Category Archives: News

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A survey was done in the UK, and the results showed that approximately 528,000 people are addicted to gambling. The result also stated that 80% of them end up having bad debts that eventually destroy their financial status.

GamblingOnce you get into betting it becomes tough for one to stop. It is for this reason that two challenger banks came up with a solution to this bad habit. They have come up with mobile apps that give the current account holders of these banks the option to block all the payments to any registered gambling operator.

This feature is meant to help the players who are trying to stop spending on gambling. Tony Franklin, a former gambling addict who is using the app to quit his bad habits, talked to The Daily Mail and he confessed how gambling had consumed most of his adult life. He continued to say that the bad habits had led to him losing his home plus his family two times. His life kept getting disorderly. His relationship with banks got worse. He said that the gambling life affected his entire life; family, friends, employment, financial state, housing and eventually his health.

Tony has interest in challenger banks market as a whole. He kept looking for a bank that would come up with ways that would help him control his spending habits, and his research led him to Starling bank. Franklin says that ever since he started using the feature, he has been able to withdraw from gambling. The element has prevented him from falling back to the bad habits as many players do. They quit, and after a week they fall back. He says the bank has played an essential role in trying to get his life back on track. He has been able to pay off some debts, but he still has others. He says he will pay them with time.

Tony Franklin believes the feature is the only way to get out of the ‘cauldron of chaos’ as he calls it. Before the banks came up with the feature, players were forced to go to the gambling operators and convince them to block themselves from receiving any payments from the player. Starling bank was the first to come up with the feature, and after a short while, Monzo followed. The two banks have accounts that are operated through a mobile app. Barclaycard also offers the blocking services to their credit card holders to enable them to block their credit card from making transactions to any registered gambling operator. This is done by talking to their customer care.

As long as the feature is switched on, any trial to make a payment to an authorized gambling operator will be rejected automatically. Monzo customers can block the payments by using the feature on the app or by contacting the customer care team through the chat feature. Starling clients can block the payments by using the feature and can unblock payments anytime using the feature also and immediately an alert will show up guiding them to seek help from National Gambling Helpline. For a person using Monzo account, they will need to talk to the customer care using the chat feature on the app to unblock the payments. On request, they will ask the person several questions and try to convince them to rethink. If the person gives the go-ahead after all these, it will take 48 hours for the payments to be unblocked.

 

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The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has revealed that Ladbrokes misguided them at the period during which the investigations into the Black Dave case were ongoing.  The puzzle concluded yesterday after a statement was released warning bookmakers to be careful when dealing with Rule 4 deductions in horse racing.

LadbrokesLast year, David Evans was handed a fine by the ruling body that monitors the local racing environment for delays in releasing notifications of the non-runner, Tango Sky. The investigations found that this was a chance for him back Black Dave who was also a new entrant before the odds of Tango Sky were removed. During the time of placing his bet, Evans also told Ladbrokes that he intended to withdraw from Tango Sky if not for the change that happened shortly after he placed his bet.

Ladbrokes claimed that they were not sure what exactly had led to the reduction of Tango Sky’s odds soon after David Evans placed his bet as that the event took place about three years ago. The UK gambling regulatory body, however, managed to dig out evidence which proved that the bookmaker had made that action to increase the deductions that would be made from bets that won that had already been placed as stated in Rule 4. The commission showed that Ladbrokes had not been successful in reviewing the information that was available to them before providing inaccurate explanations as a watchdog that directly deals with the clients.

The Commission further indicated that the gambling operators must consider that the series of events that occurred in the Black Dave case as well as the Ladbrokes’ actions was a reminder that the relevance of the industry, in the long run, was dependent on customer trust. The commission further expressed that they would proceed to monitor the issue ad if required, would use its formal regulatory powers to punish the bookmaker that has been found in breach as well as the industry in general.

