Josh Andrews

Delaware Becomes First State to Launch Sports Betting

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Barely a month after the United States Supreme Court paved the way for nationwide legalized sports betting through a landmark ruling that lifted a federal ban on sports betting, Delaware has become the first state to launch sports betting. This move not only marks the dawn of a new era for both the gamblers and the operators but also gives a significant boost to legal sports betting in the country.

This began at 1.30 p.m. ET last Tuesday when the Delaware governor, John Carney, placed the first bet, wagering $10 on the Philadelphia Phillies to beat the Chicago Cubs.

Always Been Ready

The state had made prior preparation for the new development – during the duration of the federal ban, the state was already offering parlay betting. Launched in 2009, the parlay cards offered by the state were provided through the state lottery. In addition to this, Delaware also went ahead to build sportsbooks within its casinos in preparation for the inevitable lifting of the federal ban on sports betting.

When the state’s sports betting industry went live on Tuesday, three Delaware-based casinos – Delaware Park, Dover Downs and Harington Raceway – launched single-game wagering on NBA, MLB, NFL, and the World Cup. These will eventually be followed by sports betting offerings for others sports including college football, the NHL, and golf.

So Far So Good

Despite the absence of big game events such as Stanley Cup or even an NBA Finals game on the day Delaware sports betting went live, there was still plenty of betting action to go around. Vernon Kirk, the secretary of the Delaware state lottery reported that $322,135 was bet on sports at the state’s three casinos on the first day.

“For us, it’s really an enhancement of our tourism industry,” Governor John Carney told ESPN on Tuesday. “It will attract a lot of visitors to our state, particularly at this time of year, during the summer, coming to our beautiful beaches south of here. They come here and stop at the casinos and do slot machine and table gaming. This will be another opportunity for them.”

Projections from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, a research firm, anticipates that the amounts wagered on sports every year will be in the range of $350 million and $760 million – this is if online sports betting is implemented fully. Of these projections, the state will receive between $23.1 million and $49.6 million annually from both sportsbooks and online sports betting services.

Fortunately, according to the secretary of the state lottery, Delaware intends to offer internet and mobile sports betting products in the near future but first wanted to get the physical sportsbook off the ground before proceeding.

High School Esports Startup Receives Massive Investment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

One of the things that makes the flourishing world of Esports the marvel it is, is the colossal amount of enthusiasm the stakeholders have despite the deficiency of necessary infrastructure to support this enthusiasm. In essence, Esports is growing quite fast and thus the normal processes involved in the formation of regulatory bodies as well as other structures are bound to be outpaced.

Some of the people who have been affected most by this situation are high school students and their teachers who hope to participate in various Esports activities. Unlike many other similar activities, such as traditional sports where there are bodies to guide their actions, they have been forced to self-organize due to the lack of official bodies to guide them. However, this is all about to take a turn for the better.

PlayVS, a startup that specializes in building infrastructure to support high school Esports, has recently received a massive round of funding from a star-studded high profile investors including an assortment of venture capital groups, the San Francisco 49ers, hip-hop artist Nas, New York Jets’ Kelvin Beachum, Los Angeles Chargers’ Russel Okung, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin and NBA all-star Baron Davis.

According to a report by ESPN, the valuation of the company is now somewhere around $50 million. This gives PlayVS a better shot at achieving their goal of developing software to formalize high school Esports competitions. The platform serves as an all-in-one online portal for students and the administration in addition to being an access portal to a select number of some of the most popular Esports titles. The platform also allows for setting and scheduling of matches, tracking and collection of player stats, as well the auto-reporting of wins and losses to prevent cheating.

Working with the NFHS

As it stands, PlayVS is the only private company that is has been officially sanctioned by the National Federation of State High Schools (NFHS) which is a non-profit organization that publishes the rules for most high school sports and performing arts activities across the United States. The NFHS will be rolling out Esports exclusively on the PlayVS Web app and this extends the company’s reach to 19,500 high schools.

