Josh Andrews

More Traditional Sports Practitioners Set Eyes on Esports

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The Esports revolution already took off and it seems to be waiting for no one. A number of tradition sports leagues are beginning to catch on to this fact. As it stands, the NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB and NASCAR are venturing into the Esports space in a bid to appeal to younger audiences. It is no longer surprising to hear of traditional sports ventures into Esports but we are definitely excited about seeing how they will implement it.

Many of these leagues and collegiate programs have opted to integrate Esports into their business models. These integration efforts range from interactive contests to fan experiences or ticket sales for events that are designed to bring younger audiences closer to traditional sports. However, while this has paid off for some hopeful Esports investors, all of them do not share the same level of success.

NBA’s approach is by far one of the most followed in Esports. The league chose to partner with NBA 2K and thus there have been very clear tie-ins between the two – the NBA teams provide the infrastructure for their Esports counterparts. The NBA has taken a less regional approach in promoting its Esports league and this is definitely going to create a very interesting dynamic as the league grows. How the NBA 2K League plays out once it kicks off will determine the establishment of future leagues for other gaming titles such as FIFA and Madden.

But what have the others done?

NASCAR

During the Dayton 500 race weekend, NASCAR got to partner with 704Games and Esports Arena Drive in order to bring NASCAR Heat Champions to Daytona International Speedway. NASCAR’s interest in Esports is almost natural owing to the fact that it has an older and a wide fan base of about 58 years for television viewers.

During the Dayton 500 race weekend, the NASCAR fans who attended got a chance to win prizes while playing NASCAR Heat 2. This mostly oozed of an independent activation feel and seemed to be more of a showcase for new mobile arena instead of a NASCAR-run. Regardless, the activation is off to a great start and if everything goes well it will grace NASCAR with more ticket sales on non-race days while at the same time giving them a piece of the younger audience that everyone is desperately trying to get a hold of.

NCAA

One of the most recent developments in college basketball as far as Esports is concerned is the move by two different NCAA basketball conferences to jump into the Esports add-on world. Mountain West Conference and Horizon League, the two conferences, therefore effectively tied their championships to events.

According to Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson, “Globally, Esports is enjoying a boom in popularity – particularly among young people who are in the same age bracket as the students on our campuses. We are also seeing universities add Esports programming, technology and business to their curriculum offerings.”

Both conferences have organized tournaments that are considered to be extensively valid moves towards making college programs formed at universities more acceptable. Most of them are still run by students making such support vital to their survival and prosperity.

UK Gambling Commission Unveils Plans for Intensified Checks

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UK’s Gambling Commission has unveiled plans to make online gambling “safer than ever before”. This follows on from details that the commission revealed last week as part of the advice that it submitted to the UK government’s review of gambling.

So far, the Remote Gambling Association (RGA) has confirmed that it would work constructively with the Gambling Commission once its finals become known. The online gambling review that the commission released last week included details of its consultative efforts on proposals for age verification checks for players. This regulation will apply even to dem0 games.

Even though the fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) that are operating in the UK will probably be the most affected by the forthcoming government crackdown on gambling, online gambling operators are not completely clear of the line of fire.

Other than banning the operators from offering free-to-play demo games until customer age has been verified, the commission also proposed that the speed and effectiveness of age verification processes should be improved. On the same note, operators will be forced to set limits on consumer spending until affordability checks are carried out. The commission further made it clear that it would deal with unacceptable marketing while at the same time tightening the requirements for operator interaction with customers that are more susceptible to harm.

“Britain has the largest regulated online gambling market in the world and we are continually looking for ways to make it even fairer and safer for consumers,” commented Neil McArthur, the Gambling Commission’s chief executive. “The proposals we have announced today are intended to protect children better, reduce the risks to vulnerable consumers and build on the measures we already impose on operators to know their customers and intervene at an earlier stage before consumers experience harm.”

