What a carry on
New Gambling Survey stats misused by campaigners
Club to beat the UK industry predictably wielded by anti-gambling lobby.
In +More: Chinese welcome Philippines POGO ban, New Zealand license iCasino.
The UAE goes live with regulator details, issues lottery license.
Churchill Downs CEO urges cooperation against ‘nefarious’ skill gaming.
Nebraskans might get to vote on OSB in November.
You just can't believe me, when I show you what you cannot see.
State of confusion
Carry on regardless: As night follows day, predictably the anti-gambling campaigners and their supporters in the press were quick to seize upon the data from the UK Gambling Commission’s new Gambling Survey for Great Britain to suggest a huge leap in the number of people displaying problem gambling issues.
Lies, damned lies and…: Gambling With Lives was first out of the blocks with a press release headlined ‘New official figures show gambling harm massively underestimated.’
“These figures show what many of us already knew, that the harms caused by gambling have been massively underestimated, with millions of people in the UK affected,” said Gambling With Lives founder Charles Ritchie.
“The number of people that have considered or attempted to take their own lives confirms the appalling scale of suicides happening now.”
Will Prochaska from the Coalition Against Gambling Ads said, without any supporting evidence, that the caveats about the new data came after “industry pressure.”
Reverse ferret: Having initially run with a headline suggesting “Harm from problem gambling in Great Britain ‘may be eight times higher than thought’”, The Guardian subsequently published a correction noting that the comparison with previous figures was wrong.
The paper noted GC’s specification that the new figures shouldn't be used to provide direct comparisons with results from prior gambling or health surveys.
The Betting and Gaming Council said on X that the correction was “welcome” given the Observer/Guardian’s “consistent anti-gambling stance.”
Snow-job: In a blog entitled ‘Gambling with numbers’, Christopher Snowden pulled apart the survey methodology and suggested the failure of the campaigners to follow the GC guidance was predictable.
“Have campaigners and the media used the estimates with caution? Reader, they have not,” he wrote.
The Betting and Gaming Council also issued a comment on the unreliability of much of the survey. “Our members are concerned these findings may be unreliable because there is a significant risk GSGB overstates gambling participation and gambling related harm,” the BG statement read.
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Chinese welcome: The Chinese embassy in Manila responded positively to Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s move to end the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator regime and ban all operators as of the end of this year.
“We believe this decision echoes the call of the Philippine people and serves the common interests of people of both countries,” said the Chinese diplomatic office in the Philippines.
It went on to say that the POGO regime “breeds serious crimes and gravely undermines the interests of both Philippine and Chinese peoples.”
Meanwhile, the speaker of the Philippines House of Representatives, Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, has called for the swift implementation of the ban and has reportedly instructed the House leadership to draw up its plans and ensure swift legislative approval.
Further reading: AGB on a new report that tracks how a Chinese-facing illegal bookie continues to operate.
The New Zealand government has agreed to a licensing system for online casinos. In outlining the measures, minister of internal affairs, Brooke van Velden, said operators will need to comply with a set of criteria before they will be able to offer services.“It will be illegal for unlicensed operators to offer services to New Zealanders,” she added.
“This is not intended to increase the amount of gambling New Zealanders do but to ensure operators meet requirements for consumer protection and harm minimisation, as well as paying tax.”
Crown dependency: The Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission has canceled the online gambling licenses of King Gaming and Dalmine. This follows on from their suspensions in late April following police raids on King’s offices on the island. The cancellation is effective immediately.
Play-gonna: Live casino provider Playgon and its affiliate Bitrate Productions have received a cease-and-desist order from the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The Control Board says Bitrate is supplying live dealer games from Las Vegas on its global platform and doesn’t have correct licensing from the Nevada Gaming Commission.
New minister: The new Labour government has appointed Fiona Twycross as minister for gambling, working under minister for sport, media, civil society and youth Stephanie Peacock.
New York: A survey from long-time gaming proponent Senator Joe Addabbo found 44% of voters in his Senate District 15 were in favor of iCasino vs. 33% against and with 23% undecided. In comparison, there was 56% support for legalized prostitution.
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Kill the skill
Rage against the machines: Churchill Downs CEO Bill Carstanjen took the opportunity of the company’s Q2 earnings call to blast the attempts by skill-gaming operators to circumvent state gaming laws with machines which Carstanjen suggested were definitively illegal.
