Josh Andrews

Sweden to Tighten Grasp on Online Gambling with New Measures

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The Swedish government is hoping to implement tighter regulatory oversight for online gambling in the country through proposed legislation that if passed will take effect in 2019. The proposed new legislation is meant to institute a revamped licensing system, establish stronger prohibitions against illegal operation as well as instate more effective consumer protection measures. According to an official press release by the Swedish government, the proposed measures will introduce a fee of nearly $84,000 for both an online casino license and a sports betting license.

The issue of unregulated online gambling in Sweden has been a major concern for the country’s government for a very long time. Ardalan Shekarabi, Sweden’s Public Administration minister spoke about this in a recent interview where he emphasized that new regulatory measures needed to be put in place.

“Unregulated gambling has taken over and gambling is used in criminal activities. It is 14 years since the first in a line of gambling inquiries was appointed. It is now time for us to move from words to actions and regain control of the Swedish gambling market. We are reinforcing the Swedish Gambling Authority, granting it more and sharper tools. Unlicensed operators will be shut out of the market and license-holders must conduct their activities in accordance with the law,” he said.

The minister and other officials have also affirmed that the new regulations would go a long way in ensuring higher levels of consumer protection. For instance, all online gambling operators will be required to offer the players the choice of excluding themselves. Similarly, the operators will be restricted to offering bonuses on only the first deposits.

Furthermore, if the proposed measures that are currently being considered in the Swedish capital are passed online gambling operators will be prohibited from marketing their wares in the Swedish market. The measures would also give Sweden’s gaming operator the power to order the country’s local internet service providers to display warning messages on sites that are not licensed and block any associated online payments.

The proposed legislation would also introduce a new “gambling fraud” criminal offense which would, in turn, lead to the establishment of a government commission for the sole purpose of handling instances of match-fixing.

New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware to Share Poker Liquidity

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Great news for regulated online poker in the United States! Players from the states of New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada will soon be able to compete against each other as from May 1 according to Associated Press. Recent rumors pertaining to liquidity sharing between the three states was confirmed with the first implementations involving renowned poker operators 888Poker and WSOP NJ.

“This has been a huge collaborative effort from all involved and it is important to thank the elected leadership and regulatory authorities in Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey for their dedication and diligence to help move online poker forward,” said WSOP’s head of online poker Bill Rini. “Everyone has had the end user in mind throughout this process, and as a result, we believe the United States, for the first time in a regulated environment, will have a large-scale multi-state offering that will propel the industry forward as soon as next month.”

A deal between New Jersey and Nevada was announced last year and hence it is long overdue but the timing could not be better since it still is, by all means, a historic arrangement for the two most popular regulated casino gambling markets in the United States. Furthermore, it presents a big boost for the Nevada and Delaware casino markets – the two states’ population are rather small, that is, Delaware has under one million while Nevada has three million. The inclusion of the New Jersey will certainly improve the statistics of all three state’s online poker industries.

The report further mentioned that online poker players in Nevada and Delaware will, however, be required to download new software and set up new accounts if they want to play against players from New Jersey. This means that existing Nevada and Delaware online poker software will become obsolete once the liquidity sharing process begins.

More States Could Join

Pennsylvania is the fourth state to legalize regulated online poker and it is now awaiting online poker applications which means that online poker in the Keystone State could be a reality by the end of 2018. Hopefully, Pennsylvania could join the other three states in the concerted effort to grow and nurture multi-state online poker which will create a market of nearly 26 million people. On the same note, a number of other states including New York and Connecticut are considering legalizing regulated online poker this year and they too could join in and expand the player pool further.

Microsoft Store Teams Up with ESL to Open Esports Academy

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Microsoft has hopped on the Esports bandwagon by teaming up with Electronic Sports League (ESL) to launch a sports academy at one of Microsoft’s stores in Sydney, Australia. This initiative gives Sydney based Esports enthusiasts an opportunity to learn about the industry by signing up for the Esports Academy that will run from Monday, April 16 to Sunday, April 22.

The Esports Academy will help students who wish pursue careers in Esports to realize this dream by imparting them knowledge about actual Esports gaming as well as the nitty-gritty details of the business element of Esports. There will be appearances from a number of Esports players from Australia’s thriving Esports scene – they will teach the academy’s students all that they need to know about the Esports ecosystem.

