Josh Andrews

Pixel.bet Gets Into Frenzied Esports Betting Industry

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While the debate rages on about whether Esports betting should be treated as regular sports betting or as a class of its own, a number of startups and established gambling operators are already implementing their own variations of how they think the trade should be handled. For instance, gaming operators such as Pinnacle have already established dedicated Esports portals and are moving forward to implement more Esports-only offerings. Similarly, traditional sports operators have begun to acknowledge the impact that Esports is having on the industry and are thus including a range of Esports offerings alongside their long lists of traditional sports offers.

Pixel.bet is the newest entrant into the growing Esports betting industry. The Curacao-licensed operator which launched a live beta at the beginning of the year opted for an Esports-only approach in a bid to cater for the mobile-first gambling market. Despite being a newcomer to the frayed Esports industry, Pixel.bet has already proved to be quite a spectacle – it offers the usual selection of leading Esports and tournaments that are available on other popular and top platforms. According to the company, traditional bookmakers are not having much luck in attracting Esports bettors simply because of lack of understanding of what they want their betting platforms to be.

“Traditional operators are led by sports and casino — the whole branding, site experience and UX/UI in the products are dictated by this,” says Pixel.bet CEO Richard Smith. “Right now, I think it’s fair to say that most have not put the resource or hired the right people to drive this forward. It’s created a wonderful opportunity, though, for Esports-only brands and product innovation, with the up and coming Esports focused brands.”

Richard Smith believes that by being an Esports-only operator is going to help them in building community trust which the company thinks is very important. Pixel.bet is however not the only Esports-only proposition in the market right now but it is only bound to receive serious competition from Unikrn which is undoubtedly the leading market contender at the moment. Pixel.bet intends to follow in Unikrn’s footsteps and compete at the level of customer experience instead of price. Furthermore, the platform will be built based on feedback from Esports enthusiasts and this will probably see it soar to the top.

MGM Outspends Its Competitors in Connecticut Casino Bid

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The Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribal nations are preparing to begin work on the Windsor casino in a few weeks. Meanwhile, the renowned MGM Resorts International is raising its bet for the state’s lucrative gambling opportunities.

At the moment, up to $20 million worth of monthly revenue is at stake in Connecticut and this can be attributed to the offer for a Bridgeport casino as well as the fierce opposition to the East Windsor site that is within 17 miles of the $900 million MGM casino which is almost complete in Springfield, Mass.

According to a Hearst Connecticut Media review of the Office of State Ethics’ public records, MGM Resorts International upped its ante in 2017 and ended up spending over $3.8 million in ads for both TV and radio as well as in lobbying the state’s lawmakers and agencies who included Attorney General George Jepsen and Governor Dannel P. Malloy. On the other hand, even after going at it as a joint venture, the Mashantucket and Mohegan tribes spent less than $1.2 million, which would obviously give their competitors with deeper pockets an upper hand. MGM Resorts International went further and paid Ballard Partners $270,000 to be its Washington lobbyist to focus on the Department of the Interior and the White House.

While the tribes are not too happy about MGM’s progress citing the casino operator’s disregard for the protection of jobs and revenue in the state, the company’s management are of a totally different opinion;

“It has taken a concerted effort just to be part of the conversation in Connecticut,” said Bernard Kavaler, MGM’s spokesperson. “We continue to believe that an open, competitive process would be best for the state and its taxpayers, and we continue to believe that Bridgeport is the best location — in terms of jobs and economic development — for a commercial casino in Connecticut.”

MGM’s efforts are also gaining a lot of support from various lawmakers since according to Av Harris, director of legislative affairs and public policy in Bridgeport, MGM has been “very consistent and very serious the whole time about their interest in developing a major casino/entertainment facility” in the city.

A Review of Bitcoin’s and Crypto’s Rather Strange Week

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This week has been a pretty dull one for bitcoin especially with the dramatic price drops that unearthed some doubt about the hype that cryptocurrencies had created towards the end of 2017. It eventually recovered, but by doing so, it only reminded the world of how unpredictable decentralized digital currencies are. Furthermore, there have been reports that regulators are planning to toughen the market – this along with the reported evocations of the Great Depression in many ways made the week even more turbulent than expected.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for bitcoin’s price drop is the possibility of cryptocurrency trading being outlawed in some countries from various parts of the globe. One of the countries whose government has been hinting at such a move is South Korea. Earlier this week, Park Sang-ki, South Korea’s justice minister said that the country’s government had rather “great concerns” pertaining to digital currencies and was therefore “basically preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading through exchanges”, especially because they think that crypto will make tax evasion easier.

While South Korea has since been seen to have softened its stance on the matter after a spokesperson of the Presidential Office said the possibility of a ban on crypto exchanges was simply “one of the measures prepared by the Ministry of Justice, but … not a measure that has been finalized”, investors are still panicking over the confusion caused by the uncertainty of how exactly the country intends to crack down on crypto.