“Esports sort of has this task—this mountain task—to become multigenerational. If a sport has a strong and a stable high school system, then that sport typically not only has staying power but it also lasts for multiple generations at the pro level,” says Delane Parnell, the PlayVS founder and CEO. “With our funding, we can take all the steps necessary to ensure that our inaugural season is a massive success while being affordable for schools, parents, and students across the country.”

In October this year, PlayVS in, collaboration with the NFHS, will launch its inaugural season, a venture that will bring organized Esports to over 18 states and about 5 million students from 5,000 different high schools.

Experts Deem Google’s Crypto Ad Ban ‘Unethical’ and ‘Unfair’

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Earlier this year in March, Google announced that beginning June, this month, cryptocurrency-focused promotional content or advertisements would no longer be allowed on its platforms. The blanket crypto ban covers adverts advert for Initial Coin Offerings, wallet services, and exchange services among other related services.

Now that the ban is about to go into effect, the debate about the motives behind it has begun to heat up. While like other media tech companies like Twitter and Facebook, the ban is said to be a reaction to the perceived prevalence of crypto-related scams and fraudulent offers that have lately been on the rise.

Painting All Crypto with the Same Brush?

One of the biggest concerns, especially for startups, is the fact that the ban by Google, in essence, paints a general bad picture of the entire crypto industry. Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are an immensely popular means of fundraising for startups and as such, the bad press that will follow is certainly going to make fundraising very difficult for them.

“Unfortunately, the fact that this ban is a blanket ban will mean that legitimate cryptocurrency businesses which provide valuable services to users will be unfairly caught in the crossfire,” Ed Cooper, head of mobile at digital banking startup Revolut, said in an interview with The Independent. “A more targeted approach would definitely be preferable: it would seem heavy-handed for example to put a blanket ban on all ads for job postings, anti-virus software or charities just because ads for these products and service are also sometimes used as an entry point by scammers to target consumers.”

Many other stakeholders in the tech and cryptocurrency industries have pointed out that the ban’s motives are quite questionable particularly because it makes it seem like Google might just be overstepping its roles as an objective source of information.

Suspicion of Foul Play

As expected, the decision to ban cryptocurrency adverts is not going down well with cryptocurrency and blockchain technology proponents, some of whom now believe that there is some element of foul play.

“I understand that Facebook and Google are under a lot of pressure to regulate what their users are reading, but they are still advertising gambling websites and other unethical practices,” said Phillip Nunn, the chief executive of Blackmore Group, a cryptocurrency investment firm. “I suspect the ban has been implemented to fit in with potential plans to introduce their own cryptocurrency to the market in the near future and therefore removing other crypto adverts allows them to do it on their own terms.”

While this claim is quite frankly believable and fascinating, you might have to take it with a pinch of salt especially because there are a number of antitrust laws that make it unjustifiable. This should, however, not be the point of focus – it is clear that the inevitable legitimization of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies has begun taking shape hence the rush by mainstream tech companies to regulate it. How everything plays out, in the end, is more of a gamble though.

Spanish Online Poker Revenue Spike Amidst EU Liquidity Deal

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In January, both France and launched an effort to pool their online poker players so as to revive the industry following its decimation by some ring-fenced policies that both countries’ governments have adopted in the past. One of the effects of this development has been a significant spike in the Spanish online poker revenue in the first quarter of the year.

According to the first quarter financials that were released last week by Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ), the Spanish regulator, the total revenue for online gambling in the country hit a whopping $190.5 million – this, in comparison to the revenue statistics from the same period last year, represents a mind-blowing 28 percent revenue jump.

Sports betting boasted of the lion’s share of the profit having generated $95.3 million, which is nearly half the profit. This particular sector also went up 15.9 percent from the same period last year. However, when compared to the gains from online poker, the revenues from sports betting turn out not to be as impressive.

