Archives: July 2018

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On July 10, 2018, The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) published a ground-breaking approach to understanding the extent of harm that gambling could have caused on the society and its members.

Gambling CommissionThe investigations and authoring of the report were led by Dr. Heather Wardle, who represented the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB) – a gambling regulatory body in the country. Publication of the report follows coordination and collaboration of efforts among UKGC, RGSB, and GambleAware – which funded the initiative.

Gambling has been touted to cause social, financial, and health problems among the people directly involved and even their family members. However, there lacks a scientific and verifiable measure to ascertain the level of damage. The approach seeks to measure the harm caused by gambling on the society.

The report is a major stride into the development of a causal relationship between social challenges and gambling. It calls for views, from the general public, on ways that can be used in measuring and better understanding the social cost that results in the likely harm caused by gambling.

The opinions that will be received from the call and effort of the team will guide the mapping out of a methodology that will henceforth be used in quantifying the impacts of gambling of finances, health, and relationships. In line with that goal, UKGC, RGSB, and GambleAware intend to develop a standard definition of gambling-related harm that can be used by stakeholders such as public health officials, lawmakers, and policymakers. The report acknowledges that the impacts of gambling could be short-lived while in other instances, they could last longer and spread to family members and even the society. Having an agreed upon definition will allow a common view and understanding of the problem.

UKGC’s report is also seeking to make the economic and social impacts of gambling-related harms measurable, easy to monitor, and better understood. It acknowledges that the society today lacks a defined way of determining whether social and economic problems affecting a person are associated with their gambling habit.

The team also intends to use the information gathered, from their research and opinions from other players, to develop a framework for action that will enable individuals, their families, and communities better understand the impacts of gambling-related harm. The report is seeking to have a more responsive British society that will be alive to the challenges that gambling is having on them.

UKGC and RGSB are committed to coming up with the most effective way that will be used in measuring social and economic costs of gambling-afflicted harm going forward. When unveiling the approach, Gambling Commission’s Chief Executive Officer, Neil McArthur said that their efforts were only ground-breaking and more needed to be done to realize their goal. He indicated the willingness of the commission to support public health officials, the gambling industry, and the public work together in raising opinions so that a framework for prevention is realized.

McArthur also said that while a majority of gamblers do not suffer the negative consequences, the commission, as a gambling watchdog, could not hide from the fact that possible detrimental effects are affecting a significant number of locals, families, and communities.

The report’s lead author, Dr. Wardl, described it as a major step in understanding gambling and the harm it can have on the society. She expressed optimism in the process as stakeholders had already made the first step of recognizing that gambling can affect more people in the family, community, and society.

Marc Etches, the Chief Executive Officer at Gamble Aware emphasized that gambling is a public health issue. “We need urgently to improve our understanding of what gambling, and its wide-reaching knock-on effects, is costing us,” he said.

 

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Sports gaming is one of the industries that many prominent investors are eyeing. Banach technology is one of the newly established businesses in this industry. The company so far is running in Sandyford, Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 2015 and has worked with some of the top companies in the industry. The company is headed by Mark Hughes who is the current CEO. The company was able to raise €2.55 million from seed funding.

Paddy PowerThe company reported that the round was in a significant way oversubscribed. Some great backers made the decision of investing in the company including; David power and Stewart Kenny the Co-founders of paddy power. They are believed to have spent €232,738 and € 116,369 each respectively. Other people from the paddy power that invested in the company include Patrick Kennedy who was the chief executive, Cormac McCarthy the former chief financial officer and Cormac Barry the former head of the Australian division.

The company plans to use the raised money to expand its investments by the end of 2018. The primary areas they are focusing on are the traditional four major US league sports. Also as reported by Mark Hughes, the company’s chief executive, they will also work on strengthening their labor team. They will add more mathematicians and software expertise plus other expertise to help accomplish the mission of launching new products for baseball, American football, tennis, basketball and ice hockey in a few coming months. At the moment the company has football product only and want to build products on other sports and as well start venturing into risk management.

