North Carolina’s gaming shutout
NC budget deal, Macau on hack alert, UKGC goes postal, EPL ad blitz critique, regtech focus – Compliable +More
Good morning. On today’s agenda:
Budget deal in North Carolina sees gaming expansion shutout.
Macau on high alert following Vegas hack.
The UK Gambling Commission is unhappy with Racing Post.
Breaches galore in EPL opening day ad blitz.
Regtech focus talks to Compliable.
If you negotiate the minefield in the drive.
NC shutout
North Carolina budget deal nixes further gambling expansion.
No dice: After several months of negotiations, North Carolina lawmakers have finally agreed on a $30bn budget plan. However, that plan doesn’t include any of the significant gambling expansions discussed, which means no new casinos, VLTs or online gambling are coming to the Tar Heel State.
A proposal to decouple Medicaid and gambling expansions from the budget went up in flames.
Gambling expansions were the main sticking point, leading Republicans to seek support from Democrats by removing both from the budget and attaching it to one Medicaid expansion.
That effort didn’t work. “We are united in opposing this latest political stunt,” Senate Democrats wrote in a public letter.
Medicaid expansion was included in the budget, leaving the gambling expansions out in the cold.
The budget, which is not finalized, does include amended language on the state’s still-to-be-launched mobile sports betting industry. The law, as passed, reads “the Commission shall authorize no more than 12 interactive sports-wagering operators”. The amended language (WRAL obtained a draft copy) reads, “To qualify as an interactive sports-wagering operator, the applicant shall be a party to a written designation agreement with one of the following:
A professional sports team.
The owner or operator of a motorsports facility. Or a facility that hosts a professional golf tournament annually.
A sports governing body that annually within the calendar year sanctions more than one National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing national touring race in the State.
A sports governing body that annually within the calendar year sanctions more than one professional golf tournament.”
Your possible pasts: That language has been heavily criticized and may or may not survive the final cut. As House Speaker Tim Moore stressed to WRAL: “There would be some changes in the final bill while negotiators were signing off on a final version Tuesday.”
Per Straight to the Point, the mobile betting language “provides professional sports teams and certain venues with significant leverage”.
“Not only would they have the final say over who can operate, but those teams and venues would be able to command a much better cut of any revenue sharing.”
** SPONSOR’S MESSAGE ** BettingJobs is the global leading recruitment solutions provider to the iGaming, Sports Betting and Lotteries sectors. Boasting a 20-year track record supporting the iGaming industry, and with a team of experts and world class knowledge, it’s no surprise BettingJobs is experiencing rapid growth with outstanding results. Does your company have plans to expand teams to cope with strong growth and demand?
Contact BettingJobs.com today where their dedicated team members will help you find exactly what you are looking for.
North America notebook
Michigan: State officials have met to discuss the impact of the black market after nearly 50 illegal gambling dens have been discovered over the past year. Michigan Gaming Control Board executive director Henry Williams, Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley and State Rep. Cynthia Neeley are devising a plan to tackle the ‘whack-a-mole’ problem.
Between January 2015 and July 2023, the Michigan Gaming Control Board said it had seized 1,195 illegal machines totalling $470,401.98.
Since November 2022, 48 locations have received cease-and-desist letters involving 105 illegal machines, it added.
“I look forward to working with Mayor Neeley on the city’s efforts to prevent individuals from reopening a place of business under a new name in a location that was previously cited for illegal gaming operation concerns, minimize risks to his community from such establishments, and help protect Flint residents from harm,” said Wiliams.
The state is home to more than 25 regulated, land-based casinos, with almost all operated by tribes.
Florida: West Flagler Associates doesn’t plan to challenge the validity of the state’s gaming compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida in a state court, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. But it will ask the Supreme Court to review whether the compact violates the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
West Flagler has filed a motion for a stay of the lower court ruling, arguing that the decision conflicts with other appellate rulings.
It states that the decision “enables an extreme shift in public policy on legalized gaming that, once started, may be difficult to stop”.