The country’s poker revenues hit a record $25 million, with the cash games actions going up 30 percent to $9.8 million. Tournament revenue went up by a whopping a 50.2 percent to $15.2 million. In addition to this, total expenditures on the Spanish cash games went up 19 percent while the tournaments went up 40.4 percent.

Is Shared Liquidity Paying Off?

From the revenue statistics, this appears to be the case. Spain is just the latest benefactor of the new shared liquidity agreement that comprises of four EU companies: Spain, France, Portugal, and Italy. France and Spain become the first to get into the agreement and the French online poker industry has also equally benefited from the agreement as there was an immediate improvement in the gross gaming revenue – it went up 8 percent in the first quarter of 2018.

Portugal joined the pool in early May and this, in turn, pushed the profits of the pool even higher. GameIntel reports that cash game traffic on the share liquidity online poker network saw a 27 percent boost in the first week of after Portugal joined in.

More Competition

Being the first online poker operator to share its Spanish, Portugal and French online poker players, PokerStars managed to get an early head start in the new shared liquidity landscape. However, this is bound to change very soon as now a number of new players are eyeing the lucrative opportunity that the share liquidity agreement presents.

Some of these online poker operators that are going to give PokerStars a run for its money are Winimax, which will kick off their offerings with Spain and France later this year, and PartyPoker which is expected to connect its Spanish and French poker player on June 4^.

DraftKings and Resorts Casino Strike Sports Betting Deal

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Boston-based daily fantasy sports leader DraftKings has recently announced a new partnership deal with Atlantic City’s Resorts Casino Hotel to offer sports betting services in New Jersey. The partnership agreement will see DraftKing enter the New Jersey market under Resorts Casino Hotel’s license.

The move marks the first of the likely string of state-level ventures that DraftKings has is reported to be considering in a bid to get a foothold in the brand new legal market that is set to grow rapidly after the recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down the federal ban on sports betting.

As for New Jersey, the daily fantasy sports operator has hinted its entry into that particular market for quite some time – the company had already begun hiring sportsbook staff even before the United States Supreme Court ruling was made. In addition to that, the company opened an office in Hoboken that currently houses the sportsbook staff as well as other employees who were hired in the past couple of weeks.

“Everybody knows there’s a big opportunity out there. It’s a new thing, so people are trying to see how they want to go about it, who they want to partner with. Anytime you’ve got a big market about to be created, there’s so much opportunity out there that everyone should benefit, as long as you do it the right way,” said Jason Robins, the DraftKings chief executive. “We are excited to work with Resorts Hotel Casino to bring our new DraftKings sportsbook to New Jersey. As a tech savvy and a long-term growth-oriented organization, Resorts Hotel Casino aligns perfectly with our customer-focused, innovation culture.”

This pairing reflects the scramble that is beginning to materialize among gambling operators, bookmakers, and technology companies as they try to position themselves well enough to get a share of the nascent sports betting market. A similar deal was made a few weeks ago when Paddy Power Betfair, a European bookmaker merged with FanDuel, one of the other popular United States-based daily fantasy sports providers and DraftKings’ biggest rival.

During the press release where the announcement was made, Drafkings mentioned that it be offering both mobile and web-based sports betting services. However, there was no mention of the technology that the company will be using to achieve this.

Still, Resorts Casino Hotel has welcomed the partnership as it presents a new revenue stream and will probably give the casino a foothold in the sports betting market as well.

“We are at a pivotal moment in the development of sports betting in the U.S.,” said Morris Bailey, the owner of Resorts Casino Hotel in the press release. “We are delighted to be able to have DraftKings utilize our gaming license in New Jersey. DraftKings continues to be at the forefront of sports entertainment innovation, and today’s announcement is the first step in being able to offer customers in New Jersey the most dynamic sports betting platform.”

Esports Betting Already Enticing Criminal Fixers

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Esports just like any other sports is unanimous with betting and as always, where there is gambling money, vices are not far behind. Putting into consideration the approximately 380 million people who will watch Esports games and tournaments this year, it is very likely that Esports fixers are already looking devising ways to get the best out of what is now the fastest growing sports in the world.

