Maryland iCasino dies in state Senate

Maryland fail, Genting’s NY promise, European ad bans, gambling hotline spike +More

Apr 09, 2024

Last hope for further iCasino expansion in 2024 fails at the budget stage.
In +More: BGC’s new boss, Yaspa raises innovation cash.
Genting NY bid comes with $1bn tax promise.
European ad ban pushback.
Sports betting: Gambling addiction hotline calls spike.

A broom is drearily sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterday's life.

No Hail Mary in Maryland

No go: The online sector’s last hope for any further iCasino expansion in 2024 came to nothing when the Maryland state Senate on Monday failed to include any revenue from iCasino in the budget. It was the last day of the year’s legislative season.

Bill HB 1319 made progress in March when it passed the House of Delegates by a margin of 92-43, raising hopes that the Senate might pass the measure.
That cleared the three-fifths majority needed for the measure to be put before the electorate in a referendum.
The bill would have allowed for 30 operator licenses with a five-year term limit and a $1m application fee.

No ducks, no alignment: PlayUSA reported that the Maryland bill failed because not all B&M casinos were on board, the labor unions strongly opposed and, finally, because the Senate didn’t see an urgency in educational funding.

Hanging by a thread: It leaves the iCasino sector with one win in 2024 with the opening of the Rhode Island market, while efforts to expand OSB have also made faltering progress in the current legislative session.

In Minnesota the prospects for OSB appear slim despite state Senator John Marty filing a new sports-betting bill on Thursday last week.
The bill included a higher tax rate than the House version, a $500 daily deposit limit, $3,000 monthly loss limit and which would ban live wagering on games.
As with the House bill, the Senate measure would grant Minnesota’s 11 Native American tribes exclusive authority to offer in-person and online sports betting.
There’s still time: Minnesota’s legislative session ends on May 20.

Lastly, in Mississippi the effort to expand sports betting to include online within the state has passed its final Senate committee stage and now could potentially go for a vote on the Senate floor later this week.

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Betting and Gaming Council: The UK’s betting and gaming trade body has announced that Grainne Hurst, currently group corporate affairs director at Entain, will replace Michael Dugher as CEO once he moves into the chair role.

Denmark: The Danish regulator Spillemyndigheden has sanctioned online casino operator and platform SkillOnNet for AML failures and for breaching regulations on business procedures as well as rules on the whistleblower scheme.

Gauselmann’s UK subsidiary Merkur is under investigation by the Gambling Commission over allegations it exploited a vulnerable customer. According to The Guardian, staff at the high-street slot hall operator’s Stockport unit allegedly allowed a lung cancer patient to lose more than £2,000 over 16 hours of play in a two-day period, even reserving her preferred slot machine while she went to withdraw more money.

Yaspa: The instant bank payment provider has been awarded a government grant for its safer gambling payments and AI platform by Innovate UK. Yaspa’s innovative web-based B2B platform promises to combine payments and AI to help gambling operators identify vulnerable players in a frictionless manner.

Using open banking technology, Yaspa will provide operators with access to player transaction data at the point of deposit, giving a significantly broader and more accurate picture of a player’s pan-operator activity.
Yaspa claims the inclusion of payment data will offer a frictionless way to conduct affordability checks that goes beyond current consumer protection practices.
Yaspa is regulated by the UK’s FCA and is backed by leading investors including Fin Capital, SGH Capital and Metavallon VC.

Careers+More

Dan Hartman will join the advisory board for Kindbridge Behavioral Health, which has already partnered with sports-betting operators including BetMGM and DraftKings for access to problem gambling help. Hartman previously served as the director of the Colorado Division of Gaming.

What we’re reading

“Everything is up in the air. It’s exciting and terrifying.” Victor Rocha sets the scene for the Indian Gaming Association conference taking place this week in Anaheim.

Inside the gambling ring linked to Ohtani: The LA Times talks to two bettors who gamble illegally in California.

Genting’s NY tax pledge

A billion reasons why: A New York City casino license would guarantee Genting pays at least $1bn in annual tax revenue to the state, the operator has said. The Asian multinational paid more than $600m in tax to the Empire State last year, a spokesperson told Bloomberg, and a further expansion of its offerings by way of one of three licenses to be awarded would be enough to top the billion-dollar figure.

Genting Malaysia owns the Resorts World casino in Queens and is one of the favorites in the high-stakes race to land approval.
The other hopefuls include Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, who has partnered with Hard Rock International in proposing a venue near the baseball team’s stadium, also in the borough of Queens.
Officials in the New York Gaming Commission said last month local approvals still stand in the way of the process and a decision may not be made before late 2025.
However, lobbyists believe they may be able to expedite a decision through the legislature, with Genting now dangling a significant carrot.

Ready to go: MGM, which owns the Empire City Casino in Yonkers, is another likely winner, as like Genting it already has a presence. The license would permit more wagering, including blackjack, roulette and table games.

