 months to 51 months for McCormack, whose sentencing is scheduled for January. McCormack and two other defendants conspired to place “under” bets on Porter’s performance in two games during the 2023-24 NBA season, resulting in profits of $33,250 and $36,000 from the wagers.

Joseph Nocella, interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, stated at a press conference last month that Porter may have been a victim of extortion. In a 2024 complaint, prosecutors accused Awawdeh of pressuring an NBA athlete, referred to in court records as “Player 1”, to extinguish his gambling debts. It was suggested the player could reduce the debts by leaving several games prematurely to secure the outcomes on the prop bets.

Covering the first and second quarter of 2025, the data sets out how much players spent on gambling across Germany. It includes certain areas within the regulated online and land-based markets.

GGL seeking ‘greater transparency’ by publishing frequent data

The inaugural dataset comes after Sandro Kirchner was appointed chairman of the GGL in July. Kirchner is currently state secretary in the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior for Sport and Integration.

The GGL said it aimed to ensure greater transparency in the legal gambling market by publishing frequent data.

“The publication is intended to contribute to the fact- and evidence-based discussion and to the evaluation of the GlüStV 2021,” it said in a statement on Friday.

The sector is awaiting an update on the ongoing evaluation of German gambling regulation. The review was launched in December 2023 and aimed to assess the effectiveness of current regulations and make recommendations for improvements.

Stakeholders believe a number of crucial challenges could be addressed in the regulatory update, including player deposit limits and IP blocking efforts.

Q2 stakes decline compared to Q1

For Q1, total gambling stakes, excluding lotteries, amounted to €3.51 billion. Of this, €2.18 billion was attributed to sports betting, split €1.59 billion across online betting and €585 million retail sportsbooks. Up to €25 million was attributed to betting on horseracing.

Virtual slot games drew €1.1 billion worth of wagers during the first quarter. A further €204 million was bet on internet poker.

As for the second quarter, total gambling and betting revenue amounted to €3.22 billion, an 8.3% drop from Q1.

Sports betting wagers topped €1.89 billion, some 13.5% behind Q1. Online bets were down by 12.7%, while retail sportsbook spend fell 15.6% to €494 million. Horseracing climbed 28% to €32 million.

In terms of other activity, virtual slots wagers were up by 1.6% to €1.12 billion. Online poker spend declined 9.8%

Germany lottery stakes level top €377 million in Q1

Separately, the GGL revealed data on cross-border lotteries in Germany, with total spend in Q1 at €377 million.

This comprised €315 million from social lotteries and €61 million class lotteries.

For Q2, lottery spend amounted to €371 million, just 1.6% behind the first-quarter total.

Social lottery wagers were down 0.6% quarter-on-quarter to €313 million. Meanwhile, class lotteries spend fell 4.9% to €58 million.

In addition, the GGL noted €243 million in commercial gaming brokerage for the first quarter. This was only marginally lower at €240 million for Q2.

According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Arenas is facing three charges. They are one count each of conspiracy to operate illegal gambling, operating illegal gambling and making false statements to federal investigators.

Five other men were arrested alongside Arenas: Yevgeni Gershman, Evgenni Tourevski, Allan Austria, Yarin Cohen and Ievgen Krachun.

Per the US Attorney’s Office, Gershman in particular is “a suspected organised crime figure from Israel”. In addition to the gambling charges, Gershman and his wife Valentina Cojocari face three additional counts related to marriage fraud. The duo allegedly entered into a “sham marriage” for the sake of granting legal status for Gershman, an Israeli citizen.

The maximum sentence for each of the gambling charges is five years in federal prison. Arenas was arraigned and pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles. He was released on $50,000 bond with a trial date of 23 September. Federal prosecutors declined to comment further.

A complex operation

Arenas and the co-conspirators allegedly operated an illegal poker ring out of the Encino mansion from September 2021 to July 2022. During that time, Arenas rented the house to his associates “for the purpose of hosting high-stakes illegal poker games”, per the statement.

Arthur Kats, 51, who was not named as a co-conspirator, reportedly served as a property manager of sorts. He was said to have staged the house for games, recruited people to host the games and collected rent for Arenas.

Four of the men – Gershman, Tourevski, Austria, and Cohen – were said to be the primary operators of the games. They collected rakes, or a percentage of the pots during each game, and solicited potential players. Krachun was said to be the accountant or “chip runner” of the operation, tracking wins and losses, distributing chips and facilitating payouts.

Young women were also hired by Gershman to staff the games. The women reportedly served drinks, “provided massages and offered companionship to the poker players”, although no sexual-related charges are listed. Arenas’ co-conspirators kept a percentage of the earnings given to these women. Other accomplices include hired chefs, valets and armed “security guards”.

Under California law, poker is only legal at state-licensed card rooms or at tribal-owned casinos.

Unclear if incident is part of other scandals

Arenas is among several athletes named in gambling scandals this year, some of which are connected to one another. For example, multiple athletes are ensnared in an investigation by the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. They include Jontay Porter, who was banned from the NBA for life last year for intentionally underperforming to cash prop bets.

Current Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is also connected to that case, and new information related to similar allegations and suspicious bet patterns was reported by ESPN this month. Former Pistons guard Malik Beasley is part of that investigation as well.

In MLB, two pitchers for the Cleveland Guardians – Luis Ortiz and All-Star Emmanuel Clase – have been placed under investigation in recent weeks. Few details have emerged about Clase, but Ortiz faces prop-bet manipulation allegations for pitches that badly missed the plate in two June starts. MLB last year banned former infielder Tucupita Marcano for life for betting on baseball and umpire Pat Hoberg was fired for sharing a betting account with a friend.

It is unclear at this time whether Arenas’ case is connected to any other high-profile sports betting investigations.

Top prosecutor’s term extended the previous day

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump extended the term for Bill Essayli as the interim US Attorney for the Central District of California, just before his term was set to expire. 

In addition to the Arenas case, the Central District has conducted a multi-year investigation into the illegal sports betting market in Southern California. Next month, Matt Bowyer is scheduled to be sentenced in Santa Ana on charges of illegal bookmaking, money laundering and federal tax evasion. Bowyer is the bookmaker that handled $325 million in sports wagers from Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for baseball star Shohei Ohtani. 

Trump appointed Essayli in April for an initial 120-day term. Essayli succeeded acting US Attorney Joseph McNally. The extension allows Essayli to serve an additional 210 days without Senate confirmation. 

Besides Bowyer, two other illegal bookmakers are awaiting sentencing in the district. The office has delayed the sentencing of Damien LeForbes, a pro poker player, several times this year. Another bookie, former A’s minor league pitcher Wayne Nix, has seen his sentencing continued on multiple occasions since his 2022 guilty plea.

Rocky road for Agent Zero

The 43-year-old Arenas, known by NBA fans as “Agent Zero” for his jersey number, has fallen from grace over the last 20 years. Arenas played in the NBA from 2001-2012 for multiple teams, most notably the Washington Wizards. He was a three-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA honoree for the franchise.

But in late 2009, Arenas’ career was derailed by an incident involving teammate Javaris Crittenton. Both men brought guns to the Wizards locker room, which was later revealed to have been due to a dispute from a card game. A documentary chronicling the incident titled “Untold: Shooting Guards” is currently streaming on Netflix.

Over the years Arenas has worked to rebuild his image and became something of a media personality. His online sports talk show “Gil’s Arena” is sponsored by Underdog Fantasy, which just renewed the show’s contract in January.

Arenas’ son, Alijah, is also a highly recruited young player who is signed to play at the University of Southern California. The younger Arenas earlier this year survived a severe car crash that left him in a medically induced coma.

Matt Rybaltowski contributed to this report.

On Wednesday night, Michael Mizrachi won it all, capping a tour de force performance at the Las Vegas Horseshoe and Paris. Mizrachi, 44, took home the $10 million grand prize for winning the Main Event. The triumph came weeks after he secured a victory in last month’s WSOP Poker Players Championship.

Mizrachi was joined in the final nine by Leo Margets, who became the first female poker player to reach the final table in 30 years.

Grinding out a win

Nicknamed “The Grinder” for his indefatigable nature at the table, Mizrachi withstood some challenging moments in winning the bracelet.

At one point on Day 8, he saw his chip stack whittled down to only three big blinds. Dominated by an opponent’s Ace-7, Mizrachi entered the hand as a heavy underdog. But Mizrachi hit runner-runner for a flush to capture the hand. Still, with less than 8 million in chips in his stack, the Florida poker pro stood near the bottom of the 24 remaining players.

Soon after, he again caught runner-runner, as his king-high flush beat a pair of 5’s. Slowly gaining momentum, Mizrachi increased his chip stack to around 16 million.

By the final day, Mizrachi took a commanding lead into the last session, entering with approximately 75% of the remaining chips. He quickly dismissed Kenny Hallaert and third-place finisher Braxton Dunaway, leading to a heads-up showdown with John Wasnock.

This time, Mizrachi’s flush held up against Wasnock’s two-pair for the victory. With eight WSOP bracelets and two World Poker Tour titles, Mizrachi has emerged as one of the game’s most decorated players.

He also might be the most accomplished player to win the main event since Chris “Jesus” Ferguson in 2020. In that Covid year, Ferguson outlasted 511 opponents to capture the bracelet. By comparison, Mizrachi prevailed in a field of 9,735 at this year’s main event.

First female at final table since 1995

Before Mizrachi’s win, Leo Margets chased an unprecedented feat. The 30-year-old from Spain attempted to become the first female champion in WSOP Main Event history.

Margets advanced all the way to the final table before bowing out in seventh place. She is the first female to make the final table since Barbara Enright 30 years ago.

On the decisive hand, Margets hit an Ace on the turn for top pair. However, she saw her dreams shattered when a river spade completed Hallaert’s flush.

Margets earned plaudits for her gracious response in defeat.

“Leo is an inspiration for not only female poker players, but every poker player around the world. This performance was nothing short of historic, and we wish her many more deep runs,” WSOP CEO Ty Stewart said in a statement.

“It won’t be 30 more years until another woman reaches the Main Event Final Table and Leo is a big reason why. The WSOP thanks her for the humility and grace she displayed in competition down to the very last card.”

Mizrachi, meanwhile, is the first player to double with wins in the Main Event and the Players Championship in the same year. For the victories, Mizrachi immediately received inclusion into the Poker Hall of Fame, as his peers fast-tracked an induction initially planned for 2026.

“Mizrachi has completed what might be the most impressive feat in poker history by winning the two most difficult tournaments to win in the same year,” Stewart added.

Pennsylvania has become the sixth US state to join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA) for poker.

Online poker players in Pennsylvania will be able to participate in the multi-state games. This will be available to consumers from certain operators starting today (28 April), with Pennsylvania expanding the pool of online poker players for those sites by more than 50%.

Pennsylvania joins New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware, West Virginia and Michigan within the MSIGA. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will work with operators and the other state agencies to facilitate poker games.

Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro signed off on the agreement last week. He said: “This is a common sense step to support hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians, grow our economy and bring in more revenue to support our schools, our seniors, our small businesses and more.”

Allwyn North America rolls out games with DC Lottery

Meanwhile, not far south of Pennsylvania, Allwyn North America has launched its portfolio games in partnership with the DC Lottery.

Players in DC will now have access to games across the Allwyn collection. The first to go live will be Super Cash Bolt which, customised for the DC Lottery, is part of the Cash Bolt series.

Allwyn North America works with Instant Win Gaming to deliver its games via IWG’s InstantRGS.

“DC Lottery’s mission is to responsibly maximise lottery funding for our communities – and our players expect high-quality gaming experiences,” DC Lottery interim executive director Eugene Vlasenko said.

Gaming Corps lands Ontario licence

North of the border, Gaming Corps has secured a licence from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.

The new licence enables Swedish-based Gaming Corps to develop and distribute its gaming content in Ontario. Gaming Corps said that it already has agreements in place with several licensed operators in the Canadian province.

At launch, Gaming Corps will go live with a selection of its top-performing, sports-themed titles. It said these will be tailored to local demand and include titles such as Hoop Champion and Shootout Champion.

“This licence opens up significant opportunities for Gaming Corps and reinforces our commitment to working only within licensed and regulated jurisdictions,” Gaming Corps CEO Juha Kauppinen said. “With a growing appetite for original content, we’re excited about the potential Ontario holds – both in terms of player engagement and long-term growth.”

Penn Entertainment to refresh board

In other news, Penn Entertainment has announced several proposed changes to its board of directors.

Johnny Hartnett and Carlos Ruisanchez have both been nominated for election to the Penn board. This follows discussions with HG Vora Capital Management.

Meanwhile, Ron Naples has informed the board he is retiring effective immediately. Barbara Shattuck Kohn and Saul Reibstein have also notified Penn they will not stand for re-election at the upcoming annual meeting of shareholders.

As such, the board now comprises eight directors, seven of whom are independent.

“We look forward to benefitting from Johnny’s and Carlos’ fresh perspectives as we enter into a critical phase for the business,” the Penn board said.

LeoVegas opens second UK office

LeoVegas has opened its second office in the UK with a new facility in Leeds.

LeoVegas will occupy the entire ground and lower ground floors of Tailor’s Corner. The new office will support the group’s existing UK location in Newcastle.

The operator said this will support the ongoing development of brands such as BetMGM and LeoVegas in the UK market.

“It’s an important step towards our key goal to continue building the strength of our hero brands in the UK – BetMGM and LeoVegas – by attracting top talent,” said Gethin Evans, managing director UK and Ireland at LeoVegas.

Pointer highlighted how licensed operators in the Netherlands are prohibited from including role models in gambling adverts. This led KSA to launch its own investigation into Analyse Master, with details of this published today (11 March).

The probe saw KSA speak with two Dutch licence-holders who were mentioned on the Telegram channel and the platform. The regulator did not name either party.

KSA found one company had a partnership in place with Analyse Master but terminated the relationship when it became aware of the use of role models. As for the other company, it advertised on Telegram via purchased advertising space, but without collaboration with Analyse Master. It pulled this advertising after learning of the association with role models and targeting of young adults.

As such, KSA ruled both parties acted correctly and there was no violation. It did, however, issue a reminder for licensees to be vigilant with their advertising to ensure it is in line with regulations.

KSA: ‘Undesirable’ activity from Analyse Matter

As Analyse Master itself is not a gambling provider, KSA cannot take any enforcement action against the platform. However, the regulator has raised concerns about how the platform conducts business.

KSA chairman Michel Groothuizen said this primarily relates to its targeting of young people on social media.

“The fact that there are channels on social media that promote sports betting among young adults is a very undesirable and worrying development, because young adults are vulnerable and susceptible to gambling addiction,” he said.

The current advertising ban applies specifically to gambling providers and not third parties like Analyse Master. However, state secretary Teun Struycken has hinted the government could amend the rules to grant further regulatory reach to KSA.

Groothuizen has welcomed this, saying: “I am pleased that State Secretary Struycken also announced in his recent vision on gambling that he wants to adjust the advertising rules, so that we as a supervisory authority can also take active action against these types of parties.”

Regulator reveals illegal poker clampdown

In other news, KSA yesterday (10 March) revealed details of a crackdown on illegal poker activities across the Netherlands.

Throughout last autumn, KSA dismantled several illegal poker tournaments, recovering tens of thousands of euros in cash. During one raid, officers found €40,000 (£33,689/$43,548) in cash at one of the locations.

In addition, KSA last month imposed a €110,000 penalty on an unnamed party that had been organising poker without a licence.

Holland Casino remains the only operator approved to host in-person poker tournaments for money of prizes. This has been the case since 1975. The only exceptions are for games that are played within a closed circle of people.

In the “Statement of Purpose” at the bottom of the bill, the last two points read:

(C) disclose the maximum sports wagers established for online sports wagering; and (3) require the Commissioner of Consumer Protection to adopt regulations establishing maximum sports wagers
for online sports wagering.

There is no mention in the bill of a potential maximum amount.

Connecticut handle trending up

Connecticut has three online sportsbooks: FanDuel, DraftKings and Fanatics. FanDuel and DraftKings are tethered to tribal gaming operators while Fanatics operates through the Connecticut Lottery.

The Nutmeg State has generated more than $6 billion handle since launch in October 2021. More than 95% of that was bet online. Handle is trending upward, with the state’s top five all-time monthly handles each occurring from last September through this January.

SB01464 includes new text crafted for online poker as part of a “peer-to-peer casino game”. That is defined as a “card game, contest or tournament, including, but not limited to, a poker game, contest or tournament”. It allows patrons to “compete against one another and do not compete against the licensee operating such game”. The licensee operating those games “assesses any fee associated with such game”.

Read the full story here.

Casino Reports is an independently-owned publication dedicated to covering the regulated US online
casino/igaming industry, with news, features and original reporting on industry happenings, business, legislation, regulations and more.

According to the regulator, Dutch players could access and gamble online via the WPN-run AmericasCardroom.eu (ACR) website. The site features a range of poker games and tournaments, as well as various promotions for customers.

Detailing the case, KSA said it first flagged WPN in September 2022 for activity across both the ACR site and WinningPokerNetwork.com. It found the ACR was accessible to players in the Netherlands despite the operator not holding a licence.

Players were able to create an account, deposit using a Dutch credit card and participate in online poker. KSA also flagged how several casino games were being offered on the same website. Online poker is legal in the Netherlands through licensed operators but there is an outright ban on online games of chance, which include slots.

KSA also noted that the ACR site listed several other websites available to players. These included TruePoker.eu (TP), BlackChipPoker.eu (BCP) and PokerKing.com (PK), all of which are part of WPN.

Other poker websites available to Dutch players

The regulator followed up this initial investigation in November 2022, discovering the site was still accessible to Dutch players. However, a further probe in January 2023 found the site was no longer active in the Netherlands.

During the same January investigation, KSA officers also looked at the other sites highlighted on ACR, in particular the TP website. They discovered that the TP site was accessible in the Netherlands, offering online poker, sports betting and illegal casino games without a licence.

A follow-up investigation in February 2023 also found the BCP and PK sites to be active in the country. Both were running online poker and casino-based games of chance.

On the back of this, KSA sent a penalty payment notice to WPN in March 2023. However, the penalty was not paid and violations continued into April of the same year.

As a result, KSA has now landed on a €1.3 million fine for WPN. KSA said the fine was increased from the standard €600,000 for this type of offence due to “aggravating circumstance” for the case; namely repeat offending after several warnings.

“A penalty payment order is an effective way to quickly remove illegal offers,” KSA chairman Michel Groothuizen said. “However, these types of parties should not think that they will get off easy with this, so we are also imposing fines for the violation committed.

“With this we hit them where it really hurts, namely in their wallets.”

The flagship PokerBaazi brand has approximately 340,000 monthly active users and draws 85% of the company’s net revenue. Moonshine also operates the SportsBaazi fantasy sports platform, which generates 12% of overall revenue.

Moonshine is headed by founder and CEO Navkiran Singh, with support from co-founders Puneet Singh, Varun Ganjoo, Avneet Rana and Anirudh Chaudhry.

“As the Indian gaming sector continues to grow, we firmly believe that partnering with Nazara is the right step towards advancing the nation’s gaming ecosystem,” Navkiran Singh said. “This partnership will also contribute to our aim for global expansion in the gaming space.”

Acquisition a “significant” step for Nazara

Also commenting on the deal, Nazara CEO Nitish Mittersain welcomed the acquisition. He also said it would support the ongoing evolution of India’s gaming market.

“This investment in Moonshine Technology represents a significant step in our journey to strengthen Nazara’s position as India’s dominant diversified gaming platform,” Mittersain said. 

“PokerBaazi has not only emerged as the undisputed leader in online poker gaming in India but has also set new standards in user engagement, innovation and overall experience. We’re excited to join forces with Navkiran, Puneet and the entire Moonshine team, whose vision and leadership have been instrumental in shaping the poker landscape in India. 

Earlier this week (9 September), India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council voted to keep its 28% turnover tax for gambling operators, after reviewing it six months after launching the policy.

Minister of finance and corporate affairs Nirmala Sitharaman told the media that online gambling revenue had shot up 412% between November and April to ₹6,909 Crore ($823m/£628m) thanks to the new levy.

