140

Entain looked to further its compliance campaign after announcing that it would be pulling out from over 140 international markets. 

According to a report from the Financial Times, the group has ceased operations in markets where the likelihood of an appropriate regulatory framework is dwindling, including Argentina, Russia and Ukraine. 

The operator’s chair Barry Gibson underlined that the moves were progressive for the business as it seeks to overhaul operations. 

The move comes after Entain reached a £585m deferred prosecution agreement with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after being subject to a bribery investigation by HM Revenue & Customs. The case was related to its previous Turkish business, which it sold in 2017.

Entain emphasised that it has since transformed as a company and it is a legacy issue for the company as the illegal activity occurred before its 2020 rebrand when it traded as GVC Holdings. 

Gibson commented on that case: “This legacy issue pertains to a business divested by a past management team six years prior. The company has undergone significant changes since then, and the DPA process has underscored the profound evolution from the GVC of the past to today’s Entain. 

“We remain focused on advancing our operations exclusively within regulated markets and are acknowledged as a leading, responsible entity with unparalleled corporate governance across our business.”

18.58

The latest Eilers-Fantini report into North American online casino performance debuted the researchers’ first-ever Canadian report, which saw Pragmatic Play lead the supplier charts with the highest percentage of theoretical win – 18.58 per cent.

The studio came ahead of Evolution’s 16.07 per cent, IGT’s 15.23 per cent and Light & Wonder’s 11.13 per cent, showing that the US’ top three are just as prominent in Canada. 

For top games by GGR, Pragmatic Play took the maiden first place in Canada’s December charts with Sweet Bonanza, while its Gates of Olympus slot also rounded out the top five. 

In between those Pragmatic Play titles, Light & Wonder’s Jin Ji Bao Xi Endless Treasure title took second place, Live Dealer Roulette from Evolution took third place and Cash Eruption took fifth – making it the only title to appear in both the US and Canada’s top five games by GGR. 

Anaxi’s Buffalo slot title stampeded the competition to claim the number one spot in the US report for December’s top games by gross gaming revenue, with IGT’s Blackjack title pipped at the post for consecutive months. 

6

The UK Gambling Commission ordered Gamesys Operations Limited to pay a £6m penalty due to an investigation into the firm that discovered social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.

Following a compliance assessment in May 2022, the UKGC discovered several social responsibility and AML failures at Gamesys taking place between November 2021 and July 2022.

In terms of social responsibility failures, the commission noted that the operator was “not always identifying customers at risk of experiencing harms associated with gambling”. 

The UKGC also stated that Gamesys did not always have “a system of deposit limits which, for some customers, did not identify risks of harm quickly enough” as one customer was able to deposit £8,255 within three days of opening an account, another lost £5,968 within five weeks of opening account and another lost £17,482 within 34 days of opening an account.

Regarding AML failures, the UKGC discovered through its investigation that in certain circumstances, some Gamesys customers were “able to evade some of the licensee’s AML triggers/thresholds and go on to spend significant sums without AML checks being conducted”.

As such, one customer deposited £14,585 in 28 weeks, another deposited £18,884 in just over six months and another deposited £34,280 in five and a half months.

Kay Roberts, Executive Director of Operations at UKGC, commented: “Our focus as a regulator is to ensure that operators are employing policies and procedures which make gambling fair, safe and crime-free.

“We take this responsibility extremely seriously and whenever we find failures in policies and procedures then the business can expect significant regulatory action.”

4

After almost four years leading Entain, Jette Nygaard-Andersen has released a statement on her decision to step down as CEO, saying that the company is “better and stronger” than it has ever been.

“Entain is fundamentally a better and stronger company today than it has ever been,” she said.

“Through a multitude of twists, turns and challenges, we’ve transformed the business from the GVC of old to one with the highest standards of governance, compliance, player safety, a new effective strategy setting the company up for further growth in all markets, old and new, and excellent quality of earnings.