Winning bidders will pay a one-time $500m to the state, and it is believed those who are willing to pay more in taxes stand a better chance.

Operators in New York pay an effective 55% rate on electronic devices, the American Gaming Association said, making it one of the highest casino taxes in the US.
By comparison, Nevada casinos pay 6.8%.

Florida’s second extension

The waiting game: The US solicitor general has requested a second extension to file its response in a case that could upend legal sports betting in Florida. Last month, the Florida Supreme Court denied a petition from the two pari-mutuels challenging the state’s gaming compact that grants the Seminole tribes exclusive rights to sports betting.

West Flagler and Bonita-Fort Myers sued the Interior Department over its 2021 approval of the compact, before launching a separate case against the state of Florida.
On Thursday, the high ranking Department of Justice official Elizabeth Prelogar wrote that “extension is necessary because the attorneys with principal responsibility for final preparation of the government’s response have been heavily engaged with the press of other matters before the court.”
Prelogar asked for the Florida case to be stayed until May 12 and said the attorneys for West Flagler did not object to the request.
SCOTUS will rule on the request for an extension in the Florida case and, once the Interior Department files its response, the court will begin to consider whether or not it will hear the case.

European ad ban pushback

Take it easy: A crackdown on gambling advertising in a handful of European states is drawing complaints over heavy-handed regulation and a growth in black market activity. Belgian-based operator Gaming1 has said it believes over-regulation is having a negative impact on channelisation, nearly a year on from a total blackout of gambling ads in the country.

It cited research (from 2023) that showed a 6% rise in online players using an illegal website in the three months following a blanket ban on advertising brought in via law in July last year.
The operator, which also has a Maltese license, said there had also been a 4% increase in deposits made on illegal gaming websites.
Research from Yield Sec revealed a 4.4-fold jump in illegal operators in 2023, with 2,214 sites identified.

Song remains the same: Meanwhile, a Dutch gambling trade association has similarly questioned whether the Netherlands’ untargeted advertising ban is also driving players to the illegal market. Kansspelautoriteit, the Dutch regulator, said in its most recent market monitoring report that the legal market has “not experienced any noticeable contraction since the ban.”

However, the Netherlands Online Gambling Association (NOGA) has said the drop in the channelisation rate from 93% to 90% is a “worrying development.”

NOGA director Peter-Paul de Goeij said the growth of only 1% in the legal Dutch market is a “striking trend” given that “the Dutch do not differ fundamentally from gamblers from other European countries.”

“It is obvious that the lagging growth of the legal market in the Netherlands is because Dutch online gamblers have started gambling more with illegal providers – a dangerous trend because player protection is completely lacking there,” he said.
The country is preparing to bring in tougher player protection measures.

Get off of my cloud: Separately, the Dutch gaming authority has announced it is working with server network Cloudflare to help it track down unregulated gambling websites.

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Addiction hotline

Parallel bars: Gambling problem hotlines are taking more callers as sports betting grows, the directors of several centers have said. Callers are getting younger, are often men in their 20s and 30s, and the circumstances are becoming more severe, they told NBC News.

The directors said the mounting call volume has coincided with the legalization of sports betting and the rising popularity of sports-betting apps.
“We believe, nationwide, the rate and severity of gambling problems have increased across the United States since 2018,” said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, a nonprofit organization devoted to minimizing the costs and harms of gambling addiction.
“We have every reason to believe the growth of online sports betting is a major contributing factor to the increase in gambling problems,” Whyte said.

The call up: Ohio’s Problem Gambling Network logged an increase in calls of 55% in 2023, during the first year of legalized sports betting in the state. “We are seeing this new trend where it is in fact sports bettors who are making up that big bump in call volume,” said Michael Buzzelli, PGN associate director.

By February 2023, sports betting was the top form of problematic gambling reported to the helpline, overtaking lottery and casino slot machines, he added.

SkyCity resignation

Just walk away: SkyCity’s Australia chief operating Officer has resigned as the company awaits the findings of a major probe by the country’s financial watchdog. David Christian is stepping down on Friday, April 12, from his role overseeing the company’s Australian integrated resort, SkyCity Adelaide.

SkyCity Adelaide is bracing for the fallout of civil penalty proceedings launched by anti-money laundering officials, and a regulatory review into its suitability to retain its South Australian casino license.
Regulators announced in July 2022 an independent review of casino operations in the state in response to the findings of inquiries in other states of the operations of Crown Resorts and Star Entertainment Group.
SkyCity recently revised upwards its provision for a potential civil penalty from A$28m ($18.5m) to A$45m.

Calendar

Apr 8-11: Indian Gaming Tradeshow and Convention, Anaheim
Apr 17-18: East Coast Gaming Conference, Atlantic City
May 6: Gaming in Spain
May 28-30: IAGA, Washington DC

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