NSUS (pronounced like “answers”) has agreed to pay $500 million to Caesars. It will pay $250m cash once the deal is closed and another $250m five years from that closing date.

The 2024 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas concluded last week. It was held for the second year at its new Strip homes, Paris Las Vegas and Horseshoe Las Vegas. As part of the agreement, Caesars will retain the right to host the annual tournament series at its Vegas properties for the next 20 years. In addition, Caesars casinos can continue to host WSOP Circuit events and feature WSOP branding in their poker rooms.

On the digital poker side, WSOP Online is currently available in Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Caesars will continue to operate those sites – but will “otherwise be restricted from operating online peer-to-peer real-money poker operations for a specified period of time and subject to certain exceptions” according to the press release.

“An exciting future for WSOP”

This is not a brand-new relationship. The World Series of Poker and GGPoker have previously partnered for overseas qualifiers for WSOP tournaments.

“After collaborating with Caesars Entertainment for years, NSUS Group, the operators of GGPoker, is thrilled to announce their new role in leading the World Series of Poker, the world’s most renowned poker brand,” said NSUS CEO Michael Kim in the release. “We will leverage GGPoker’s cutting-edge technology and industry expertise to create an exciting future for WSOP, ensuring players have an increasingly improved, safe and seamless poker experience. Under the new leadership, NSUS intends to expand WSOP worldwide, positioning it at the forefront of poker’s growth.”

Read the full story here.

Casino Reports is an independently-owned
publication dedicated to covering the regulated US online
casino/igaming industry, with news, features and original reporting on industry happenings, business, legislation, regulations and more.

WSoP Online, formerly WSoP.com, is an upgraded platform with four-table capabilities on mobile, multi-flight re-entry tournaments and more new features, according to a press release.

Existing players in New Jersey and Nevada will be required to create new accounts on the platform. When players create a new username, information including existing balances, reward points and tournament tickets will transfer to the WSoP Online account. Per the release, transfers will happen within 72 hours of the 28 May launch of the new platform. New Jersey and Nevada players will have to re-install the WSoP Online app.

Texas Hold’em, Omaha available for pooled play

“This platform upgrade is long overdue and is a big win for our players,” Danielle Barille, vice-president of online poker at Caesars Digital said via the press release. “We’re thrilled to bring Michigan players into the fold with Nevada and New Jersey, resulting in a better experience, more value and the biggest prize pools of the year.”

In Michigan, Caesars, BetMGM, and PokerStars offer online poker, according to the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB). PokerStars is also approved for multi-state play.

Caesars submitted its request to the regulator in April. The MGCB approved Caesars to offer Texas Hold’em and Omaha internet poker games, in the new format. New games must be submitted to the MGCB for approval.

WSoP opens for registration

WSoP Online debuted a day before the World Series of Poker opens for registration at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. Between 1 June and 21 July, the platform will host 30 online bracelet events. An official gold bracelet will be available to win every Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday during that span.

The new platform will also host “satellite” events to qualify for land-based events. Beginning 18 June and 29 June, WSoP Online will be home to five high-roller, hybrid events. The final six players in each event will play live in Las Vegas, beginning 14 July.

The live WSoP Main Event begins 3 July and the Final Table is set for 16-17 July at the Horseshoe. Daniel Weinman last year became the first American to win the event and walked away with $2.1m (£1.6m/€1.9m).

Casino generated the most GGR in Q2 – €149.9m, up 27.9% from last year and 4.5% ahead of Q1. 

Slot machine revenue increased by 29.9% year-on-year, while live roulette GGR was 8.9% higher.

Spanish sports betting revenue rockets in Q2

The sports betting segment reported the largest percentage of growth during the quarter. In the three-month period, GGR reached €133.3m, up 118.9% from last year.

Pre-event sports bet GGR was 1.8% higher than in Q2 and live betting GGR also increased by 3.5%. Horse riding bets jumped 22.7% but other sports bets GGR slipped 15.1%.

Elsewhere, poker GGR was 27.6% higher than last year at €25.8m, but this total was 5.8% lower than the first quarter. Tournament poker GGR was 38.1% up on Q2 of 2022 and cash poker GGR also edged up, by 4.9%.

Bingo GGR came in at €3.5m, up 5.5% on the previous year and also 5.5% ahead of Q2 this year.

Finally, contests GGR reached €140,000, a 1,464.9% increase on last year but 41.5% behind Q2.

Player deposits up almost 20%

As for related activity, the DGOJ said player deposits were 19.6% higher year-on-year but 2.0% lower than Q1. Withdrawals were 3.0% higher than in 2022 and 2.3% down from the first quarter.

Total marketing spend by licensees in Spain hit €96.6m, an annual rise of 3.0%. Advertising spend was 7.7% up on last year, affiliate spending climbed 56.2% and sponsorship rocketed 225.2%, although promotions were down 1.7%.

Monthly average active gaming accounts increased by 11.4% from last year to 1,134,993. However, the monthly average for new accounts fell 3.0% to 102,804 users.

In addition, the DGOJ published an updated overview of the number of licensees active in the Spanish market. Some 78 licensees offered some form of gambling during Q2.

Of those operators who have licences, 43 offer sports betting, 50 casinos, nine poker, three bingo and two contests.

In the days prior to the modernisation of the gambling industry, any analysis of behavioural patterns relied on things like manual data tracking from in-person operators or potentially unreliable surveys from the customers themselves.

The lack of reliable, granular data made it difficult to draw a detailed picture of the connections between a player’s behaviour and their overall exposure to risk.

How data fills in the blanks for safer gambling

Thanks to the richness of digital data, however, researchers today are starting to be able to fill in some of the blanks with empirical evidence.

We’re starting to understand more of the context, the causes and the effects of disordered gambling.

The industry is starting to make and test some data-driven predictions about where players sit on the risk spectrum based on the choices and behaviours they exhibit. We might even be able to get a sense of which games or game formats are inherently riskier than others from a safer-gambling standpoint.

Let’s dig into one recent study that explored the markers of gambling-related harm across various categories using data from a regulated website. There are a few tidbits that might be of interest to poker players, in particular.

Markers of harm for different gambling products

The paper we’re looking at is entitled Behavioural Markers of Harm and Their Potential in Identifying Product Risk in Online Gambling. It was commissioned by Kindred Group in 2022 and it covers a cohort of 100,000 of their UK customers across a period of six months.

The group of researchers included myself, as Kindred’s former head of responsible gambling and now the senior safer gambling consultant for SG:certified.

The purpose of the research was to explore whether certain products are more strongly associated with the established behavioural markers of harm than others. These markers have been uncovered through previous research and include:

–          Bonus-seeking behaviour
–          Playing at unusual hours
–          In-session deposits
–          Easing RG settings
–          Declined deposits

The analysis was rooted in the broader finding that these markers scale in a predictable way with the total amount of time a customer spends gambling. What the researchers found is that there is a measurable difference in the levels of correlated risk from one category of games to another.

“All markers apart from easing/removing responsible gambling settings appeared to correlate with the number of active days engaging in specific product types, most notably slots, in-playing betting and some most forms of combination bets on sports,” they explained.

“These findings highlight the potential value of using measurable markers to differentiate the risk and potential harm associated with different online products.”

Play mapped to markers of harm

Here’s the table from the paper showing the correlation between active days played and the known markers of harm across the different gambling products analysed:

This dataset helps reinforce some of the perceptions we may already have about the inherent differences in the risk profile of various types of gambling.

It’s easy to grasp why slots, for example, correlate so strongly with harm-based markers considering the pace of the game and the immediacy of the results.

The researchers call this a “short event frequency” and this attribute seems to dovetail with a number of major risk factors. Among the categories studied, slots players produced the highest rates of bonus page visits, RG changes and declined transactions.

What do the authors think?

“The results showed that there were consistently larger associations between various behavioural markers of harm and the number of active days on specific gambling activities,” they concluded.

“Specifically, short event frequencies (such as slots and in-play betting), betting on different permutations of more than one bet selection in a single transaction (for example, combination bets) and, contrary to our expectations, engaging in live rather than simulated table games play were the three structural configurations of products which appeared more strongly associated with patterns of riskier play.”

The full paper on product risk is available through the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction.

Where does poker fall on the risk spectrum?

With a mean correlation of 0.07 across all markers of harm, poker ranks near the bottom of the list.

Poker players do not exhibit especially high levels of bonus-seeking behaviour, they infrequently top-up during a session and they experience fewer declined transactions than most other gamblers.

At first glance, the research seems to frame poker as a comparatively low-risk game. Mean correlations for both tournaments and cash games indicate that players who play more often are not necessarily exposing themselves to proportionally more risk.

When played online in particular, the game does not meet any of the three highest-risk criteria identified by the researchers. It has a long event frequency, a relatively concise betting structure and is entirely simulated by software.

But is that the whole story?

What’s missing in the data, however, is a consideration of the intangible characteristics that set poker apart from most forms of gambling – most notably the element of skill.

In broad terms, research is not yet conclusive on how the role of skill in a particular game affects its correlation to these risk markers. And it may seem logical that the presence of skill would naturally mitigate some of the exposure to gambling-related harm.

If we look harder, however, we can start to spot some ways in which skill-dependent games like poker could expose a player to a unique set of risks related to time management.

Preoccupation and poker

Poker demands so much more time than the other games you’ll find in a casino and that’s the start of any discussion about its associated risks. It is an all-consuming game in ways that most forms of gambling are not and becoming a successful player fundamentally requires a substantial investment of time.

That leads to the complementary issue of potential preoccupation.

Slots players, as a contrary example, aren’t typically preoccupied with the games they play. Once you walk away from the slot machine, you’re probably done thinking about it.

But poker has a way of sticking with you after you leave the table, partially because of that element of skill. The fact that your results depend on your skill to a significant extent provides a built-in incentive to invest more of your time and energy into mastering it.

You might therefore spend your free time reading poker books or consuming poker content to try to boost your overall level of skill. Your friends probably play poker too and you likely spend a considerable amount of conversation talking through hands with them. There aren’t many decisions to analyse after you leave the roulette wheel, but poker players live in constant pursuit of perfection.

We can see some evidence of this preoccupation in another section of the paper that analysed activity rates. A full 18% of the online poker population was found to play on a weekly basis, nearly double the percentage of the next-largest cohort (slots). The average online poker player plays approximately 33 days out of every year too, almost twice as frequently as any other category of gambler. Slots players by comparison average about 17 days of activity per year.

Beware of the Tetris effect

It’s all too easy for poker to cross the line from hobby (or job) to a dangerous preoccupation. And it’s certainly not unique as a threat in this regard. Video games, social media, television drama, secular jobs – all of these things have the potential to occupy too much of our brains through periods in which we should be tending to other responsibilities.

Behavioural researchers already have a term for this sort of unconscious preoccupation: The Tetris Effect.

As early video games like Tetris began to become a part of pop culture in the late 1900s, some players began to experience the sounds and visuals of the game in their subconscious thoughts and dreams. For a cohort of Tetris players, the game became a preoccupation. Even when they weren’t playing it with their hands, they were playing it in their heads.

The point at which this preoccupation becomes dangerous in a game like Tetris or poker is hard to define and it’s indeterminable using the established time-based markers of harm in gambling.

It’s also hard to spot in poker in particular, because the element of skill and the other fundamental qualities of the game tend to excuse some of the time commitment as the mere pursuit of perfection.

Maintaining a healthy balance in poker play

If you played slots from sundown to sunrise, for example, your friends would probably start to get worried about you. That sort of behaviour would be a fairly obvious cause for concern. But in online poker, playing long or odd hours is not necessarily an indication of increased risk.

Maybe the game is running in a different time zone, or maybe it’s a big tournament day, or maybe you’re just leveraging the pensive nature of the game itself.

That said, it is worthwhile to pay attention to your habits in this regard. The data seems to show that most poker players don’t let the game deplete their finances. But beware of the hidden dangers that arise when poker begins to consume your everyday thoughts and behaviours.

Being cognisant of the risk factors associated with your non-financial resources can help you maintain a healthy balance between the time and energy you spend playing poker and the effort you put into betting yourself away from the tables.

Making markers into mileposts

SG:certified is one of the groups leading the effort to put real regulatory action behind this type of research into gambling behaviour. After all, what good is new insight if we don’t use it to implement some responsive practices? And what’s the use of making rules if they’re not enforced?

Think about traffic laws as a parallel. Most drivers can appreciate the correlation between excessive speed and traffic accidents and decades of transportation research has led most governments to impose speed limits for their public roads. It’s the only reasonable response to the data.

These restrictions not only serve to make the public aware of the safe limits, they also provide a defined threshold for enforcement.

Merely identifying the safe speed for a given road isn’t enough to protect drivers. Making the roadways safer requires monitoring and enforcement. It requires speed checks and the issuance of citations for those who violate the posted limits. Rules need to have consequences in order to matter.

Gambling regulation is not so different from traffic management. The rules designed to make gambling safer are rooted in empirical evidence and their main purpose isn’t to dole out punishments. Regulations, like speed limits, primarily exist to protect the public.

Catania and SG:certified operate in that overlap between safer-gambling research and policy, leveraging their bespoke compliance dashboard to help stakeholders collaborate on strategies for building products and processes that truly protect consumers – particularly those at high risk. In this way, the gambling industry can begin to mark its progress toward a safer future.

If you’re an operator or a regulator keen on keeping your product up to speed with the most-current behavioural research in gambling, SG:certified is eager to show you the path forward. You can schedule a free demo with their team here.

FDJ will also join Playtech’s Ipoker.eu network of operators across a number of European markets. 

“Playtech has a great track record as a poker network and content provider in Europe’s regulated markets,” FDJ’s sports business unit chief executive Richard Courtois said.

“The company’s involvement in our selection process demonstrated a clear commitment and deep understanding of our long-term strategy. 

“Thanks to Playtech, we are pleased to offer our players a new range of games. This move enables FDJ to complete its presence in the French market open to competition. This is based on a business model that combines performance and responsibility to keep gaming fun.”

Playtech’s vice-president of interactive gaming, Marat Koss, added: “We are very proud that FDJ has chosen Playtech as its partner. The addition of FDJ to our Ipoker.eu is a vital step in the network’s expansion as the buoyancy of the French online gambling market continues.

“We look forward to a long and successful partnership with FDJ.”

French online gambling growth

The deal comes after French regulator l’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) reported record gross gaming revenue (GGR) in 2022. Annual GGR for the 12 months to 31 December 2022 amounted to €12.90bn (£11.08bn/$14.04bn).

France’s online gaming market GGR increased by 0.8% to €2.18bn. Of this, 64% was from sports betting, 20% online poker and 16% from bets placed on horse racing.

Online poker performed best for all online games in 2022 in terms of GGR, hitting €442m – up from €421m in 2021.

For online sports betting, GGR hit €1.38bn, another record. Stakes of €8.3% here also represented another record.

Lottery, meanwhile, generated €5.6bn in 2022, representing a 10.2% rise in revenue from 2021.

For casinos, GGR was €2.5bn during the year, up from €1.08bn in 2021 and just edging up on €2.4bn brought in pre-pandemic, in 2019.

The report found that people with gambling problems represented the majority of late-night poker machine players. It also flagged how two-thirds of people playing between 2am and 8am experienced “significant” negative consequences.

The NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority (ILGA) said it would use the research to guide future decisions on rules and regulations for late-night play. 

Minimise gambling harm

“As part of our statutory obligation to minimise gaming related harm, ILGA will make use of the study’s conclusions to inform future decisions,” ILGA chairperson Caroline Lamb said.

“ILGA has implemented a number of measures to minimise gambling harm and address concerns about applications that increase the availability of gaming machines after midnight. 

“We have developed Guideline 16 to help gaming venues reduce gambling harm after midnight and foster the responsible conduct of gambling.  

“This includes a preference that all gaming-related applications are required to be accompanied by a Gaming Plan of Management that contains a raft of measures designed to support licensees to minimise gambling-related harm in venues.  

“ILGA also imposes licence conditions on gaming-related applications to mitigate risk of gambling-related harm.”  

The study was funded by the NSW government’s Responsible Gambling Fund, with support from Liquor & Gaming NSW and conducted by Roy Morgan Research.

Chief executive François Riahi said the business’ betting and gaming divisions continued to “perform well” during the quarter. He added that the business was carried by the positive impacts of the 2022 Fifa World Cup “which resulted in double-digit revenue growth across all activities”, he said.

The company also pointed to the high level of new active players, which increased 55% year-on-year. FL said that this resulted from the football tournament, as well as “successful cross selling strategies” across the business’ other products.

FL Q1 segment growth

All of the verticals experienced growth during the period. The company’s sportsbook revenue rose 11.3% to €194.8. Casino increased 31.6% to €30.6m while there was a 23.8% rise to €15.2m in poker and other segments.

While FL’s sports betting enterprises rose less quickly on a relative basis compared to the other segments, it is responsible for the majority of the company’s revenue and therefore growth.

However, the company’s Bet-at-home operations reported more modest revenue, declining 0.7% year-on-year. The company’s new betting and gaming platform rolled out 1 February, which the business said it “expected to benefit all countries from Q2 2023”.

As part of the group’s commitment to responsible gaming standards, FL announced that the proportion of revenue generated in regulated markets increased to 98.4% compared to 96.5% the previous year. The operator said this was due to “the increase of Bet-at-home in regulated markets”.

“FL Entertainment enjoyed a positive start to 2023, with solid financial results and strong business momentum,” Riahi said.

The group – which earns the majority of its revenue from content production and distribution – recorded €900m total revenue in Q1.

Net income for the period declined 78.7% to €8.4m, compared to the €39.6m the business achieved the previous year.                           

During the raid, investigators discovered people taking part in an illegal poker game. Police recovered playing cards and other poker supplies, as well as drugs and two firearms,

Investigators also seized a number of electronic devices including phones and hard drives.

Police said investigations into the arrested individuals remain ongoing, while it is not yet clear as to who owns the firearms.

KSA supported the police during the raid and is in the process of preparing its own report on the case.

“Illegal gambling involves unfair competition with companies that do have a licence and must comply with all kinds of rules, for example to prevent gambling addiction among customers,” KSA said.

“The presence of this kind of illegal gambling activities and narcotics on a business park constitutes an infringement of public order. 

“In addition, places where illegal gambling takes place are a breeding ground for crime and these places offer the opportunity to launder criminal money. There is a chance that this will attract people who are not afraid to use violence.”

Illegal poker

Poker gaming in the Netherlands is only legal at Holland Casino country-specific locations. However, the police in recent months have carried out a number of similar raids in response to reports of illegal activity.

Casino Nieuws reported that earlier this year, two illegal poker tournaments were broken up by police.

In January, four suspects were arrested in Valkenswaard for organising an illegal event. One month later in Vlissingen, two people were arrested during an illegal cash game.

Privatisation

This week, it emerged that the Netherlands is “exploring” new options for Nederlandse Loterij (NLO), including the possibility of privatising the state-owned enterprise.

Dutch finance minister Marnix van Rij released an evaluation of the state’s shareholding in the NLO. The government plans these evaluations on a regular seven-year cycle for all state-owned assets. This year the main question concerned the status of the NLO and Holland Casino.  

The report said that the lottery company would be “ready for privatisation both financially and organisationally”.

The updated offering brings a number of new features to the platform. These include a better mobile experience, as well as a connection to the ipoker network. This network allows users access to a larger liquidity pool than before, more tournaments and larger prize pots.

This agreement is on top of Svenska Spel’s previous 2019 partnership with Playtech. Under the terms of that deal the supplier provided the operator with its suite of online casino and live offerings.

Svenska Spel and Playtech mark new partnership

Playtech recently secured a B2B supplier licence in Sweden as required by the new rules. The provider said the deal marked a “key development” in the company’s expansion.

Marat Koss, VP of interactive gaming at Playtech, said the business was “delighted” to be expanding its partnership with Svenska Spel. The executive also praised the agreement for increasing its footprint in Sweden.

“This is a positive outcome from our investments in poker, as renewed licensees such as Svenska Spel are choosing us for further collaboration,” he said. “We are delighted to welcome Svenksa Spel to the ipoker family.”