There is a good reason for investor panic since even if the total ban on crypto exchanges does not come to pass, South Korea can still impose new regulations that could hugely impact the market – like bans on anonymous crypto trading accounts and underage investors, for instance. In a similar scenario, last September, the Chinese government shut down domestic changes and according to more recent reports, there are even going an extra mile to cut off access to all online crypto platforms and services operating from within or outside its borders.

Even Europe is Bursting Bitcoin’s Bubble

Financial watchdogs in Europe have begun to tighten the screws on cryptocurrencies as well in a bid to ease up the pressure of the price boom that is considered by many European economists to be nothing more than a bubble. Europe’s financial regulators watched cautiously as the price of bitcoin soared to nearly $20,000 last year. In the process, other cryptocurrencies also received a much-needed boost.

However, Europeans have hopped off of the back seat and they are now joining other policymakers from various parts of the globe in warning investors of the possibility that the crypto bubble could pop. French and German politicians, for instance, recently revealed plans to present a joint proposal that calls for the regulation of cryptocurrencies at March’s G20 summit.

Golden Nugget Online Brings Live Dealer Casino Hold’em to NJ

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Golden Nugget Atlantic City becomes the first brick-and-mortar casino in the US to launch an online live dealer Casino Hold’em poker table. Live dealer online casino games are becoming more entrenched in the New Jersey casino culture and Golden Nugget being an iGaming leader in the state, it was just a matter of time before it expanded its already polished online casino offering that includes popular titles like American Roulette, Blackjack, and Dragon Bonus Baccarat. Furthermore, all the table games that the online casino platform offers are accessible via both desktop computers and mobile devices which makes it suitable for a wide audience of table game players.

“Being the first to offer a Live Dealer version of the world’s most popular poker game in America, Casino Hold’em, shows our commitment to delivering on an innovative and world-class product to our patrons,” said Golden Nugget’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Online Gaming, Thomas Winter.

The casino operator’s variant of live dealer Casino Hold’em was developed by Stephen Au-Yeung and builds on the popularity of the mechanics of classic Texas Hold’em while offering players an option to play against the casino’s dealers. This new live dealer offering is in partnership with renowned European casino games developer Ezugi whose popularity has been increasing significantly in the United States.

Initially, the live dealer Casino Hold’em tables will run from 0300 HRS to 0300 HRS ET from Sunday To Thursday and 1200 HRS to 0300 HRS ET on Fridays and Saturdays since the live dealer games requires the company to employ licensed and certified human casino dealers.

Evidently, even though 2018 is just a few days old, Golden Nuggets is already gearing up for a great year ahead, and an even better 2019, especially for its players. Golden Nuggets first launched live dealer games back in 2016 with a select number of live dealer games that we mentioned earlier. The company witnessed great returns from these offerings and decide to differentiate it from its other offerings in the state. Now, Golden Nugget offers a total of seven concurrent live dealer games – a number that is bound to increase with time. The casino operator’s gross revenue has been the highest in the state despite its reluctance towards participation in peer-to-peer New Jersey online poker sites. Investing in live dealer games will solidify its position as the number one place for gamblers who are attracted to its amazing collection of over 470 slots and table games.

ICE 2018: UltraPlay To Elevate Its Esports Betting Solutions

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Advanced betting solutions provider UltraPlay has announced that it will be expanding its portfolio through a premium Esports betting site offering during this year’s ICE Totally Gaming that will run in London from February 6^th to February 8^th.

Having been part of the iGaming industry for seven solid years, UltraPlay has what it takes to successfully expand its portfolio through the launch of its latest products which they say will offer revolutionary match-predicting systems and thus the widest odds feed in the market. Dubbed odds.gg, the system will be presented with all the latest upgrades and add-ons that UltraPlay has been working on in the past year. In addition to its most popular game titles, UltraPlay has also extended its odds feed to include such titles as Kind of Glory, Heroes of the Storm Live as well as live betting options GWENT for FIFA Interactive World Cup. Alongside the Esports betting company’s diversified catalog of 25 competitive games, it further offers over 3,000 events every month and more than 1,500 in-play events.

Last month, UltraPlay announced that GWENT, the Witcher Card Game, was to be added to its Esports betting portfolio which makes it the first online betting provider to offer betting options for the renowned card game. During the acquisition, Peter Ivanov, UltraPlay’s Head of Esports trading said that he believed that “the game holds a great potential to attract many esports punters with passion and experience in card games.”

“Gwent is a perfect choice for a card game that offers endless fun to the players. The esports betting brands using UltraPlay’s products will be one step ahead of the competition providing another exciting option to their players,” he added.

