Gambling is a topic that has always caused turmoil in California, and this is the reason why the state has for many years tried, and failed, to legalize online poker.

Two Northern California lawmakers are now looking to bring legal sports betting to the state, but pleasing all parties that such a move concerns will be a difficult task.

Sen. Bill Dodd and Assemblyman Adam Gray on Thursday released a revised proposal seeking to legalize retail and digital sports betting in the state. The two lawmakers said that the legalization of the practice would help California’s economy recover from the recent shutdown caused by the coronavirus.

This is the second time Sen. Dodd and Assemblyman Gray will try to move a sports gambling bill through the Legislature.

The two lawmakers introduced an athletic gambling-focused measure last June. However, that original proposal did not include details on which of California’s gambling businesses would be allowed to conduct sports betting activities and how they would be able to do that.

Under the measure introduced on Thursday, the state’s tribal casinos and horse race tracks would be allowed to take bets on sports. In addition, the legislation also calls for casinos to be permitted to offer roulette and craps, something they are now prohibited to do.

As for California’s card rooms, they will be able to continue to offer some card games that tribal casinos claim are violating their exclusive rights to casino gaming in the state, under the two lawmakers’ new gambling proposal.

Sports Betting Projections

According to early estimates, legal sports betting could generate at least $200 million in tax revenue for the state in the first year after its legalization. The practice could eventually raise between $500 million and $700 million every year as wagering grows in popularity among state sports fans.

Sen. Dodd said Thursday that revenue from sports betting “will help us avoid teacher layoffs and painful cuts” and at the same time their effort allows the state to “regulate a practice that happens anyway.”

According to the Northern California lawmaker, sports betting is not new to state residents as people are already betting billions of dollars with illegal offshore operators. Sen. Dodd noted that with the Covid-19 crisis and the deficits the state has, legalizing and taxing sports betting is really important.

Previous efforts for the legalization of sports betting were mostly taking place behind the scenes and have crashed because lawmakers have failed to get tribal casinos, the horse racing industry, and card rooms all on board.

Late last year, a coalition of several California tribes operating casinos in the state proposed the exclusion of card rooms from Sen. Dodd and Assemblyman Gray’s original proposal and called for banning online and mobile betting.

The revised measure now needs to gain support from two-thirds of the lawmakers in both the Senate and the Assembly. If it survives the state Legislature, the proposal will then be put on the November ballot for state residents to decide whether they want legal sports betting.

If approved, the measure will tax sports betting at 10% on revenue for wagers placed at a casino or a race track and at 15% for wagers placed online or via a mobile app.

The sports betting proposal is now set to be reviewed by the Senate Governmental Organization Committee this coming Tuesday.

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Online casino content maker Skywind Group has agreed to integrate its portfolio of games into Aspire Global’s iGaming platform, news emerged this week.

The recently inked partnership between Skywind and Aspire, will see the casino games developer add its diverse library of titles to Aspire’s iGaming platform solution.

The integration will include more than 290 casino games developed by Skywind, including top performing slots Super Lion, Cheshire Wild, and Wild Five, a selection of branded content such as The Last Kingdom, The Magnificent Seven, and Resident Evil, as well as real-money arcade titles such as Dragon Dozer and FlyJet.

Future Skywind releases will too be integrated into Aspire’s platform. The deal between the two companies also covers Skywind’s market-specific games targeting individual operators’ desired markets.

In addition, Aspire will be able to offer Skywind’s set of player engagement tools including the provider’s split-pot jackpots, time and amount-based jackpots, in-game tournaments, and bonus coins reward system.

Based in the Isle of Man, Skywind provides a wide range of online casino titles. The company is licensed and regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority, the UK Gambling Commission, the Alderney Gambling Control Commission, the Government of Gibraltar, the Spanish gambling regulator DGOJ, and the Romanian National Gambling Office (ONJN). Its content is also certified and available in a number of other markets.

Building a Great Relationship

Skywind noted that its recent partnership with Aspire builds on a combined ambition to ensure “operators have everything they need to grow and succeed.” The casino games maker also praised its new partner, saying Aspire is an “established iGaming supplier with many successful brands.”

Of their alliance with the iGaming platform provider, Skywind’s Managing Director, Oren Cohen Shwartz, elaborated that they are pleased to be teaming up with Aspire which offers a strong platform to licensees.