“Over the past four years, we have dramatically shifted the company to be a responsible operator, a reputable employer, strategically put the customer front and centre of business operations, worked on transforming the technology to make it future fit, diversified the portfolio and so much more.”

Last month, Entain announced that Nygarrd-Andersen would be resigning from her position as Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect.

Although ending amid the HMRC investigation, Nygarrd-Andersen’s tenure as Entain CEO saw a number of milestones, including several high-profile acquisitions expanding the firm’s global presence.

The outgoing CEO added: “Thanks to the professionalism and passion of Entainers around the world, the business tackled challenges such as the pandemic head-on, navigated a path to 100 per cent regulated operations and always thought of the customer. 

“As a result, Entain is now a business that has scaled and operates in over 30 territories with 30,000 employees.”

3

New York State has introduced another legislation that looks to legalise online casinos in the Empire State. 

Senator Joseph Addabbo put forward S8185 for discussion on January 11, and as of writing, it resides in the Senate’s Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee. The 2024 bill is very similar to the 2023 edition – S4856 – with a few slight changes.

Like last year’s bill, online casino licences will be available for the four downstate casinos and three forthcoming upstate casinos, VLT parlours MGM Empire City Casino and Resorts World NYC, New York tribes and online sports betting operators.

In addition, three more licences will be available for competitive bids for applicants who have a focus on DEI, whereas last year’s bill stated that three additional licences would be available for applicants with at least five per cent minority ownership.

The bill states: “abide by an affirmative action program of equal opportunity, approved by the commission, whereby the applicant establishes specific goals for the utilisation of minorities, women and veterans in full-time, permanent jobs at such interactive gaming license’s place of operation.”

The bill estimates that New York would receive approximately $1bn annually in state tax revenue, as well as $150m in one-time licence fees from casinos, operators and independent contractors looking to conduct online casino operations.

213.5

Golden Entertainment completed the sale of its distributed gaming operations in Nevada to an affiliate of J&J Ventures Gaming.

J&J Gaming acquired Golden Entertainment’s Nevada distributed gaming operations for cash consideration of approximately $213.5m, subject to customary working capital and other adjustments, plus purchased cash (cash and cash equivalents related to such operations at the time of closing) of approximately $37.5m.

For this transaction, Latham & Watkins LLP acted as legal counsel to Golden Entertainment.

Golden Entertainment and J&J Gaming have already worked together on one transaction in the past year, as the operator sold its Montana distributed gaming operations in September 2023 to an affiliate of J&J Gaming.

The post Entain, UKGC fine & New York: the week in numbers appeared first on CasinoBeats.

However, the latest Eilers-Fantini US report was accompanied by the researchers’ debut insight into Canada’s online casino ecosystem, which saw Pragmatic Play rival the aforementioned ‘big three’ suppliers.

Anaxi’s Buffalo slot title stampeded the competition to claim the number one spot in the US report for December’s top games by gross gaming revenue, with IGT’s Blackjack title pipped at the post for consecutive months. 

Despite a slight drop in percentage of GGR, from November’s 4.55 per cent to 4.08 per cent, December saw Anaxi’s Buffalo slot remain top of the pile ahead of IGT’s Blackjack table game (3.54 per cent) and Cash Eruption slot (2.53 per cent). 

Meanwhile, Digital Gaming Corporation’s Fire and Roses Joker slot came in fourth place (1.7 per cent GGR), meaning the top four games remained in these positions from last month’s results. 

The studio’s Blazing Bison Gold Blitz was also the only change in the top five games by GGR, signalling a GGR percentage of 1.26 per cent. 

Out of the top 25 titles by GGR, 16 were slot releases to represent the strongest-performing format. The rest of the top-performing titles included five live casino titles, three table games and one video poker release. 

Looking at the top-performing games overall, a new entry headed straight to the top of the list, as DGC’s Blazing Bison Gold Blitz stopped IGT’s Blackjack from making its way back to pole position. 