Since it was founded in 2010, UltraPlay has always been very ambitious about offering innovative approaches to the online gaming industry using modern technology to provide advanced betting solutions that are focused on Esports, bitcoin solutions, sports betting, live betting and online casinos.

CoinPoker to Launch Stage 1 of Its ICO on January 19

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CoinPoker, the growing cryptocurrency-based online poker room that was launched in late 2017, has announced that its Stage I Initial Coin Offering (ICO) will be launching on January 19^th at 1000 HRS GMT. This stage of the poker room’s ICO will offer 127.5 million CHP tokens for sale at a price of 1 ETH to 4,200 CHP – CHP is the digital currency that CoinPoker uses on its platform. So far, there is a lot of optimism going around especially considering how successful the November 16 to November 22 pre-ICO launch was. CoinPoker sold out a whopping 100 million CHP tokens in six days at a great price of 1 ETH to 6,600 CHP.

As such, the Stage I ICO is attracting a lot of attention and interest from a lot of people with some even submitting whitelist registrations with hopes of hopping on to the early buyers’ list during the January 5 to January 15 open period. This stage of CoinPoker’s ICO will run until January 26 but the time will definitely be extended in case the offering is not fully sold out by then. After that, there are plans for a Stage II ICO where the online poker room will be offering another 137.5 million CHP at a price of 1 ETH to 3,500 CHP. An official date for the Stage II ICO is yet to be announced but once it is completed, CoinPoker will have distributed 375 million CHP tokens which represent 75 percent of its total supply of 500 million CHP token.

As an incentive, CoinPoker will be returning 15 percent of the tokens collected throughout the entire span of the ICO to its community. This will be done through real-money tournaments with one of the closest being scheduled for January 21^st and will include a Tesla S worth £71, 000 as the top prize.

Swimming in Success

CoinPoker also launched its real-money games and promotional campaigns shortly after the pre-ICO in November – among them is a freeroll series where the prize will be 5 million CHP tokens. Both the promotions and the real-money games became huge successes with the CoinPoker online poker room already having up to 30,000 unique registrations as well as 20,000 MVP downloads.

The online poker room also now boasts of over 4,000 unique daily players as well as 15,000 CHP token holders. All this is thanks to the experienced CoinPoker staff who have been very diligent about fixing existing bugs and improving the platform’s stability. Community relations have also played a key role in its success as the staff strive to optimize outreach via various social media platforms. Additionally, the site has a very strict security policy that makes it a great place for poker players who are very keen on this aspect. Customers are further allowed to get involved in all this by giving their suggestions and stating their preferences in regards to what the platform should improve on.

Online Casino Operator GAN Partners with SBTech

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Yet another sports betting deal is banking its hopes on legal sports betting in the United States. New Jersey-based B2B online casino supplier GAN yesterday announced that they had entered into a strategic relationship with SBTech in a bid to provide real money sports betting on their platform. SBTech is a renowned European B2B provider of sports betting technology. This move follows shortly after Scientific Games wrapped up its acquisition of NYX Gaming, which is also intended to take advantage of the US sports betting market.

Both deals are gearing up towards positioning the involved companies for a great stint in the event that the United States Supreme court rules in favor of New Jersey after the hearings on the bill seeking for the abolishment of the ban on sports betting comes to an end.

The GAN/SBTech deal is primarily focused on the US sports betting market where SBTech is anticipated to offer wagering services via both online and retail channels. Dermot Smurfit, GAN CEO revealed that the company has been on several occasions and by several clients asked to review, procure and support the delivery of a sports betting solution both in the online space as well as on the on-property retail channel in the event that sports betting is legalized. GAN’s management has further conducted diligence process in Europe to identify a preferred sports betting partner based on their technical capability, ability to integrate with GAN’s already existing enterprise software platform, US licensing capability and the level of sophistication of their managed sports services. SBTech checked all the right boxes in this case hence the agreement with GAN.

SBTech considers the partnership to be a logical move by the company’s management that will allow it to rapidly introduce its sports betting technology and services across a wide range of US-based casinos. The company is quite ambitious about being the first to settle a legal, online or on-property sports betting establishment in certain states.

There Are Only 4.2 Million Bitcoins Left to Be Mined

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Bitcoin has been receiving a significant share of attention since last year and this does not seem to be going away anytime soon. The previous weekend marked a great milestone for the decentralized digital currency since now it is reported that 80 percent of the cryptocurrency has been mined and is in circulation. There are only 4.2 million bitcoins left to mine which translates to the remaining 20 percent. The protocol that was put in place by bitcoin’s inventor(s) is one of the first that was based on digital scarcity which therefore means that soon enough this particular digital asset will become even harder to obtain than it already is.