Ensuring Safety and Sustainability in the Gambling Industry

The UK government, through sport and civil society minister Tracy Crouch, says that it is committed to providing a safe and sustainable gambling industry. Crouch also mentioned that the proposals for additional regulations would go a long way in strengthening the controls that are already in place while at the same time ensuring that children and vulnerable people are protected from the risks of online gambling.

The Remote Gambling Commission (RGA) has already laid the groundwork for the desired UK gambling industry through such efforts as advertising restrictions, the introduction of a national online self-exclusion system as well as advocating for the introduction of a new and independent statutory social responsibility levy.

PokerStars NJSCOOP Makes a Come Back with 80 Tournaments

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Touted as New Jersey’s richest tournament series ever, the PokerStars New Jersey Spring Championship of Online Poker (NJSCOOP) is returning and this time players can look forward to guarantees of over $1.3 million. The series is scheduled to run from April 14 through to April 30 and will feature a whopping 40 events – each of the events will be split into a high and low buy-in for which will sum up to 80 tournaments spread out across the 17-day schedule.

The most anticipated events of the series are set for Sunday, April 29. These are: the $200,000 guarantee $500 No Limit Hold’em Main Event (High) and the $50 Main Event (Low) which has a $30,000 guarantee. Both the high and low winners of the NJSCOOP Main Events will receive a Platinum Pass package.

The highly coveted Platinum Pass packages are each worth over $30,000 and include entry into next year’s $25,000 buy-in Poker Player’s NL Hold’em Championship as well as fully sponsored stay at the Atlantis Resorts in Nassau.

Unlike last year’s event, this year’s NJSCOOP schedule added five more high and low tournaments as well as an additional $100,000 in guarantees with buy-ins ranging from $5 to $1000. Majority of buy-ins range between $100 and $200 for the high events and between $10 and $20 for low events. While most of the events will be No Limit Hold’em, there will be a decent dose of mixed-games such as 8-game HORSE. Still, participants will be treated to a healthy selection of No Limit Hold’em variations including progressive KO, escalating antes and win the button.

Since there is a Platinum Pass on the line, it will certainly be a surprise if the event sees another record turnout – for the very first time, PokerStars exceeded the $200,000 guarantee for its main event last year. Naturally, as proven by the results of previous events and the history of the series the high events are likely to outperform the low events.

Bitcoin Crashes Again amid Social Media Ban on Crypto Ads

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Just a few months after Facebook banned cryptocurrency adverts on its platform, Twitter has followed in its footsteps by confirming reports from earlier this month that it was implementing a global crackdown on ads for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). Twitter’s updated Restricted Content Policies now requires any project seeking to conduct a token sale to have proof of legal regulation in the targeted country before it is allowed to run adds on the social platform. The same goes for cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets which will now have to be publicly-listed companies on major stock markets.

Bitcoin dropped 12 percent in January after Facebook, which happens to be the world’s second-largest online advertiser, said it would be banning all adverts that promote cryptocurrencies in a bid to prevent what it termed as “financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.” Twitter’s updated policy is more or less giving the same vibe since the terms it has set are meant to curb the same problem. The policy effectively requires that any adverts for financial products and services must be compatible with all applicable laws in the target countries and the all information regarding the products or services must be provided to the investors. Also, the owners of the ads will have to provide necessary disclosures as well as balanced information detailing the risks and benefits.

Reddit Also Jumps Ship

In similar news, Reddit, another popular social media website, will no longer be accepting bitcoin as payment for the platform’s Reddit Gold membership program. While there is still hope that the payment option may be reinstated in the future, players will have to manage with the existing options, that is, PayPal and credit cards. According to “emoney04”, a Reddit admin, the removal of bitcoin as a payment option was prompted by the upcoming Coinbase change and “some bugs around the Bitcoin payment option that were affecting purchases for certain users.”

“We’re going to take a look at demand and watch the progression of Coinbase Commerce before making a decision on whether to re-enable,” the administrator said.