Mr. Shwartz went on to say that his company always looks to expand the reach of its premium iGaming content and retention tools into new and existing regulated markets. The Skywind official pointed out that they have already started to build a “great relationship” with Aspire and that they will certainly reach their common goals together.

Aspire VP of Sales Jov Spiero commented that teaming up with Skywind will be an asset to his company “with the ability for both our partners and players around the world to reap the benefits of this new relationship.”

Mr. Spiero also said that the newly penned alliance will enrich the wide portfolio available on their platform, and remains in line with Aspire’s core principles of always striving to provide clients with “the ultimate tools to succeed in this market.”

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Online casinos targeting German customers will no longer be able to use Visa or Mastercard’s services as the German government has unleashed a new wave of restrictive measures aimed at the iGaming sector and at payment processors moving money to and from online casinos.

Earlier this week, local news outlet NDR reported that Visa has told German banks not process deposits to and withdrawals from online casinos that use its cards.

A spokesperson for the financial services giant said that the company has recently reached out to its retail banking partners to ensure that “only legal, properly licensed transactions are processed” using its credit cards.

It has also emerged recently that German online casino players have been unable to use their Mastercard credit cards to deposit money and withdraw their winnings from gaming websites. Casinos generally responded that Visa and Mastercard had told them to either remove the two companies from their lists of available payment options in Germany or lose access to Visa and Mastercards in all markets they operate.

Issue Not Uniform

NDR noted in its report from earlier this week that the issue is not uniform for all Germany-facing online gambling operators. For instance, German operator Tipico has removed Visa entirely from its platform, while GVC Holdings brand bwin has told its local customers that they can continue using their Visa cards to make sports betting deposits only.

Meanwhile, NDR stated that its own attempts to fund accounts with both Tipico and bwin were successful. Spokesmen for the two operators told the local news outlet that Germany’s current gambling law, which prohibits online casino-style gaming, was too restrictive and completely incompatible with EU directives.

War on Payment Processors Rages On

Last month, Germany’s state of Lower Saxony warned an unnamed payment service provider to refrain from processing transactions related to illegal online gambling, that is to say to casino websites.

The state issued a similar warning last summer, yet again to an unnamed payments firm, which local media widely believed to be PayPal as the company announced shortly after that warning that it was shutting down its services to German online casino players.

Lower Saxony’s Minister of Interior and Sports, Boris Pistorius, told payment service providers last month that they are “legally obliged to refrain from making payments in connection with illegal gambling” and urged them to “critically review and, if necessary, immediately stop working with companies that practice illegal gambling.”

Earlier in 2020, Minister Pistorius sent a letter to the country’s banking sector urging financial institutions to stop processing illegal gambling money.

Online casino and poker activities are currently prohibited in Germany under the country’s Third State Treaty on Gambling, which took effect early this year as a temporary framework that is set to be replaced by a permanent law in mid-2021. That permanent law will allow licensed gambling companies to conduct online casino and poker activities on the territory of Germany.

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Gambling operator and technology provider Playtech enjoyed an “extremely strong” first quarter of 2020 as its once-struggling financial services unit proved a pandemic star.

In a trading update issued Wednesday, the UK-listed Playtech reported adjusted earnings of €117m in the first three months of 2020, with an additional €23m in the month of April. The company said the Q1 result was “in large part driven by the exceptional performance” of its Tradetech financial services unit.

In March, Playtech said Tradetech was enjoying ‘significant’ gains from increased market volatility and trading volumes. As of March 19, Tradetech’s earnings stood around €30m, already ahead of the company’s forecasts for the entire year, and this sum grew to over €45m by the end of April.

Tradetech has undergone a major turnaround since 2019, during which its revenue fell 27% year-on-year, resulting in Playtech booking a €90m impairment loss. The situation was sufficiently dire that Playtech was publicly mulling selling the flailing unit, which would have had investors screaming bloody murder had the company made good on these threats.

LATVIAN LIVE CASINO RIDES TO ASIA’S RESCUE

Playtech’s ‘Core B2B Gambling’ unit has performed “very well so far” this year, as online casino, bingo and poker verticals saw “significant increases in activity.”

Playtech’s Live Casino offering also thrived as its primary studio in Latvia remained open while the studios of major rivals in Manila were forced to close as the city went on COVID-19 lockdown. Playtech subsequently struck a deal to provide its Riga product to “the leading Asian provider of Live Casino,” offering Playtech temporary access to this provider’s “extensive distribution channel.”