According to iNews, Esports bets will inevitably go over the $45 billion mark this year, a sum that is bound to attract the attention of fixers. Already, a number of Esports players and fixers have already, been banned and, in some cases, even imprisoned for cases of match-fixing. Similarly, last year, the Esports Integrity Coalition is reported to have received 39 suspicious betting reports with at least 13 of them being genuine fixes.

Apparently, no game is harder to detect fixing in than Esports since it is a product of geography, technology as well as its relative newness. About 15 percent of traditional sports betting in the world is fully legal and this makes it rather easy for anti-fraud and anti-fixing bodies to trace and follow betting patterns in order to identify game fixing. On the other hand, only 4 percent of Esports betting in the world is fully legal.

According to Ian Smith, the head of the Esports Integrity Coalition, the low numbers are partially due to the fact that Esports is most popular in East Asian countries like South Korea and China, where, as it turns out, traditional sports betting is illegal. Even in the United States where Esports has been going nowhere but up, 99 percent of Esports betting is illegal, even though with the recent Supreme Court ruling that revoked a federal ban on sports betting. Still, all these factors make match-fixing in Esports very hard to detect and even when detected, just as impossible to track.

Is Regulation the Answer?

New Esports games are constantly being invented and popularizes and this makes it harder to ascertain what should and what should not be regulated. This is unlike the cases with traditional sports where there is an abundance of history and data that can be used to inform anti-fixing bodies about criminal activities of this kind.

“If you get an alert in say cricket you can be reasonably certain – 80 or 90 percent – that there is something wrong,” explained Ian Smith. “In eSports, it’s kind of the opposite – because it’s all a little bit chaotic and new and changeable, about 90 percent of alerts don’t mean anything and only 10 percent do.”

The main takeaway here is that the institutional weakness of Esports makes it particularly susceptible to match-fixing simply because we still do not have a universally accepted governing body for the activity. The formation of such a body is perhaps the only way to keep the rapidly growing Esports ecosystem from being a serious criminal enterprise.

IMF Official Urges Central Banks to Compete With Crypto

Reading Time: 2 minutes

International Monetary Fund (IMF) deputy director, Dong He, on Thursday published an article that is meant to nudge the central banks to work on measures geared towards making fiat currencies “more attractive in the digital age.” Dong He believes that crypto may someday reduce the demand for central bank money and, therefore, these banks should consider adopting concepts to obstruct the competitive pressure that cryptocurrencies are already exerting on fiat currencies.

IMF’s stance when it comes to cryptocurrencies has not been particularly reassuring especially when it comes to the future of these digital assets. In an event in March, IMF Chief Christine Lagarde advised supervisors to prepare technical elements that would assist them in “fighting fire with fire.”

The deputy director reiterated this thought and outline his view that, at the moment, cryptocurrencies and other crypto assets have more adoption. Consequentially, the central banks are bound to eventually lose their command and influence on the economy, which is usually through strategies like interest rate charges.

“Second, government authorities should regulate the use of crypto assets to prevent regulatory arbitrage and any unfair competitive advantage crypto assets may derive from tighter regulation,” he pointed out. “That means rigorously applying measures to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism, strengthening consumer protection, and effectively taxing crypto transactions.”

Dong He further pointed out some of the viable alternatives that the banks could adopt. These include the idea of the central banks moving to create their own digitized assets or digital currencies that could be exchanged in a peer-to-peer fashion, just like it is done for other cryptocurrencies.

“For example, they could make central bank money user-friendly in the digital world by issuing digital tokens of their own to supplement physical cash and bank reserves. Such central bank digital currency could be exchanged, peer to peer in a decentralized manner, much as crypto assets are,” a related excerpt from the article reads.