Kansas Sports Betting Bill Calls for Integrity Fee

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Professional sports leagues might just get what they want after all with the introduction of a sports betting bill in the state of Kansas that called for the inclusion of an integrity fee. The bill which was brought forward by the Committee on Federal and State Affairs of Kansas is the third sports betting-related bill to be introduced in the state.

Introduced on March 22, the bill will allow the Kansas Lottery to sports betting to players over the age of 21. This will be limited to the lottery’s facilities and will be through contracted lottery retailers, its web platform and mobile platforms as well as through an interactive and dedicated sports betting platform. This still depends on how the United States Supreme Court will rule on the petition regarding the federal ban on betting.

S.B. 455, the bill, gives the Gaming Commission the final say on the types of wagers and game restrictions. Kansas lawmakers, however, will be expecting no less than a 6.75 percent cut from the sports betting operators. They went further to take note of sports betting legislative developments in New York and have thus decided to include the pro sports leagues’ integrity fee as one of the requirements of the bill. The sports betting right and integrity fee was set at 0.25 percent of the handle but the lawmakers capped it at 5 percent of the sports betting revenue.

“All revenues from sports wagering conducted by the Kansas lottery shall be remitted to the state treasurer and deposited in the lottery operating fund in according with K.S.A 7408711, and amendments thereto,” one of the S.B. 455 provisions read.

While many gambling operators are eagerly waiting for the Supreme Court ruling, a number of stakeholders and interested parties are anticipating that the federal ban on sports betting will be lifted. The professional sports leagues are by far the most vocal – the Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) have been lobbying for the inclusion of an integrity fee in state sports betting regulations. According to the leagues, this fee will serve as an insurance to the “risks” that sports betting will bring to their brands.

Casinos Rove into Virtual Reality in a Bid to Excite Players

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Casinos are always looking for new and innovative ways to attract new customers and to get their existing customers excited about gaming. Online gaming was just the beginning and a lot of fresh ideas have sprung up since then, some successful and others entirely bizarre. Still, more and more innovations are being pursued in a bid to revolutionize casino gaming in the same way that online gaming did.

One of the newest innovations in casino technology that is currently being tested is virtual reality (VR). This admittedly exciting new concept will allow players to “compete against each other for cash prizes in spirited VR tournaments.” This was through the efforts of both International Gaming Technology (IGT), a game developer and HTC Vive, a renowned virtual reality hardware developer. The two hardware developers collaborated to launch the new Virtual Reality product referred to as “Virtual Zone” at Boyd Gaming’s, The Orleans in Las Vegas which makes the casino the first and only operator with such an offering.

The pairing is a rather strong selling point for this new idea – HTC delivers the amazingly-engineered immersive virtual reality headgear that takes players into IGT’s Virtual Zone, the virtual reality competition arena that pits the players against each other in a series of skill-based gaming tournaments. Obviously, the winner gets to walk away with a prize.

Is This the Future of Gambling?

While it is certainly too early to tell which direction this will take, it is quite clear that casino gaming is diverging from the traditional casino floors and virtual reality might be a fresh extension of that trend. This is especially because of the fact that the casino industry has been trying to engage with the millennial generation that is not very fond of traditional casino gaming.

Esports is a great reference – casinos are slowly catching on to the reality that gladiatorial nature of competitive video gaming is far more appealing to younger markets as when compared to the one-dimensional and strategy-devoid slot machines.

With virtual reality, it is safe to say that virtual reality might end up redefining gambling games and make them work as spectator sports. Most casino games have been perfected for decades, and even centuries, which makes them ripe for a bit of innovation. The ultimate goal is to keep the players excited about a casino’s offerings. In the unlikely case that this goes south, there are a number of great alternatives, some of which have not even been thought of yet.

NBA Getting into Esports with Creation of New League

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The inevitable advance of competitive video gaming, otherwise known as Esports, will break new ground in April when the National Basketball Association (NBA) makes history by becoming the first American professional sports organization to operate a dedicated Esports league. So far, 17 of the 30 NBA franchises have confirmed they will be fielding their own NBA 2k League teams in pursuit of the $1 million prize fund. Still, more teams are being invited to join the NBA 2K League.

