News

Sportsbooks in Illinois have resumed remote account registrations after Governor JB Pritzker reissued a series of executive orders aimed at combatting the spread of COVID-19.

The requirement for in-person sportsbook account registrations was first suspended on June 4 but came back into force on July 26.

Since then, Illinois has seen a surge in new COVID cases, with 20 counties now at a ‘warning level’ for coronavirus compared to 14 counties a week ago.

As a result, Governor Pritzker reissued more than 30 executive orders Friday to slow the spread of the pandemic, including the suspension of in-person account registration requirements for sports betting.

Sportradar
The in-person registration requirement will remain suspended until at least September 19.

Lotto New Zealand has outlined plans for a new technology platform after experiencing disruptions due to surging demand for online lottery products.

Lotto New Zealand has recorded nearly 200,000 new online registrations since COVID-19 related restrictions came into force in March, with online sales last week accounting for 40 per cent of total lottery sales compared to 25 per cent prior to the lockdown.

“To support the move to online play, and the big increase in the number of people playing online, Lotto NZ is making a substantial investment in the upgrade of MyLotto,” said NZ Lottery chief executive Chris Lyman.

“While this work is underway we have been making interim improvements. However, regrettably there have been some issues on MyLotto. This has in turn resulted in some pretty poor customer experiences, and for that I sincerely apologise.”

Lyman added that the lottery expects to complete upgrades to the existing MyLotto website and app by early 2021, with a new gaming platform scheduled for deployment in 2024, including the full replacement of the back-end gaming system that supports MyLotto, as well as all terminals in retail stores.

Scientific Games Lottery
“We have significantly more people buying tickets online now than ever before. Nearly 200,000 people have registered to play online since 25 March – to put this into perspective, this is the number of new online players we would expect over a two-year period, not four months,” Lyman said.

“We sold around 2.5 million tickets for [Friday’s] draw, and over a million of those were online. This is the most tickets we have ever sold online. This slowed down our processing significantly, and unfortunately led to delays.”

New Jersey’s regulated betting and gaming market generated total gaming revenue of $264.5m in July, buoyed by another strong performance from iGaming and improved results from sports betting and land-based gaming.

Total revenue fell by 21 per cent compared to the same period last year as Atlantic City casinos, retail sportsbooks and racetracks began re-opening at the start of the month following their mandated closure due to COVID-19.

NEW JERSEY GAMING REVENUE COMPARISON: JULY 2020 (US$)
July 2020 July 2019 % Change
Land-Based 147.4m 277.2m (47%)
iGaming 87.5m 39.3m 123%
– Online Poker 4.8m 1.9m 155%
– Online Casino 82.7m 37.4m 121%
Sports Betting 29.6m 17.9m 65%
TOTAL 264.5m 334.4m (21%)
Revenue from iGaming soared 122.5 per cent year-on-year to $87.5m in July, comprising a 155 per cent increase in online poker revenue to $4.8m and a 121 per cent rise in online casino revenue to $82.7m.

Golden Nugget continued to lead the iGaming market as it grew revenue by 111 per cent to $31.5m for the month, although the biggest growth came from Ocean Casino, where revenue soared 217 per cent to $1.2m.

iGaming revenue at Resorts Digital rose 162.5 per cent to $18.0m, while Borgata revenue grew 140 per cent to $15.3m and Caesars Interactive revenue climbed 90 per cent to $9.7m. Tropicana revenue increased by 62 per cent to $6.2m, while revenue from Hard Rock increased by 195 per cent year-on-year to $5.6m.

Total sports betting wagers amounted to $315.1m in July, with online generating $295.8m of the total and retail just $19.3m. As a result, sports betting revenue increased by 65 per cent to $29.6m, with racetrack Meadowlands generating nearly half of the total as revenue rose 55 per cent to $14.1m.

The next biggest sports betting operator was Resorts Digital, which saw revenue climb 119 per cent to $8.2m, while Borgata revenue soared 245 per cent to $3.0m. Monmouth Park generated $1.7m in sports betting revenue, with Hard Rock at $856,358. The remaining five operators generated combined sports betting revenue of $357,825 during the month.

Land-based casino revenue fell by 47 per cent year-on-year to $147.4m, with Ocean Casino the only operator to record growth, up 23 per cent to $23.6m.

For the first eight months of 2020, total gaming revenue decreased by 33 per cent to $1.29bn. iGaming revenue increased by 99 per cent to $510.2m, with sports betting revenue up 9 per cent at $138.5m and land-based casino revenue down 58 per cent at $643.2m.

The Virginia lottery released its full draft sports betting regulations for public comment Monday, with the regulated online sports betting market expected to launch in January 2021.