The company offers clients with products that facilitate greater customer engagement, pricing and customer experience system to gambling companies like GVC Holdings and BWin. It has technology that can revolutionize and automate one game in multiples process. The technology also can simplify the complex multi-betting market for the B2C clients. Currently, Banach technology is working with Ladbrokes Coral on in-game betting technology for matches at the World Cup, pictured.

The products from this company help the clients achieve an excellent customer engagement and at the same time improve the customer’s experience. Some of the prominent clients of BT include; Bet Bright, GVC Holdings and Paddy Power Betfair (which provides for; Sportsbet, Betfair and Paddy Power brands).

The company was started by Reck; Mark Hughes is the current CEO, LAEX Zevenbergen is the chief technology officer, and Hadrien Lepretre is the head of operations. These four has served in Paddy Power before. Reck was serving as the head of Quants and was later appointed to be a principal analyst in one of the sports betting companies in Ireland. After his appointment in the company, he was replaced by Hughes. Zevenbergen was the chief software engineer of Paddy Power from 2008 to 2015. Lepretre was the head of quantitative logistics from 2014 to 2015. The four decided to collaborate and work on BT in 2015. They are also people with experience the primary reason behind the big success.

The company has 12 employees but is hoping to increase them to 30 by the end of 2018. The similar rate of increase is also expected to be witnessed in 2019. The company having big names on the list of investors has made it more credible. As reported by Hughes the company is unique in the sense that some of the work they have done together before and this is the reason behind them building platforms quickly. With no doubt, the company is growing at a very high rate, and if it continues at the same pace, it will outdo many companies in the industry.

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The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB) has recently conducted a study focusing on the gambling problem that is continuously affecting our young generation, especially the teenagers.

Gambling ProblemGamble Aware, which is an industry charity has strongly supported this move, saying it could help in saving our children from falling victims to this dangerous trap known as betting. The RGSB has now informed government stakeholders as well as the UKGC on the exposure of young persons to gamble. The personal safety of these young individuals could also be compromised.

The RGSB has tabled a series of recommendations for the industry stakeholders and the government. This is to initiate the drive of implementing a stronger verification process for the players, cooperate in collecting the under 18 data regularly, as well as reducing marketing exposure to the youngsters.

The RGSB has now released its findings on child gambling, and at the same time, Gamble Aware has heightened its preparedness in launching a campaign for safer gambling all over the United Kingdom. This is being done with the main purpose to raise awareness of the problems associated with gambling, and enlighten the public of the health hazards of gambling and other harms that relate to the same. The RGSB has detailed that the number of children (mostly the teens) affected the gambling are in excess of 35,000. Furthermore, there could be more than 50,000 children at the teenage level who could be at the risk of falling into this trap.

According to Gamble Aware, through the remarks of Chief Executive Marc Etches, fighting gambling-related problems require firm regulatory action. He said that there is a great concern for our children as for every 10 teenagers, one is a regular gambler. He also welcomed the focus that the Gambling Commission has put into this issue, so as to protect the children from being brainwashed by this problem early in life.

Marc Etches suggests that if a real and long-lasting impact has to be made, stern action is then required from parents, teachers and other family members. For this to succeed, it’s a dire need to heighten public debate about the position and role of gambling in the society, as well as what best can be done to protect young people and children from being harmed by gambling addiction. The gambling commission, in turn, notes that, a lot of support is required from a wide range of government departments and other influential agencies because it has been recognized that harms related to gambling are health issues and requires the full attention of everyone.

 

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Gaming Realms seeks and the UK based company River UK casino seeks to sign a deal that will see There UK casino getting 70% stake of the company. The River UK casino a subsidiary of the River gaming. It will buy the stake at a total amount of up to £23.1m which is $30.1 m.

River CasinoThe deal involves the purchase of the Pocket Fruity, Spun Genie, Britain Got Talent games, the X-factor games, and all the related associated businesses. If the deal gets to go through the minority stake in her business is what the Realm Gaming will get to remain with. They will as well have the Slingo.com and Slingo brands under her management.

The current management, however, will continue with the company’s leadership up to June 30th, 2020.

According to a press statement released by the company, £8.4m is what is expected. Half of this amount will be required to be paid after the deal has been fully completed and the other half is to be paid with the earn-out payment plan as businesses continue.