Quebec: The NBA, MLS and Canadian Football League have endorsed the Québec Online Gaming Coalition’s call for a new regulatory framework for iGaming in Québec, according to Gaming News Canada.
The coalition includes DraftKings, Flutter Entertainment, Entain, Betway, Bet99 and Rush Street Interactive.
A LinkedIn posting said that stakeholders agree that modernizing the province’s regulations is the best way to promote responsible gaming and protect Québec’s residents.
Macau hack fears
Casinos in Macau are running cyber defense drills following two major hacks of Las Vegas giants, as the fallout continues to cost millions in lost revenue.
Somebody to watch over me: Sources close to Macau’s gaming operators told Asia Gaming Brief the region is on high alert following ransomware breaches at Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts. Businesses are conducting regular internal security checks to prevent the exploitation of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
One source said Sands China had instructed its marketing team to change their social media passwords, especially those that had been shared with collaborators.
Macau’s gaming operators are understood to have advanced systems to deter attacks, following a cybersecurity law that came into effect in 2019 forcing businesses to up their defenses.
Not over yet: MGM China is also conducting checks and, while it hasn’t been affected, the incident which started in Vegas has spread to MGM’s operations in Springfield, Massachusetts, the US parent confirmed.
The company is projected to lose up to $8.4m in revenue every day until it fixes the issues that have borked its reservation system and casino floors in multiple states.
Jefferies gaming industry analyst David Katz estimates MGM faces a near-term loss of between 10% and 20% in revenue and cash flow "for the days that the current conditions exist”.
Hack reverb
You’re not alone: David Bradbury, chief security officer of the identity management company Okta, told Reuters that its 17,000 customers globally have seen a “ramp up” in the types of attacks affecting MGM and Caesars in the past six to 12 months.
Reuters noted that the financially motivated hacking group ALPHV claimed the MGM hack in a post on its website on Friday, and warned of further attacks on the company if it didn't strike a deal.
The report added that it was unclear how much ransom ALPHV has demanded.
Not in the Post
The UK Gambling Commission has accused the Racing Post of a “blatant lack of balance” for not publishing its responses to criticism over proposed financial risk checks.
The more you ignore me: In a LinkedIn post, the regulator said the popular publication “has, on a daily basis, provided readers with imbalanced stories about the ongoing financial risk consultation and frequently failed to seek a right of reply”. After being apparently stonewalled by the Post’s editors, the regulator published the “highly relevant” response on its own website to “clear up any misunderstandings”.
The Commission took issue with claims made around gambler privacy and the number of punters who would, in theory, have to hand over more financial information to bookies when their betting hits a certain monetary figure.
The GC refuted claims that under the proposals “a good proportion of gambling consumers would have to be handing over payslips or bank statements when they want to place a bet”.
It said around 3% of accounts would undergo financial risk assessments and, by its own estimates, “at most just a tenth of that 3%” would not have a frictionless check via credit agency and be required to physically front up more data.”
Now look here: The ongoing consultations into gambling reform launched on the back of the government’s white paper earlier this year continues to stir up strong feelings among the industry.
In August, Commission CEO Andrew Rhodes launched a broadside against “gambling operators, trade bodies, charities, media outlets, sporting venue owners and others” for what he perceived as deliberately misleading statistical claims.
More UK fines
Call me mister: Lindar Media, which runs the bingo and gaming website MrQ.com, will pay £690,947 to especially responsible causes after the UKGC uncovered a number of RG and AML failures.
Primetime fail
Self-regulation has “completely failed”, say researchers at Bristol University who studied marketing promotions during the opening weekend of the English Premier League season.
The researchers say they found 92% of 391 content marketing ads by “major brands” breached rules as they were not explicitly identified as such. A total of 10,999 gambling messages were identified during the weekend across various media channels, with 6,966 gambling messages recorded during six live match broadcasts.
The report claimed that less than a quarter (20.6%) included gambling harm reduction messages and only 18.7% featured age warnings.
Any commercial break on talkSport radio featured at least one gambling ad, while Sky Sports News broadcasted 600 gambling messages in two hours.
The team identified 1,902 gambling ads on social media, generating a total of 34m impressions.