Fredrik Hård, head of poker & bingo at Svenska Spel, added: “Launching Playtech’s poker offering is a great step forward for Svenska Spel. Now part of the international ipoker network, we are constantly finding ways to improve the player experience for our large existing customer base in Sweden.

“This deal is a great proof of the quality of Playtech’s offering and we hope to see this relationship go from strength to strength in the future.”

Italy’s igaming revenue experienced a subtle decline, with December’s revenue of €315.8m showing a 2% decrease compared to the previous month. Despite this, there was a 1.2% increase year-on-year, indicating a stable increase in the industry.

Both retail sports betting and online sports were reflected in this decline, but the remaining products picked up from the previous month.

The stand out of the sectors was casino & slots, which witnessed an impressive 17% increase by reaching €206.1m revenue in December, compared to its €176.1m revenue in November.

In terms of market share, casino & slots dominated with the largest increase in market share, and online sports betting lost almost a third of its market share from November. Meanwhile, Lottomatica/Goldbet maintained its position as the leader in the online casino industry with a 12.4% market share, while there were no significant changes in the market share of other online casinos.

Online sports betting experienced a decline in market share, leaving it with a 27.4% market share in the igaming industry. Despite this, the market shares within the industry remained relatively stable, with the majority staying in the same position. Bet365 has faced some challenges in the past few months, but they have been slowly picking up its performance and have peaked this month at 13.1% market share.

In terms of Italy’s online and retail sports betting, Lottomatica/Goldbet continued to lead the industry with a 22.1% market share. Betaland, on the other hand, dropped to the bottom with a mere 0.9% market share, pushing Multigioco up to ninth position with a 1% market share. Despite the ups and downs, the Italian igaming industry continues to thrive and looks set to achieve a significant increase in the coming years.

PokerStars remains the leader of the online poker tournaments market with a 42.87% market share, even with its 4.7% decrease. E-Play 24 had no significant movements, allowing it to be overtaken by Snai and Lottomatica, leaving E-Play 24 with the smallest market share.

Lottomatica had the greatest increase in market share, placing it just behind Snai with a 9.14% market share. From this, it is evident that Lottamatic/Goldbet is on the rise in the Poker tournament industry as well as leading the sports betting market.

The full infographic of charts is available below, including all previous results.

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 Spanish online market in the Spain 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.

After being contacted by the regulator, Winning Poker Network said that it would halt these activities.

However, following a further check by KSA, while the original Winning Poker Network site was no longer accessible from the Netherlands, it was possible for Dutch players to create an account on another website run by the operator.

As such, KSA said consumers in the Netherlands could use these accounts to play games of chance illegally with Winning Poker Network.

The regulator ruled that as the offering of illegal games of chance had not been completely stopped, it issued the cease-and-desist order, subject to periodic penalty payments.

Should the breach continue, Winning Poker Network will be required to make a weekly payment of €25,000 (£21,954/$26,914) for each week it offers illegal games of chance, up to a maximum of €75,000.

KSA added that it would continue to check on the operator to assess further breaches. 

Breaking this down, sports betting GGR amounted to €141.4m, a 223.4% increase on the previous year (52.8% up quarter-on-quarter) and representing 45.1% of all GGR generated during the quarter. 

The DGOJ noted a 108.5% quarter-on-quarter jump in pre-match bets and a 13.8% increase in in-play wagers, while other bettings were up 86.8% and horse betting 63.6%.

Turning to casino and GGR was 32.4% higher at €142.3m, up 32.4% year-on-year and 11.1% higher than in Q3. The sector accounted for 45.4% of total GGR in Q4, marginally ahead of sports betting.

Slots GGR was 27.3% higher than in the previous year, while live roulette GGR was also up by 51.7%. 

Elsewhere, poker GGR was 26.8% higher year-on-year at €26.1m, representing 8.3% of the total market, although bingo GGR fell 11.5% to €3.6m and contest revenue also declined by 36.7% to €30,000. 

Rise of marketing costs

In terms of marketing costs, this amounted to €106.4m for the quarter, an increase of 13.9% on 2022 and 30.1% ahead of the third quarter of 2022. This included €51.7m in promotional spend, €38.7m worth of sponsorship and €14.6m in affiliation expenses. 

Monthly average active game accounts were 1,185,452, up 22.9% year-on-year and 21.1% more than in Q3, while monthly average new game accounts were 131,095, some 21.6% behind the previous year but 23.9% more than the Q3. 

By the end of the quarter, there were 78 licensed operators active in Spain including 54 casino operators, 45 for betting, nine poker, three bingo and two contests.  

Funds were returned to a total of 6,801 players, averaging $42 per customer, a 32% rise on the number of detections reported during 2021. 

888poker said bots and real time advisor (RTA), the use of software programming to create unfair advantages over real-life players, remain a common issue in online poker and has increased investment in its own detection capabilities to address these within its network.

The operator also said it had detected players colluding with each other to gain an unfair advantage. 

“At 888poker, we take the issue of game integrity very seriously,” 888poker’s head of poker offering, Matan Krakow, said. “This year, as a result of our continued investments in technology, cooperation of our players, and hard work of our teams, we have increased the detection rate of bot accounts, RTA and collusion to give back almost $290,000 to players. 

“In the year ahead, we will continue to focus on this area to ensure that customers have a fair, safe, and entertaining experience when they play with 888poker.”

However, online sports betting still fared better than retail sports betting, which suffered a decline of 16.4% month-on-month, which is a decrease in revenue from €88.6m in October to €74.1m in November.

In contrast to the betting figures, casino revenues only dropped by 2.1% from €180.0m to €176.1m.

The market shares of online casino operators by GGR remained relatively stable in November, with Eurobet being the biggest mover as it was unable to hold on to the fifth place position it reached in October and has now dropped back to seventh biggest, with a market share of 6.1%. Lottomatica/Goldbet remains the largest with a total market share of 12.7%. A new arrival in the top 20 was Tombola International, which sits at a market share of 1.2% for November.

Online sports betting companies also had relatively stable market shares in November, with the biggest winner being Bet365 who moved up to an 11.4% market share from 9.7%, and the biggest loser being SKS365 who dropped from 10.5% to 9.5% market share. Lottomatica/Goldbet holds the top spot still at 15.7%, but Sisal is not far behind at 15.4%.

Looking at online and retail sports betting together, the biggest loser in market share was Lottomatica/Goldbet, coming down from 23.6% to 21.8%, however, this still leaves them far clear of second place Snai which holds 15.3% of the market share for the month.

Pokerstars’ market share for poker tournament play increased to 44.96% up from 40.58% in October. This represents the highest market share since April 2022 when they held 48.75% of the market share. In cash games, the increase was less substantial, as Pokerstars’ share increased to 40.32% from 39.66% in October. Both cash game and tournament market shares remained relatively stable month-to-month, although in cash games E-Play 24 did see a rather significant drop from 12.38% market share in October to 10.21% in November. The month did also see a new entry into the top 10 for poker cash games, as Microgame replaced Bgame in the tenth spot with a market share of 1.6%.

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 Spanish online market in the Spain 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.

The proposed bill would amend New York’s racing, pari-mutuel wagering and breeding law by adding a new section that would redefine online Texas Hold’em and Omaha Hold’em poker, “as well as any other poker game that the commission determines is the material equivalent of either of those” as games of skill rather than luck – therefore legalising the games.

The bill’s logic is similar to the March 2022 New York Court of Appeals ruling that found fantasy sports to be considered a game of skill rather than a game of chance.

Read the full story on iGB North America

If passed, the bill would add 26 amendments to the current law and enact 13 new sections related to online sports, poker and fantasy gambling.

The bill would enable sports betting to be provided by online operators as well as allowing racing tracks to partner with online brands.

A licensed track can only partner up with one online operator, which can provide systems for gambling both on track and online.

Tracks may also offer sportsbooks at two separate locations that it owns or leases within 60 miles of the racing grounds that are not attached to the land of the track.

Sports that would be allowed to be gambled on include the NFL, NBA, MLB, PGA, NASCAR, MLS, NCAA, NAIA and other nationally or internationally recognised sporting competitions.

Applications for a licence to provide sports betting involve a fee of $500,000 (£420,000/€470,000) and an annual renewal fee of $50,000. A tax on revenue of 9.75% will be levied monthly for race tracks and 14.25% on bets placed online.

Participants such as players, coaches and referees as well as close family members to such individuals are banned from placing bets on sports in the state.

Online poker and fantasy sports to be legalised

Online poker would also be legalised in the bill.

To gain a licence, operators must prove an effective use of geotracking software to ensure online poker is confined to the state of Kentucky. Applicants must also display they can verify ages to ensure players under 18 years of age cannot place bets on the platform.

A licence fee of $250,000 and an annual renewal fee of $10,000 must be paid. A tax of 6.75% is due monthly on all fees charged to players to play, including the rake.

The bill also introduced legalising sports fantasy competitions, establishing a licensing process for operators with more than a hundred participants. Those under this limit do not need to obtain a licence.

An application fee of $5,000 is required from companies to gain a licence, with an annual renewal fee of 6% of revenue from the previous year or $5,000, whichever is the greater amount.

There are set to be no restrictions on the digital platforms used by operators to host fantasy competitions.

Fantasy licensees must submit annual records to a public certified accountant to ensure compliance with the law, should it pass. This will come at the cost of the provider, which must also keep daily records of operations and maintain them for at least six years.

To obtain any gambling licence in Kentucky no partner, member, officer, principal, director or stockholder can have been convicted of a crime in the state. If a person is found guilty of a crime after the application has been approved, the licence may be revoked or suspended.

Past attempts to pass sports betting law

This is not the first time that a bill has been introduced to the state house in Kentucky for sports gambling.

In March 2022, Kentucky House Bill 606 was passed in the house but failed to get beyond a Senate Committee.

It was dropped before it was even voted on in the Senate due to a lack of confidence in votes needed to pass the bill.

Interstate poker was permitted in Michigan through a bill that was signed into law in January 2021, soon after a separate bill allowed for online casino including poker without shared liquidity.

As of 1 January 2023, the state of New Jersey allows players from that state to play with those in Michigan. Besides Michigan and New Jersey, the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement also includes Delaware and Nevada.

Read the full story on iGB North America

Currently gambling is regulated through a fragmented governance structure that runs through multiple government departments; including the department of justice and equality, revenue commissioners from the Irish Tax Authority and district courts.  

The new body will have wide reaching powers to regulate advertising and gambling, license businesses and to impose sanctions and fines.

“This approval by cabinet is significant and the publication of the bill is unquestionably a major milestone. It is an important and necessary piece of legislation, designed to meet the challenges of gambling responsibly in 21st century Ireland,” said the taoiseach, Micheál Martin.

“This long awaited and much needed bill takes a responsible approach to balancing the freedom to gamble with the safeguards to protect people from falling prey to addiction. This bill provides a clearer framework for operators and for consumers.”

Establishment of Ireland’s licensing regime

Under the new system, three different categories of licence will be created for both remote and in-person gambling. These will be B2C gaming, betting and lottery licences, B2B licences, as well as charity licences.    

“Reforming gambling legislation and regulation in Ireland is a key commitment in our programme for government and justice plan and has been one of my key priorities as minister,” said Browne. “I am pleased to have gotten the draft legislation to this point and look forward now to it being published and brought through the houses to enactment.

“This legislation will establish a gambling regulator which will be robust with a focus on prevention of harm to people vulnerable to problem gambling and particularly protecting children and also a focus on enforcement of a strong, modern regulatory framework for the gambling industry.

Browne warned that operators who persist in offering illegal gambling services could face criminal penalties.

“Operators who provide gambling activities without a gambling licence issued by the Authority, or who do not operate in accordance with the provisions of their licence could, if convicted, face to up to eight years imprisonment and/or a fine at the discretion of the courts.”

New rules

Under the provisions of the bill, new rules are set to take effect in the ways that gambling is promoted and advertised. Gambling advertising will be subject to a watershed banning its broadcast between 5.30am and 9pm. Free bets and promotions are also on the slate to be abolished.

“Strict regulation of gambling advertising will be a priority area for the Authority. Under the legislation, advertising intended to appeal to children will be prohibited, as will advertising that promotes excessive or compulsive gambling,” continued Browne.

“In this digital age, to address the particular proliferation of gambling advertising on social media, such advertising shall be prohibited by default.

“The bill also puts forward certain measures to minimise the ill effects of gambling. The bill will establish a National Gambling Exclusion Register. The bill prohibits the use of credit as a form of payment. The bill will allow the Authority to prohibit the offer of inducements and promotions. 

“A Social Impact Fund will be created and managed by the Authority while being funded from the industry. It will be used to finance initiatives to reduce problem gambling and support awareness-raising and educational measures.”

“We’re pleased to offer our players a new range of games,” FDJ head of sports betting and poker, Richard Courtois, said. “They’ll be able to use the ParionsSport en ligne app to enjoy a recreational poker range that is designed for all types of players.

“This move enables FDJ to round out our presence in the online gaming market, in line with our strategy focusing on growth and ongoing innovation, based on a business model that combines performance and responsibility to keep gaming fun.”

The games will run through gaming supplier Playtech’s ipoker offering. The business has stated that it intends to expand its range of poker products to include all online poker formats approved by France’s regulator Autorité Nationale des Jeux.

Revenue growth

FDJ reported strong revenue growth in its Q3 financial statement, leading to an increase of the group’s full year revenue projections.

“Our digital business continues to attract a growing number of players, almost five million,” said FDJ chairwomen and CEO Stéphane Pallez. “The good performance expected for the full year reflects the relevance of our strategy, which is based on these two distribution channels and confirms our long-term responsible growth model.”

On a constant currency basis, revenue is forecast to increase by 82%.

Flutter said it expects this to be driven by growth within the US, where its revenue is forecast to rise 114% year-on-year, or 82% on a constant currency basis, to $598m, making it Flutter’s largest market.

This, the group said, was down to a 106% rise in sports revenue – comprising sportsbook, exchange, daily fantasy sports, advance deposit wagering and B2B product verticals – driven by customer acquisition across existing states as the new NFL season began. 

US igaming revenue is also expected to increase by 36%, helped by a 40% jump in igaming average monthly players and helped by the addition of new content including the FanDuel Casino daily reward machine.

Elsewhere, UK and Ireland, previously Flutter’s largest market, was forecast to generate £509m in revenue in Q3, which would be 4% higher year-on-year and 3% up on a constant currency basis.

Online revenue is likely to be 4% higher at £443m due to a 29% increase in gaming revenue, driven by continued strong player momentum. However, sports revenue is expected to fall 11% year-on-year, due to the comparative period last year having included the benefit of the football European Championships.

In terms of UK and Ireland retail revenue, this is forecast to decline 3% to £66m as a result of reduced footfall due to the hot summer weather. Retail sports revenue is likely to fall by 3% and gaming 2%.

Sisal acquisition

Turning to Flutter’s international business – led by the PokerStars brand – and revenue is expected to increase by 43% on a constant currency basis to £466m, driven by the acquisition of Italy’s Sisal in early August. Two months of Sisal revenue were included in the international revenue total.

In addition, Flutter said that Australia revenue is likely to fall 14% year-on-year and 21% on a constant currency basis to £319m. Sportsbet delivered good player retention levels despite challenging Covid-19 comparatives, but lower levels of player engagement, combined with high levels of weather-related racing disruption, resulted in a dip in revenue. 

Based on the trading update, Flutter increased the full-year guidance for its US business, with revenue for the year now expected to reach between £2.45bn and £2.65bn, up from an earlier estimate of £2.3bn to £2.5bn. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) loss is likely to be in line with a previous estimate of £235m to £285m.

For the group excluding the US, adjusted EBITDA is likely to remain within the previously set range of £1.29bn to £1.39bn.

“Flutter delivered a strong Q3 performance with pro forma growth of 11% in both revenue and average monthly players,” chief executive Peter Jackson said. “Our US division is now our largest and generated $700m in revenue, up 82%. Good growth in our ‘consolidate and invest’ international markets and the acquisition of Sisal in August helped drive ex-US revenues.

“We are really pleased with our performance in our US division since the start of the NFL in September where we are now averaging over 1m players on a regular NFL Sunday. In addition, we are seeing an increase in customer retention rates as our parlay products continue to grow in popularity, boosted by the start of the NBA season.

“Outside of the US, we welcomed Sisal, Italy’s leading gaming operator, to our international division during the quarter and look forward to working with the team to grow the business in Italy and in other international markets.”

Flutter-Fox court ruling

Jackson also referenced news this week that an arbitrator in New York ruled media conglomerate Fox Corporation can exercise an option to acquire a significant stake in Flutter-owned FanDuel from a $22.0bn valuation.

Fox will now have a 10-year period from December 2020 to exercise the option to buy an 18.5% stake, subject to an annual compounding carrying value adjustment of 5%. This can only be settled in cash and in full while, should Fox not exercise within the timeframe, the option would lapse.

As of 4 November, the option price is set at $4.1bn. This is made up of the $3.7bn exercise price for 18.6% of FanDuel plus the 5% annual carrying value adjustment, increasing the overall value of FanDuel to $22.0bn.

The court also said that it would decide in 2023 under what conditions Fox may participate in a potential FanDuel IPO.

“We were delighted with the successful outcome of our arbitration process with Fox regarding the price of their option to acquire 18.6% of FanDuel,” Jackson said. “This vindicates our position on the matter, with FanDuel valued at $20bn based on its fair market value at 3 December 2020 and provides important clarity on the significant cost required to buy into the number one US gaming business.

“As we look ahead our product and geographic diversification, as well as our recreational customer base, position us well for future growth.”

It will allow operators to offer casino games, bingo, slots, sports betting and poker.

The permit will be valid for five years. Operators will pay an initial $100,000 to receive the permit, followed by fees of $50,000 in each of the next four years.

The Nigerian National Lottery Regulatory Commission will issue terms and conditions which permit-holders must adhere to.

Holders of the new permit will be allowed to offer their services in Nigeria and to advertise within the country in print media or via affiliate programmes.

Key to the new regime will be an updated tax collection system, powered by UK-based fintech company E-Technologies Global Limited’s Sentinal product. This will allow payment providers to deduct taxes at the point of transaction and remit funds immediately to the Treasury.

Mohammad Nami, executive chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service of Nigeria, said the new system was an important way to boost tax revenues at a time when this was a major priority for governments everywhere.

“The world is entering a challenging time where there is a strong obligation on governments to increase tax revenue as a percentage of GDP so as to provide much needed funding for local infrastructure and public services. 

“Nigeria needs to innovate and harness technology to ensure that online transactions are taxed and accounted for.

“We have been very impressed with the Sentinal system which allows us to not only collect tax revenues at source, but also provides us with tax reporting and monitoring tools in real-time. The system will integrate with our own TaxPro Max portal.”

Lanre Gbajabiamila, director general of the National Lottery Regulatory Commission of Nigeria, said that the country would welcome any offshore operators that pass its screening process.

“Online gaming continues to grow rapidly in Nigeria, particularly on mobile, and the adoption of E-Technologies’ Sentinal National Payment Gateway is a huge step to allow us to capture gaming duty at source,” he said.

“We are welcoming all responsible offshore gaming operators to apply for a remote operator permit as long as they pass all the relevant criteria including full AML screening and responsible gaming practices. 

“We are proud to be the first country to adopt the Sentinal system and we believe it will bring a real national benefit to Nigeria.”

E-Technologies’ CEO, David Kicks, said the deal was a major step in the increased expansion of the regulated sector at the expense of grey markets.

“This landmark deal will herald a new era in rapidly opening new regulated markets for responsible gaming operators, as grey market operating becomes increasingly problematic,” he said.

However, retail sports betting also suffered a sudden decline on a month-on-month basis after a period of stability, coming down from €83.5m in April to €66.4m in May.

In contrast to the betting figures, casino revenue ticked slightly upwards to €161.8m from €155.1m. As a result, the igaming revenue product split swayed heavily away from sports betting, taking up only 35.3% of the market in May as opposed to 40.7% in April.

