Finnish gaming operator Paf has acquired Swedish rival Mandalorian Technologies to boost its fortunes in the latter country’s regulated online gambling market.

On Friday, Paf announced that it had acquired the operations of Malta-based Mandalorian Technologies Ltd, which include the No Account Casino, No Account Bet, Prank Casino and Prank Bet dot-com sites.

Mandalorian’s sites have licenses issued by the Malta Gaming Authority as well as licenses issued by Sweden’s Spelinspektionen gambling regulatory agency. Paf, which holds a gambling monopoly in Finland’s autonomous Swedish-speaking Åland Islands, claims that the acquisition will make it “one of the ten largest gaming companies in Sweden” and signals the company’s “long-term ambition to be a leader” in Sweden’s regulated market.

Paf CEO Christer Fahlstedt said his group had been following Mandalorian’s growth “closely for almost a year,” noting that the company “did not exist two years ago and their journey has been fantastic.”

The companies aren’t exactly strangers, as Mandalorian has implemented Paf’s policies for anti-money laundering and responsible gambling since September 2019. Fahlstedt said this relationship was “a crucial test for us, to see if they can successfully compete in a tightly regulated market and at the same time stay at the forefront when it comes to responsibility.”

The companies also share a presence in Spelinspektionen’s bad books, each of them having been dragged to Sweden’s regulatory woodshed for compliance shortcomings. One year ago, Paf was fined SEK100k for allowing self-excluded gamblers to access its Swedish-licensed online gambling site.

Mandalorian was penalized much more severely last May, dinged SEK9m (US$960k) to atone for what Spelinspektionen called “serious” and “repeated” violations of its rules regarding bonus offers, which in Sweden can only be offered to first-time customers.

Spelinspektionen has issued numerous fines for various regulatory breaches since the regulated online market launched on January 1, 2019, but the regulator revealed last December that Paf was the only company to date that had actually paid its fine.

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On February 28, a bill that would have legalized sports betting in Wyoming died on the state House floor. The bill, which was sponsored by Representative Tom Walters, was defeated by a narrow 32-27 vote. But gambling progressed as a whole, as new regulations were agreed on and sent to the Senate.

According to Walters, this was simply a vote against any form of gambling within the state. “They felt that by providing a regulatory opportunity it was legalizing it,” Walters explained. “I somewhat disagree in saying it’s not illegal but it operates in an underground world because we don’t have a regulatory framework in place. With no regulatory framework, it will continue to not be monitored.”

The bill proposed a 16% tax rate and an initial license fee of $20,000, renewed annually at a cost of $10,000. The bill also set a minimum gambling age of 18 years of age and would have allowed for betting to begin in 2021, just in time for the NFL playoffs.

A unique provision of the bill was that it did not set a limitation on the number of applicants who could bid for a sports betting license. This would’ve allowed several of the big-name sportsbooks, such as DraftKings and FanDuel, to make a bid, but also opened the door for smaller or lesser-known operations.

Unfortunately for Walters and other supporters of the bill, there just didn’t seem to be enough support for the measure. “I knew it was tight but felt like I had enough support that it was worth it, and also I wanted to start the conversation. There were some people who were maybes, and the ultimate five of those folks decided to vote no.”

Despite the setback, Walters is adamant that he will fight again next year, if he’s reelected in November, 2020. “I think legislators will go home and their constituents will ask what happened with sports betting. I think a lot of them don’t realize how much sports betting is taking place. When they get back and talk to their neighbors they’ll be shocked by how much interest there is in this, and then next year they might be excited to put regulation in place.”

Currently, the only legalized gambling within the state is on dog and horse racing and video gambling terminals found in bars is an additional option, but that could soon change.

The House passed Bill 171 earlier in the week by a vote of 43-16. Should the Senate also pass it, important gambling regulatory powers would be established in Wyoming and provided to a Wyoming Gaming Commission. After ammendments, the bill also provided definitions for skill gaming, bans on video game terminals, and a high tax rate on operators.

Representative Steve Harshman, who contributed some key ammendments to the bill before it passed, explained that he wanted to set a high tax rate now so there’d not be any need to hike it later. Ultimately though, he just wanted to get something done. “I’m just trying to open things up and let the gaming commission decide all this,” he said.

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Canadian gambling giant The Stars Group is understood to be shedding jobs at its Dublin office ahead of its merger with Irish rival Flutter Entertainment.

The Irish Times reports that The Stars has been cutting jobs at its Cherrywood, Co Dublin office for the past 12-15 months in a bid to cut costs. According to sources, the number of jobs has dropped to about 260 from just under 330 a year ago.

It has also emerged that one group of customer service employees has been put on protective notice and informed that their jobs are likely to be cut in late 2020.

Some of the affected employees have been laid off while others were informed that their jobs would be phased out and were offered new positions within the gambling group.

In addition, workers who choose not to be part of the ongoing job-cutting are not replaced at The Stars’ Dublin office. Instead, the company has been focused on growing its workforce at its offices in Bulgaria and India.

The Stars has explained that while Dublin “remains an important hub for the business,” it has initiated a job-cutting process to reduce costs resulting from the poorer performance of its PokerStars brand in the past year or so. The job cuts are being conducted independent of the Canadian group’s planned merger with Dublin-headquartered Flutter Entertainment.

Merger Progress

Flutter and The Stars announced their tie-up last fall. The two companies are set to combine into what would be one of the largest online gambling groups in the world with presence across the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

The £10 billion merger is expected to close in the second quarter of the year, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions.

The deal needs approval from competition watchdogs in key markets where Flutter and The Stars operate. The UK Competition and Markets Authority recently instigated a review into the proposed merger and whether it would harm competition in the local gambling space.