Ladbrokes was lucky to evade punishment even after they were found in breach of the terms discussed earlier. This was because their actions were not under the category of conditions that violated the license or the code of conduct that has been set by the UK Gambling Commission in relation to the terms of the application of Rule 4.

Moreover, Ladbrokes, which is a British Bookmaker, was credited with bringing the case before the local racing regulatory body on the day the race took place. During the period of the investigations being conducted, it turned out that the bookmaker saved a total of £7.70 only by cutting the price of Tango Sky which ultimately did not make any significant difference in its profits.

Ladbrokes released a statement on the issue saying that the company had initially interpreted the series of events that led to the price change incorrectly as the time it took place, but this had only become clear after the case was reviewed adequately. Moreover, the company also pointed out that as a matter of fact, the reduction of Tango Sky’s odds was in contravention of its trading policy at the time and showed that its trades had been signaled about it.

Following this case, the UK Gambling Commission has issued further information on how Rule 4 should be applied going forward. The UK Gambling Commission has been keen on monitoring the activities of bookmakers and has indicated that they will not relent on their quest to ensure that there is a fair playing ground for both gamblers and bookmakers.

 

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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.

Top 10 Casino Sites >       Paddy Power Casino Review >

 

 

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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”.

 

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Betfred is one of the most popular bookmakers in the country. As part of its responsibility to various stakeholders, the company issues annual statements of the financial position and the income levels. In its latest financial report, the firm announced huge losses; this was not expected as its revenues had grown within the financial year.

According to the recent report, the revenue levels increased to £634.5 million, a 9.6% rise from the 2015/2016 financial year. The losses were estimated at 10s of millions. Betfred is a privately owned company. The earnings were estimated at £83.3 million, a 3% increase from the previous year. To diversify its financial gains, the firm has several investment platforms. The total earnings from the betting platforms also rose by 17.5% to reach £12.7 billion. The increased revenues were attributed to the firm’s decision to add the number of betting shops available to their

The decision was arrived at after agreeing with the Hong Kong Jockey Club; this led to a significant increase in the number of online customers. The online betting platform’s revenue improved by 3%, this is according to the Regulus analysts. The losses were estimated at £13.4 million. In the 2015/2016 financial year, Betfred had profit margins of £32.4 million. According to the bookmaker, the operating losses were as a result of the decline in the goodwill from the digital assets, more responsibilities, and the operating costs. The high tax rates for betting firms have led to adverse effects to many firms in the industry. Some opponents have argued that the move by the firm’s founder, Fred done, to take £10.2 million in the form of dividends had a negative impact on the final financial results. The pioneer of the organization is also said to have taken the same amount during the 2015/2016 fiscal year.

Some sources have disclosed the bookmaker’s plans to close about 900 betting shops situated at different locations in the country. The move would also lead to loss of jobs to about 4500 of the employees. The firm would take action if the government passed legislation that would lower the maximum stake on fixed odds from £100 to £2. The government pointed out that the law would take effect from 2020 to give more room for more consultations among the stakeholders in the industry. The firm has invested a lot of resources to its retail line of business. Regulus attributed more than 80% of the bookmaker’s income to the segment. The analysts suggested radical structural changes for the firm to survive in the changing business environment. Failure to which it would experience more financial losses. Betfred has not had a good relationship with different players in the racing industry. The firm has held talks with Alizeti Capital to sell one of its subsidiary, Tote Holdings.

The government proposed the changes in the gaming industry due to the rising concerns over the gambling industry. According to the UK government, the industry required some regulation as there was evidence to show increased addiction to betting. The most affected individuals were the youths. With the changes in Law, it was expected that people would engage in activities that were more productive. According to Betfred’s managing director, the new law would have a negative impact on the gaming industry. Other than fewer profits for the bookmakers, he pointed out that thousands of individuals would lose their jobs and low tax collections and eventually slow down the economic growth. He urged the government to use alternative measures to curb the gambling activities in the country.

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An online gambling firm known as “32Red” was recently issued with a fine of over £2m for failure to protect a compulsive gambler and encouraging the customer to gamble further instead.