The drops in market share that the biggest four online casino operators by GGR saw last month have mostly stabilised. Snai remained at a 7.3% market share while Lottomatica and Sisal both dropped by 0.1% to 7.2% and 8.4% market shares respectively. Pokerstars faired a little worse as its market share declined to 8.5%, nearly wiping out all the gains it had made in recent months when it rose to a high of 9.7%.

In sports betting, May was a month of individual companies making large gains in market share. The biggest mover in online-only sports betting was PlanetWin365, which went from 9.6% in April to an 11.5% market share in May.

To find the last time the business had such a high market share, we need to go all the way back to November 2020, when it held 12.0% of the market. This increase has also resulted in a larger share of the combined online and retail sports betting market.

This gain in the overall sports betting market for PlanetWin365 was outshone by Goldbet, however, which now hold a market share of 21.3% compared to last month’s 15.5%. This is the first time an operator has breached the 20.0% threshold since Bet365 in April 2020.

Pokerstars appears to have lost some of its momentum in May as its market shares for poker cash games and tournament play both took a dip. Its share of the tournament market dropped down to 44.7% from 48.8% in April, while its share of cash games was down to 41.9% from 43.4% in April. At the same time, and continuing the trend of big gains in May, E-Play 24 made up a lot of ground in both tournament play and cash games. Its market share in tournament play revenue increased to 9.8% from 7.8%. In cash games, the increase was even more pronounced, as its market share increased to 12.5% from 9.6% in April.

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 Spanish online market in the Spain 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.

This decline has been mostly driven by a 6.7% fall in online sports betting, with revenue now sitting at €118.9m: its lowest level since October 2021. This was still above the €103.6m recorded in April 2021, however.

Though online casino revenue remained stable, there were some interesting movements between operators within the market.

The biggest four online casino operators by GGR all lost ground to their competitors, Sisal and Snai being the worst affected as they drop to 8.5% and 8.3% market shares respectively, while Pokerstars’ share declined to 8.8% and Lottomatica 7.3%.

In contrast, on the online sports betting side, both Sisal and Snai increased their market shares relative to the rest of the pack. This growth in online betting has also translated to an increase in both companies’ share of the overall sports betting market, made up of both online and retail.

By boosting its market share to 15.6%, Snai regained the top spot on these charts after having lost it to Goldbet in February 2022. In April, Goldbet trailed just behind Snai on 15.5%.

The market shares for poker tournament play and cash games remain relatively stable. Pokerstars continues to sit at the top with a 48.75% market share in tournament play. This has fallen from 51.28% in April 2021, continuing the trend of year-on-year drops that we have seen in Pokerstars’ market share every month in 2022.

In poker cash games, Pokerstars has been steadily climbing back up towards its peak market share of 46.0% that was achieved in September 2021. E-Play 24 has been the big winner this month for cash games, climbing impressively from a 7.6% market share to 9.6% in just one month.

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 Spanish online market in the Spain 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.

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 casino gaming, on the other hand, performed well, with revenue of €111.0m, an 11.5% year-on-year increase. Of this total, €64.9m came from slots, up 1.2%, and €34.3m from roulette, down 5.2%. Stakes for the vertical were up 4.7% to €3.72bn.

Poker brought in an additional €20.5m, down 2.0% from 2021, while bingo revenue came to €3.6m.

Data from DGOJ also showed the impact of the country’s wide-ranging marketing restrictions. Marketing expenditure fell 27.7% compared to last year at €107.9m.
Facing fewer restrictions, affiliate marketing benefitted, with spend jumping 84.0% to €22.7m. Sponsorship spend dropped from €9.4m to just €632,784, after it was effectively banned, while traditional ad spend was slashed to €34.4m. 

Free bets became the largest form of marketing, though operator investment was down 10.5% at €50.7m.

This means that players can play peer-to-peer games such as poker across state lines.

“I am happy to announce Michigan has joined the multistate poker compact, and much of the increased tax revenue from multistate poker will go to support K-12 education in Michigan,” Michigan Gaming Control Board executive director Henry Williams said.

“By joining, Michigan will almost double the potential pool of participants in multistate poker games.”

Michigan joining the agreement follows the state passing a bill to legalise interstate poker – sponsored by Senator Curtis Hertel – in December 2020, just before it launched online gaming in January 2021.

Michigan then announced in April of this year that it would join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement.

“Michigan poker players will enjoy more options and will likely play for bigger money when they can compete against players from other states,” said Senator Hertel. “I am glad we were able to make this possible for Michigan poker players.”

The policy matches the conditions of the regulated market, which launched on 1 October 2021 after a number of delays.

Joris Koningsberg, founder of PokerKramers.nl, explained that this compliance would mean PokerKamers.nl would only advertise sites that operate legally in the Netherlands’ regulated online market.

Ten operators were announced to have received a licence before the market officially opened.

“Being fully compliant meant saying farewell to online poker sites that did not receive a licence to legally operate in the Netherlands,” said Koningsberg. “This includes renowned sites like PartyPoker and Bwin, as parent company Entain’s initial application got rejected.”

Entain is expected to receive a licence to operate in the Netherlands in 2022. The company blocked all Dutch customers one day before the market opened, complying with a “cooling off” period instated by the KSA.

Koningsberg continued, “It was an easy decision, because the only other option was working with illegal poker sites. And besides, one of our favorite partners- Bet365 – did receive their licence.”

“We’re always looking at ways to bring PokerStars players something new, and to be able to do that in collaboration with our colleagues over at the world’s largest betting exchange is a huge privilege,” said Richard Garrod, director of product at PokerStars.

“Our research suggests that our customers would welcome the addition of an exchange product, with 70% of current sports bettors saying they want to get involved.”

Existing customers will be able to access the exchange immediately through the PokerStars Sports portal on both Pokerstars.com and Pokerstars.eu. It will then become available in locally regulated jurisdictions through the year.

“The PokerStars Exchange gives our players access to a brand-new sports betting experience alongside a global community of sports fans, with all the convenience of a single account and wallet.

“After months of hard work and execution, we’re thrilled to offer PokerStars players this addition to the PokerStars portfolio.”

The product will use the same liquidity pool as Flutter’s flagship betting exchange brand Betfair. PokerStars came under the control of Flutter – formerly known as Paddy Power Betfair – in 2020 when The Stars Group completed a merger with Flutter agreed in 2019.

Customers in Michigan will be able to play a number of live-action games on WSOP.com, including No Limit Hold and Pot Limit Omaha.

Players can also link their WSOP online rewards credits to their Caesars Rewards account.

“With two world champions coming out of this state, Michigan is a special market for the WSOP,” said Ty Stewart, SVP of the World Series of Poker at Caesars Entertainment. “We’re sorry it’s taken so long, but WSOP.com is ready to make up for our late entry with industry-leading promotions, the biggest weekly tournaments, and player appreciation benefits like free rolls to the Main Event in Las Vegas.”

With the launch, WSOP.com offer several exclusive sign-up promotions, including $50 in free credits. WSOP has also partnered with Joe Cada, 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event champion, for the launch. WSOP is offering $1,000 to any Michigan resident that can outlast Cada in the WSOP Main Event 2022.

“It’s go time in Michigan,” said Cada. “I know a lot of local players are excited that WSOP.com is finally live in the state and I’m personally looking forward to getting to know all of the great poker players at tournaments and online events soon.”

Interstate poker was permitted in Michigan through a bill that was signed into law in January 2021.

Bill 606 permits wagering only in the state at licensed racetracks, professional sports venues or on a mobile app, for which in-person registration will be mandatory.

This registration requirement will then lift from 2024, when players aged 18 and above will be able to download an app anywhere.

Tracks and venues are only allowed to partner with one online betting provider at a time.

Sports betting licencees will be subject to a 9.75% tax rate on adjusted gross revenue from retail bets, while online bets will be taxed at 14.25%.

On its third and final reading in the House, the bill was approved by a 58-30 vote.

The house considered two amendments to the bill. The first amendment – which rephrased part of the bill to make it clearer that the online tax also applied to revenue rather than stakes – was approved.

Another amendment proposed mandatory $1,000 loss limits for every 24-hour period. This amendment was rejected.

The bill was initially introduced in the middle of February and was passed by the Committee for Licensing, Occupations and Administrative Regulation on 16 March. 

The bill is identical to a bill that was already introduced in the Senate last month, Senate Bill 213. This bill was also assigned to the Licensing and Occupations Committee, which has yet to vote on its passage.

The bill was primarily sponsored by representative Adam Koenig, who previously filed attempts to legalise online sports betting in January 2021.

Other sponsors included Alan Gentry, Michael Meredith, David Osborne, Kimberly Banta, Rachel Roberts, Thomas Huff and Cherlynn Stevenson.

Kentucky governor Andy Beshear has previously spoken out in favour of legal sports betting, having campaigned on the matter.

The month-on-month growth was mostly thanks to another record high in online casino revenue, which reached €171.0m in January, 5.0% more than in January 2021 and breaking the record of €165.5m set the previous month.

January 2022’s online casino revenue was also well over double the figure recorded just two years earlier.

Online sports betting GGR, meanwhile, ticked slightly up month-on-month to €128.8m, but this was well below the €143.6m recorded in January 2021.

When the retail sector is also included, overall sports betting revenue came to €211.0m, which again was slightly more than December 2021. However, with the retail sector locked down for the entirety of January 2021 and therefore contributing no revenue, combined sports betting revenue was up 46.9%.

Poker revenue increased month-on-month, with €11.4m from tournaments and €7.5m from cash games, but both of these figures were a long way behind the totals achieved during 2020 and early 2021 as the Covid-19 pandemic led to a poker resurgence.

Bingo revenue also rose slightly month-on-month, to €6.1m.

Looking at the dominant operators, PokerStars continued to lead the way in online casino, but with a market share of less than 10%.

Following behind were two business that may change hands soon. Snai – owned by Playtech, which is subject to a bid from TTB Partners – held an 8.79% share. In third position was Sisal, which PokerStars owner Flutter has agreed to acquire, with a 7.93% share of the market. Fourth-placed Lottomatica, meanwhile, had been sold by former owner IGT last year.

In online sports betting, the market leader was Snai with 13.7% of revenue. Sisal followed with 13.3%, while Bet365, PlanetWin365, Goldbet and Eurobet all continued to hover around the 10% mark.

When retail is included, Snai and Goldbet led the way, with 15.2% and 15.1% of the market, respectively. Sisal had a 13.1% market share while Eurobet’s was 11.7%.

Pokerstars continued to dominate in poker, as its share of tournament play revenue crept back above the 50% barrier. For cash games, its market share was slightly lower, at 42.74%.

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 Spanish online market in the Spain 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.

Under the deal, RIO will integrate its software into RSI’s platform.

“We spoke with many potential partners over the last 18 months and are very excited to be on team RSI,” Galfond said. “They share our values: honesty, integrity, fairness, and transparency – and not only with their players. They stood out to me in the fair and honest way they dealt with us.

“RIO Poker created a platform that people loved, with features and innovations that the poker world was excited about, but we also heard things like ‘if only they could iterate on their software faster’ or ‘I’d move all my volume to RIO if they were bigger.’

“Well, now we are bigger – much bigger. And now we add to our existing tech team the expertise and experience of those who have built huge poker platforms in the past. I’m extremely excited about what we’ll be able to accomplish together.”

RSI co-founder and former chief executive Gregory Carlin recently resigned from his position on the board of directors and departed from the company entirely.

It would allow for advanced deposit wagering on “gambling games”, which are defined in the Iowa State Code as any game of chance authorised by the state’s Racing and Gaming Commission, other than sports betting.

In addition, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission may enter into agreements with regulators in other states, allowing for games such as poker to be played across state lines.

It clarifies that gaming licensees may “enter into operating agreements with one or two entities”, allowing them to offer up to two online gaming skins.

A licence fee for advanced deposit wagering on these games will cost $45,000, with a $10,000 annual renewal fee.

The state government committee as a whole will now consider the bill.

However, Michael Barnes, commissioner for the NSW Crime Commission, said it is unclear how much of this was the proceeds of crime being laundered by or on behalf of criminal syndicates.

Barnes added that due to the amount of money involved, it is reasonable to suspect some level of criminal activity.

As such, the Commission is inviting members of the public, academics with an interest in the area, current or past employees of pubs or clubs to make submissions to the inquiry. This process will remain open until 28 January 2022.

“We aren’t starting with any preconceptions about the extent of that criminal activity,” Barnes said. “We know pubs and clubs deliver valuable community services and are assured ClubsNSW, the peak body for the industry, is committed to stamping out illegality.

“However, we expect the expert investigators, data analysts, lawyers and intelligence officers working on this project to uncover activities not previously known to operators or regulators that will assist to ensure pubs and clubs stay profitable while the community is protected.”

The call for submissions comes after Liquor and Gaming NSW this month fined bookmaker Rob Waterhouse AUS$4,500 for illegal gambling advertising in the state.

Liquor and Gaming NSW said that it responded to reports Rob Waterhouse was offering a ‘five daily boosts promotion’, in which players could receive improved odds on up to five bets per day, on his website RobWaterhouse.com and Twitter account.

Waterhouse was charged with offences under the Betting and Racing Act 1998 relating to publishing prohibited gambling-related advertisements.

The majority of this total came from online casino, which accounted for €148.8m, the strongest month since May this year. PokerStars Casino continued to lead the vertical, though its market share declined marginally from September, to 9.2%.

It was a similar story for Sisal, which retained second place in the vertical at 8.8%, but also saw its market share decline. Snai, despite growing its share of revenue to 8.0%, remained in third. 

While casino revenue was up year-on-year, sports betting’s contribution across all channels dropped significantly, to €117.9m. This represented a 51.6% drop from the prior year, and a 37.1% decline from September 2021. 

This could be attributed to online betting, which posted revenue of €76.1m, the second lowest total of 2021 to date. In the channel, the top four operators by market share were all businesses with a retail presence. Playtech’s Snaitech, on 15.2%, led the way, with Sisal (14.4%) and SKS365 (11.9%) following.

Retail betting also suffered a significant drop during the month, falling from September’s €67.9m – the year’s high – to €41.8m. Goldbet, which ranked third in online market share, led the way in retail with 23.1% market share. Snaitech followed on 18.8%, then Eurobet on 14.9%. 

For poker, both tournaments and cash games enjoyed a strong month. Tournament rake of €8.4m marked the product’s best month since April, while cash game revenue of €5.6m was up 5.0% year-on-year. For both, PokerStars remained the market leader by far – it accounted for 46.4% of tournament rake and 43.3% of cash game revenue. 

Scroll down for the full dashboard, supplied by Ficom Leisure. 

The GGPoker.nl site went live earlier this month on a limited basis, allowing for the operator to resolve any delays encountered by players during the soft launch. 

Now that the account set up and funding processes have been streamlined, GGPoker has commenced a full launch, offering Dutch players unlimited access to its site.

“The online poker landscape has changed a lot since the closure of the Dutch market, several years ago. Arguably, the biggest difference is that GGPoker is now the largest poker site in the world and the place where everyone loves to play,” GGPoker’s head of Europe Marco Trucco said.

“We’re really excited to welcome Dutch players to GGPoker to compete for the most prestigious poker achievements or just to have some fun at the tables.”

Bet365, UK-based bingo operator Tombola and Play North Ltd are among the other brands to have secured online gambling licences in the Netherlands, alongside Dutch land-based operator Holland Casino NV and state lottery Nederlandse Loterij with its TOTO Online betting brand

The Janshen Hahnraths Group with FPO Nederland, Italy-based Betent, Belgian brand Bingoal and sports media and betting business LiveScore Malta also secured licences.

.

During that period revenue surpassed €300m, hitting a high of €351.2m in February. 

Aside from May, when revenue came to €328.5m, monthly revenue has failed to hit those heights, with August’s total the second-lowest of the year to date, after July’s €207.2m. 

Online casino was once again the biggest vertical, with revenue amounting to €134.2m. PokerStars accounted for 9.9% of this total, as it remained the casino market leader ahead of Sisal, with a 9.1% share. Snaitech followed in third, with 7.8%. 

As usual, PokerStars remained far ahead of its competitors in the poker vertical, though its tournament market share has remained below 50% since January. That is unlikely to change, with the closest challenger for tournaments Sisal, which accounted for 10.6% of revenue, and 6.6% for the cash game segment. 

In sports betting, revenue came to €115.0m for August, breaking down to €33.6m from the retail channel and €81.4m for online. This represented a 7.9% decline from August 2020, but a 17.7% improvement of July this year, when revenue fell to €97.7m. 

Across both channels, Snaitech’s 16.5% market share saw it top the online and retail leaderboard. It contributed 21.4% of retail betting revenue during the month. It was also Italy’s biggest online operator, with a 14.4% market share keeping Bet365 from taking back the top spot for the second consecutive month. The last time the Stoke-based operator didn’t sit atop the online betting ranking was May, another time when it was leapfrogged by Snaitech. 

Scroll down for the full breakdown of Italy’s figures. 

All data and figures from the regulator are processed by leading European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure, a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.

Ficom Leisure also provides monthly figures on the New Jersey online market in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard and Iowa in the Iowa iGaming Dashboard, all of which are available on iGB North America.

It also provides quarterly figures on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard and the Portuguese market in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.

Flutter said PokerStars made $18m from Kentucky customers during this time period.

In 2015, then-PokerStars operator Amaya was ordered to pay $290m by Franklin Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate for this Kentucky activity. The total was equal to the value of every losing wager made by a player in Kentucky, without deducting winning wagers.

Read the full story on iGB North America

For the online channel, Playtech-owned Snaitech led the market for the first time since April, accounting for 14.3% of sports betting revenue. This set it ahead of May’s market leader Sisal, with a share of 12.9%, and Bet365 on 12.1%. 

Snaitech’s retail estate also saw it top the rankings for in-person betting, with 20.1% market share. However Goldbet followed closely behind, on 19.6%, then Entain’s Eurobet on 15.8%. 

This meant the Playtech-owned operator was Italy’s largest sportsbook operator in July, with a combined market share of 14.3%, setting it ahead of Goldbet on 14.3% and Sisal on 12.8%. 

The sportsbook vertical’s declines contributed to Italy’s total online revenue declining 21.3% to €207.2m in July – though this did represent a 5.5% improvement on the same month in 2020. 

Compared to the prior month, all key verticals were down, though none were as steep as those reported for retail and online wagering, and generally remained ahead of prior year levels. 

Online casino, for example, saw revenue fall 3.9% compared to July, to €128.8m, but this represented a 38.6% year-on-year improvement. Poker did dip however, with tournament revenue declining to €6.1m, and cash games’ contribution falling to €4.5m. 

PokerStars remained the market leader for casino and poker alike, increasing its market share in the casino vertical to 10.3% and totally dominating the poker tournament and cash game markets.

Its closest challenger for casino is Sisal, with a 9.0% share, with that operator also a distant second in poker tournaments, with market share of 10.6%. For cash games, no other operator comes close – Sisal again comes second, but with a share of less than 10%. 

Scroll down for the full dashboard.

All data and figures from the regulator are processed by leading European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure, a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.

Ficom Leisure also provides monthly figures on the New Jersey online market in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard and Iowa in the Iowa iGaming Dashboard, all of which are available on iGB North America.

It also provides quarterly figures on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard and the Portuguese market in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.

Sports betting continued to make up most of Flutter’s revenue, growing 58.1% to £1.89bn, thanks mostly to a full sporting calendar after widespread suspensions for much of H1 2020.

Gaming revenue, however, ticked down by 2.7% to £1.16bn.

Flutter chief executive Peter Jackson said he was impressed the business had shown particularly strong betting growth while holding steady in gaming.

“The first half of 2021 exceeded our expectations as we made substantial progress against our operational and strategic objectives while maintaining excellent momentum in growing our player base,” he said. “Our global sports businesses benefited from further enhancements to our products and the return to more normalised sporting calendars while we sustained our strong performance in gaming despite the challenging comparatives set last year.”