“We see a lot of excitement and engagement around video games at the Microsoft Store, from casual gamers to some of the players that attend our regular tournaments and competitions,” said the Microsoft Store’s Gaming Community Manager, Max Ferfoglia. “This event is all about bringing the gaming community at Microsoft Store together with some of the top talent in Australia so people can learn more about Esports, how to improve their game and also hear about the pathways that exist to get into the industry.”
“We wanted to give the gamers the kind of opportunities we never had when we were trying to go pro.”

Even though it will only run for a week, the Esports Academy will give the participants the required knowledge which is much more important in the competitive electronic gaming scene. The three-hour sessions will include lessons on understanding networking, the various roles available in Esports as well as an open pitching session and a Q&A session. At the end of the session, the attendees will be required to plan a hypothetical tournament to any scale they wish.

This program is, of course, not even close to formalized education but it will go a long way in imparting valuable networking opportunities for the students. Hopefully, since it is a pilot project, it will be successful enough to spawn more similar initiatives in Sydney and many other parts of the globe. Meanwhile, interested Esports lovers in Sydney can sign up here.

U.S. Player Associations Weigh In on Sports Betting Debate

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The major professional league associations in the US have finally broken the silence as the country awaits the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that is likely to legalize nationwide sports betting. The unions, which include the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA), and the Major League of Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA) have joined together to insist on being included in discussions pertaining to the legalization of sports betting. This announcement was released via a joint statement that was meant to make public the position of the union with regards to the matter at hand.

The joint effort by the unions is specifically geared towards ensuring that any new laws put players’ rights and integrity into consideration regardless of their respective sports affiliations. As outlined in the statement, the players’ associations concerns revolve around the profits that sports betting would bring as well as the potential costs of such arrangements.

The joint statement further revealed that the unions had discussed the potential impacts of legalized sports betting on players’ privacy and the security. Another key focus for the discussion was the integrity of the games. Still, the main takeaway from the recent development is the fact that the associations share the belief that lobbyist groups are not the only stakeholders and thus should not be the only participants in the process of legalizing sports betting.

The associations are calling for the inclusion of athletes in the discussions so as to ensure that the rights of the players are upheld and the integrity of the games remain intact when sports betting finally becomes a reality.

“Given the pending Supreme Court decision regarding PASPA representatives of the MLBPA, NBPA, NFLPA and NHLPA have been working together on the legal, commercial, practical, and human consequences of allowing sports betting to become mainstream,” the joint statement read. “Betting on sports may become widely legal, but we cannot allow those who have lobbied the hardest for sports gambling to be the only ones controlling how it would be ushered into our businesses. The athletes must also have a seat at the table to ensure that players’ rights and the integrity of our games are protected.”

There have been raging debates for some time now with regards to ensuring the integrity of games intact. So far, the MLB and the NBA have been the most vocal – both have proposed that a 1 percent integrity free from the overall betting revenue should be paid to the leagues. Fortunately, while this legislation has been met with equal amounts of support and opposition, the leagues might just get what they want after all. Case in point, the New York Senate recently passed a legislation that requires a 0.25 percent fee to be paid out to the player leagues.

Bitcoin Declared “Generally Permissible” Under Islamic Law

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Yesterday, the value of Bitcoin went from $6,962.6 to $7,720.27 in less than one hour sparking a whole lot of speculations, one being that the price surge had something to do with an Indonesia-based startup’s report. In the report that was published in Thursday, April 12 press release, Blossom Finance, the fintech startup, concluded that bitcoin is “generally permissible” or “halal” under Sharia law. This conclusion was made in conjunction with the startup’s internal Sharia advisor.

Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in the world with over 1.6 billion devoted Muslims. For the longest time, the adoption of cryptocurrencies has been a rather grey area for Muslims around the world – this is because Muslims are forbidden from using currencies that do not have any intrinsic value and lending money with high-interest rates, a practice known as usury.

With the recent massive worldwide adoption of cryptocurrencies, Muslims were left behind as they were forbidden from staking claims in the crypto space – not anymore.