Meanwhile, Internal’s Craps table game made an impressive leap from 33rd to fourth, and Evolution’s Live Dealer Speed Baccarat fell from second to sixth, allowing DGC’s Fire and Roses Joker to move up one place from fourth to third. 

The slots charts saw DGC’s Blazing Gold Bison Blitz and Fire and Roses Joker lead the way in first and second place, with IGT’s Cash Eruption keeping its third place, Anaxi’s Buffalo falling from first to fourth and Capital Gains remaining in fifth place. 

Within the top 25 slots, 11 individual suppliers were represented as Reel Play, Inspired, Greentube and Bragg Gaming Group each found a place in the top slot charts. 

An even share was also witnessed in the top performers, as seven individual suppliers made up the top 10. 

In the US report’s new game rankings, Anaxi’s Buffalo was knocked off its perch as it fell to third place, with DGC’s new entry Blazing Bison Gold Blitz taking the top spot, followed by Fire and Roses Joker. 

AGS’ Mega Diamond rose from seventh place to fourth with Light & Wonder’s Ultimate Fire Link Cash Falls China Street dropping from fourth place to round out the top five. 

Of the top 25 new games, 24 were slot releases, with Evolution’s 12th-place VIP Blackjack being the only non-slot in the top 25. 

Once again, Evolution continued to sit atop the supplier GGR percentage tables. The group led the way with 19.3 per cent, although this figure did see the supplier fail to make two consecutive months of growth, falling from last month’s 21.3 per cent. 

The company’s supplier mix by game category represented by slots rose in December, increasing from 85.8 per cent to 86.  

IGT remained in second place, climbing slightly once again from November’s 17.4 per cent to 17.8 per cent, witnessing a third straight month of recovery from September’s 16.7 per cent. 

For the group’s portfolio, 85.6 per cent (November: 85.9 per cent) of its games were tracked as slots.

Light & Wonder remained in third place, gaining back some of its revenue lost in November, when it fell from October’s 15.8 per cent to 13.4 per cent, as it came in at 13.8 per cent for December. 

For another month, DGC and Everi kept their fourth and fifth places, achieving 9.7 and 6.5 per cent respectively. However, Internal and Anaxi remained a threat to the top five by maintaining respective GGR percentages of 5.1 and 4.9 per cent. 

Slots remained the dominant segment when looking at the total games tracked, with a total percentage of 91.5 (November: 91.3 per cent), ahead of table games which fell from 3.8 per cent to 3.7 per cent. 

Live casino was next up with 1.8 per cent, ahead of instant win’s 1.6 per cent, video poker’s 1 per cent and the 0.2 per cent shared by lottery and bingo/keno. 

Each segment remained consistent month-on-month once again, with video poker the only exception as it decreased by 0.1 per cent.  

Mobile recorded 70.8 per cent for the highest percentage of theoretical win generated, beating desktop’s 28.3 per cent (November: 28.2 per cent) and tablets 0.9 per cent (November: 0.9 per cent). 

This latest analysis examined data from Michigan, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut across 33 online casino sites, tracking 55,395 games to represent around 64 per cent of the US market.

Canadian performance

The first-ever Canadian Eilers-Fantini report covered statistics from seven online casino sites, tracking 8,182 games across the nation’s igaming sector. 

For top games by GGR, Pragmatic Play took the maiden first place in Canada’s December charts with Sweet Bonanza, while its Gates of Olympus slot also rounded out the top five. 

In between those Pragmatic Play titles, Light & Wonder’s Jin Ji Bao Xi Endless Treasure title took second place, Live Dealer Roulette from Evolution took third place and Cash Eruption took fifth – making it the only title to appear in both the US and Canada’s top five games by GGR. 

Canada’s supplier charts saw Pragmatic Play lead the way again, gaining the highest percentage of theoretical win for December with 18.58 per cent. 

The studio came ahead of Evolution’s 16.07 per cent, IGT’s 15.23 per cent and Light & Wonder’s 11.13 per cent, showing that the US’ top three are just as prominent in Canada. 