Breaking revenue down by territory, the UK and Ireland remained on top with £1.14bn, a 94.2% increase. Both sport and gaming in the UK grew rapidly, with sport up 106.7% to £738m and gaming up 74.1% to £397m. Players in the UK and Ireland staked a total of £6.09bn, up 68.7%, with a margin of 10.7%, down from the particularly high margin of 12.8% in 2020.

Dividing UK and Ireland revenue further into retail and online, online revenue grew 37.1% to £1.09bn, of which £712m came from sports. Retail revenue on the other hand fell by 47.2% because of betting shop closures, with £26m of this total coming from sports and £16m from gaming.

In Australia, where only sports betting is permitted, Flutter’s Sportsbet brand brought in £585m, up 34.8%, as stakes grew 34.0% to £5.00bn.

Jackson said that, given Australia’s lower levels of novel coronavirus (Covid-19), this might suggest the brand’s growth will last.

“In Australia, Sportsbet delivered a phenomenal H1 performance with high customer retention rates during a period of reduced Covid disruption, suggesting that the business has experienced a permanent step change in scale,” he said.

The US, meanwhile, where Flutter operates the FanDuel brand, had the fastest growth. Revenue was up 135.1% to £652m. THis was driven mostly by betting growth, with sports revenue up 175.0% to £452m, thanks in part to new markets such as Michigan and Virginia opening. 

Jackson said FanDuel had established a strong position as the market leader in the US, and that customers were proving to be worth the high acquisition costs.

“In the US, we remain the number one online sports betting operator by some distance thanks to the quality of our products and the extensive reach of the FanDuel brand,” Jackson said. “The customer economics we are seeing in the US bode very well for the future, with early FanDuel customers generating positive payback within the first 12 months of acquisition. 

“We remain absolutely focused on extending our sports product advantages and replicating our market share success in further states as they regulate. In gaming we see an opportunity to grow our market share and look forward to further enhancing our product offering in the coming months.”

Flutter also said that as it continues to build a revenue advantage over competitors, this allows it to grow further and more quickly.

Gaming revenue grew 75.9% to £200m. Total US stakes came to £5.07bn, up 365.0% from 2020.

Flutter’s international segment, meanwhile – including the PokerStars brand – was the only one to see revenue decline as it experienced a 15.0% drop to £680m. While international sporting revenue grew to £118m, international gaming revenue was down 23.2% to £562m.

Flutter said one reason for this drop was that H1 of 2020 had been an especially strong year for PokerStars and poker in general. While exact comparisons to 2019 are not possible due to differences in reporting before Flutter’s merger with the Stars Group, PokerStars’ gaming revenue in 2019 was £479m, compared to 2021’s £562m.

Flutter said the decline was also partly due to compliance changes Flutter opted to make after the merger, including withdrawing the brand from China, Taiwan and Macau. This, it said, meant a higher proportion of its revenues in H1 came from regulated jurisdictions.

It added that “adverse German regulatory developments” under the country’s new State Treaty for Gaming played a part in the dip as well. While the treaty hadn’t officially come into effect in H1, operators were required to abide by its rules under a transitionary system.

Jackson said the decline was less severe than Flutter expected.

“In International, which faced particularly challenging revenue comparatives following the growth in poker last year, revenue declines were less pronounced than anticipated as we continue to reposition and invest in the business for long-term sustainable growth,” he said.

Flutter then paid £1.11bn in costs of sales, up 49.6% year-on-year, for a gross profit of £1.94bn, a 19.2% increase. Cost of sales grew faster than revenue mostly due to the growth of Flutter’s US segment, which the operator said has higher costs.

After sales and marketing costs, which grew 71.0% to £728m – of which the US made up almost £500m – Flutter was left with £1.22bn, down by 0.7% from H1 of 2020.

Other operating costs also increased, by 19.5% to £563m. Flutter again said the US was the “material driver” of the increase, due mostly to migration to Scientific Games’ now up-for-sale OpenSports platform, used by most of Flutter’s other sportsbook brands.

Flutter paid an additional £55m in corporate costs, down 15.7%, for adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of £597m, down 13.3%.

After depreciation and amortisation increased by 7.0% to £125m, Flutter’s adjusted operating profit was £472m, down 16.8% year-on-year.

The business said it also expects a strong second half of the year, projecting EBITDA between £1.00bn and £1.15bn. While the business expects to record EBITDA of between £1.27bn and £1.37bn when excluding the US, it projects an EBITDA loss between £225m and £275m for the US segment.

The month after H1 ended also saw a number of significant changes at Flutter. The operator agreed to sell its Oddschecker affiliate arm to private equity business Bruin Capital in a deal worth up to £155m Flutter also announced that Amy Howe would become chief executive of its US-facing FanDuel subsidiary, following Matt King’s decision to step down, a decision that may delay a potential IPO for FanDuel.

Unlike most other territories, the date of the State Treaty on Gambling’s implementation on 1 July did not feel as if it heralded a new dawn for the German betting and gaming market.

Some operators were already up and running, through the transitional regime that began in October last year. Others were already offering sports betting. Others have simply delayed their launches as a result of an uncertain and opaque regulatory framework.

At a time when a new federal regulator is not yet established, what can operators do to prepare when the only certainty is uncertainty? The second part of WRB Europe’s spotlight on Germany examines the work undertaken in the lead-up to the implementation of the new regulatory model.

Moderator: 

Dr Joerg Hofmann, Head of the Gaming & Betting Law Practice Group, Melchers Law Firm

Speakers: 

Luka Andric, managing director, Deutscher Sportwettenverband

Joe Saumarez Smith, chairman, Eyas Gaming

Jovana Popovic-Canaki, managing director, Masterpiece Gaming

So first, could you just give a comment on the difficulty of setting up a slots business. With so little guidance on the rules, it’s almost impossible to advertise because we need to consider the transitional regime does not formally legalise the offerings, toleration and advertising for illegal games of chance, meaning non-licenced games of chance is prohibited. This is only possible upon granting of a licence whenever this may be so I’m keen to learn what you say.

Joe Saumarez Smith: It’s a difficult environment and actually if you look at the regulatory regime in the abstract if there had been no grey market or pre regulated market and the German consumers didn’t really know what a good offering looked like, it would be much easier. However, the reality is that there’s been 15 years of German customers playing online with slot sites that offer a very good return to player and very good bonuses. If you now have a regulated site and you stick to all the rules, which you have to otherwise you lose your license or you don’t get granted your license, then your offering is going to be much worse than the black market. So the question for us is really, first of all, is the black market going to be cracked down on at all? And at the moment there doesn’t seem to be any sign at all of anybody suggesting that they will go after the black market and we know that there are some very big black market operators who are making 20 million euros a month EBITDA.

So when we launch into the markets we will have less content, it will be on a far lower RTP to the players and we won’t be able to do any bonuses. It’s going to be very difficult to find any of the customers because we can only advertise online from very limited times of day. We can’t do any radio, we can’t do any TV. Trying to find customers is going to be very tricky. We will do search engine optimisation, we will do what we can, but it really is like having both hands tied behind our backs and our legs tied together as well and that’s just not a very satisfactory position for trying to enter a market.

We’re also trying to refine our financial models at the moment, but there was one point when our original financial model basically showed that the bigger we got the more money we lost which is really not a great situation to be in. We have to enter the market, but it will be slow and steady. Establish yourself, your brand and hope that the tax rates and the regulations change, and there’s more crack down on the black market. Otherwise, it’s probably the worst possible market in Europe, even worse than the French market.

With all the challenges you have on all the technical sides, with all the platforms and software that needs to be adjusted to the German requirements plus the change of RTP – that takes time, so be availability of games is not really as it should be right now.

Joe Saumarez Smith: If you look at who’s produced games, Novomatic have done a lot of games, but they said that they’re going to use them exclusively so it’s not available to the general market. Red Tiger have put out about 30 games with lower RTPs, Microgaming has about 8.

The Book Of are the dominant slots in Germany and they do not work at a lower RTP or the player experience is much worse. So, it’s just going to be probably 10% of the content that was there, maybe less. It’s unsatisfactory for customers and it drives them to the black market if they had an experience with a pre regulated operator.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t just seek out somebody who can provide exactly the same sort of experience.

Nevertheless, the industry’s preparing for a licensing regime and applying for licenses hoping that the regulatory environment will be improved.

If you’re trying to get answers you can read the minimum requirements just published by the regulator. It’s not hard to get immediate responses due to the fact that the capacity of the new authority is very limited the momen t.

Luka, what is your advice? Who could operators contact if they need answers if they need advice for the entry into the German market?

Luka Andric:  Well, apart from talking to your lawyers and trade associations like us, the best piece of advice is try to seek direct contact with the regulatory authorities. Unfortunately, it is not very straightforward at the moment because you’ve got divided responsibilities. Say for sports betting it is responsible, but if you’re applying for an online casino / online poker license you have to apply in Saxony-Anhalt, having said that, this new regulatory authority that we’re talking about has been setup, but it’s not actually in charge of the process because it’s only got a handful of staff.

They’ve set up a specific email address and we encourage them to put an FAQ section on the website. We as a trade association are also trying to channel questions that our members have to this authority to get feedback, but the best advice would be to get in touch with the responsible authority directly, and if in doubt, talk to your lawyers and your trade association.

We also provide a forum where operators applying for these licenses can talk about their experiences and interpretations of legal rules.

My first experience when I tried to get someone on the phone, I spoke to someone who was really open-minded and tried to assist. 

Of course, there are so many contradictive regulations in the industry. So many left open questions. We have to think about regulators, technical infrastructures to safe storage systems. It’s hard to find your way through and I think we need some time. 

What we need is to offer this sort of dialogue Jovana mentioned earlier in our first session. I think this is really key to get this done.

Luka Andric: One thing that has occurred to us over the past couple of days is that not even the authorities in the different lands seem to know exactly what the other land is doing; we’ve seen examples where people have asked for certain contracts that were supposed to be issued and these contracts didn’t exist yet. There seems to be a lack of communication between the authorities. We’re now two weeks into the process and we hope that it will improve quickly.

We’ve also seen the authorities tend to be lenient if and when certain obligations cannot be fulfilled. There are extensions to deadlines & so on if you can reasonably show that what they’ve been asking for is impossible or very difficult to reach within the short time frames that they setup.

It’s interesting to learn from a real-life example. You’re going to launch your product and you’re really analysing regulation and you set your goals very high, tell us how would you plan to launch a new brand?

Jovana Popovic-Canaki: Absolutely the goals have to high right? Because you shoot for the moon and even if you miss it you land among the stars!

But I’m sorry to disappoint you because launching a new brand in the German market even in this complex time doesn’t really differ that much from launching and branding in any other regulated market, except be prepared for the complexities and be prepared for all of the obstacles that regulation and compliance brings with it. Other than that I’m more than happy to share a portion of the recipe for launching a new & successful brand.

In my opinion, there are a few ingredients worth mentioning. It all starts with the brand name; it needs to be very close to the audience that you have chosen to be your target market. The name has to be catchy and it really needs to fit the market. I truly believe that we have fulfilled this mission with excellence in our brand Jet One.

Then after that it all comes down to the visual. Visuals have to be eye-catching and also bring up the appropriate emotions within the audience.

Last but not least, is the tonality. It’s very important when communicating your values to the broader public because the public needs to relate to the value, so they can relay the brand itself.  These 3 ingredients make up a brand identity and it is in my opinion what differentiates you more than anything else that is out there.

One other thing to mention is localisation, this cannot be neglected. At Masterpiece Gaming for example, we have chosen the path of sponsoring sports league clubs in Germany and we really get close to the player, to the fans, to the ones who give their heart and soul for their local club.

There are of course many other ingredients but as with anything in life we have to be balanced and you shouldn’t be afraid of testing things, experimenting and knowing your numbers. This is what matters at the end of the day because knowing that allows you to bring that perfect golden mix and brings you to the stars and even to the moon. Joe, now we know how it works, but what is the perfect timing for a product launch in Germany for slot machines, probably online poker as well?

Joe Saumarez Smith:  I think it’s really tricky because most of the people who are there aren’t actually a huge number of new brands launching. Most people were in the pre regulated market and had just changed their product to reflect that and already have a customer base.

I would’ve liked to have been live on the 1st of July but we just didn’t have enough information and in fact we’re not even certain we could legally operate if you’re a slots only offering. Jovana can be in the market because she’s Sports Betting but I can’t actually work out whether we are actually allowed to be live with a slots only offering and nobody can tell me. If you’re a poker only offering, I think you’ve got the same problem. It’s interesting to hear Luka say that the regulators are being pragmatic about it, but if you’re part of a big company they like certainty so it’s hard for big companies to say ok we’ll take the risk, particularly when it’s their home market. I would hope that there will be a sensible move towards relaxing some of some of the restrictions on things like affiliates, on some of the gambling advertising, the timing.

I think they’ve got the right intentions. I just think the way they’re doing it is not very sensible, but I suspect that in 3 years time it will be much easier to launch a new brand into the market than it is now.

Keen to learn more about Germany’s re-regulated gaming market? Europe’s biggest opening of 2021 to date will be discussed by an expert panel at iGB Live! The show runs from 28 September to 1 October, and will feature the session Embracing regulated igaming: Germany focus – register here to book your place.

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However, many are still convinced that with such a large and already-engaged audience, online gambling could still thrive in Germany – under the right conditions.

From new operators moving in to target the opportunity, to existing incumbents finding their feet in a new channel, not to mention the legal experts and lobbyists fighting for fairer conditions, Germany remains a key territory for the industry.

The WRB Europe series brings together these stakeholders to kick off a three-part discussion that will first look at how the market finally made its way to a legal framework for igaming.

Moderator: 

Dr Joerg Hofmann, Head of the Gaming & Betting Law Practice Group, Melchers Law Firm

Speakers:

Luka Andric, managing director, Deutscher Sportwettenverband

Joe Saumarez Smith, chairman, Eyas Gaming

Jovana Popovic-Canaki, managing director, Masterpiece Gaming

Keen to learn more about Germany’s re-regulated gaming market? Europe’s biggest opening of 2021 to date will be discussed by an expert panel at iGB Live! The show runs from 28 September to 1 October, and will feature the session Embracing regulated igaming: Germany focus – register here to book your place.

“The entry of Piomo as majority shareholder marks the beginning of a new phase of growth in our project,” Castaldo said. “The new shareholder represents a guarantee not only for the company, but above all for our customers who will benefit from the strength and renewed investment capacity of their provider.

“I wish to thank our historical stakeholders, Monitor Clipper Partners and TPG Growth, who have contributed so much to the development of the company for the past decade.”

Founded in 1996, Microgame has agreements with 50 different operators. According to iGB’s Italy Dashboard, it held a 2.2% share of Italy’s online cash poker market during May.

Piomo is the latest investment business to acquire a player in the Italian online gambling market, after International Game Technology sold its Italian-facing Lottomatica B2C businesses to Gamenet Group, a subsidiary of funds managed by private equity giant Apollo Global Management.

While revenue was down in February to €82.9m, the number of active players hit a new high at 1.2 million as 463,411 new players registered gaming accounts, breaking records that had been set in January and ensuring that active players remained over the one million mark for six consecutive months.

March was a much slower month by recent standards, thanks mostly to a sharp drop in sports betting revenue to €24.4m. However, total revenue was still close to 2020 averages and above almost every month of 2019.

The decline in sports betting revenue in March came despite record betting turnover of €964.7m. It was mostly due to a sharp drop in pre-game sports betting revenue to €5.6m, while live sports betting revenue was €17.3m, with turnover eclipsing the €500m mark for the first time. 

Looking at casino games in more detail, slots remained the most popular games, with revenue of more than €17m and turnover above €500m in all three months. Live roulette followed, with RNG roulette in third. 

While betting revenue was higher than casino in each of the first two months of the year, March’s lower figure meant that casino was still the largest vertical for the quarter.

The figures come as Spain considers new responsible gambling regulations that could have a major impact on the sector. The new rules include a requirement for players to set loss limits for every session they play, which cannot be exceeded. These limits cannot be saved and must be selected every time.

Other new rules include stricter regulations for those who spend more than 50% of the maximum they are permitted to spend in a month.

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.

Pennsylvania becomes the fourth state in which WSOP is operational, following Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey. It becomes the fourth operator to roll out online poker in the state, after Mount Airy (in partnership with PokerStars), Penn National’s Hollywood Casino, and Rush Street’s Rivers Casino Philadelphia.

To read the full article visit iGB North America.

Real event betting brought in £238.8m, down 10.7% from April. This was up significantly from £101.4m in May 2020, though sports betting continued to be impacted by the effects of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic at that time.

Casino gaming excluding slots brought in £65.3m, 8.0% behind April’s figure and down 16.2% on the previous year.

Virtual betting was 5.1% behind GGY for April 2021 and down 35.8% on May 2020, at £7.2m. Poker brought in £7.3m for the month, 12.9% lower than April 2021 and down 60.1% on May 2020.

Esports betting saw its highest recorded GGY in May 2020, at £4.6m, which was down to £2.0m in May 2021, up slightly on April 2021’s figure of £1.9m.

Other gambling verticals brought in £1.7m in May, down slightly on £1.8m in the previous year, and a reduction of 17.1% compared to April.

The data also showed that there were 3.1 million active slots players in Great Britain during May, up 25.9% year-on-year. Other gaming verticals including casino had 2.2m active players, up 11.2%.

Real event bettors were up significantly, from 2.2m in May 2020 to 5.1m in May this year, while the number of bettors on virtual events decreased by 18.0% to 236,061.

The number of active poker accounts was also down significantly, from 557,317 to 282,175 – a reduction of 49.4%.

Comparing April 2021 to May 2021, all verticals saw fewer active players, with real event betting seeing the biggest reduction, from 6.7m to 5.1m active accounts.

The Gambling Commission has also issued a report from research carried out which aimed to examine the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic upon individuals’ gambling behaviours.

It said the research is not nationally representative, but “provides a useful window into the wider experiences of some gambling consumers”.

The survey’s main conclusions included that while the pandemic had caused many to reflect on life and their finances, many had not changed their gambling behaviours and only a minority decreased their gambling frequency.

Half of those surveyed said they had increased the time spent gambling, due to the ‘anytime, anywhere’ nature of online gambling, higher amounts of free time and increasing rates of boredom, and money spent on gambling being easier to justify without as many opportunities to spend on other activities.

Many reported having experimented with new games, and reported feeling disappointed at their gambling habits since the onset of the pandemic. Only a minority noted a positive impact of the pandemic upon their gambling behaviours.

The Commission set out its key recommendations for the future, stating that it will be important to consider the impact on gambling behaviour as things ‘return to normal’ in the wake of the pandemic, as well as the impact on younger audiences, who it was suggested are most at risk of spending more time and money on gambling, and are less likely to be concerned about this behaviour.

The Allied business now consists only of its core esports business and cash reserves from this transaction.

Allied Esports CEO Frank Ng said: “This is a momentous day for AESE and an opportunity to focus on growing the business in exciting and innovative ways.

“Congratulations to Adam Pliska and his entire team at World Poker Tour as they too move into a new, successful chapter.”

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Europebet is the first brand to provide poker in Belarus, through its website Europebet.by.

In addition, Betsson has opened an office in Minsk, which will deal with customer service and administrative tasks.

“Building on the success of Europebet in Georgia, the expansion into nearby Belarus is a natural step in our business growth strategy,” said Pontus Lindwall, CEO of Betsson AB.

“As an operator, we will be introducing a high-quality and entertaining product, an excellent customer experience, innovative technology as well as providing multiple job opportunities through our new office in Minsk.”

Last week, Betsson reported its most successful quarter ever in EBIT, which is expected to fall between SEK375m and SEK385m (£31.5m-£32.4m/€36.8m-€37.7m) in the second quarter of 2021.

“We’re happy to bring our poker product and innovation to the underserved Belgian market,” said Marco Trucco, head of Europe at GGPoker.

“Our partnership with a local company run by experienced poker event organizers is a statement of how we like to make GGPoker relevant and successful in a new market: connecting with people and genuine communities who share our passion for poker.”

The licence will allow players to play on the GGPoker Network by signing up to the GGPoker.be website from July 31.