“In Germany, Bitcoin is recognized as a legal currency and therefore qualifies as Islamic money in Germany. In countries such as the US, Bitcoin lacks official legal monetary status but is accepted for payment at a variety of merchants, and therefore qualifies as Islamic customary money,” Mufti Muhammad Abu Bakar, an Islamic scholar and Blossom Finance’s Sharia advisor wrote in a paper he published to address the issue.
“Bitcoin is permissible in principle as bitcoin is treated as valuable by market price on global exchanges and it is accepted for payment at a wide variety of merchants. Moreover, many private individuals accept bitcoin as a medium of exchange in their private transactions,” the study adds.

What This Means

While many people agree that the assumption that bitcoin’s price surge might be purely speculative, even more people believe that it was largely due to the crypto market finally opening up to the Islam community who account for about a quarter of the world’s population. In fact, the assumption is justifiably reasonable especially considering how the digital currency’s price has been affected in one way or the other by external entities such as media outlets.

Not long after the paper was published, over a billion dollars in trades were initiated across nearly all the cryptocurrency exchanges which subsequently saw bitcoin’s price increase sharply over a very short period – less than an hour to be more precise. Bitcoin has proven time and time again that it is not going away any time soon and the adoption by the Muslim community is certainly another step in the right direction for the entire crypto community.

Rivalry Academy Launched to Educate Esports Bettors

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Since it was launched earlier this year in February, Rivalry.gg has proven to be a formidable force in the Esports gambling arena thanks to its holistic approach in offering services that have made it a one-stop-shop for Esports bettors. In addition to this, the operator has a number of new, exciting and engaging developments in the pipeline.

One of these developments is ‘Rivalry Academy,’ the betting platform’s in-house tool that bettors can use to learn and tone their understanding of Esports gambling. This is certainly a noble move for the relatively young company and thus it may be quite helpful to the company’s overall business.

Creating Guidelines for Bettors

The Rivalry.gg team realized that betting is often intimidating for new and uninitiated – the lengthy spread of odds are sometimes overwhelming and may even be compounded by sub-par bookmarker experience. The team’s solution to this problem was creating their own betting guidelines from scratch.

“It’s terrifying depositing money into something you barely understand. It takes a fair amount of research for non-bettors to be comfortable enough to bet. We created the Rivalry Academy to help with that process. We want to provide clear and concise guidance so that customers are comfortable with betting and how it all works,” Kevin Wimer, Chief Marketing Officer at Rivalry.gg told Esports Insider.

Just like Rivalry.gg, the Rival Academy website features a nicely polished user interface as well as a plethora of other user-friendly qualities. This goes directly in line with what the site’s major focus is: to help bettors understand the parameters of betting and help improve their chances of winning.

Navigating as you progress through the various stages of learning is also quite easy as the guides are broken down into neat segments in both written and video formats each of which is accompanied with real examples. This definitely hits the operator’s target of being clear and concise. However, the stand-out traits of the educational offering are brevity and effectiveness – the language used possesses a friendly that gives learners the feeling that they are learning from seasoned bettors who happen to be their close friends.

“We’re esports fans that have created a betting site. We had to learn all of this ourselves not too long ago. This has resulted in the Rivalry Academy being very authentic and conversational,” Wimmer added. “For people brand new to betting, the Rivalry Academy helps to give a basic foundation and understanding of how betting works. We also have a few videos aimed towards people that know their way around but are looking to learn some more advanced techniques to help give them the edge.”

As the Esports betting market and the Esports industry as a whole keep expanding there have been concerns pertaining to betting education. As such, Rivalry has made itself a champion for its customers by serving as a complete bedrock for betting as well as a proactive participant in betting education.

Copycat Lawsuits Piling Up Against Social Casino Operators

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A slew of lawsuits have begun piling up against Washington State social gambling operators in the wake of a federal court ruling which found that Big Fish Casino which was previously owned by Churchill Downs violated Washington State gaming laws. All these copycat lawsuits hope to capitalize on the recent court ruling and state laws that govern and regulate online gambling.