This temporary deal resulted in Playtech’s perpetually struggling revenue from Asian markets such as China and Malaysia rising to €8m in April, although this is expected to fall to €6m in May as the Asian provider has since resumed its Manila operations.

Playtech’s predominantly retail-focused B2B sport division is currently losing around €3m per month thanks to pandemic-related closures of betting shops in the UK and Greece. The latter market has since reopened its betting shops but the ongoing suspension of major sports is keeping this segment firmly in the red.

Playtech added “more than 20” new B2B brands this year, thanks to deals with new customers Betsson, Kindred Group and Svenska Spel.

In Italy, Playtech said its B2C Snaitech brand was performing “better than was anticipated” in the company’s grim March 19 update, and was “only slightly loss making” in April. While retail operations won’t reopen until June 14 at the earliest, Snai’s low fixed costs and online strength were helping to hold the fort.

PANDEMIC PLAN

Playtech CEO Mor Weizer said his company had demonstrated “remarkable operational resilience” in the face of COVID-19, and with over €600m in cash on hand, Weizer expressed hope that the company would “emerge stronger” as pandemic restrictions ease.

Weizer also offered a fond farewell to outgoing chairman Alan Jackson, whose last day on the job was Wednesday. In April, Playtech announced that non-executive director Claire Milne had been appointed interim chair, with the search for a permanent replacement being put on ice until something resembling normalcy returns.

Investors appeared pleased with the update, pushing Playtech’s shares up 6% by the close of Wednesday’s trading.

REMUNERATION RUMBLE

Investors were far less enthused about Playtech’s annual report on its senior management’s pay packets, with nearly two-thirds (63.7%) of shareholders voting against the remuneration report versus just 36.3% in favor. Nearly one-third (32.6%) of investors also voted against the re-election of Ian Penrose – who prepared the report – to Playtech’s board.

Playtech offered up the usual platitudes about balancing fiscal responsibility with “the need to retain and incentivize its leadership team.” However, the company vowed to “conduct a thorough review” of its remuneration policy to reflect “market and corporate governance best practices” as well as ensuring “more rigorous implementation and transparent disclosure going forward.” Translation: see you next year, suckers!

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Online casino content provider Microgaming has introduced a revamped version of its all-time hit classic Immortal Romance to bring it more in line with the industry’s technological demands.

The original Immortal Romance online slot was released in December 2011. The game resonated with a large audience of devoted slots fans pretty quickly and cemented itself as one of the most popular games available on the market.

Nearly a decade after its original roll-out Immortal Romance has remained an iconic title. The game is currently live with over 200 online casino operators in a number of markets, including the United Kingdom and Sweden.

Immortal Romance’s revamped version was built in HTML5 format, which enables it to support a host of performance and feature upgrades, including free games mode, autoplay, and quick spin as well as enhanced animations and audio that complements the game’s iconic original soundtrack.

About Immortal Romance

Immortal Romance features a standard 5-reel, 3-row grid that is accompanied by 243 ways to win. A number of online casino providers have utilized the vampire/gothic theme in their slots over the years, but Microgaming has achieved something truly unique with its Immortal Romance title.

The online slot is packed with exciting features, starting with its Wild Symbol, which substitutes for all other symbols landing on the reels except the scatter. And when the Wild appears on the grid, it helps players form winning combos, doubling the payout for each win.

The Wild Desire feature comes next. It is triggered randomly during base game, offering win potential exceeding 12,000x a player’s initial stake.

The Scatter symbol in Immortal Romance, a lion-head door knocker, triggers The Chamber of Spins. Once the feature is unlocked players get the chance to choose from one of the game’s four charming characters, including centuries-old vampires. Each of the four characters awards a different number of free spins and additional opportunities for players to score bigger wins.

And each of the characters takes players to blood-pumping, supernatural adventures.

Upgrading Existing Offering

Commenting on their decision to revamp and upgrade one of their hit classics, Microgaming Chief Operating Officer Andrew Clucas said that in the current iGaming landscape, “it is imperative that we continue to strive to ensure that our entire casino offering remains at the top of its game” and that while they continue to roll-out new quality gaming titles every month, they are also looking to enhance and optimize their existing offering.

As a result, the company has begun upgrading popular classics and feature-rich titles in order to offer fans of their games “even more enjoyable and entertaining gaming experiences.”

Mr. Clucas also pointed out that Immortal Romance remains one of Microgaming’s most popular online slots of all time and the remastered upgrades “enhance and pay homage to our Immortal Romance brand, which continues to be enjoyed by players around the world.”

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