If interested in learning more, subscribing, or participating in the Eilers-Fantini Online Game Performance Database reach out to Rick Eckert at reckert@ekgamingllc.com.

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Speaking upon publication of the latest Eilers-Fantini Online Game Performance Report, Eckert pointed to consolidation currently taking place in Ontario in elaborating on the potential opportunity presented by a lack of further legalisation.

Looking at if a lack of progression regarding legalised igaming across further states is potentially holding back the US’ ecosystem, he commented: “It does seem like the hot topic last year from operators and suppliers in the US market was expansion and coverage into Ontario, but speaking with those engaged parties recently there is consolidation taking place on each side. 

“With no planned states launching online casinos in 2023, suppliers have more opportunity to successfully expand their coverage into current markets that are more difficult on the approval process, like Pennsylvania.”

Despite the group’s latest assessment, covering the month of March, featuring a slew of fresh igaming entrants, on an overall GGR basis it is very much a case of familiarity.

IGT’s Blackjack continues to lead the way, albeit with a drop in GGR percentage to 2.15 (February: 2.63 per cent), with Cash Eruption (1.41 per cent), Cleopatra (1.36 per cent) and Fortune Coin (0.94 per cent) also maintaining positions in the top 25.

However, the Evolution Group’s Live Dealer Roulette significantly closed the gap on the table game, closing the month with a percentage of 2.13 (February: 1.98 per cent). The company also counted five further live casino titles, one table game and four slots in the rankings.

However, the premier online slot on a GGR basis through the month remains Light & Wonder’s 88 Fortunes with 1.76 per cent (February: 1.61 per cent), beating off competition from 16 similar such entrants in the top 25.

On an overall basis, Evolution leads the way overall with a total GGR of 24.6 per cent (16.4 per cent on a slots basis), which is down from the previous month’s 26.2 per cent. 

IGT was next in line with an overall percentage of 17.9 (February: 20.8 per cent), of which 17 per cent was slots, while L&W rounded off the top three once more with 17.2 per cent (February: 18.7 per cent) and a slots score of 20.8 per cent.

On a new games basis, for the second consecutive month it is a case of family on both the overall and slots rankings when taking a look at the five titles that sit at the summit.

Regarding the latter, Digital Gaming Corporation’s Chicago Gold takes a leap from 15th to first, ahead of the highest fresh entrant of Big Money Frenzy by White Hat Studios.

L&W’s Jewel of the Dragon Red Phoenix, which soared to the top in February, sees its wings clipped to finish third, ahead of the Win Machine Deluxe and 5x A Winner games of Design Works Gaming.

With March’s report featuring a number of previously unranked titles, Eckert looked at if this is evidence that competition is intensifying. He said: “In 2022 we averaged one new supplier tracked per month in the OGPD. 

“This resulted in the top three suppliers by percentage GGR (Evolution, LNW, and IGT) losing share in the past 12 months from 62 per cent to 58.9 per cent. 

“In addition to new suppliers being tracked seeing success like White Hat Studios, Play N Go, and a recent newcomer with Skilzzgaming, what may be considered mid-level suppliers (Everi, Digital Gaming Corporation, and Greentube) steadily added more operators coverage throughout the trailing 12 months resulting in gained GGR share.”

On the ‘supplier mix by game category’ classification, it is Evolution that maintains its place at the summit, despite detailing a drop month-on-month. Through March the group occupied 23.9 per cent (February: 26.2 per cent) of the space, of which 85.6 per cent (February: 85.4 per cent) are online slots.

L&W leapfrogged into second with 19.7 per cent (February: 18.8 per cent), of which 90 per cent (February: 90.2 per cent) were slots. IGT slipped into third with a portfolio made up of 84.7 per cent slots to claim 14.2 per cent (February: 18.8 per cent) of the total ecosystem.

Slots remained the dominant segment when looking at the total games tracked with a total percentage of 90.6, ahead of table games’ 4.5 per cent.

