Turkish National Lottery gets Twitch-y
Twitch Turkey ban, Massachusetts DFS U-turn, Churchill Downs’ skill games hopes +More
Twitch is banned in Turkey.
In +More: Georgia moves a step further, Maryland unions balk.
Massachusetts U-turn brings more strife for DFS.
Churchill Downs sees upside from skill gaming bans.
The Token Word: one company, one token, $100m fraud.
Can you walk the dinosaur, cause he’s headin’ back for more.
Twitch banned in Turkey
It’s a jungle out there: Amazon-owned live-streaming platform Twitch has been banned in Turkey with the National Lottery Administration reportedly forbidding access due to gambling content broadcast on the site.
A Kick in the teeth: Kick, the live-streaming platform created after Twitch’s infamous clampdown on casino streams, was also banned in the country. Kick, which has close ties with crypto-casino Stake.com, removed all casino streaming options from its Turkish site within 24 hours. Access to the site has since been reinstated.
Twitch has yet to take any geo-specific action and Turkish users are still prohibited from accessing the platform.
What difference does it make? Twitch has played the role of quasi-regulator for responsible gambling since the 2022 boom in slots broadcasts. In October 2022, it banned broadcasts featuring sites that “include slots, roulettes or dice games and aren’t licensed either in the US or in other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection.”
In August 2023, Twitch broadened restrictions on gambling to tackle “emerging trends” that initial rules failed to cover. This saw sites such as Blaze and Gamdom join other crypto casinos such as Stake and Roobet on the list of strictly prohibited casino sites.
Affiliate codes from sites offering casino games are also no longer permitted.
In 10 months from Oct22 to Aug23, Twitch revealed a 76% drop in casino viewership.
Home front: Vociferous claims that massive media rights deals are on the horizon in esports continue to fall flat. Twitch remains the home of esports, with the majority of viewership centered on the platform.
Ismailcan ‘XANTARES’ Dörtkardes and Özgür ‘woxic’ Eker are two Turkish Counter-Strike players with over $800,000 in career earnings and who attract substantial home following.
The Turkish semi-professional League of Legends championship is among the most popular scenes below the top echelon.
Impact zone: Should Twitch fail to adapt to the National Lottery Administration’s claims, there will be significant collateral damage through the absence of Turkish viewers. The true impact is likely to be felt more by localized esports products.
Twitch has also been fined after removing all on-demand video content from its South Korean site following its exit from the country earlier this year. As layoffs continue to dominate tech (and esports) headlines, 2024’s off to a rocky start.
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+More
North America
Georgia: A referendum on sports betting in November moved a step closer after the bill to regulate the activity passed the Senate on Wednesday with a bigger-than two-thirds majority, the margin needed in order to change the state constitution.
The next step will be a vote in the state House where, once again, a two-thirds majority will be needed.
Alabama: Support for gaming expansion legislation from the Republican caucus in the state Senate is shaky, and attempts to amend the bills significantly could see support fall apart, according to bill proponent Sen. Greg Albritton.
“There is a lot of interest in trying to find a path [to passage],” Albritton told the Alabama Daily News.
“The concern is, what can we put together that is palatable and passable and also passable in the House and acceptable by the governor.”
Maryland: At a hearing in front of the House Ways and Means Committee, unions warned of job losses were the bill to authorize iCasino in the state to go forward. “The job losses, unstable revenue and, definitely, the damage to public health are not worth the risk,” said Donna Edwards, president of the Maryland State and DC AFL-CIO.
Edwards cited a report produced by Baltimore-based Sage Policy Group, which suggested 1,200 jobs could be lost in and around Maryland’s B&M casinos.
Mark Stewart, an executive vice-president and general counsel at the Cordish Companies, which runs the Maryland Live! casino, also warned of job losses and decreased B&M casino revenue.
He said iCasino was a “bad idea” despite Maryland Live!’s potential financial gain.
Chicken licken: This was countered by the bill’s proponent, delegate Vanessa Atterbeary, who said “contrary to what you may have heard, the sky will not fall in” if iCasino is legalized.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has fined Wynn Resorts’ Encore Boston Harbor property $40,000 after it found its sportsbook accepted illegal wagers on two separate Boston College women’s basketball games last year.
Global
Brazil: The Secretariat of Prizes and Bets has taken its first steps towards a fully realized regulated space by publishing an ordinance outlining the requirements and procedures for certifying entities in the sector.
The ordinance covers the recognition of operational capacity for certifying betting systems, live gaming studios and online games used by fixed-odd betting lottery operators.
Finland: The latest quadrennial gambling population survey from the Institute of Health and Welfare (THL) has expressed concerns about the increasing instances of gambling-related disorders, even as Finland experiences a decline in gambling participation.
The 2023 survey found that 4.2% were engaged in moderate risk or problem gambling, equating to approximately 151,000 people at the population level. This represents an increase from 3% in previous THL surveys.
But gambling participation fell from 78% four years ago to 70% in 2023.
Denmark: The Danish Gambling Authority has won its court case over its decision to block 83 websites offering what it claims are unlicensed gambling to Danish citizens.
The Netherlands: The KSA has revealed it conducted two investigations last year into illegal affiliate activity that advertised offshore gambling specifically to anyone who might have self-excluded via the state’s Cruks system.
The sites advertised a total of seven illegal sites, which the KSA said it would be investigating.
It added that six online publications were contacted by telephone and by letter and that each had taken immediate action.
Regtech focus
The London-based financial tools provider ClearStake has secured additional seven-figure funding, including backing from current and former executives at Flutter Entertainment and PointsBet.