Last month, the proposed combination was granted informal approval by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. However, it needs to be given the green light by the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board and other Australian regulators.

The enlarged group will be headquartered in Dublin and Flutter will own 54.64% of it, while The Stars is set to get 45.36%. Flutter’s current CEO, Peter Jackson, will step in as the combined gambling operator’s Chief.

The Flutter-Stars tie-up would bring major gambling brands Paddy Power, Betfair, FanDuel, Sky Betting & Gaming, FOX Bet, PokerStars, Sportsbet, and BetEasy, among others, under the same roof. Many of these brands hold leading positions in the lucrative US, UK, and Australian gambling markets.

Source: Canadian gambling group cuts jobs in Dublin ahead of planned €12bn merger

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Norway is set to step up efforts to combat unauthorized gambling operations by closing a long-standing loophole in the portions of its advertising laws relating to gambling products, it emerged this week.

The country’s government is preparing to introduce amendments to the Broadcasting Act that would enable the Norwegian Media Authority to order local television distributors and Internet providers to prevent illegal gambling operators from advertising their products and services to Norwegian audiences.

For years, companies that are not licensed to operate in Norway have still been able to advertise their offering on Norwegian television because many TV stations broadcasting into the Scandinavian nation operate from outside the country.

Discussions that the existing loopholes in Norway’s advertising law should be closed so that such gambling companies are no longer able to market their products in the country have been underway since at least 2017. The Norwegian gambling regulator, Lotteri-og stiftelsestilsynet, launched a consultation on the matter in the spring of 2018.

At present, state-run Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto are the only two gambling operators allowed to advertise their offering across Norwegian TV. Norway is one of the few European nations to maintain the monopoly model as their preferred system for the provision of gambling services.

Lawmakers believe that only by keeping that model they will be able to protect the country’s population from gambling-associated issues.

People with Gambling Problems Must Take Precedence

Commenting on the potential introduction of changes to the advertising regulations, Norwegian Minister of Culture and Gender Equality Abid Q. Raja said that “for the government this is a value choice where the interests of people with gambling problems and their relatives must take precedence over financial considerations.”

According to a report by Lotteri-og stiftelsestilsynet published last October, advertising spending by unauthorized online gambling operators decreased 19% last year and amounted to around NOK631 million (approx. $54.8 million).

And a separate report published in August 2019 claimed that broadcasters could see their annual advertising revenue drop by as much as NOK500 million in case new, stricter rules come into force.

Norway also recently implemented new restrictions on local banks and other financial institutions handling payments to and from offshore gambling companies. Late last year, the country’s gambling regulator sent a letter to financial institutions warning them not to process any gambling-related transactions with any company that is not authorized to operate in Norway.

The new rules took effect on January 1, 2020 and under those, banks and payment processors are required to investigate all transactions involving unlicensed gambling companies and report their findings to Lotteri-og stiftelsestilsynet.

A certain number of banks also have to submit detailed reports on their role in serving as a conduit for offshore operators or payment processors that work with such operators.

Source: Norway moves to finally end TV advertising loophole

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Gaming Innovation Group’s affiliate activity monitoring software has secured another top-tier client as regulatory pressure on gambling advertising gets more intense every day.

GiG announced today that it has teamed up with PokerStars in a move that will see the online poker giant utilize the gambling group’s proprietary affiliate monitoring and compliance technology GiG Comply across its global affiliate operations.

GiG said that GiG Comply will become a key component in PokerStars’ efforts to ensure that members of its affiliate program, Stars Affiliate Club, meet constantly heightening advertising criteria across all regulated markets the PokerStars brand is present.

The partnership between PokerStars and GiG comes amid a widespread trend of more and more gambling regulators in both European and non-European markets becoming more proactive in adopting strict compliance rules, more sophisticated in detecting compliance issues, and more stringent in penalizing those caught to be breaching rules.

GiG Comply boasts proprietary self-service technology that scans and analyzes thousands of websites to ensure that its clients’ affiliates meet all specific advertising regulations in different markets as well as the standards set by gambling operators.

GiG’s compliance monitoring software also provides gambling companies with detailed reports that include links, brand mentions, and images to ensure that each operator’s affiliate department is up to date on the content their affiliate partners deliver to gambling audiences.

Adding New Dimension to Affiliate Relationships

Of their decision to utilize the GiG Comply technology, Rebecca McAdam Willetts, Associate Director, Group Public Relations at The Stars Group, said that they work closely with their affiliates to make sure that “the content delivered to their audiences is compliant and responsible, and meets the same high standards expected of the PokerStars brand.”

Ms. Willetts went on that “GiG Comply adds a new dimension to those relationships and controls, and we work forward to seeing the technology in action.”

GiG Chief Executive Richard Brown commented that they are pleased to have signed PokerStars to their GiG Comply portfolio and that “assisting them in compliance efforts ensures they remain at the forefront of responsible gaming.”

The Stars Group’s PokerStars brand was the latest high profile client to pick GiG Comply in a bid to up its affiliate compliance monitoring game.

Online gambling powerhouse bet365 earlier this month extended its existing relationship with GiG Comply as it looks to make sure that its affiliate partners carry out marketing campaigns for the bet365 brand in a manner that complies with heightening criteria in various markets, including the UK, the US, and across Europe.

Bet365 originally partnered GiG Comply in the spring of 2019 as the gambling operator was gearing up preparations to enter the New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market.

Besides PokerStars and Bet365, the list of GiG Comply clients includes Betsson, Betfred, and SuprNation, among others.

Source: Gaming Innovation Group and PokerStars join forces to further strengthen affiliate marketing compliance

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