Already, a number of banks have been researching ways to implement such a move but there have been a number of setbacks, one of the most prominent being divergent opinions on whether such a move would pay off or not.

According to the deputy director, the central banks can actually profit from the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies – monetary policymaking will, without a doubt, benefit from such kind of technology by improving the banks’ forecasts using big data, machine learning, and, of course, artificial intelligence.

“Central banks should continue to strive to make fiat currencies better and more stable units of account. The best response by central banks to crypto is to continue running effective monetary policy while being open to fresh ideas and new demands, as economies evolve,” he noted. “That means rigorously applying measures to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism, strengthening consumer protection, and effectively taxing crypto transactions.”

Russian’s Minister of Sports Acknowledges Growth of Esports

Reading Time: 2 minutes

For the first time since it was launched in 1997, the St. Petersburgh International Economic Forum, an annual business event, included a dedicated Esports panel session. The session gathered a number of representatives of the state, sports, business and infrastructure organizations among other stakeholders in the development of Russian Esports.

Titled ‘Cybersport: Global Trends in Sports and Business’, the session involved discussions from a number of big industry names including:

Emin Antonyan, Secretary General, Chairman of the Executive Board, Russian Esports Federation
Ilya Galaev, President, VFSO Trudovye Rezervy
Roman Dvoryankin, General Manager, Virtus.pro
Nail Izmailov, Vice President, FC Spartak Moscow
Aleksandr Prokopyev, Deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, Member of the Committee on Physical Culture, Sport, Tourism, and Youth Affairs
Neil Sturrock, President of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Caucasus and Central Asia, PepsiCo
Anton Cherepennikov, Director, Member of the Board of Directors, ESforce Holding

The moderator, in this case, was Match TV general producer Tinatin Kendalaki. Also present was the Minister of Sport of the Russian Federation, Pavel Kolobkov though he spoke at a separate session. During the said session, the minister pointed out that he believes that Esports is a legitimate sports discipline, especially because like traditional sports, it involves rules, training methodology and tournament systems. He, however, made it clear that he was of the opinion that Esports will not be replacing sports but instead flourish alongside them.

According to the Esports observer, the government of Russia has expressed a lot of keenness to work with the Esports industry to regulate Esports development in Russian. Pavel Kolobkov acknowledged that the Russian Esports sphere is developing quickly and thus the government needs to work on implementing some legal boundaries to regulate it.

“We had a long discussion, and I believe that we made the right choice because it does not matter whether the government or somebody else recognizes Esports as a sport,” Kolobkov said. “It was recognized by the society. By people who are making it. Our task is to regulate it and put in some legal boundaries, allow it to develop under our control, along with the government, along with us. That is why I am sure that at this moment one can say that Esports is quite an established sphere.”

Russia was the first country to officially recognize Esports way back in 2001 – in fact, Esports was included in the list of sports that were officially recognized and existed in the country. This was, however, followed by a period of complication that saw the activity scraped from the list twice after the restructuring of the Ministry of Sports. Everything eventually went back to normal towards the end of 2017 with Esports players now being able to earn official sporting grades just like other players of traditional sports.

MGM Resorts to Acquire New York-Based Casino and Race Track

Reading Time: 2 minutes

MGM Resorts International has announced that it has entered into an agreement to buy the real estate property and the operations associated with the Empire City Casino’s casino and racetrack for about $850 million. The acquisition is part of MGM Resorts International’s plans to penetrate the high-density New York City market, enhance the company’s free cash flow profile while at the same time opening doors for some attractive opportunities in the future.

“We are excited to announce the addition of Empire City to the MGM Resorts portfolio,” said Jim Murren, the Chairman, and CEO of MGM Resorts International. “This acquisition represents an excellent opportunity to further solidify our presence on the East Coast, and in particular, expand our reach into the high-density New York City region. We believe this transaction enhances our free cash flow profile and presents attractive future opportunities for the Company, and we look forward to welcoming the Empire City team and guests to the MGM Resorts family.”