“We are delighted to partner with GGPoker in Belgium,” said Kristof De Deken, founder of Concept Booth.

“We are confident that the entire Belgian poker industry will become stronger and more appealing for the players. A safe and controlled player environment, a premium user experience and local integration will be the highlights of the GGPoker.be brand.”

Last month, Belgium’s Gaming Commission announced that it had issued 55 sanctions pertaining to 23 separate cases in 2020, with the total fines amounting to €59,958.

While the majority of players reported using licensed channels, 12% were unsure whether or not they played on an unlicensed site.

Players who played on unlicensed sites admitted more readily than other players that their gaming increased during the coronavirus pandemic. Of the 32% of people who claimed to play with these sites at least once a quarter, 19% said their gaming habits have increased compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Meanwhile, 10% of players acknowledged that they had played too much in the last three months, with those who used unlicensed sites more likely to report this. While an overwhelming majority of overall players did not report playing too much, a slim majority of players who used unlicensed sites said that they did.

47% of players who used unlicensed sites found them via web searches. 31% of players either found them through advertising, or by tips from friends.

Better odds and winning opportunities were the most common reason people sought out unlicensed sites, with 25% of such players citing this as a reason. Meanwhile, just under 20% were looking to circumvent the SEK5000 deposit limit, which has proved to be very unpopular within the industry.

Lottery games proved to be the most popular type of unlicensed gambling, being the game of choice for 60% of those who play at least once a quarter. Horse racing and non-horse racing sports were the next most common with 36% each.

20% of those surveyed preferred casinos games such as slots, 11% favoured bingo and 7% chose poker.

Research conducted by Spelinspektionen earlier this year found licenced websites were lacking in terms of providing sufficient responsible gambling information.

While table games can be offered, this will either be granted to the state lotteries as a monopoly. In states where the lotteries do not take up the option to offer table games, a number of licences, based on the number of casino licensees, will be issued.

The launch follows the Bundestag voting to approve a bill which set a controversial 5.3% tax on online slot and poker stakes.

Operators have criticised the tax rate, along with other elements of the nation’s online gambling regulation. Germany’s sports betting association, the Deutsche Sportwettenverband (DSWV), argued that the tax rate would “jeopardise the success of the new gambling regulation in Germany.”

Yesterday, the association put out a further statement, calling on the country’s authorities to clamp down on unlicensed brands as the regulations are introduced.

DSWV said the regulation, including policies such as the tax rate on turnover, a €1,000 per month spending cap and a €1 per spin stake cap on slot games, would create unattractive framework conditions for licensed operators.

It therefore called upon the German authorities to clamp down on offshore competitors with rigorous sanctions, in order to deter them from continuing to target customers.

The association said it was concerned that the legislation’s promotion of safe and responsible gambling, which its members also support, could be beneficial to those companies seeking to operate outside the new rules and avoid heavy compliance costs.

Today, compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) service provider Kerberos said the regulation creates legal certainty in the German market, but that the fight against money laundering will need to become more digital and data-based.

The company’s director, Christian Tsambikakis, said that now the GlüNeuRStV has come into effect, “legal and illegal offers can now be clearly separated, and the fight against illegal providers can be carried out much more effectively.”

“This is also urgently necessary,” he continued, “because money laundering prevention [in the unlicensed gaming market] is practically non-existent, especially with illegal gaming providers based in so-called ‘tax havens’.”

Yesterday, prior to the market’s opening, secondary lottery operator Lottoland applied for permission to operate across Germany, where it currently offers its products under a Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) licence.

“We would like to expand our offer in Germany and enable players of legal age to participate responsibly in legal gaming offers under the new framework conditions with German player protection standards,” said Magnus von Zitzewitz, managing director of Lottoland Germany.

However, lottery betting operators have previously come under fire from Germany’s lottery operators, represented by the Deutscher Lotto- und Totoblock (DLTB), which criticised Lottoland when it sought to gain a lottery licence in Germany in 2017.

After falling for two consecutive months while casino revenue moved in the opposite direction, it was the sports betting vertical that led the market upwards last month.

Despite the continuing impact of retail closures, sports betting GGR rose to €153.6m in May, with all of the revenue coming from online.

The May total represented a huge 48.3% jump on April and put betting back on par with casino, which pulled in €155.1m in revenue last month, a slight 3.8% drop on April but still an impressive 32% rise on last May.

The change in fortunes pushed the country’s two main verticals close to parity again, with casino accounting for 47.22% of the market and betting 46.74% last month.

Betting brands with a retail presence continued to fare better than online-only operators even without stores open. Online-only Bet365’s share of the market continued to fall last month, dropping to its lowest level for four years at 8.9%.

Sisal led the market with a share of 13.1%, up from 12.8% the previous month, while Goldbet was not far behind at 12.8%, up from 11.8% the previous month.

Similarly, in casino the online-only Pokerstars continued to lose market share, albeit it narrowly clung to its lead with a market share of 9.82% in May. Sisal was close behind with 9.10%, while Lottomatica came in third with 7.99%.

There appears to be no danger of the poker giant losing its crown when it comes to poker in Italy, with its share standing at 48.36% for tournaments and 42.01% for cash games last month.

That’s unlikely to provide much comfort to Stars, however, given the Italian poker market’s continuing decline. Last month both tournament and cash game GGR fell back on the previous month, by 21% and 16%, respectively.

The decline was even worse when compared against May last year, with tournament revenue down 42.2% and cash revenue 36.4%.

All data and figures from the regulator are processed by leading European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure, a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.

Ficom Leisure also provides monthly figures on the New Jersey online market in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard and Iowa in the Iowa iGaming Dashboard, all of which are available on iGB North America.

It also provides quarterly figures on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard and the Portuguese market in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.

However the DSWV argues that the government is “jeopardizing the success of the new gambling regulation in Germany” with the inclusion of the tax, which will tax a customer’s individual stake rather than the operator’s earnings from slots and poker.

DSWV president Mathias Dahms said: “By taxing the individual stakes, the state asks the customer to pay for every single spin of the virtual slots – over and over again, every few seconds and even if the stakes come from previous winnings. There is a reason that all other EU countries have imposed an income tax on these games and not a gaming stake tax.”

This isn’t the DSWV’s first objection to the tax, having filed a complaint with the EU earlier this month. The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) also voiced its concern and filed its own complaint, arguing that the turnover tax violates European law.

Dahms added: “When it comes to online gambling, Germany is turning the wrong way in tax policy in Europe. For years, the countries had struggled to find a compromise on the State Treaty on Gambling and to open up the online gambling markets in order to finally get this area under regulatory control. 

“Now the countries are destroying their own work with an over-tax regime for virtual machine games and online poker in the last meters. ”

The taxes will come into effect when Germany’s new online gambling framework becomes law on 1 July.

The new legislation will legalise online casino games in Germany for the first time, but impose certain restrictions, such as a €1 per spin stake limit for online slots.

Currently, operators may offer online casino games under a transition period, provided they keep to the rules of the new treaty. However, operators such as LeoVegas have said that this has had a major impact on revenue.

Player deposits and withdrawals were up 6.1% and 6.4% respectively over Q4 2020, while the number of new accounts registered monthly grew 7.9% over the same period to 422,533.

The total monthly average of active gaming accounts was 1.1m, an increase of 22.7% year-on-year.

Sports betting represented €110.3m, or 45.6% of the quarter’s GGR, down slightly on Q1 2020, when sports betting represented 50.4% of GGR, but up 6.5% on Q4 2020.

Casino accounted for 41.4% of GGR this quarter, at €99.5m, up 28.3% on the same period in 2020.

Poker was the next largest vertical, bringing in €25.0m, up 3.1% from the previous year, while bingo brought in €3.6m, down 2.4%.

Prize draws brought in a further €1.7m in GGR, down slightly from €1.9m in Q1 2020.

Marketing spend for the quarter stood at €148.4m, representing €71.5m in advertising, €56.0m in promotional costs, €12.4m in affiliate marketing and €8.5m in sponsorship.

Compared to the previous quarter, marketing spend was down 1.7% following a decrease in spending in all areas except for affiliate marketing, the cost of which increased by 1.2%.

Spain had a total of 80 licensed operators during the quarter, of which 51 offered casino gaming, 44 offered sports betting, nine offered poker, three bingo and two prize draws.

PokerStars – which left the Swiss market in 2019 as the country opened its regulated online market – will initially be available via a dedicated Swiss homepage via desktop computers and Android devices, with an app for iPhones and iPads planned soon.

All players must have an account with Casino777, which will also handle transactions and support through Swiss consumer protection rules. Players can sign up either via Casino777 or PokerStars.ch.

StadtCasino Baden Group said Robert Kocher has prioritised the integration with PokerStars since assuming the role of chief gaming officer at Casino777 in February. PokerStars is likely to be available at the latest by early July.

“I can assure everyone that the joint teams from PokerStars and Casino777 are working almost around the clock in order to be able to go live as quickly as possible,” Kocher said.

“The preparatory work for this launch has been going on for months. The project is not completely without challenges. All provisions of Swiss legislation must be complied with, for example with regard to player protection or money laundering prevention.”

Casino777 went live in September 2019, powered by Gaming1, a subsidiary of Ardent Group.

In 2019, Stadtcasino Baden Group generated gross revenue of CHF7.6m (£6.3m/€7.2m/$7.8m) from legal igaming. As the first to launch, Jackpots.ch contributed CHF6.3m of this total, with CHF1.3m coming from Casino777.

PokerStars, now part of Flutter Entertainment, departed the Swiss market in 2019 having been unable to partner with a local gambling establishment as required by Federal Act on Money Games that came into effect in January of that year. Online casino licences are available only to existing Swiss land-based casino operators for the first six years until 2025.

The portal has been launched in association with BOS, and is backed by operators Betsson Group, LeoVegas, William Hill and Kindred Group.

BOS said that knowledge of the Swedish gaming market is generally low, and that there are often “misconceptions” about how it is regulated, what its licensing requirements are and how the market develops.

Fakta om spel therefore aims to provide independent information on the market, including what its operators’ duty of care entails, recent statistics on taxes and marketing, and published research and reports, it said.

It is important that we have an open and free debate about the gaming market,” said Gustaf Hoffstedt, secretary general of BOS.

“The idea is that the site will be expanded over time and we would like to see more operators support Fakta om spel. We know that increased knowledge contributes to a healthier, safer and fairer gaming market by highlighting the benefits of a licensed market, but also pointing out the important challenges that the industry, authorities, politicians and suppliers need to focus on together.”

The site currently offers an overview of the Swedish market and its history, vertical-specific information on online casino, sports betting, poker and lottery, statistics relating to the market and its financial performance, and third-party reports and research on different aspects of the sector.

In effect, this wold lead to tac bills being significantly higher than under the 25% gross profit tax set for in-person gambling. 

Renatus Zilles, chair of industry association Deutscher Verband für Telekommunikation und Median (DVTM), warned that such a high rate would only benefit the unlicensed market. 

As a result of the high payout rates set for online gaming products, a 5.3% levy on turnover would equate to a rate of around 125% of gross profits. This, in turn would require licensees to lower their payout levels, which would ultimately make regulated offerings less attractive to players, and therefore contravene the Glücksspielneuregulierungstaatsvertrag’s (GlüNeuRStV) ultimate goal of raising consumer protection standards. 

Zilles said this would ultimately reduce, rather than increase tax revenue from legal gambling. 

Dr Justus Haucap of the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), who has previously warned that a tax on turnover could “doom” re-regulation reiterated his warning. 

He pointed out that there were sufficient options for customers to gamble via offshore sites, such as by using cryptocurrency, without detection. The players most likely to do so, Haucap continued, were the ones the GlüNeuRStV was designed to protect. 

He also pointed out that France, which had previously taxed licensees on turnover rather than stakes, had shifted to a gross gaming revenue model as the previous regime had stunted the growth of the regulated market. 

However Zilles and Haucap’s claims were disputed by a number of testimonies at the hearing. Dr Markus Rutting, for example, claimed that those who would not play the tax would be likely to lose access to the market. He argued that players would be less trusting of unlicensed sites, while licensees would be the only ones permitted to advertise, to shore up the regulated sector. 

Thomas Eigenhaler of the Deutschen Steuer-Gewerkschaft (German Tax Union) supported this view. He said that the industry’s fundamental argument that a high tax rate would lead to a boom in illegal play was fundamentally flawed, and that the rate was actually “rather low”.

He added that comparisons to online gaming tax rates were more complicated than the online industry sggested.

“Online games of chance have a competitive advantage, since they operate with fewer staff and operating expenses, and are not subject to closing times, so it should not be too favourable a tax [rate],” Eigenhaler explained. “In addition to sales tax, land-based gaming pays the municipal amusement tax, which is no longer applicable for online gaming. 

“The effective taxation at these permanent establishments amounts to around €5 for every €100 staked. The new online tax is based on this.”

Munich-based lawyer István Cocron added that the authorities would need to work to ensure operators pay taxes in order for the new regime to be effective. He claimed that despite the current prohibition online casino was a billion-Euro market in Germany, largely due to the fact that there is no effort to prosecute illegal providers. 

However, a transition period has been in effect since 15 October 2020, during which operators that apply the €1,000 monthly limit on players, and limit slot stakes to €1 and remove table games, are allowed to offer products.

Cocron said there was “a big question mark” over whether the providers would transition into paying taxes if it was not supported by enforcement activity. 

Lotto Rheinland-Pfalz managing director Jürgen Häfner, currently chair of state lottery body Deutscher Lotto- und Totoblock, said this would be aided by the new regulatory body currently being set up in Sachsen-Anhalt. 

This body, Häfner predicted, would ensure regulations are respected by the industry, and would ensure the states at least secured returns from illegal operators, including lottery betting companies. This would give German states a share of a market estimated to have turnover of around €700m a year, he said. 

Tax lawyer Dr Ekkehart Reimer did raise some concerns about the scope for disruption, arguing that the reasoning given for a turnover-based model was vague and open to challenge.

This challenge has already arrived, with a complaint filed by the Deutscher Sportwettenverband (DVSW) alleging the online turnover tax constitutes illegal state aid to the land-based sector. The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) has argued the same and lodged a complaint of its own.

Zilles and Haucap said it was “very likely” that the European Commission would support this argument, which in turn could lead to a serious threat to the future of Germany’s land-based casinos and amusement arcades’ futures. 

Tax Lawyer Dr David Hummel disagreed, arguing that there was a basis in law to justify the tax under European Commission state aid laws. However, he warned that despite the simplicity of the scheme, this may not be enough to prevent the offshore market growing – that, he said, would be down to enforcement activity. 

The legislation has been referred to two other Bundestag committees, for legal affairs and consumer protection, and sports. 

Germany’s online slots and poker market is set to officially open from 1 July, when the GlüNeuRStV comes into force. The treaty has already been ratified by all 16 federal states. 

Sports betting in particular was was subject to massive growth. The €2.18bn wagered by players was a 78.8% increase on a 2020 heavily impacted by a suspension of sporting events caused by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic late in the quarter.

This led to €357m in betting revenue, from which €172m was paid in levies.

Active sports betting accounts increased 29.2% to 2.5 million – a figure which the regulator said is expected to increase this summer due to the Olympics and Euro 2020.

Football was the most popular sport to bet on by a considerable margin, contributing €1.3bn worth of wagers. Basketball was second with €362m, followed by tennis with €340m, with rugby coming next with €49m.

There was also an increase in betting on horse racing, as the €481.0m staked represented a 59.9% increase from 2020. Active accounts were up 13.3% to 402,000, while revenue increased 48.0% to €110m.

The €120m worth of poker revenue was a 23% increase from last year, while active player accounts grew 9% to 991,000.

The overall revenue figure was the second-highest since the regulator started publishing monthly data, behind December 2020.

The regulator said impact of horse racing events such as the Grand National helped contribute to the figure increase, as GGR from real event betting increased 7.0% in March to £267.4m.

The GGR of slots and other casino games both declined by less than 0.5%, at £202.0m and £71.0m respectively. The slight decline in slots comes after the vertical hit a record high in revenue in March.

Virtual betting and poker saw 8.9% and 9.1% decreases to £7.6m and £8.4m respectively.

Esports betting was up 2.7% to £1.9m.

Real-event betting was also the only sector to see an increase in active players between March and April, increasing 12.0% to 6.7m. Slots and other casino games both decreased 1% to 3.2m and 2.2m, virtual betting players decreased 5% to 256,233, and poker players saw the biggest drop, 11%, to 300,520.

The number of bets placed decreased across the board. Slot spins fell 1.0% to 6.1bn, real-event bets dropped to 344.3m and virtual bets decreased 7.2% to 17.1m. Poker wagers saw the biggest decrease falling 19.1% to 94.7m. Bets placed on other casino games decreased 3.3% to 295.6m.

The average slot session length fell to 20 minutes, and the number of sessions lasting longer than an hour fell 4% to 2.6m.

Last week, the regulator also published full data for the GB market from April to September 2020, a period heavily impacted by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. GGY for the sixth-month period was £5.89bn. Year-on-year comparisons were not available due to a change in reporting periods, but the figures suggest a drop of more than 10%.

The complaint deals with the proposed tax rates under Germany’s fourth state treaty on gambling, which allows for online casino nationwide and has been approved by all 16 states, meaning it will come into force on 1 July.

The Bundesrat has sent a proposal to the legislature (Bundestag) for final approval, which is expected to be granted. The proposal is currently being examined by three different committees.

However, under this framework, online slots and poker would be taxes at 5.3% of turnover, a rate that many in the industry have argued would be unworkable. For example, a report from Goldmedia – commissioned by Entain, Flutter and Greentube – warned that half of all German slots players may end up playing with unregulated sites if turnover is taxed at 5.3%.

As a result, the DSWV confirmed to iGB that it has filed a complaint with the European Commission, arguing that the tax rates should be classed as illegal state aid in a move that may delay implementation of the treaty. 

Under European law, a member state is not allowed to give an advantage to “specific companies or industry sectors, or to companies located in specific regions” in a way that affects trade through interventions such as tax rates. There are, however, certain exceptions, some of which may be granted on a case-by-case basis.

This criticism had previously been levelled by the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), which said the tax was “punitive” and favoured the land-based industry over its online counterpart.

While land-based tax rates can vary by state, Goldmedia estimated the difference in tax bills between the land-based and online sectors in Bavaria would come to €293.9m, with slot halls seeing the largest advantage at €178.1m.

Currently, operators may offer online gambling in Germany through a transitional regime, where online casino is permitted but only under the terms of the new treaty. These terms include restricting slots to a €1 stake limit per spin, with an average spin speed of five seconds. Operators such as LeoVegas and Bet-at-Home said these restrictions have already hit revenue in Q1.

While comparisons with last year are perhaps irrelevant due to the first wave of the pandemic having been in full swing then, the month-on-month fall this April shows a worrying pattern when compared with previous years.

Though the Italian market has been growing strongly over the past five years, there are seasonal dips in the calendar. However, in all years prior to 2020, the month of April showed a jump in revenues when compared with March.

It was sports betting that dragged the market down last month, with revenues falling to just €103.5m, the lowest monthly total since last June, and a 21.7% drop on March’s total.

Online casino, on the other hand, performed well, with casino and slots hitting their second-highest monthly total ever in April. The €161.2m in revenue represented a 1.6% rise on March’s GGR and a 64.1% increase on last April’s total.

The end result of the strength of casino last month and the weakness of betting was that the former saw its share of the market grow further, reaching 55.9% against 35.9% for sports betting.

In terms of market shares, PokerStars continued to lead the casino, tournament poker and cash poker markets, with shares of 10.48%, 51.28% and 43.58%, respectively.

Snai climbed to the top of the leaderboard for combined online and retail sports betting revenues, even with retail outlets remaining closed all month. Its market share rose to 14.5% last month, up from 12.2% in March.

Sisal fell back to second place with 12.8%, followed by the online-only Bet365, which climbed back into third place with 12.6%.

With retail outlets having started to reopen from May, it will be interesting to see how the market shares of betting operators develop during the rest of the year.

All data and figures from the regulator are processed by leading European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure, a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.