The proposed regulations cover topics including operations, internal controls and enforcement, and are open to public comment until September 9, one week prior to the deadline set for the lottery board to approve the regulations.

Subject to approval of the regulations, licensing is expected to begin in October, with the first online sports betting operations expected to go live in January next year. A total of 12 online-only sports betting licenses will be available in the state.

“The Virginia Lottery takes very seriously its role assigned by the General Assembly to appropriately and responsibly regulate sports betting in the Commonwealth,” said Virginia Lottery executive director Kevin Hall.

Sportradar
“The regulatory framework we are building now is vital to the process, and we are committed to doing so with transparency to allow stakeholders and the public to weigh-in on these preliminary rules-of-the-road for sports wagering in Virginia.”

There is little doubt that business development chiefs want conferences to come back. But do they want them back with all the restrictions that will come with a hasty return? And do they want so many?

On 10 March, SBC Events optimistically postponed its CasinoBeats Malta event until June. It also postponed Betting on Sports America to the more realistic date of December 2020. A month later it accepted the inevitable and made CasinoBeats an online event.

On 24 March, the day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the UK’s lockdown, Clarion Gaming postponed ICE North America. It was due to take place in May but is now scheduled for 2021. Just three days later, SBC announced it would hold a Digital Summit across five days from 27 April – 1 May. Clarion soon followed suit with the announcement of a free digital version of ICE North America, as organisers hurried to offer participants an alternative to cancelled events.

Since then, SiGMA Group rescheduled its Asia events SiGMA Manila and AIBC Manila to 2021. ICE Asia was postponed until 2021. The Indian Gaming event was postponed until further notice. The IAGA International Gaming Summit, G2E Asia, ASEAN Gaming Summit, East Coast Gaming Conference, the OIGA Conference and Trade Show all cancelled or postponed.

Throughout all this, the big question was whether G2E would take place in Las Vegas in October. Along with ICE Totally Gaming in February (and to a lesser extent G2E Asia in Macau) it is one of the year’s flagship events. If you are only going to attend one, depending on your geographic focus, it would be one of these.

G2E is organised by the American Gaming Association and Reed Exhibitions. The event seemed so far away they were understandably reluctant to cancel it. However, as lockdown continued into its third month it became harder and harder to envisage a scenario where the industry could meet safely and within guidelines.

Las Vegas casinos reopened in June, but the organisers were still reluctant to commit to a physical event. So many questions remain unanswered. Would people travel to the event from the US or from overseas? Would executives be too busy trying to save their businesses?

Konami took the decision in May to withdraw from all trade shows until the end of the financial year and focus investment on its employees. Many will be feeling similarly, even if they will not say so publicly. One marketing exec confided that he hadn’t even thought about G2E, let alone ICE. Plans would normally be sorted for both by this time of year.

The only thing that the organisers of ICE and G2E were willing to admit was that neither event would look the same as normal. What else could they say? Their businesses are in danger as much as any of their exhibitors. [G2E has since confirmed that there will be no physical event in Las Vegas this year].

Events go digital

In the meantime, the digital events started to take place. On the surface, the numbers are impressive. The digital version of ICE North America is said to have attracted over 4,000 registrations from 558 companies, based in 85 countries around the world, and recorded over 7,000 visits to the site. The SBC Digital Summit in April claimed over 10,000 delegates. But were contacts made and were they meaningful?

Among the handful of attendees Gaming Intelligence surveyed there was respect for how quickly SBC got their event up and running. One attendee says he made a few leads but not the suitcase-full he would normally at a real-life conference. Business development chiefs have had a busy lockdown as operators focus intently on their online operations, but there are drawbacks to doing everything on Zoom.

“I believe in face-to-face contact, when you’re establishing a relationship,” says Continent 8 managing director Americas Nick Nally. “Once established, it’s easier to do a Zoom.”

“My area of business is new business,” says Red Tiger Gaming commercial director Chris Looney. “The best business comes from the best relationships, immersing yourself in the operator’s business.”

He cites a deal done with Swiss Casinos. He met the team that were going to launch the land-based casino group’s online operation, but it was not until visiting the land-based casinos and getting to know the core business that a deal could be struck.

“I don’t think you can replicate that relationship through Skype or Zoom,” says Looney. Looney and Nally both admit it is hard to measure return on investment from trade shows. Looney describes it as “the unanswerable question”. But suppliers will be looking in closer detail at the numbers – and particularly the number of shows they visit and the number of employees they send.

Playtech
A medium-sized stand at ICE would cost around £300,000, and then you have to consider other costs such as connectivity, plus transporting and accommodating 50 or 60 staff. That will cost another £100,000. For the bigger suppliers it will be a £1m+. At a time when staff are being furloughed or let go, that becomes harder to justify – as Konami recognises.