The chief executive officer of Gaming Realms, Patrick Southon said, “We believe that this sale will be transformational for Gaming Realms as it will enable us to focus more on our resources in the international licensing and the development of new gaming content, placing us in a stronger position to drive further profitable growth in the future.”

There is also an additional amount cash payment of £ 14.7m that will be paid out through the earn-out basis. The amount, however, has been set in a deadline of August 31, 2019.

The business that was sold for 2017 alone gets to a GBP of 13.9million of the net gaming revenue and adjusted to a pretax profit before the interest whereas after the central costs of GBP 2.2 million.

In this regard, the Gaming Realms Company has called a general meeting to be held on July 18th. The main agenda for this meeting is to seek approval for that sale. The company shares did close at 10.50p each.

Gaming Realms alludes that the sale is part of their strategy of giving a greater focus to international licensing. It is also to put a higher concentration on the content development agenda and steer the company into the B2B market.

Through the 5-year B2B agreement between the Gaming Realms and River UK casino, annual revenue of up to 1 million GBP is expected to be generated for Gaming Revenue.

As at this moment, the only thing that is preventing this decision from being implemented is the 18th July meeting set to involve all the shareholders.

This comes just after Gaming Realms recently signed a deal with the Gaming Innovation Group, GIG. As he was commenting on the agreement, the CEO, Southon said,” We are extremely excited to be partnering with the Gaming Innovation Group. Given its scale across the iGaming industry, this partnership provides us with a significant opportunity to extend our Slingo content across new markets.”

The 3-year licensing deal was to make the games available across all the Gig’s many successful White Label Operator clients as well s the seven proprietary casino brands.

 

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The night of Tuesday 5th June came with its share of luck and a pleasant surprise for Steven Bray, a 35-year-old hire controller for a fire station when he advanced to the stage at Mecca Bingo Oldham to receive his £50,000 courtesy of the National Bingo Game Jackpot.

The lucky winner landed his £50,000 win after calling ‘house’ on the National Bingo game. Steven who is a regular at the club attending at least two or three nights a week was enjoying his evening at the club when it took an exciting and unexpected turn of events.

Steven would have wished to share his great achievement with his parents who introduced him to the game, but they were not there to witness his great win. He had lost his mother and father to a heart attack on July 11 aged 45 and September 2017 aged 69 respectively. In a move to befit his newly found status, Steven was alongside his sister and some of his bingo friends to witness the magical moment. Mecca Bingo Oldham who unveiled the pleasant surprise held a special party night for all their customers to celebrate Steven’s luck. The customers were treated to a buffet and toasted to Steven as he was gifted his cheque on the stage.

Steven mentioned that he had never won such a significant amount of money but was used to getting smaller wins all through the games. He also said that his mother and father never got to win such big prices as well, so he concluded the win came as a gift to them for introducing him to the game and never getting to gain any significant costs for their loyalty. In his statement, Steven said “Bingo is a little bit of me time, away from a hectic life: I have two jobs that keep me extremely busy, so it’s nice to take a relaxing break. Bingo is a good buzz especially when waiting for that last number to be called and it’s good to meet new people: It’s a laugh, and you never know you could win big. It was great to get my giant cheque, as I still can’t quite believe it”.

“My long-term plans are to pay off some of my mortgages and have a few holidays as I like to go abroad as much as I can: I have been looking at the Maldives, as I have always wanted to go there and now I will be able to. But first up is hosting a thank you party at my house for family and friends, with food and drinks on me: we will toast my parents”, was his response when asked how he planned on spending his winnings.

Tom Beverly, Club Manager at Mecca Oldham, commended Steven for his big win saying “It was great to see one of our longest standing players win the National Bingo Game: he really couldn’t believe it when we told him there and then that he had won the £50,000 jackpot. The whole club cheered, and we are thrilled to be a £50,000 winning club on the new National Bingo Game”.

A business developer Alastair Stewart commended Steven on his win as he marked the eleventh person to win the jackpot since the end of April this year when the new game was launched. The manager also added, “We are thrilled for out lucky £50,000 Jackpot winner at Mecca Oldham and hope that he enjoys his winnings, and of course his trip to the Maldives”.