Ficom Leisure also provides monthly figures on the New Jersey online market in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard and Iowa in the Iowa iGaming Dashboard, all of which are available on iGB North America.

It also provides quarterly figures on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard and the Portuguese market in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.

It was drafted by the Bundesrat, the body representing the German states at the federal level, and must be approved by the Bundestag before it can be implemented.

But the proposal for a 5.3% tax on turnover for both slots and poker has proved controversial, as it is seen by the gambling industry as prohibitively high. Many experts have warned it is likely to leave licensed operators at a disadvantage when competing against offshore operators, especially when they are subject to other restrictions such as caps on slot stakes and spin speeds, and a €1,000 monthly deposit cap.

Criticism has come from multiple sources. In January, when the Bundesrat was still considering an 8% tax on slot turnover, a report from leading economist Dr Justus Haucap and the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) warned the tax could doom Germany’s new regulatory structure by making regulated gaming unviable.

Instead of a turnover tax, the report concluded, tax should be based on gross revenue, and set between 15% and 20%, which would be roughly in line with tax rates in the rest of Europe.

Similarly, a report from Goldmedia – commissioned by Entain, Flutter and Greentube – warned that half of all German slots players may end up playing with unregulated sites if turnover is taxed at 5.3%.

The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), meanwhile, went a step further, arguing that the tax rate is not only worryingly high, but that by taxing online operators at a much higher rate than their land-based counterparts, it violates European law. 

When the state treaty was being debated in Sachsen, operator association the Deutscher Sportwettenverband (DSWV) attempted to get the state legislature make its approval of the Treaty contingent on lower taxes being put in place

It said that if a turnover tax was to be introduced, it should be no higher than 1%, though it said a gross revenue tax of between 15% and 20% would be preferable.

Currently, operators may offer online casino games in Germany through a transitional system ahead of the treaty coming into effect, but only if they abide by these terms of the new treaty.

These restrictions have already had an effect on the bottom lines of operators that have adapted to them.

Betclic Everest-owned online operator Bet-at-home said the transitional regime was the main reason why revenue dropped 5.5% year-on-year, while LeoVegas saw its revenue from Germany drop 55.7%.

The dates of hearings for the bill in these committees have not yet been announced.

HitPoint, an independent game development studio, creates mobile games. It spun LuckyPoint – which develops both table and slot games – out in 2019.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Under this proposal, online slots and poker would be taxed at 5.3% of turnover, a rate that EGBA described as “punitive”.

The industry body argued that the tax would lead to a failure to meet the treaty’s key objective: bringing players into the regulated market. EGBA cited a recent report from Goldmedia on behalf of Entain, Flutter Entertainment and Novomatic subsidiary Greentube which said the tax rate could see 49% of players use unlicensed sites.

“Players outside of the regulated market would be deprived of the protection of German consumer laws, rendering the proposed tax incompatible with the key objective of the country’s new online gambling regulation,” it said.

In addition, it said, the tax rate would be in violation of European law, by offering an advantage to the land-based sector over the online one. 

Under EU state aid rules, a member state cannot grant an advantage to “specific companies or industry sectors, or to companies located in specific regions” in a way that affects trade through interventions such as tax rates. There are, however, certain exemptions to this law, including exemptions that may be granted on a case-by-case basis.

“The proposed tax measure is punitive and would, in Bavaria for example, result in online poker and slots being taxed at rates four to five times higher than their retail equivalent land-based casinos and 15 times higher than slots in land-based amusement arcades,” it said. “This would provide a substantial and unfair tax advantage to Germany’s land-based operators over their online counterparts. 

“EGBA believes that this would constitute an illegal state aid under EU law.”

While land-based tax rates can vary by state, Goldmedia estimated the difference in tax bills between the land-based and online sectors in Bavaria would come to €293.9m, with slot halls seeing the largest advantage at €178.1m.

“In light of these concerns, EGBA urges members of the German parliament to reconsider the proposed tax measure when it is debated in the Bundestag in the coming weeks,” EGBA said.

EGBA secretary general Maarten Haijer said the organisation would consider filing a complaint to the EU if the Bundesrat tax proposal is put in place.

“We welcome the regulation of the German online gambling market, and we fully appreciate that an online gambling tax will need to be paid,” Haijer said. “However, we urge the German parliament to reconsider the proposed punitive rate of the tax because it will push German players to use unprotected and unregulated black-market websites and give land-based operators a massive tax advantage. 

“We stand ready to share our experiences in other jurisdictions of the EU, and firmly believe that a tax level can be established which strikes the right balance between meeting the needs of the German consumer while ensuring sufficient tax revenue for the state. Should the measure go ahead as proposed, we will have to consider all available options, including filing a state aid complaint with the European Commission.”

Currently, operators may offer online gambling in Germany through a transitional regime, whereby they must keep to the terms of the state treaty. These terms include restricting slots to a €1 stake limit per spin, with an average spin speed of five seconds.

The figures were compiled using data from operators representing around 80% of the online gambling market. While the Commission has now reported 13 months of data since lockdowns began, it said it was “not advisable” to compare year-on-year figures, due to “different operating circumstances”.

In the final full month of lockdown in England, online slots revenue hit a new monthly high of £202.9m, up 15.2% from February and up 1.5% from the previous high in December 2020. This came as the number of slots players also hit a record high at 3.3 million, up 10.0% from last month and 10.1% from December 2020’s record, while the number of spins exceeded 6 billion for the first time.

The average slot session length declined to 21 minutes, equalling the lowest recorded, but the number of sessions lasting an hour or more grew by 8% month-on-month to 2.7m.

Online sports betting revenue, meanwhile, was down 5.1% to £250.5m, despite the Cheltenham Festival occurring in March. The number of sports bettors surpassed six million for the first time, while the number of bets placed hit a record high of 375.2 million.

Non-slot igaming brought in £71.2m, up 10.8% from February, as the number of online casino players grew 13.0% month-on-month. Poker revenue ticked down to £9.2m. 

Virtual betting increased by 17.7% from February, while esports betting grew 16.9%.

Other revenue came to £2.1m, down slightly from February.

The Commission also released a survey in order to examine the extent to which gambling habits have changed since the start of lockdown. The survey follows a previous similar survey conducted in the fourth quarter of 2020.

This survey found that more gamblers reported their gambling had decreased since the start of the first lockdown in March 2020 than increased, by 23% to 18%. However, this gap was much smaller than the 27% to 13% difference in Q4 of 2020. 

3% of overall respondents said their gambling increased “a lot” under lockdown, while 12% said their play decreased “a lot”.

In addition, the survey found that those who had gambled three or more times in the month before being surveyed were more likely to report an increase in activity, with 40% reporting an increase compared to 16% who said their play decreased. This included 9% who said their gambling increased a lot.

Men, and particularly young men, were more likely to say their gambling increased.

The main reason given for increased gambling was boredom, with 47% of those who gambled more citing this. This was followed by having more spare time, mentioned by 35%. 20% said they gambled more because they had more money, 33% said they “just wanted to” and 13% said it was to substitute lost income.

The Commission again warned operators to show “extra vigilance” as lockdown eases, as some people may continue to feel isolated and vulnerable.

The Commission also addressed reports that its review into remote customer interaction – notable for its proposal of mandatory affordability checks after player reach a £100 threshold – will be brought under the wider Gambling Act review conducted by the Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). However, while it said its work on the consultation continues, it did not confirm or deny whether the eventual result would be folded into the Gambling Act review.

“Our work on remote customer interaction continues,” a spokesperson said. “We continue to review the large amount of evidence we received in the 13,000 responses we received to our consultation and call for evidence.

“We will in due course be publishing an update and setting out what our next steps will be, which will focus upon addressing the risks that we currently see in our casework. In the meantime, the Commission continues to take action in relation to any breaches to the current customer interaction requirements that are identified as a result of compliance and enforcement activity.

“This is a vital area to continue to address because whilst some operators have continued to improve their customer interaction processes, our evidence shows that many online operators are not setting thresholds for action at appropriate levels. They are not taking the appropriate action or acting quickly enough when they do identify risks of potential harm.”

This would leave the remaining 49% of players seeking out offers and bonuses on unregulated black market sites.

The study said this would be mostly due to the fact that unregulated sites could offer better payout rates, of around 98%, whereas it anticipated that payout for regulated offerings would be closer to 90%.

The survey of 619 slots players found that the majority of players, at 54% valued payout percentages more than any other factor, while 31% sited the fact an operator was licensed and 6% each for the range of products and player protection measures.

According to Goldmedia’s study, 31% of players surveyed admitted to using black market sites every month, and 27% use offers which don’t conform to current guidelines.

SEO analysis also showed that unregulated offers got ‘significantly more hits’ than compliant ones.

“The study published today shows that currently 73 to 75 percent of the regular use of online gaming is based on offers that are fundamentally different to the new regulatory requirements,” a statement from Goldmedia read

“In the study, the selection preferences of the players for online gaming offers with a focus on online slots were determined. The result is that for players in Germany, payout rates are more important than a German license and the associated security aspects.”

The 5.3% turnover tax is expected to come into effect alongside the German State Treaty on Gambling (Der Glücksspielneuregulierungstaatsverag/GlüNeuRStV). Currently, it has been approved by the Federal Council (Bundesrat) but requires final approval from the legislature.

Other features of the treaty include a €1 stake limit on online slots.

Yesterday, Nordrhein-Westfalen became the final state to approve the treaty.

Both apps will also integrate with MGM Resorts’ M life Rewards program, giving players in Pennsylvania the opportunity to redeem their gameplay for experiences at MGM Resorts properties across the US.

BetMGM Poker features single-wallet integration with the BetMGM sports wagering and casino offerings in Pennsylvania, while Borgata Poker offers single-wallet integration with Borgata Casino in Pennsylvania.

“Pennsylvania customers will find that BetMGM Poker and Borgata Poker provide engaging experiences for both new and seasoned players,” BetMGM’s director of poker Ray Stefanelli said.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

WSOP coverage will features across the CBS Sports Network, as well as on its ViacomCBS platforms, including Paramount +.

The deal rekindles a relationship between CBS Sports and the WSOP that began 40 years ago, when was CBS Sports broadcast coverage of the WSOP Main Event on its CBS Sports Spectacular program throughout the mid-1970s.

“CBS Sports has long been a pioneer in covering a broad range of championship sports,” WSOP executive director Ty Stewart said. “We couldn’t be more excited to see increased television coverage of the WSOP in the coming years and benefit from their growing media platforms.”

Read there full story on iGB North America.

As his first official act in the role, the footballer has created special playlists for customers, which PokerStars said provide “the ultimate soundtrack for every poker game”.

A new advertisement featuring the star was released yesterday (14 April), and all other activities and promotions within the partnership will be featured on a dedicated page on PokerStars.net, with promotional materials also appearing on the operator’s homepage.

Commenting on the role, Neymar said: “Poker is so much more than just the game. It is a community and a culture and that is what I love about it.”

“I am excited to start this next chapter with PokerStars.net, and we are already collaborating on a number of key areas. Music is a real passion of mine, so that was first on the list, but there is much more to come. I am excited for you to see what else we have in store.”

Martin Nieri, global director of brand and creative at PokerStars.net, added: “Neymar Jr. is not just a globally recognised sports star, he is also a proven creative with a deep interest in the culture around him.”

“This new role marks the start of something exciting for the PokerStars.net community, a merging of two worlds, where poker meets culture. In a first for the industry, together we’ll be creating moments to truly shake up poker and rewarding those who get involved in all that’s to come.”

Neymar re-joined PokerStars in December 2020 as part of the brand’s ‘All In’ campaign, and was described by the operator as a “perfect fit” for its brand.

image: PokerStars

Sports betting GGR accounted for €64.1m of this, up more than 50% on the previous quarter and 92% on the same period the previous year.

Football was the most popular sport with bettors by some distance, making up 86.7% of turnover, followed by basketball at 5.2% and tennis at 4.9%.

Punters were so keen to return to betting after the Covid-19-related sporting shutdowns that the vertical swung back to a decisive lead over casino in the quarter. In Q4 sports betting accounted for 56.6% of the market, the highest percentage since 2017.

And though its performance was not quite as impressive as sports betting, casino revenue also broke records during the fourth quarter of 2020. GGR rose to a new high of €49.1m, up 17.7% on the previous quarter and 53.4% on the same period of 2019.

Slots made up the bulk of this (71.1%), followed by French roulette (12.6%) and blackjack (6.4%).

Although Portugal didn’t look to have experienced the same poker boost as other markets while sports betting was unavailable last year, interestingly it does seem to have seen the same slump in poker since sports came back online.

The market shares of both cash and tournament poker declined further in the fourth quarter, after significant falls in Q3, with 30% and 87.5% decreases in their respective market shares on a year-on-year basis.

Scroll down to see the full interactive datasets.

All data and figures are processed by Ficom Leisure following the the official release of the figures by Portuguese regulator the Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ). Ficom Leisure is a leading European corporate advisory firm specialising in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.

Ficom Leisure provides monthly figures on the New Jersey online market in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard and Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard, available on iGB North America. It also provides quarterly figures on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard, as well as monthly figures on the Italian market in the Italy iGaming Dashboard.

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.

That month-on-month revenue growth was due mostly to a significant increase in sports betting revenue to a record high of €185.5m, as betting made up more than half of Italy’s total online revenue.

The closure of all retail betting shops across the country played a large role in this growth, but online betting revenue was also up 29.4% from January, which also had no retail betting.

Bet365, PlanetWin365, Snai, Eurobet, Goldbet and Sisal remained the six largest operators with more than 10% of the online betting market each, but there was significant change within that group. Goldbet became the market leader again, after holding that spot in December, with Sisal and Snai following, while Bet365 dropped from third to sixth.

Even without any revenue from the retail sector, overall sports betting revenue was level with February 2020, as the vertical recorded its second-best month since the first lockdown began, behind October 2020.

Turning to online casino, revenue was down 12.3% month-on-month but up 83.1% year-on-year to €143.0m. While in absolute terms this was the third-best month ever for online casino in Italy, the vertical had its lowest share of revenue since December 2017 at 40.7%.

PokerStars remained the top operator, though its share of revenue fell to 10.4%, while Sisal closed the gap as its market share grew to 9.5%. Snai, 888 and Lottomatica followed with more than 7.5% of revenue each.

Poker revenue was down from the prior three months but still well above February 2020, with tournaments bringing in €9.8m, up 43.4% year-on-year, and cash games €6.7m, up 33.5%

PokerStars continued to dominate the market, but its share of tournament revenue slipped below 50% for the first time since iGB started publishing data in 2017. This came as Sisal, Snai, Eurobet and E-Play 24/7 all saw their market shares increase.

In cash games, PokerStars increased its market share from January to 44.4%, with Lottomatica a distant second and third with 6.8% and 6.3% of the market, respectively.

All data and figures from the regulator are processed by leading European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure, a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.

Ficom Leisure also provides monthly figures on the New Jersey online market in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard and Iowa in the Iowa iGaming Dashboard, all of which are available on iGB North America.

It also provides quarterly figures on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard and the Portuguese market in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.

The business made $3.0m from in-person content, its main revenue stream, in 2020, down 60.0% compared to 2019, after live events were halted by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. 

Multiplatform content, on the other hand, saw revenue grow significantly, albeit from a low base. A 344.4% year-on-year rise took the multiplatform revenue for the year to $222,400.

Read the full story on iGB North America

It required approval from at least 13 to be implemented, per Article 3 of the legislation.

This means just Sachsen-Anhalt – which is to host a new federal regulator – Nordrhein-Westfalen and Saarland are yet to sign off on the legislation. 

The legislation has already been ratified by the state Minister-Presidents, in November 2020.

In Saschen, the GlüNeuRStV passed despite the Alternative für Deutschland party abstaining, and left-leaning parties voting against the bill. 

Under the Treaty, the state is to host a new federal regulatory authority for gambling, that likely to take two years to be fully operational. 

A submission from operator association the Deutscher Sportwettenverband (DSWV) attempted to use the Saschen debate on the GlüNeuRStV to force changes to the rate of taxation being applied to online slots and poker. 

It argued against the planned 5.3% tax on turnover for these products, saying such a high rate would mean regulated brands would struggle to generate returns from the market, to the ultimate benefit of offshore operators. 

With a 5.3% turnover tax being mooted, the DSWV urged the parliament to make its approval of the Treaty contingent on a fairer tax structure being implemented. It suggested that if a turnover tax was to be levied, it should be no higher than 1%, adding that a more viable rate would be a gross revenue tax of between 15% and 20%. 

However the GlüNeuRStV was passed without any condition being attached. 

Schleswig Holstein, meanwhile, will end its breakaway, liberal regulatory gambling framework in order to join the State Treaty. 

It split from Germany’s other states in 2012, at a time when only online sports betting was to be regulated at federal level, to launch a regime covering online casino, with no limits on licence numbers, and a 20% gross revenue tax. 

While those licences had begun to expire in December 2018, it then renewed the regulations in 2019, while a new federal framework was developed.

The state’s Interior Minister Sabine Sütterlin-Waack said the fact Schleswig-Holstein’s fellow Länder had ultimately opted for a more expansive model in the GlüNeuRStV showed the state was right to go it alone in 2012.

“We are now considered pioneers,” Sütterlin-Waack said. “Our path in gambling has proved to be correct.”

In particular she talked up the player protection measures included in the Treaty.

“I am sure that through the trifecta of partial legalisation of online gambling, strict monitoring and consistent regulation, we will succeed,” she said. “Together with the other states we can steer gambling into orderly and monitored channels and thus fight the black market.”

Unlike the Schleswig-Holstein model, the GlüNeuRStV aims to significantly limit online casino. 

Slots will be subject to a €1 per spin stake cap, with a five-second average spin speed also mandatory. Table games, meanwhile, must be offered separately, and states will have the option to grant lotteries a monopoly for the product. 

These measures are already in place for operators active in the market through a transitional regime, which began on 15 October, 2020. Operators were given a three-month window to implement the stake cap and spin speeds, provided they had connected to a national self-exclusion database by the beginning of the transition. 

Sports betting, meanwhile, is already underway with 22 licences awarded since October last year.

Flutter said PokerStars made $18m from Kentucky customers during this time period.

In 2015, then PokerStars operator Amaya was ordered to pay $290m by Franklin Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate. This total was then tripled following a request from the state. Amaya later rebranded as The Stars Group and was acquired by Flutter.

Read the full story on iGB North America

The Bally’s offer would have seen the previous agreement with Element terminated if it was accepted.

In response, Element has lodged a new proposal, which would see it pay $90.5m up front for the WPT business and Allied’s other poker assets.

The latest offer includes a clause whereby if Allied were to accept a competing acquisition offer, or conclude the sale of the business to another party within 12 months of agreeing terms with Element, it would need to pay a termination fee of $3.5m.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Online operator BetMGM has announced the launch of its poker product in Michigan today (March 22).

Michigan is the second state in the US in which BetMGM Poker is active, joining New Jersey.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

“In many ways, 2020 is an extraordinary year and a turning point for the online gaming industry; it is both a year of change and a record year in terms of activity levels,” ANJ said.

Sports betting revenue was up 6.8% to €940m. This came as stakes grew 5.8% to €5.35bn, or €5.49bn when bonuses are included, thanks in part to a 30% growth in active player accounts.

This included €663m staked on events in France, which led to collection of €6.6m for betting rights duties. However, this represented a 23.7% decline from 2019, due to the cancellation of many French sporting events.

Horse racing revenue totalled €354m, up 30.6%, as stakes increased by 32.7% to €1.47bn – the highest level since the market opened and the fastest year-on-year growth. Active accounts grew 4.8% to 628,000, leading to horse racing levies growing 23.4% to €179m.

Stakes on races run outside of France shot up by 242.1% to €375m, with the remaining handle wagered on French races.

Poker revenue skyrocketed by 64.0% to €446m, as accounts grew by 53.1% to 1.8 million. Tournaments made up the majority of poker revenue.

Total deposits for the year came to €3.18bn, up 25.4%, and total withdrawals €1.61bn, up 21.6%.