“Covid-19 will change the way we think about shows and the way shows are done. Sometimes it feels like there is a show every other week. It is an important channel for us. It’s still a good platform to launch products but do we need to go to so many?” asks another seasoned marketing professional.

“It is over-saturated,” says Playson business development manager Lars Kollind. “Every year I look at the iGaming calendar and have a hard time understanding why we need to go to all the events. It’s the same people attending.”

Successful emerging suppliers such as Big Time Gaming and Relax Gaming have thus far refrained from spending anything on splashy stands but that might change as they grow bigger.

Suppliers at an earlier stage in their development are even more loathe to spend money on smart stands. ReelPlay chief commercial officer David Johnson enjoyed a long career at Cryptologic and NextGen/NYX before launching ReelPlay. He has seen how companies grow and how they deal with trade shows, but the industry is changing.

The emergence of games aggregators means suppliers can get to know their customers better if they are closely aligned with the aggregators. For an aggregator like Relax it might make sense to bring all their supplier partners together on one stand. Microgaming and Playtech have done something similar – although they own the studios that they show off on their stands; they are not just partners.

“We haven’t typically done deals at trade shows. At this stage of our growth it’s more about enhancing the throughput of licensed content to known partners,” says Johnson. “We are very active all year round – visiting our operators in Malta, Gibraltar and the US largely, so our partners see us regularly and we aren’t reliant on trade shows.”

He goes on to say that certain shows do offer value. For example, the Latin American or Tribal Gaming contacts made at G2E would be very difficult for a European supplier to access from home.

Kollind says that ICE has always been a tremendous success and echoes Johnson’s thoughts on G2E, but the future of others must come into question.

Future plans

Everyone welcomes a break from travelling. Not only is it good for the planet, it has given everybody a chance to reflect, analyse and prioritise. And there are a lot of people doing their sums.

“We had already taken a group decision not to exhibit at every show this year,” says Looney. “We will have to look at the whole picture. Do we do it the same way? I’m not sure.”

The event organisers try and reassure us that although conferences will not be the same as previous years, every precaution is being taken to protect attendees. From hand sanitisers to a careful re-evaluation of layouts to allow for physical distancing and the provision of personal protective equipment. But how do you greet somebody at your stand if your smile is hidden by a mask and you are too scared to shake their hand?

If Covid-19 flips the world into recession it will affect every business, and gambling industry conferences will be no different. There will be casualties. G2E Las Vegas has been cancelled for this year but the question remains: will ICE take place? No one is willing to answer that question just yet.

The District of Columbia Office of Lottery and Gaming has issued sports betting licenses to William Hill, Sportradar and Scientific Games.

William Hill’s American Wagering Inc. has been awarded a provisional sports wagering Class A operator license, allowing it to operate a sportsbook at Washington DC’s Capitol One Arena, where the ceremonial first bet was placed Monday.

“Washington, D.C. is known for its dedicated sports fans, and we’re excited to finally bring them a new way to engage with their favorite teams. Being the first to open a retail location in a professional sports venue wouldn’t be possible without our relationship with Ted Leonsis and his team at Monumental,” said Joe Asher, CEO of William Hill US.

“Our teams are working hard to finalize the permanent sports book, restaurant and bar concept we originally envisioned inside the arena.”

Sportradar
The Office of Lottery and Gaming also issued provisional sports wagering supplier licenses Friday to Sportradar and Scientific Games subsidiary NYX Digital Gaming, allowing them to provide gaming related goods and services to licensed sportsbooks in the District.

Rhode Island’s regulated sports betting market generated total wagers of $200.2m in the 2020 fiscal year ended 30 June, despite the impact of COVID-19 over the past four months.

Total wagers climbed by 57 per cent compared to the previous fiscal year, which included eight months of results from the state’s first sportsbooks launched in November 2018.

Twin River contributed $120.1m in wagers, with Tiverton generating $30.3m and the IGT-powered Sportsbook Rhode Island mobile app contributing a further $49.8m.

RHODE ISLAND SPORTS BETTING: (US$)
Wagers Payouts Revenue
Twin River 120.1m 108.2m 11.9m
Tiverton 30.3m 27.3m 3.0m
Online/Mobile 49.8m 46.0m 3.8m
TOTAL 200.2m 181.5m 18.7m
A total of $181.5m was paid out in winnings during the year, generating total book revenue of $18.7m. This comprised $11.9m from Twin River, $3.0m from Tiverton and $3.8m from mobile.

With the state’s two casinos closed in mid-March due to COVID-19, sports betting wagers over the past four months totaled just $13.1m. The two venues reopened on 8 June with limited capacity, as per state guidelines.

Lawmakers in Massachusetts are making another attempt to legalise sports betting with a new bill introduced Friday.