As of Monday, Geekwire reports that four lawsuits had already been filed against four other social gaming operators namely High 5 Games, Playtika, DoubleDown Interactive and Huuge Games. Each of these operators offers a series of casino games like blackjack, slots, and roulette that use virtual chips. These chips have no monetary value but players must have them in order to play. Therefore, when players run out of the chips, they can either opt to wait until the game offers more free chips or buy a huge number of chips with real money and get back to playing.

All four suits further user similar language and arguments in their filings which also happen to be centre around the same arguments of the Big Fish Casino case. This takes advantage of a vague clause in Washington state law that backed the idea that the chips represent “something of value” even though they are not worth any money on their own.

“Double Down Casino games are illegal gambling games because they are online games at which players wager things of value (the chips) and by an element of chance (e.g., by spinning an online slot machine) are able to obtain additional entertainment and extend gameplay (by winning additional chips),” states one of the suits.

All these cases including the Big Fish casino case that preceded them are very likely to have major implications for the casual casino games market as a number of social casino gaming providers today depend on in-app purchases as revenue sources. The lawsuits represent an emerging backlash against this model. Already, online gambling lawsuits are becoming fairly common but the tide turned in favour of the petitioners and this opened the door for similar occurrences in the near future.

Playing It Safe

Again, following the Big Fish Casino ruling, PokerStars became one of the first social gambling operators to stop offering free play games in an effort adhere to the terms outlined by the March 28 Court of Appeals decision. According to the Washington State Gambling Commission press release, PokerStars opted out of the state’s online gambling industry. The gambling commission however assured the public that it had nothing to with this move by the online gaming operator:

“We are not a party to the civil court case, we did not testify in the case, and we did not order these sites to discontinue free online play for Washington residents. Customers with concerns should contact these websites directly,” reads the April 4 press release.

PokerStars’ parent company, The Stars Group, released a statement shortly after saying that the company was “reviewing the rulings and ensuring that our activities are in line with state regulations.” The company also said that it would reinstate players to their status before the free game offerings were altered once the law is clarified.

New York Online Poker Bill Back on the State Assembly Table

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It has been just a few weeks since the New York State Senate passed a budget which excluded plans for legalized online poker or online casinos. This was a presumably clear indication that the proposed bill represented nothing more than a pipe dream but, apparently, a recent Online Poker Report story suggests otherwise. The legalized online poker legislation still has a good shot at getting passed this year.

At the helm of the rejuvenated efforts is New York State Assemblyman Clyde Vanel who has called for the involvement of New York poker activists as he prepares to solicit for votes to support legislation that will finally allow for legal and regulated real money online poker in the state.

At the moment, the bill has 13 co-sponsors but Vanel expects it swell its ranks to “60 to 70 sponsors.” If this is truly the case, then bill A 5250 that was proposed by Assemblyman Gary Pretlow in a bid to legalize online poker, might finally be passed in the course of the year.

“Chairman Pretlow is a great champion for it, and now he has the partners to bring it through,” Vanel said in an interview with Online Poker Report. “The next few weeks will show some traction for the bill. With enough co-sponsors, I like it to get out of committee and onto the floor. I think we have a good shot at getting it through this year. My job is that I’m the guy who is going to whip these votes. That’s what I’m doing. I’m working these votes to get the bill on the floor, and I will be whipping votes on the floor.”

Vanel’s involvement, for one, makes the online poker community in New York more optimistic that they might finally be able to enjoy the games legally. The lawmaker’s attitude of fortitude is what has been missing all along in the New York online poker scene. He managed to get more than 60 Democrats in the Assembly to sign a letter that supported the inclusion of online poker in the budget. Now, the task at hand is to transfer all those signatures to co-sponsors of the bill and maybe get more on board.

“The budget effort didn’t work, but that happens with negotiations,” Vanel said. “What the exercise did is make us see that there’s more support for online poker than we previously thought.”

Suppose the proposed bill is passed at the Assembly, “it will have no problem getting through the Senate.”

Two More States Considering Sports Betting Legalization

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Currently, there are sports betting bills being discussed by lawmakers in at least 18 states, a number which is now poised to grow by two. Media outlets in both Arizona and Minnesota have recently reported that lawmakers in both statehouses have been considering legislation pertaining to sports betting even though neither has produced a bill to date.