“Over the whole of 2020, the online market shows very vigorous growth,” the regulator said. “The turnover of the sector grew by 22% in 2020 to reach €1.7bn: its highest level in a calendar year since the opening of the sector.”

Marketing spend for the year declined by 62.7% to €161m. The majority of marketing spend was on bonuses, with 32% on retention bonuses and 21% on new customer bonuses. Online advertising, including affiliation, made up 16% of marketing spend.

Looking just at the fourth quarter of 2020, sports betting revenue was up 54.8% to €356m on stakes totalling €2.01bn.

This included bets worth €1.42bn on football, up 68%. The most popular football competition for betting was the Uefa Champions League, where players staked €207m. The Premier League saw bets of €165m, and Ligue 1 €140m.

Tennis recorded the second highest stakes, at €252m, including €54m on the French Open, which was shifted to the end of the year because of the pandemic. These changes to the calendar helped tennis stakes grow 34% year-on-year.

Basketball bets, however, were down 46% to €148m, with bets on the NBA down 76% to €41m because of a quieter than usual fourth quarter schedule.

Rugby, volleyball, handball and ice hockey all saw at least €19m wagered.

Just under half (47%) of sports bettors bet less than €100, though this group was a smaller proportion of the overall market than in Q4 of 2019. A further 39% of bettors wagered between €100 and €1,000, up slightly. 

The portion wagering between €1,000 and €3,000 was also up slightly at 9%, while 4% of players bet between €3,000 and €10,000, 1% bet more than €10,000 but less than €50,000 and 0.09% bet more than €50,000, all roughly stable year-on-year.

This meant that 10% of player accounts represented 73% of betting turnover, while 1% of accounts represented 33% of turnover.

Horse racing brought in €105m, up 45.8%, on stakes of €448m, up 52.3%. While 59% of players bet less than €300, down from 64% in 2019, the portion making larger bets increased.

ANJ noted that 2% of players bet between €10,000 and €50,000 and 0.1% bet more than €50,000.

Like with sports betting, 10% of accounts represented 73% of turnover but in this case the top 1% of accounts represented 30% of turnover.

Poker revenue came to €117m, a 53.9% increase from 2019. For cash poker games, 10% of players represented 91% of stakes and 1% of players represented 72%.

For poker tournaments, 10% of players represented 79% of entry fees and the top 1% represented 43% of these fees.

During the period, it said, the mobile gaming market in general grew by 18%.

The operator celebrated 10 years in business, and saw its number of unique players surpass 150m in 2020.

KamaGames’ flagship title, Pokerist, remained the third largest social poker game globally, and was the leader in 12 countries. The game also rose to become the largest poker app by revenue on iOS in Spain, the operator said.

Its second largest product, Blackjackist, grew by more than 40% in revenue, more than half of which came from customers in the US. Blackjackist is currently the global leader among social blackjack games, KamaGames said.

Its Roulettist game also remained the largest social roulette game in the world throughout the period, and saw revenue growth of 70%.

The operator said a number of factors contributed to its success in 2020, including the cultivation of key partnerships, such as the launch of the Hard Rock Blackjack app in March.

KamaGames said other factors in its success included the launch of new poker and blackjack tournaments, the introduction of VIP benefits for some of its paying customers, a renewed focus on advertising monetisation and an emphasis on CRM and gaming activities.

In April, the operator revealed it had recorded record gross revenue of $29.3m (£23.7m/€27.0m) in the first quarter of 2020.

2019 saw the operator bring in $90.4m in revenue, with year-on-year growth recorded for each month of the year.

This pushed total online GGR for the dot.it market across all products to €335.9m, only bettered by the December 2020 total (Chart 1).

In a month where betting shops remained shuttered under Covid-19 restrictions, January 2021 saw dot.it sports betting operators generate the second highest ever monthly total of €143.64m (Chart 6).

Bet365, having tumbled from first to sixth in the online betting rankings in November and December as competitors with land-based shops migrated bettors online, rebounded in January, increasing its market share by two percentage points to 12.2% over the month (Chart 8).

This was sufficient to move it back to third position behind Sisal and Snai, with respective 12.8% and 12.4% market shares.

Online poker continued its rebound under lockdown, albeit at a slower rate than in November and December, with tournament revenues growing 6% on the prior month to €12.96m and cash game revenues by 6.5% to €8.84m (Chart 2).

PokerStars commanded dominant shares of 52.9% of tournament and 43.5% of ring game GGR in January (Charts 10 and 11).

Scroll down for the infographic to track market and product growth since 2016, as well as operator shares across casino, betting and poker since 2017.

“Our commitment to improving PokerStars software and the PokerStars customer experience in recent years has limited the amount of focus and resources we could apply to the evolution of Full Tilt,” Pokerstars said in an FAQ. “We feel it is time to consolidate brands so that everyone has access to the newest features and most innovative games which are available exclusively on PokerStars.”

As all players with any PokerStars brand have a combined universal Stars Account, balances, bonuses, tickets, tournaments and preferences will be intact.

Full Tilt was acquired by PokerStars in July 2012 as part of a settlement with the US government after authorities had unsealed an indictment against both operators in 2011, causing both to shut US real-money operations.

Full Tilt relaunched under PokerStars ownership in November 2012 and migrated onto PokerStars’ platform in 2016.

The combined business was later acquired by Amaya, which became the Stars Group, which was itself bought by Flutter in 2019.

This included online sports betting, which held steady for the first half of the year despite the suspension of almost all global sports from mid-March to June, before a 74% year-on-year growth in H2 (Chart 5). As a result, total online betting revenue fell just short of €1bn (Chart 6).

Online gaming, meanwhile, saw gross revenue climb 47.1% to €1.48bn.

Within this segment, casino and slots were the main revenue driver generating 82.4%, or €1.22bbn, of the total. This represented a 46.5% improvement on 2019’s figures (Charts 3 and 4).

Meanwhile, the global boom in online poker under lockdown was reflected in a strong year for the vertical in Italy.

Cash games and poker tournaments generated GGR of €124.3m and €82.7m respectively. The vertical’s revenue for the year totalled €207.0m, representing year-on-year growth of 50.2% and reversing the trend of decreasing GGR. Bingo GGR accounted for 3.9% of the total online gaming market, at €58.2m (Charts 2 and 3).

The changes in the market led to some shift in the market share among the leading online casino providers in the market. However, the top four – of Pokerstars, Sisal, Lottomatica and Snai – all remained in place. Pokerstars, already the biggest online operator in the country, was perhaps the biggest winner, increasing its market share to 12.2%.

Looking down the rankings, however, there was change as 888 overtook Eurobet as its market share grew to 6.8%, while SKS365’s PlanetWin365 saw its share grow from 4.8% to 5.3% and Goldbet moved into the top 10, with William Hill falling out (Chart 7).

In online betting, Bet365 remained on top but its market share declined from 15.7% to 14.0%. The online betting giant lost its top spot in the rankings for November and December as the country went back into lockdown. This saw retail operators climb the charts, as their customers migrated online.

Snai, previously in third place, moved into a close second with 13.2% as Planetwin365 slipped to third. Eurobet and Sisal’s market shares also exceeded 11%, closing the gap with Planetwin365 (Chart 8).

“The Italian land-based and online betting and gaming market is experiencing an acceleration in operators consolidation through M&A,” Ficom founder Christian Tirabassi said. “The leading operators in the online and mobile betting and gaming are companies with an omni-channel offering (online marketing plus land-based player acquisition).”

This consolidation means that the top eight online betting operators now hold a combined 78.5% market share. The value of omni-channel products can also be seen, with six of these eight having some form of retail presence.

Looking at the combined online and retail sports betting market, online-focused operators were unsurprisingly the biggest winners. Lottomatica’s market share share rising 3.6 percentage points and Bet365’s 1.7 points. However, Snai remained on top with a 1.51% market share (Chart 9).

As the online poker market grew considerably, Pokerstars’ domination continued. While its share of tournament GGR dipped slightly to 58.2%, it increased its share of cash game revenue to 46.8%. Snai was a distant second in tournament revenue, while Sisal held that spot for cash games (Charts 10 and 11).

“Going forward, we expect the pure online operators to acquire Italian land-based networks (shops or land-based affiliates) in order to be able to compete in one of the largest online regulated markets in Europe,” Tirabassi added.

Scroll down for the infographic to track market growth since 2016, as well as shifting revenue shares over the years.

The exceptional performance was driven largely by online sportsbooks, which posted record-breaking revenue of €177.1m in December, up 59.5% on November’s total and 94.2% on the same month the previous year.

The sharp increase was no doubt fuelled by the pandemic-related closures of retail sports betting outlets. However it’s worth noting that retail bookies had also run at a loss due to the restrictions in place the previous month, though the online market had not performed as strongly in that month.

From looking at the online betting market shares, it’s clear Italy’s retail heavyweights are continuing to migrate their players online. Five of the operators running retail businesses landed ahead of long-time online market leader Bet365 for the second month in a row.

In December it was Goldbet that took the lead, with a market share of 12.8%, followed by Sisal (12.5%), Snai (11.7%), Eurobet (11.4%) and Planetwin365 (11.1%).

Though Bet365’s share of the online market dropped to 10.2%, PokerStars climbed back into the top 10 for the first time in almost a year, proving not all online operators are losing ground to retail bookies.

Despite the strong online performance, the €0.6m loss in retail meant that at €176.5m, the combined sports betting market lagged both the market record of €243.39m set in October and also December 2019’s total of €216.24m.

Online casino revenue also rose to a record high in December, with the total of €153.8m representing a 24.4% month-on-month rise and an 80.6% year-on-year increase.

There was less change in the market shares of operators here, however, with Pokerstars (11.46%), Sisal (9.06%) and Lottomatica (7.93%) retaining the top three spots.

Poker revenues increased further month-on-month in December, though at 8.7% for tournaments and 15.1% for cash games the increases were less pronounced than they had been in November and the totals remained some way off the market highs seen during the first lockdown last spring.

Scroll down for the infographic to track market growth since 2017, as well as shifting revenue shares over the months and years. 

The three brands will be integrated to allow customers to access all products via a single account.

“The key differentiators for us have always been our valued partnership with the Fox Corporation and the strength of our industry leading Fox Bet Super 6 product combined with the PokerStars business and we plan to lean into these unique assets as we launch in Michigan,” Kip Levin, Fox Bet chief executive, said.

Read the full story on iGB North America

But despite rebounding strongly on a quarter-on-quarter basis to pull in revenues of €85.1m, betting GGR remained significantly down on a year-on-year basis, registering a 15.5% drop.

The situation was reversed in casino, however, with the market’s second largest vertical experiencing a 10.3% quarter-on-quarter fall but a 26% year-on-year increase with revenues of €83.9m.

During the peak of the first Covid-19 wave and with most sporting events cancelled, casino had performed strongly in Spain, so much so that it overtook betting as the vertical with the largest market share in the second quarter.

Similarly, as was the case in many other jurisdictions, poker also surged during the period, with revenues up almost 100% during the second quarter.

However, it appears many players were quick to abandon their substitute games once sports came back online and poker also suffered a large year-on-year fall in the third quarter.

With revenues of €23m, poker revenues were down almost 40% on the second quarter. But the quarterly total did represent a 12.3% increase on the same period the previous year, so there’s a possibility some of the vertical’s gains due to Covid-19 may prove permanent.

The much smaller vertical of bingo also gained during the pandemic, but as with poker, revenues here also dropped off in the third quarter. But despite being down 22.9% on the previous quarter, bingo GGR remained up 22.6% on a year-on-year basis.

The lifting of the pandemic-induced temporary advertising restrictions appeared to have an impact on player numbers during the third quarter. After falling significantly in the second quarter, when marketing was heavily restricted, numbers rebounded strongly during Q3.

This was particularly evident in new player registrations, which were up an enormous 139.4% on a quarter-on-quarter basis, as well as having risen 30.2% year-on-year.

The number of active players was up 37.1% on a quarter-on-quarter basis, though was flat on the same period the previous year.

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.

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

The Commission has published yield data for the market’s performance for each month of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

The regulator said the main reason for the decline in GGY was normalisation of margins in real event betting, with GGY down 28% from £290.0m in October to £209.2m. However, real event betting remains the largest vertical by GGY, with total bets and the number of active accounts both up by 4%.

According to the data, the next largest market was online slots, with GGY here up 3% month-on-month to £176.8m in November.

The number of online slot spins increased 4% to over 5.2bn, while the amount of active accounts increased 1% to 2.8m, the highest monthly total from within the Covid-19 period.

Average loss per player in slots was higher than any other online gambling product, with this standing at almost £63, compared to £43 for real event betting and £35 for casino.

The total number of online slots sessions also increased 2% to just over 27.5m, while the average number of spins per session also climbed slightly.

Elsewhere, GGY for other gaming, including casino, was up 6% month-on-month to £66.4m, with some 271.8m bets placed, while online poker GGY climbed 9% in November to £9.1m.

Virtual betting GGY was also up 8% to £7.2m, while esports betting GGY rocketed 78% to £1.4m.

The Commission noted that as a result of a tightening of lockdown restrictions in Great Britain, with many staff furloughed as facilities were closed, it did not request data from licensed betting operators (LBOs) for the month.

The regulator said it will restart collecting this data when retail facilities are able to reopen. There is no indication when this will be, with all English properties closed during the country’s third national lockdown. 

It’s worth pointing out that even in the second quarter – the period most impacted by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) – the market performed strongly, with revenues of €68.7m representing the second highest quarterly total ever and only a small drop from Q1’s €70.3m, the previous market record.

It was largely the return of sports betting that drove the market in Q3. While revenues fell dramatically in Q2, they rebounded strongly to an all-time high of €42.5m in Q3. This represented a 104.3% quarter-on-quarter increase and a 64.1% year-on-year rise.

Igaming revenues fell back in the third quarter after peaking in Q2 as players moved from sports to casino games amid the cancellation of most sporting fixtures.

But while Q3’s €41.7m in igaming GGR represented a 12.9% quarter-on-quarter drop, it was also a 47.9% rise on the same quarter the previous year.

Interestingly, aside from the general trend of igaming seeming to pick up more bettors during the pandemic, the substitution of games seen in other markets was largely absent from the Portuguese market.

For example, there was no poker resurgence in the market, save for a slight increase in tournament play in Q2 before GGR halved to an all-time low in Q3. Cash games declined in both Q2 and Q3.

There was also no move towards niche ‘other’ sports during the pandemic, with the percentage of play on other sports remaining largely stable throughout.

The introduction of an online version of popular Portuguese table game Banca Francesa was perhaps the most notable development in terms of player habits during the two quarters affected by the pandemic.

After EscOnline.pt launched the Gaming1-designed version of the game in Q2, it managed to pull in 2.8% of online casino turnover in the quarter, rising to 3.1% in Q3.

Scroll down to see the full interactive datasets.

All data and figures are processed by Ficom Leisure following the the official release of the figures by Portuguese regulator the Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ). Ficom Leisure is a leading European corporate advisory firm specialising in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.

Ficom Leisure provides monthly figures on the New Jersey online market in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard and Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard, available on iGB North America. It also provides quarterly figures on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard and on the Danish market in the Denmark iGaming Dashboard, as well as monthly figures on the Italian market in the Italy iGaming Dashboard.

Allied’s board of directors has approved the transaction which is expected to close in late January or early February this year, assuming the company’s shareholders approve the transaction and subject to the required regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Allied’s board has also agreed to explore strategic options for its esports business, following the rapid growth and popularity of gaming and esports during the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, it said.

Options include a possible sale of the business and the company has engaged Lake Street Capital Markets to assist with the process. Presently no particular buyer has been identified and there are no ongoing negotiations relating to the sale of the esports business.

Upon completion of the WPT transaction, and if a sale of the esports business goes ahead, Allied said it would proceed under a new name as a publicly traded holding company, focused on using its cash resources to explore opportunities in online entertainment including real money and other gaming sectors.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

The partnership will also see 888 continue to power the US market’s only interstate shared-player liquidity poker network across the states of New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada, increasing the availability of poker games and formats for customers across these states. Earlier this month, Michigan legalised inter-state poker, opening the possibility that it joins the network.

Through the agreement, 888 will also launch its next generation poker software, “Poker 8”, in the US, after launching in Europe in November. The operator said the software offers a significant advancement in user experience, including new graphics and animations and features such as multi-day and multi-flight tournaments.

In addition to powering the WSOP poker brand, 888 will also continue to supply its proprietary casino platform and content to Caesars’ online casino brands, Harrah’s and the World Series of Poker Casino in New Jersey.

Yaniv Sherman, senior vice president and head of US for 888, said: “Our partnership with Caesars has been powering the hugely popular WSOP brand online since 2013 and we are looking forward to continuing this relationship for many years to come.”

Read the full story on iGB North America.

Currently with Kentucky’s House of Representatives’ Committee on Committees, the bill is being sponsored by a total of 17 Representatives, including Koenig.

The sports betting aspect of the bill would permit wagering online, mobile and at approved sports venues in the state, with consumers able to bet on professional and collegiate contests.

If passed into law, the bill would name the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission as an independent agency to regulate the conduct of horse racing, pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing and sports betting in the state.

In terms of fees, sports betting licences would cost an initial $500,000, plus an annual renewal fee of $50,000, with the Commission to oversee the licensing process.

Read the full story on iGB North America.

The bill – Senate Bill 991 of the 2019-20 legislative session – would allow liquidity for poker games to be pooled with other states, or other jurisdictions such as Native American tribes, that allow the same.

Currently, Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey all offer interstate poker.

The bill was introduced by state senator Curtis Hertel and co-sponsored by Jeff Irwin, Erika Geiss, Dayna Polehanki, Paul Wojno, Jim Ananich and Adam Hollier.

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This was largely down to a continued strong performance form the online casino vertical, which saw revenue rise 26.0% year-on-year to €83.9m, leaving it only marginally behind sports betting as the main source of revenue for licensees. 

Casino’s total was actually down 10.3% quarter-over-quarter, having reached €93.5m in Q2, when it was comfortably out in front as the largest vertical in terms of revenue. 

Sports betting, meanwhile, enjoyed something of a recovery in Q3, with revenue up 25.1% from Q2 to €85.2m. This, however, still represented a 15.4% decline on Q3 2019’s revenue. 

While sporting action such as Spain’s La Liga and the Champion’s League resumed during the third quarter, this was offset by declines in revenue from betting on horse racing and non-sporting events. 

The return of sports also suggested activity shifted from other forms of gambling back to betting. Bingo, poker and real-money contests all reporting a similar pattern to online casino, with revenue down quarter-on-quarter, but up year-over-year.

Poker’s revenue of €23.0m represented a 39.8% drop on the second quarter, but a 12.4% improvement on Q3 2019. Bingo, from a smaller base, saw revenue fall 22.9% from Q2, to €3.9m, but again this represented a year-on-year increase, of 22.6%. 

Contests were as usual the smallest source of regulated igaming revenue, making up €1.2m of the quarterly total. This represented a 70.6% drop from Q2, but a 58.4% jump on the prior year’s total. Spanish regulator La Direcciòn General del Ordenaciōn del Juego (DGOJ) noted that the vertical tended to see performance fluctuate in the third quarter, either rising or falling significantly. 

Again, the return of live sports saw marketing spend by Spanish licensees jump significantly. The total spent, €150.1m, represented a 269.5% jump on Q2, and an 81.4% rise compared to Q3 2019. 

This also reflected the end of temporary restrictions on advertising brought in early in the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, to protect players under lockdown. These were repealed early in June, before being adopted as part of a package of new gambling ad controls implemented by the country’s government in November.

In Q3, the bulk of marketing spend went on bonus offers – something heavily restricted under the new advertising controls – at €82.4m, with a further €51.8m invested in advertising. Sponsorship made up €6.5m of the total, while spending with affiliates was the only area to fall year-on-year, to €9.4m. 

This did appear to have a positive knock-on effect on the number of active gambling accounts, which averaged 881,755 in Q3, up 37.1% on Q2 or 1.4% year-on-year. 

Publication of the figures comes as the Spanish government prepares further restrictions for the industry, designed to ramp up player and youth protection in the market.