So far, the capped supply and other pillars of the bitcoin framework have held on quite sturdily thanks to the miners who secure the network and have successfully managed to uphold the rules from changing with hash power. One such rule is bitcoin’s supply cap which was introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto and stands at 21 million bitcoins. However, there have been skeptics that believe that there could be a way of increasing the supply of bitcoin using manipulative tactics such as Sybil attack and 51 percent – but this is all just theoretical since in its decade-long existence no one has been able to successfully alter or break the rule on the 21 million supply cap.

What is Next?

Since there are only 21 million bitcoins, the digital asset’s limited supply will definitely make the asset harder to acquire as more people become aware of it. In nearly all cases, when an asset is limited with associated resources being harder to come by, the supply causes demand for the market. From what we can already clearly see, the supply of bitcoin shows a significant gap between the number of bitcoins in circulation and the number of people who want to get their hands on them.

Other than the obvious difficulty in accessibility that is already taking route, it is quite obvious that miners themselves are going to be forced to constantly deal with having to constantly increase their processing power. Depending on the hash rate speed, the next miner reward halving will be upon us in two years or less. The miner reward halving is part of the bitcoin protocol and it essentially means that in two years or less, instead of getting 12.5 BTC for every block that miners mine, they will get 6.25 BTC. It is a network consensus agreement that requires that halving is done every four years but everyone is bound to feel the pinch as it will be very difficult to obtain bitcoin even with the large data processors available in various warehouses all over the world.

Former PokerStars Duo Launch Esports Betting Platform

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Lars Lien and Mike Stevens who are both former PokerStars ambassadors recently joined forces to launch a crypto-based Esports betting platform. The platform which is due to go live any time this year is going to be a Bitcoin-based startup where punters will be allowed to wager on professional Esports events. Furthermore, the platform that has been dubbed Luckbox.com, will allow users to make deposits using both in-game items and various cryptocurrencies, something that both Lien and Stevens believe will go a long way in opening up markets that are currently experiencing restrictions as far as payment services are concerned.

While a global roll-out is the ultimate goal of this endeavor, Lien and Stevens are hoping to obtain a license in the Isle of Man for the platform before they begin preparing to extend to other parts of the world. Soon, Luckbox.com will be launching an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and the platform is already being aggressively marketed in various parts of the world including Africa. As of now, the two have raised 483.5 Bitcoin form strategic contributors and the ICO they are planning is intended to generate the remaining finances that they require to launch.

The Initial Coin Offering will revolve around the sale of a utility token that will be used on Luckbox.com and also traded by accredited investors to hold a ‘profit share’ token that will entitle the holder to about 20% of the company’s annual net income.

Luckbox.com will be issuing two tokens to its users once it goes live. The first is LuckCash which is a utility token for the platform and the second is LuckProfits which, like we mentioned earlier, gives the holder contractual rights to a share of the company’s net profits.

Lien and Stevens are among many other entrepreneurs who have seen the huge potential in emerging markets such as Esports. There is generally a whole lot to look forward to in this regard, that is, the development of smart contracts will lower transaction costs, and dispel the dependency on traditional bank accounts.

Sports Betting Concerns Revived by New Fantasy Sports Game

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There is once again a lot of buzz among gambling experts pertaining to a new daily fantasy sports game that allows users to hone in a single NFL playoff game. The question here is; is the contest drawing the fantasy sports industry closer to sports betting which is still illegal in most of the United States?

Leading fantasy sports provider, DraftKings is offering the “Showdown” variant that allows users to pick six athletes from two teams playing against each other in a real-life football game. They get to rack up fantasy points based on certain statistics such as receptions, touchdowns and yards passing, rushing or receiving.

However, the 2006 federal law that effectively outlawed online gambling but gave rise to daily fantasy sports requires that daily fantasy sports contents are based off the performances of athletes in “multiple real-world” sports events and not just single games. This particular detail has been the reason behind raised concerns regarding how regulators and fantasy sports companies such as DraftKings operate.

“This new game continues the industry trend of trying to get as close as possible to single-game betting,” said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling.

He further mentioned that the games have in many ways blurred the largely fictional line between daily fantasy sports and sports betting. DraftKings, on the other hand, argue that the Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act only applies in cases where there is an underlying violation of state gambling statutes first – so far, there has not been any objection to the competition by any of the states.

“This act is basically irrelevant. Everything defaults to state law now,” said Anthony Cabot, DraftKings outside legal counsel, referring to the federal law that the industry has long cited for justifying its existence. “If it’s not in violation of state law, then there’s no violation of the federal act. It’s a big red herring.”

Meanwhile, the United States Supreme Court is still weighing New Jersey’s bid to overturn the sports betting ban that has been in effect in all but four states. If the ruling is favorable, the numerous debates that are popping up in regards to daily fantasy sports will be definitely be muted.