Live casino was next in line with 2 per cent, ahead of video poker’s 1.4 per cent, the 1.1 per cent gained by instant win and 0.2 per cent shared by lottery and bingo/keno.

Mobile maintains its frontrunning status with the highest percentage of theo win generated at 65.5 per cent (February: 64.3 per cent) and leads across most segments, with desktop, via a theo win of 32.2 per cent (February: 33.5 per cent), soaring ahead in video poker and virtual sports. Tablet continues to bring up the rear via a slight drop to 2.2 per cent.

This latest analysis examines data from Michigan, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut across 30 online casino sites, tracking 42,270 games to represent 59 per cent of the market.

If interested in learning more, subscribing, or participating in the Eilers-Fantini Online Game Performance Database reach out to Rick Eckert at reckert@ekgamingllc.com.

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This collects monthly game performance data directly from online operators to track how games perform in the region’s igaming ecosystem, with an ambition of growing the database similarly to that of its land-based game performance index.

In this latest example, which utilises data from 25 online casino sites across Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia, the report has grown to represent 66 per cent of US gross gaming revenue. This includes the tracking of 20,671 games.

Slots continued to dominate the digital footprint of the region’s online casino ecosystem, with the vertical accounting for 86.9 per cent of all unique games tracked.

This comes out ahead of table games’ 5.6 per cent, instant win’s 3.1 per cent, video poker with 1.8 per cent and live casino which comes in at 1.7 per cent. Virtual sports, lottery, and bingo/keno tracked 0.5 per cent, 0.3 per cent, and 0.1 per cent, respectively.

SG Digital once again tops the supplier’s table after being found to account for 23.1 per cent of all games in the region, the majority of which, at 89 per cent, were found to be slots.

Next up is NetEnt at 21.2 per cent, of which 92.8 per cent were discovered to be slots, with International Game Technology rounding off the top three with 15.7 per cent, 84.1 per cent being slots games. This is someway ahead of fourth placed High 5 Games, who accounts for 6.1 per cent of games, all of which were slots.

Mobile leads the devices with the highest percentage of theo win generated at 58.5 per cent, with virtual sports and tables games shown to be the only segment where it doesn’t forge ahead. 

Desktop tracks a theo win of 37.7 per cent with tablet lagging behind at 3.8 per cent, with video poker highlighted as a close battle between the two.

On an overall basis, Reel Play and Evolution continue to forge ahead with a theo win index of 3.42 and 3.09 respectively, ahead of Novomatic (2.37), Internal (1.96), IGT (1.33) and AGS (1.25).

Evolution’s Bonanza and SG Digital’s 88 Fortunes maintain their positions at the summit of the top slots games ranks, indexing at 14.96 and 12.66 respectively.

Rounding off the top three is Evolution’s Extra Chilli, with Big Spin Bonus by Inspired, Novomatic’s Diamond Cash Mighty Elephant, and Evolution’s Vault Crack and Piggy Rich Megaway, the new games tracked for the month that make the top 25.

IGT’s Blackjack comes out on top of the overall games charts with an index of 20.73, followed by the aforementioned Bonanza as well as a fellow Blackjack title, this time by NetEnt, which comes in at 13.78.

Rick Eckert, managing director of slot performance and analytics at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, explained: “Top performing online video slots this month included Evolution’s Bonanza, followed by SG Digital’s 88 Fortunes, and Evolution’s Extra Chilli as we see the ‘Ultra Megaways’ themes from the Big Time Gaming (acquired by Evolution) continue to develop hit titles with this game feature. 

“Game performance data was captured from 25 online casino sites across Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia markets accounting for over 65 per cent of the US online casino markets GGR.”

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This collects monthly game performance data directly from online operators to track how games perform in the region’s igaming ecosystem, with an ambition of growing the database similarly to that of its land-based game performance database.