To qualify to be a participant in the new league, prospective players must be at least 18 years old and be high school graduates. Also, they must have purchased a copy of the game either for PlayStation or Xbox and won no less than 50 games in Pro-Am mode prior to January 2018. Every player who meets these requirements can look forward to a six-month contract worth $35,000 as well as a $32,000 basic salary. These lucky players will be the top 102 ranking applicants of the tens of thousands who applied and they will be taking part in the opening round of the games in May.

Considered to Be the NBA’s Fourth Branch

Other than the $35,000 six-month contract and the $32,000 basic salary, the players will also have the opportunity to supplement their incomes by signing various endorsement deals. To sweeten the deal, the NBA job will also include a retirement plan, medical insurance and housing! Considering how big this budget is, the NBA certainly has huge expectations for this new venture.

In fact, NBA’s vice president of global partnerships Matt Holt confirmed that the NBA considers the eLeague to be the fourth of its branches alongside the WNBA, minor G League and even the NBA itself. This is further proven by the fact that the benefits offered to Esports players are at par with those offered to professional basketballers.

Getting a Piece of the Esports Gold Mine

The NBA’s interest in online gaming is well founded – the Esports community boasts of approximately 130 million competitive video gamers from all corners of the globe. This makes it one of the fastest growing markets in the world of entertainment with its estimated value standing at $1 billion at the moment.

NBA’s partnership with NBA 2K is an attempt at becoming one of the lucrative tournaments that have been springing up across the globe where professional Esports teams compete for huge prize money as millions of viewers watch online.

The league is taking a slightly innovative approach – they eventually seek to have an eLeague counterpart for every regular-season NBA team. The idea here is that the leagues will be complementing each other. Case in point, the NBA 2K games will kick off in May and run all through the summer, the period during NBA’s offseason.

March Madness Elevates Focus on Sports Betting in the U.S

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The 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, commonly referred to as “March Madness”, kicked off last week with 68 teams going against each other in a single-elimination tournament that is stretched over three weeks and will culminate in the crowning of 2018’s NCAA champion. As usual, this means brackets, office pools and, of course, lots of betting – both legal and illegal. In fact, according to the American Gaming Association, $10 billion will be wagered during the three-week tournament with most of it being illegal since sports betting is not yet legal in most of the United States.

March Madness has also been one of the annual events that attract extra attention towards the need for the legalization of sports betting in the United States – the numbers are so good that states want a piece of the pool so that they can tax it. Experts consider illegal gambling to be untapped revenue that the states are missing out on.

Fortunately, this year the context of the efforts to legalize sports betting has shifted thanks to a petition filed by the state of New Jersey seeking for the legalization of nation-wide sports betting. The final ruling is to be delivered by the United States Supreme Court and this could be as soon as April.

Over a dozen states, West Virginia and New York included, have proposed laws to legalize sports betting and the only obstacle to the new development is the 1992 law that confines sports betting mostly to Nevada. Keeping this in mind, the American Gaming Association issued its annual estimate regarding March Madness betting where it arrived at the $10 billion estimate. Of this entire amount, only $300 million or thereabouts is expected to come from legal sports betting in Nevada sports books. Evidently, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling will play a pivotal role in creating a revolutionized gambling atmosphere for all the interested parties. Luckily for everyone, the wait is almost over.

CoinPoker Responds to Poker Bot, Security Issues Allegations

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Just a few weeks ago, CoinPoker’s real money tables went live and the site is celebrating by running a number of generous promotions. However, according to PartTimepoker.com writer and GameIntel Managing Editor Alex Weldon, these generous promotions have been contributing to the cryptocurrency-based online poker site’s bot-driven player traffic. Weldon also believes that CoinPoker is struggling with security protocols on the site.

Alex Weldon first wrote about this on a March 17 PartTimePoker.com article title ‘CoinPoker’s Traffic is a Farce’ in which he detailed the findings from his research of the traffic numbers for GameIntel – the company that supplies data to PokerScout, an established website that tracks online poker traffic of nearly all online poker sites.