The Empire City Casino is known for being the sixth largest gaming floor in the United States with about 8 million visitors every year. It also boasts of a workforce of over 1,200 people employed to tend to its over 5,200 slots machines and electronic games, numerous dining outlets as well both its live and simulcast horse racing.

“With Empire City’s approximately 40 percent share of gross gaming revenues in the market, we believe there are significant opportunities for MGM Resorts to further drive growth,” commented Dan D’Arrigo, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of MGM Resorts International. “We believe the transaction will be value-accretive within its first year of closing, with incremental revenue synergies expected to support growth in 2020 and beyond.”

The property that is to be acquired by MGM Resorts has been under the ownership of the Rooney family for the past 46 years. In 2017, the family made an announcement that it had hired JP Morgan Securities LLC in a bid to “explore strategic alternatives, including the possible sale of the property.” As it turns out, the sale was a culmination of the study that was carried out by JP Morgan.

“Our vision for this property has always been to develop it into one of the world’s greatest entertainment destinations,” Tim Rooney, Sr., president, and CEO of Empire City said. “We have been a partner of New York State and its communities for 46 years, and it was important to us that we identify an entity that could build on the strong foundation we have established and bring our vision to fruition.”

MGM Resorts Still Has Sights on Bridgeport

Despite the lucrative nature of this acquisition, MGM Resorts has confirmed that it will also keep pursuing the development of a casino in Bridgeport. The operator proposes the establishment of a casino in Bridgeport last year and even went as far as announcing plans to push the state legislature to establish a competitive bidding process for a commercial casino license. The legislature did no such thing by the time it adjourned but MGM remains hopeful that it will eventually go through at some point this year.

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Could Soon Receive Major Update

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Lightning Network is perhaps one of the biggest advancements in the Bitcoin ecosystem. As we have witnessed over the past few months, the network has facilitated thousands of new payment channels which points to the fact that it is indeed a significant step forward towards the mass adoption and mainstream use of cryptocurrencies.

A couple of months ago, the Lightning Network did not seem to be as promising as it is now – only 89 channels existed as of January 19th. This, to some people, was an indication of the unfeasibility if the scaling solution while a few others considered it be the lack of adoption due to the unfinished state of the technology at the time. However, as of May 24, the number of channels in the Lightning Network had grown to over 6,600 direct connections. Though in comparison to the mainstream financial sector this is rather small, it certainly proves that there is genuine interest in the initiative.

Even though the lightning network is just beginning to make waves in the bitcoin ecosystem, its developers are already planning to re-architect the technology. But why? Well, while the network has been touted as a significant boost to bitcoin’s capacity, it requires its users to store a significant amount of data that makes it rather difficult to download and run. To solve this problem, the lightning developers, including ‘Lightning Labs co-founder ‘Laolu’ Osuntokun and Blockstream’s Christian Decker and Rusty Russell, have recently published a new proposal which imagines a simplified alternative way of making off-chain transactions – this will be known as eltoo.

The new proposal is also intended not only to condense the amount of data that the network’s users are required to store but to also keep the users’ digital currencies safe – all the data that is currently stored poses a series problem, in that, in case a user accidentally broadcasts older data, they might end up losing money.

Eltoo, the proposed upgrade, on the other hand, only stores the most recent off-chain transaction data. This solves the well-known “information asymmetry” problem. Decker has been very keen on pursuing the project since he has been affected by the problem himself.

“This actually happened to me,” he said. “I had an old lightning node on my laptop. I restored it. I didn’t know I didn’t have the newest state. The guy closed the connection because they knew it was an old state! Because he could steal it. Which he did, by the way.”
“With eltoo, we reduce the risk of funds being swept away. We remove this toxic information,” he added.

He also pointed out that the proposal’s name is a joke of sorts – ‘eltoo’ is the phonetic spelling of “L2” that stands for “layer-two”, which is what people call technologies like the Lighting Network which take transactions off-chain.