The only issues, so far, will be the timing, as the 2018 legislative calendar is nearing its end, as well as tribal interests in both states which will certainly make such legislative efforts quite complicated.

What’s Going On in Arizona?

Arizona is known for its thriving (but separate) sport and gambling industries – all four United States professional leagues have Phoenix-based franchises and the state also hosts 20 tribal casinos, a lottery, as well as two horse racing tracks. Pro-sports betting legislators in Arizona intend to use tax revenue from the industry to allocate more funds to the state’s teachers.

Senator Sonny Borelli will be supporting the legislation mainly because of geography and the fact that the state needs the money.

“We’re sending all of our money to other states right now on sports betting,” he said.

The idea of legalized sports betting in Arizona has received a fair share of criticism and opposition with Sen. Dave Farnsworth, one of the legislators who oppose the idea saying that more gambling is the last thing the state needs. He believes that he has the support of a good number of lawmakers which may see his take on the bill passed in case the federal prohibitions are relaxed.

Furthermore, any expansion of gambling in the state must put tribal agreements into consideration – the report overlooks this. There is less than a fortnight until the Arizona lawmaking calendar runs out which makes the possibility for progress significantly slim during this session. Fortunately, Arizona state laws do not allow for daily fantasy sports and the tribes have not allowed legislation to change that to advance and thus their approval may not be needed regardless of what the state decides on sports betting.

What About Minnesota?

Even though it also has both tribal and commercial gaming operations, unlike Arizona, the tribes do not share their gaming revenues with the state of Minnesota. Everything is likely to be smoother for the state since the state is not bound by any contractual restrictions as far offering its own gambling products is concerned. However, its state statues would need to be amended.

Rep. Pat Garofalo who is leading the pro-sports betting campaign in Minnesota cited “huge public demand” in the state and as such, he has been quite vocal about the need to prepare for the much anticipated Supreme Court ruling.

“People are going to have an expectation that they’re going to be able to engage in safe, fair, and regulated sports gambling,” Garofalo said, presuming the Supreme Court will lift the ban on sports betting. “We’re going to have a lot more people gambling on sports by the end of this year. It’s just a matter of whether they’re going to be doing it in a safe, regulated environment in Minnesota or whether they’ll be using offshore sportsbooks.”

PA to Permit Online Gaming Licensees to Host Multiple Skins

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The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) published its most recent rules and regulations that govern is imminent online gaming licenses. The new rules and regulations will allow the state’s online gambling licensee to host multiple ‘skins.’ This means that non-Pennsylvanian companies will have the opportunity to participate in the state’s lucrative online gambling market. However, the licensees will be forced to piggyback the skins on their casino domains.

The contentious question about skins or the ability of a casino to host affiliate operators has been looming of the board for quite some time and now that it has been addressed operators can start preparing. In essence, it emulates New Jersey’s approach where one casino is allowed to partner with and offer services from other operators.

In Pennsylvania, the lobbyist efforts on the issue of skins have proven to be very fierce with online operators such as 888 Holdings advocating for it and Parx Casino and Penn International arguing that no third-party sites should be allowed. 888 Holdings has successfully implemented a model of such kind in New Jersey where it has piggybacked its local casino license to favour its partnership with Caesars Entertainment.

Ultimately, the PGCB opted not to restrict its online market and instead decided to permit its interactive gaming certificate holders to partner “with multiple licensed interactive gaming operators to offer interactive games the Board has authorized the interactive gaming certificate holder to conduct.”

The PGCB further clarified that it was not going to restrain third-party operators from inking deals with more than one Pennsylvania gaming certificate holders. However, this is on condition that the third-party companies will no offer online gambling to the Pennsylvanian market “independent from an interactive gaming certificate holder and the interactive gaming certificate holder’s webpage or the webpage of an entity within the interactive gaming certificate holder’s organizational structure.”

On the same note, the licenses or any of their partners “may only offer interactive gaming in this Commonwealth through the interactive gaming certificate holder’s webpage or the webpage of an entity within the interactive gaming certificate holder’s organizational structure.”

The mentioned clauses clearly indicate the fact that third-party operators will have to piggyback on the domain names of the license holders. Fair enough. The board will begin accepting interactive gaming applications from the state’s existing brick-and-mortar casinos later this month.