The proposed legislation would allow the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to issue three types of operator license; Category 1 licenses for in-person and remote sports betting, Category 2 licenses for in-person sports wagering at a racetrack, and Category 3 licenses for remote-wagering only.

Operators would be allowed to offer bets on professional and collegiate sports and athletic events, motor racing, eSports, competitive video game events, and any other event authorized by the commission.

Sports bets would be broken down into Tier 1 and Tier 2 wagers, with Tier 1 applying to all bets that are solely determined by the outcome or final score of an event and placed before the start of the event. Tier 2 wagers apply to all other types of wagering such as in-play and require operators to use official league data to settle bets relating to US headquartered sports, with in-play wagering on collegiate sport or athletic events prohibited.

Operators must already be licensed in the state to be eligible for one of the three categories of license, with Category 1 licenses reserved for gaming licensees and Category 2 licenses for racing licensees. Category 3 licenses are reserved for fantasy sports operators who have been active in the state for at least one year prior to the enactment of the bill and are also licensed to offer sports betting in at least two jurisdictions in the United States.

The bill (H4879) sets a $50,000 initial license fee and $250,000 application fee, renewable every five years at a cost of $100,000.

Sportradar
Wagering would be available to players over the age of 21 and taxed at 15 per cent of an operator’s adjusted gross wagering receipts in the form of a privilege tax, with a further 1 per cent payable annually for sports wagering security and integrity.

All operators licensed to conduct sports wagering must employ a monitoring system, utilizing software to identify irregularities in volume or changes in odds that could signal suspicious activities and promptly report such information to the commission for further investigation.

The bill was introduced Friday and referred to the House Committee on Bills in the third reading.

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has suspended the operating licence of multi-brand online casino operator Genesis Global with immediate effect.

The gambling regulator said Tuesday that it has commenced a review of Genesis Global’s licence under section 116 and section 118 of the Gambling Act 2005 due to a number of compliance issues.

“We suspect that Genesis Global Limited has breached a condition of the licence (section 116(2)(a) of the Act)) and is unsuitable to carry on the licensed activities (section 116(2)(c)(i)) of the Act),” said the UKGC. “We therefore consider it appropriate to suspend the licence with immediate effect pending the conclusion of the review.

“We have instructed the operator to facilitate customers accessing their accounts to withdraw funds and advise customers not to place any bets through the above websites.”

Sportradar
The licence suspension makes it illegal for Genesis Global to offer gambling services in the UK via brands including Casoola.com, Casinoplanet.com, Kassu.com, Casinocruise.com, Casinogods.com, Casinojoy.com, Genesiscasino.com, Pelaa.com, Sloty.com, Spela.com, Spinit.com and Vegashero.com.

Spain’s regulated online gaming market recorded a 12.5 per cent increase in first quarter gross gaming revenue, driven by strong performances across all products.

Gross gaming revenue (GGR) amounted to €217.97m in Q1 2020, with sports betting accounting for half of total market GGR at €110.62m, an increase of 8.65 per cent year-on-year.

Online casino gaming was the second largest vertical with GGR of €77.59m, up 16.76 per cent, followed by online poker at €24.4m and online bingo at €3.69m, representing growth of 13 per cent and 14.7 per cent respectively. A further €1.88m in GGR was derived from contests, an increase of almost 100 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2019.

Total marketing spend during the quarter increased by 28.3 per cent to €118.2m, with advertising amounting to €59.5m, promotions €42.4m, sponsorship of €6.0m and affiliate costs of €10.3m.

These marketing costs are expected to continue to rise ahead of the implementation of new regulations designed to combat problem gambling.

The new regulations, which were notified to the European Commission late last week for approval, aim to limit gambling broadcast advertising to the hours of 1am to 5am, with no exception for live sporting events.

They would prohibit naming rights to events and stadia and shirt sponsorship by licensed gambling operators, as well as prohibiting all advertising by unlicensed operators. Sign-up bonuses would be banned, as would the use of any celebrities in marketing communications, while free-to-play games would be available to registered, verified players.

The new rules also prohibit the unathorised use of another party’s brands and trademarks, including references to or games based on the draws or games of another operator, and online advertising would also be subject to numerous restrictions.

Operators would also be required to actively monitor and detect signs of problem gambling among customers and take remedial action.

The proposed regulations remain subject to approval by the European Commission under its emergency procedure, which was invoked due to the “the existence of serious and unforeseeable circumstances relating to the protection of public health and the protection of minors”.

This relates to the COVID-19 pandemic, which the Spanish government believes will increase the economic vulnerability of society due to the “extraordinary rise in unemployment” and, consequently, “a higher probability of gambling behaviour in an attempt to resolve economic problems”.

Gaming Intelligence