Meanwhile, fellow open-banking solution provider Department of Trust has received FCA approval as a registered account information service provider (RAISP).
What we’re reading
Why has Nevada slipped to 10th for sports-betting revenue? Hint: in-person registration.
Massachusetts U-turn brings more DFS strife
Force Ten: Massachusetts has joined the growing list of states taking a hard line on fantasy sports, having sent cease-and-desist letters to 10 pick’em operators. While the 10 originally had approval to serve punters, the Bay State’s attorney general has had a change of heart and decided that pick’em contests are not covered under fantasy sports licenses and are in fact against the law.
“In Massachusetts, we have laws on the books that demand safe and responsible conduct from gaming operators, and when those laws are ignored my office will not hesitate to enforce them as a matter of public health and consumer protection,” Massachusetts AG Andrea Joy Campbell said.
The 10 are: BoomFantasy; OwnersBox; Parlay Play; RealTime Fantasy Sports; Sleeper; Splash Sports; Talid Sports, d/b/a Chalkboard Fantasy Sports; Two Nine Sports, d/b/a StatHero; Vivid Picks; and Yahoo! Daily Fantasy Sports.
Under pressure: Two of the biggest names, PrizePicks and Underdog Fantasy, were not on the list, but have been briefing that changes are afoot. Underdog has moved from player versus house to peer-to-peer pick’em, while PrizePicks has made a similar switch.
Is this just fantasy? “At the time of this letter, we are aware that two operators have voluntarily committed to cease their offers of such games in Massachusetts,” the AG’s office said. In the letter, the regulator said “this type of wager is a parlay”, noting that it is “expressly included in the definition of ‘sports wagering’” and thus “not ‘fantasy contests’ as that term is defined” in the law.
During a recent public meeting, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) telegraphed its intent with strong words.
“I don’t intend to put the executives at PrizePicks in jail. We would like to explore civil enforcement in this area to see if it can be effective,” Massachusetts first assistant AG Pat Moore said, noting its position in line with the AG’s office.
I don’t like the look of it: Over the last 12 months, multiple states have targeted apps they believe to be more akin to sports betting than contests. Having quit New York a fortnight before, this week Underdog also pulled its pick’em games from North Carolina, Mississippi and Florida amid a wider exodus from the Sunshine State.
The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration has also sent cease-and-desist letters to several operators, noting that classic pick’em games appear too much like sports betting and “player prop bets” for its liking.
Under Arkansas law, traditional daily fantasy sports operate under the protection of Act 1075 of the 2017 regular session, the department noted. The law does not allow these operators to offer what it believes to be unlicensed sports betting.
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Churchill Downs sees upside from skill gaming bans
Rome wasn’t built in a day: Churchill Downs said on its earnings call last week that it remained hard to quantify the potential positive impact from the ban on so-called skill gaming machines on its existing HRM business in the state. “It requires local enforcement,” said CEO Bill Carstanjen.
“It wasn't a light switch,” he added. “The court case didn't come down and the next day we woke up to complete enforcement of the ban on skill games.”
“That's not what happened. Instead, the court case came down and that started a multi-month process of enforcement of closing those games across the different local jurisdictions in the state.”
The turn off: In Kentucky, meanwhile, Carstanjen noted that “it wasn’t a question of the legality” of skill gaming machines, it’s a “question of the boots on the ground to have them turned off and removed.”
He complained that in both Kentucky and Virginia, “these things have become ubiquitous.”
“They were pretty widely dispersed,” he said, adding that enforcement has just “taken time, and it's been lumpy.”
Token word – Myanmar bilk
Big man, pig man: A sole company out of a compound in Myanmar is believed to have bilked more than $100m in crypto from victims of romance scams inside two years.
Blockchain analysis experts Chainalysis, working with US anti-slavery group International Justice Mission (IJM), linked digital coins issued by Tether to a series of ‘pig butchering’ scams.
A single Chinese company reaped more than $100m in tokens with just two digital wallets, researchers found, having traced Tether’s stablecoin USDT from families of trafficked workers who were coerced into taking part in the scams to pay ransoms.
The Myanmar-based company hasn’t been identified in order to protect its workers, but investigators said it was inside KK Park, located near the border with Thailand and believed to house thousands of trafficked workers.
‘Pig butchering’ involves romantically ensnaring victims before pressuring them to make crypto transfers.
“Everyone has known for a long time that these kinds of scams are blockchain-based, but this is the first time we’ve been able to tie it to a specific location and a known compound,” said Eric Heintz, global analyst at the IJM.
Blame it on the Tether, man: Tether’s tokens are designed to track the value of the US dollar and are the currency of choice for criminal gangs operating across borders, particularly those operating from Southeast Asia, according to recent research by the UN’s vice squad.
Tether, which manages more than $100bn in assets, said it is working with authorities worldwide to prevent the illicit use of its token.
It said it has frozen $276m associated with pig butchering scams and blacklisted more than 1,300 crypto wallets.
The scammers leveraged Tether’s dollar peg and minimal fees on Tron’s blockchain to extract funds globally, Chainalysis said.
“This case is so illustrative of what’s happening, it’s just a vignette of what’s taking place on a [larger] scale,” added Jackie Burns Koven, Chainalysis’ head of cyber threat intelligence. “Once criminals realized it was traceable we thought they would stop using it, but they didn’t.”
Tron network founder Justin Sun was charged by US authorities in March last year for the alleged unregistered sale of securities and market manipulation.
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