The Gambling Commission argues that the company needed to have raised an alarm and done something after identifying several addiction signs exhibited by the customer rather than offer him a VIP status.

Despite the customer depositing amounts as large as £758,000 between 2014 and 2017, 32Red did not conduct money laundering checks or acted to ensure the welfare of the customer as required by the law. Instead of offering assistance and advice, the company gave out free bonuses to encourage the vulnerable customer to play further, said the regulator. In addition, the entity failed to check if the customer was able to afford the amounts they were spending on gambling.

The customer had spent an average of £45,000 per month on gambling in spite of having a net salary of £2,150. Even though they had given the company a proof claiming that they earn a net salary of £13,000 per month, the Gambling Commission argued that it was not credible. The account was only scrutinized a little bit when the customer won a seven-figure prize and then instantly spent all of it on gambling–a warning sign of addiction.

The executive director of the Gambling Commission, Richard Watson, argued that the company should have checked on the client’s welfare after they had exhibited a gambling addiction rather than encouraging them to gamble further. But 32Red did the exact opposite of that.

He went on to say that gambling providers must be ready to take action whenever they spot signs of gambling addiction and should be carefully reviewing all the clients that seem to visit their facilities a lot more times than normal.

Watson concluded his speech by saying that protecting customers from gambling-related problems remains a top priority for the regulator and where it sees gambling companies failing in their duty to keep their clients safe, the regulator will take stern action against those companies.

Kindred, which is the parent company of 32Red agreed to pay the fine and said it had put in place a behavior-monitoring system for the good of its clients. The spokesperson of the Swedish owned multinational that is based in Malta said the organization is making efforts across the board to put together and better business processes, using best practices from all areas of the business.

The company representative further said that as a company putting sustainability at the very core of its business strategy, Kindred remains committed to ensuring customers can enjoy gambling in an environment that is safe as well as secure.

Among the changes and improvements that the company vowed to make include:

  • Introducing a better anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing policy to enable better and faster detection of the use of the company’s gambling services by criminals for money laundering or terrorist purposes.
  • Bringing in an external auditor to do a complete audit of the company’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing policies, procedures as well as controls while the company is ready to accept and implement the auditor’s recommendations.
  • Conducting a complete review of all existing and new customers against revised policies.
  • Integrating all entities under Kindred to one platform, so they work with a unified and aligned policy.

The company plans to raise the over £2m penalty issued by the court by divesting £709,046 off its financial gains and adding that to the £1.3 million fund it set aside as payment in lieu of a financial penalty.

 

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The award-winning online instant win games supplier, IWG, has delivered their full portfolio to the largest bingo sportsbook in the United Kingdom, Sky Bingo, as part of their expansion of its commercial operators.

For the first time, the games will be accessible on the Sky Bingo site as part of the agreement. IWG games, Cash Buster, are now live on the bingo site as a result of integration with IWG’s progressive play RGS. According to Robert Proctor, who is the content and commercial manager at Sky Betting and Gaming, it was a natural choice to partner with the leading supplier in the instant win game space. He added that the firm had been impressed with the standard of games which comes with an easy integration through progressive play. He also promised that their clients would enjoy IWG classics, including Cash Buster series on a daily basis.

 

The CEO at IWG, Rhydian Fisher said that they were thrilled to provide the UK’s largest bingo sportsbook with the quality portfolio of games. He added that the latest agreement was an indication of the growing demand for instant win games as well as their dedicated services. The agreement, however, does not cause any changes in the quality of services provided by the firm; it instead is a boost to the variety of services offered by IWG ensuring that the lovers of online instant win games through the UK enjoy their services following a seamless integration with the progressive play RGS network.

 

For the past 15 years, IWG has been providing its clients, lotteries, with instant win services which are online; this has led to the production of over two hundred and fifty high-quality instant win games. In 2017, the firm won a B2B award as the supplier of the year for an online lottery.