Weldon’s research was apparently prompted by what he describes as “abnormal traffic patterns.” For instance, he noticed that a number of players were simultaneously playing a number of tables for hours at a time. Furthermore, the said set group accounts dominated the huge volume of gameplay with a significantly small number of other players getting in on the action from time to time.

The players that caught Weldon’s eye all played at minimum stakes for each of the site’s leaderboard levels with each of the level of the leaderboard having nearly the same of player at the tables, though with different names. The wagering patterns of the massively multi-tabling players made Weldon even more suspicious as they seemed to be making programmed decisions.

CoinPoker’s initial response was the closure of three accounts as further investigations are carried out. The site’s officials also pointed out that “Malicious poker bots have not been a significant issue thus far, but we will continue to investigate the problematic accounts that pop up on our leaderboard.” Still, CoinPoker’s security protocols and the site as a whole have been subject to a number of questions.

To further prove their dedication to handling the issue as expected, the online poker operator decided to limit the number of simultaneously played tables to 8 per player. In addition to this, the site plans to integrate a verification tool called Civic to their platform.

“With these measures in place, we can, with a high degree of confidence, say that our final leaderboards reflect players who have played fairly and worked hard to win prizes in our current 5MM CHP Giveaway Promotion,” they wrote.

On the issue of security protocols that was a key concern for many of the stakeholders of the poker site, CoinPoker confirmed that the launch of its peer-to-peer security system was still scheduled for October this year. The new security system will be replacing the existing security system that runs on a hybrid platform that combines standard online gambling security measures and blockchain technology

Bitcoin Price Brushes Aside Child Abuse Report, Nears $9,000

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On Tuesday evening, bitcoin’s price rose above $9,000 for the first time in a week regardless of reports that its blockchain contains links to child abuse imagery. Researchers from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany discovered 1,600 files that were currently stored in the bitcoin blockchain. At least eight of the files contained sexual content including two with 274 links to child abuse imagery and one that looked like an image of the same. Also among these files were 142 that contained links to dark web services.

The blockchain, which is essentially a transaction ledger distributed and stored on many different computers was designed to be immutable so as to guarantee the integrity of information. This is how all decentralized digital currencies work. As such, the information cannot be altered – at least not yet. The only alternative to would be a consensus among the network’s users to use a new version – also called a “fork” – of the blockchain instead of the original one. However, bitcoin is yet to experience this.

The Implications

Some blockchains, such as the one powering bitcoin, which is probably the oldest, can contain all sorts of information fragments some of which may be illegal in certain jurisdictions. Since the information cannot be deleted, everyone that has a copy of the blockchain is essentially breaking the law.

It came as no surprise that the blockchain would undoubtedly cause trouble with laws in certain jurisdictions. The European data protection laws, for instance, say that people must be given the liberty of having their personal data amended or deleted regardless of where it is stored. Public cryptographic keys and transactions which are regularly stored on blockchains are basically personal data – and since the blockchain does not allow these to be altered, it is a breach of that particular law.

“Our analysis shows that certain content, e.g., illegal pornography, can render the mere possession of a blockchain illegal,” the German researchers explained. “Although court rulings do not yet exist, legislative texts from countries such as Germany, the UK, or the USA suggest that illegal content such as [child abuse imagery] can make the blockchain illegal to possess for all users. This especially endangers the multi-billion dollar markets powering cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.”

This is quite serious, isn’t it? But, how is bitcoin braving it? Well, while the research report highlights the importance of addressing the possibility of unintended data insertion in future blockchain designs in order to protect users accordingly, it is also important to note that the existing bitcoin blockchain design troubles do not affect casual users of the cryptocurrency.

Jeff Garzik, a bitcoin core developer explains that the unintended information on the network is not even accessible directly since it has to be decoded first. This does not also apply to users who download fragments of the blockchain such as those who are just doing Bitcoin transactions.