“Our research shows gambling marketing during Premier League weekends is inescapable,” said Raffaello Rossi, lecturer in marketing at the University of Bristol Business School.
“Football fans are bombarded with gambling marketing through various channels, making it a normal part of football consumption. Self-regulation of the gambling industry is completely failing.”
Regtech focus – Compliable
Online gambling is playing catch-up in terms of the adoption of regulatory technology, says chief regulatory officer Justin Stempeck.
Into the breach: The online sector is developing at pace and the regulatory and compliance area is as much an area of change as any of the commercial-facing elements of the business. Startups with a regulatory angle are now moving to fill the breach, and one such is Compliable.
Many of the most common regulatory and compliance problems now have a variety of technological solutions for those looking,” says Stempeck.
“The US online gambling space poses a constantly evolving challenge as new jurisdictions continue to legalize and those requirements must be accounted for in any solution.”
Come gather 'round people: The understanding across the sector is variable and even the larger entities tend to invest much more in their consumer-facing propositions rather than in their compliance solutions, Stempeck argues. But times are changing.
“The proliferation of regtech is beginning to make an impact particularly as the regulatory obligations have grown exponentially,” he says.
“At a certain point, manual resources like staff and simple spreadsheets are no longer capable of delivering the results necessary to excel at scale.”
That is most visibly the case with the regulated US opportunity, which Stempeck argues has given the sector something of a kick in the direction of using tech-driven solutions. “Managing the regulatory requirements of dozens of different jurisdictions in real time is a daunting task,” he says.
“There are few true compliance experts familiar with all of the requirements across every state that has now legalized online sports betting so technology can and does serve a critical need at this time,” he adds.
“Furthermore, this type of technology empowers lean compliance teams to handle wide-ranging responsibilities quickly and efficiently.”
“Even something as seemingly simple as vendor license management for a large operator becomes massively time-consuming at scale.”
Cross the tracks: Similar issues dog the regulators with the public sector subject to “unique limitations” when it comes to adopting new technology. Legacy systems can be difficult to migrate from and onboarding new partners involves being on the approved state vendor lists, Stempeck points out.
“Certainly in an ideal world, regulators and the industry itself would use the same solutions that could provide transparent, real-time data to both sides but getting to that goal is still going to take some time,” he says.
** SPONSOR’S MESSAGE ** With Kentucky, Maine and Vermont set to go live within the next six months, operators in these regions can use Compliable’s platform to ensure a smoother licensing journey.
Simplified license applications – ability to apply across multiple states
Help along the way – FAQs portfolio and 1-to-1 support available
Unique Compliance Dashboard – manage licenses and track applications
Read more about the onboarding process here
European notebook
The Netherlands: Following an investigation of the Netherlands Gambling Authority that found inconsistencies as well as certain shortcomings in the implementation of duty of care measures by Netherlands-licensed online operators, the regulator's chair René Jansen said in a blog posting that these failings did not mean that market legalization had failed.
“Without a legal market, there would be no duty of care at all,” he said.
“When looking at illegal operators, we often saw that basic requirements, such as proper identity and age verification checks, were entirely absent.“
“From a player protection perspective, a legal market is preferable to the completely unregulated ‘wild west’ we would otherwise have to deal with,” he added.
Australia notebook
Windscreen viper: The Australian Communications and Media Authority has told the country’s internet service providers to block Viperspin, Just Casino, Betandplay, Play Fina and ComicPlay Casino for breaches of gaming law.
Since making its first blocking request, the regulator has shut out 835 illegal gambling and affiliate websites, while 215 illegal services have quit the market since the new rules were enforced in 2017.
Sports integrity notebook
Howzat: The International Cricket Council has charged eight players and officials for breaching the ECB Anti-Corruption Code during the T10 League. The move was taken on behalf of the Emirates Cricket Board and relates to a tournament that took place in 2021.
What we’re reading
“The jiggling breasts of three bikini-clad cartoon women bounce around on my screen”. Sky uncovers the world of crypto casinos.
An +More Media publication.
For sponsorship inquiries email scott@andmore.media.