September’s example, which includes data from the digital gaming space in Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, has grown to represent in the region of 56 per cent of US gross gaming revenue. This includes 23 online casino sites and the tracking of 20,422 games.

Rick Eckert, managing director of slot performance and analytics at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, said of the database: “The goal is to track how games perform in the North American online casino market.  

“To do this, we collect monthly game performance data directly from online operators.  We validate, standardise, and aggregate the data within a secure database. 

“Our goal is to grow this database in a similar fashion to our industry leading land-based game performance database which currently tracks ~230,000 slots in the North American market.” 

Slots lead the way in the North American digital gaming space after being revealed to account for 89.3 per cent of all unique games, this is ahead of table games’ 5.2 per cent, video poker at 2.3 per cent, live casino at 1.3 per cent, and instant win at 1.1 per cent. All other segments are less than 1 per cent.

Scientific Games heads the table of all suppliers after being found to account for 23.2 per cent of all of the games that have been tracked in the region, the majority of which, at 90.3 per cent, were found to be slots themes.

Next up is NetEnt at 21.2 per cent, of which 92.9 per cent were discovered to be slots, with International Game Technology round off the top three with 15.2 per cent, 86.3 per cent being slots games.

On an overall basis, Reel Play and Evolution continue to forge ahead with a theo win index of 3.66 and 3.28 respectively, while AGS (1.32) and IGT (1.2) continue to document improvement over the past two months.

Evolution’s Bonanza and SG Digital’s 88 Fortunes maintain their positions at the summit of the top slots games ranks, indexing at 14.16 and 13.10 respectively.

Rounding off the top three is Evolution’s Extra Chilli, with Marvelous Mouse Coin Combo from SG and IGT’s Cash Eruption the new games tracked for the month that make the top 25.

Evolution’s Live Dealer Roulette comes out on top of the overall game charts after indexing at 14.16, with the group’s Bonanza slot title next up and NetEnt’s Blackjack in third for September after indexing at 13.71.

Eckert added: “While the US online casino market is still relatively in the infancy stages we are able to draw significant insights from the Eilers-Fantini OGPD including the similarities and difference from the land based casino market. 

“In the online space we see many of the most popular slot titles from the past decade and longer soar to the top ranks online, games like 88 Fortunes, but present vast differences in terms of performance indexing and online focused suppliers like Evolution.”  

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Seeing a 33 per cent revenue increase to $76.4m, up from $57.5m the year earlier, over double the 15 per cent market growth reported in the latest social casino rankings from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming.

The company also recorded a 23.5 per cent increase in its number of daily active users from 2017’s 510,000 to 630,000 last year, attributing its continued success “to a number of key executions and dedicated areas of focus”.

KamaGames stresses that a number of personalised promotional campaigns for players, which resulted in the number of paying users, as well as the average revenue per paying user, increasing across the year.

The company also introduced ‘Unity Ads,’ allowing the provision of in-app rewarded video advertising across their entire gaming portfolio, boosting advertising earnings by 81 per cent when comparing year on year.

A number of new slot launches was also lauded, as was a continued aim of driving player retention and session times, achieved via the introduction of special event cycles and new mechanics, in addition to significant portfolio enhancements.

Andrey Kuznetsov, KamaGames’ CEO, addressed the strong performance, in addition to emphasising the need to not be complacent moving forward: “Throughout 2019 KamaGames will build on this impressive growth, which we are proud to report was double the growth of the overall market in 2018, by continuing to grow our social casino portfolio as well as entering new markets with regionally popular card games.

“We are also looking forward to being able to make a number of key partnership announcements with some well-known global brands through the year. 2019 is going to be another very exciting year for KamaGames”.

Adding: “App Annie predicts that, by the end of 2019, mobile gaming will continue to grow and reach 60% market share of consumer game spending.

“KamaGames will be a significant part of this growth and are committed to further improved user retention and engagement in our gaming portfolio, but the continued creation of quality, innovative content, the personalisation of game events and the increased socialisation between players.

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