“I think there is a theme in certain states and in certain parts of the country of sort of bald-faced attempts to try to skirt gaming laws to introduce gaming products,” he said.
Pull together: He said that it was up to the company and the state authorities in question, notably in Kentucky and Virginia where Churchill Downs operates, to work together to deal with the issue. He said it will take “vigilance” on all sides to watch for “egregious violations” of state law.
He noted that “nefarious operators” were utilizing “nonsensical theories” about why these games were “some form of skill” for why they should be legal.
“We've seen some of that in Kentucky,” he added. “You see it in different states. It is now part of the rhythm of a gaming company like ours to be vigilant with respect to those.
A mere flesh wound: But he reassured the analysts on the call that the threat shouldn’t be overblown. “I wouldn't describe it as something we need to call out as a massive additional threat or close to legalization or something like that.
“It’s just part of the landscape and it takes lots of work and communication with local authorities to point it out and to ensure that it’s getting the proper focus it deserves from law enforcement.”
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It’s in the game
We are go: The process of opening up the United Arab Emirates to gambling has taken a leap forward after the country’s General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA) launched its website and announced the name of the operator behind the new national lottery.
“A public website is a key marker and a potential sentiment-changer,” said the analysts at CBRE.
“This should further alleviate skepticism in the investment community regarding legalized commercial gaming in the UAE.”
Plans afoot: Recall, the news of the intention to form a new gambling authority came in September last year when the UAE announced it had appointed ex-MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren to head up the new body while the CEO is to be Kevin Mullally, former head of government affairs at GLI.
The potential for the UAE to open up to gambling has been pre-figured by Wynn Resorts, which is in the process of constructing a $3.9bn integrated resort at Al Marjan Island in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.
Got game: However, ahead of any mega-resort news, it is the lottery that will be the first regulated activity in the Emirates as the authority announced that a local company called The Game, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based company Momentum, had won the concession to run the ‘UAE Lottery.’
“We’ve held the view that the lottery is a natural first course of legalized gaming given its prior gray market operation and customer acceptance,” said the CBRE team.
“Despite the first license being awarded to a local company, we don’t believe anything precludes opportunities for larger international lottery operators to forge local partnerships, which is common in other global lottery jurisdictions.”
What’s missing: The CBRE team notes that there is a lack of detail on the key economic details such as GGR tax rates. However, they say they have identified some useful information regarding the licensing framework.
Security of tenure: Notably, the team suggests that it appears gaming licenses could be perpetual, provided the operators remain compliant. “Although there seems to be an initial term with a license expiration, the license renewal process appears more administrative in nature,” they added.
This, CBRE suggested, would make the UAE licensing environment more akin to Nevada rather than the concession models in Macau and Singapore.
“If this is the case, we believe public investors could assign higher valuation multiples to UAE commercial gaming operations relative to jurisdictions with less predictable or more competitive renewal procedures.”
Nebraska ballot initiative
Cornhusker do: Legislation to permit sports betting in Nebraska has been introduced, and may appear on the ballot in November. Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen last week said a priority bill legalizing online sports betting was in the works for the regular legislative session next year.
“Online sports betting is real and it’s happening in the state,” he said. “Whoever wants to do it is doing it, and we’re giving all the revenue to our neighbors.”
The first step: Figures by geolocation experts GeoComply estimate around 2m bets were placed illegally in the state between January and June of this year. Pillen said a special session this week would help take “steps necessary to ensure any such program which requires a constitutional amendment be printed on the November 2024 ballot.”
This would cover legalization and taxation of online sports betting.
No hesitation: Last week, a constitutional amendment was published that paves the way to put the matter to voters later this year. If the bill passes, the public could vote to allow sports betting to be legalized and taxed two years earlier than via the usual legislative route.
Lynne McNally, government policy specialist for WarHorse Casino and the Nebraska Horsemen, said a delay until 2026 could cause the state to miss out on $100m in revenue.
“We agree that property taxes in the state of Nebraska are far too high, and anything that we can do to help be part of the solution, we’d be proud of doing that,” McNally said.
History lesson: Recall, in 2020, Nebraska voters legalized sports betting and casino gambling at the state’s horse racing tracks only. A separate bill introduced by lawmakers proposes to permit paid-entry fantasy contests throughout Nebraska.
Calendar
Aug 12-14: Oklahoma Indian Gaming Conference
Sep 24: Player Protection, SBC Summit, Lisbon
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