News In Brief: August 12-August 16, 2024

MGM Resorts International will launch a BetMGM-branded sports betting and online gaming operation in Brazil through a joint venture with major Brazilian media conglomerate Grupo Globo, according to an announcement made by the company on Thursday (August 15).

The announcement confirmed earlier reports of the partnership in Brazilian media and follows an acknowledgement by MGM CEO Bill Hornbuckle that his company was in negotiations with a potential joint-venture partner for online gambling in Latin America.

MGM and Globo will apply for a Brazilian license for BetMGM via their Sao Paulo-headquartered venture and intend to launch in early 2025, the companies said.

Brazil’s Ministry of Finance is presently accepting applications for federal licenses for iGaming and sports betting, with an August 20 deadline looming for any companies that wish to be part of a first wave of approved operators to go live at the start of next year.

BetMGM was not among the 26 operators that had applied for a license as of Thursday afternoon. Major international operators that have applied include bet365, Flutter and MGM’s US-facing BetMGM joint-venture partner Entain.

MGM’s chief US casino rival also will be active in the Brazilian market via a local operator, Big Brazil Tecnologia, that has acquired the brand rights to deploy Caesars Sportsbook in Brazil.

U.S. commercial gaming revenue reached $17.63bn in the second quarter marking the 14th consecutive quarter of annual revenue growth, according to the American Gaming Association’s (AGA) Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker released Thursday (August 15). 

The report also found commercial gaming contributed $3.73bn in state taxes in the second quarter.

Traditional brick-and-mortar casinos generated quarterly revenue of $12.49bn, a 1.8 percent gain year-over-year, while Americans waged $31.75bn on sports in the second quarter, generating $3.16bn in revenue.

That 35.3 percent year-over-year growth in sports betting was bolstered by new market launches in Kentucky, Maine, North Carolina and Vermont. The AGA found iGaming grossed $1.97bn in the second quarter, a 24.2 percent year-over-year increase by a slight 0.1 percent declined from the first quarter. 

“While sports betting and iGaming continued to drive overall industry revenue growth in the second quarter, new brick-and-mortar property openings in Illinois, Nebraska and Virginia also led to rising traditional commercial gaming revenue,” said David Forman, AGA vice president of research.

“Across the country, land-based gaming markets are seeing mixed year-over-year comparisons due to slower consumer spending economy-wide, which may continue to be a factor through the remainder of 2024,” Forman said.

Playtech has confirmed that it is in discussions with Flutter Entertainment over the potential sale of its Italian-facing Snaitech business for about £2bn.

The Isle of Man-based supplier said in an update on August 14 that it has granted Flutter a “period of exclusivity to complete due diligence and finalise the necessary Transaction documentation. There can be no certainty that any Transaction regarding the potential sale of the Snaitech business will ultimately be agreed, or as to its terms. Further announcements will be made as and when appropriate.”

The latest online market share data from Italy indicates that the acquisition of Snaitech would elevate Flutter alongside current market leader Lottomatica Group at the top of the Italian online gambling market at a corporate level. Flutter's existing Italian-facing brands Sisal, PokerStars and Betfair held a combined market share of 20.1 percent in the first half of 2024, which rises to 29.5 percent on a theoretical pro forma basis when adding SNAI's 9.4 percent share.

DraftKings early Wednesday (August 14) sent emails to customers and former customers updating them on golf bets that were never placed. 

The email provided an update on “two or more golfers tied for the same winning position,” and said that DraftKings had settled the wagers using Dead Heat Reduction rules.

DraftKings’ Dead Heat Reduction is calculated by dividing the odds proportionally among the number of winners for a particular position, according to rules posted on its website. The payout is less than what the customer would have won if only one golfer had won.

The DraftKings email informed gamblers that they were being gifted a bonus bet as a “one-time courtesy.”

DraftKings did not send a follow-up email telling customers to regard the update but instead posted a message on social media stating: “You may have received an email regarding this past weekend’s golf tournament and the ‘Dead Heat’ rule that was inadvertently sent more broadly than intended. Please disregard that email.”

A federal judge in Brasilia has suspended his earlier ruling obliging Brazilian ISPs to block local access to betting sites that are not licensed by the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The initial June order of Judge Pablo Zuniga Dourado had recently caused the primary web domains of major Brazilian betting brands to be taken offline, not just for users in Rio but also in various other Brazilian states, as major ISPs advised that they were unable to comply with such a blocking order on a state-specific basis.

In a decision published on Monday (August 12), the judge reversed an earlier decision denying industry association ANJL the right to participate in the case and acknowledged that the original blocking order contradicted specific federal regulations that provide for a transitional period through to December 31 for offshore operators to gain a national licence in Brazil.

The initial court order was obtained through a legal challenge filed by Rio lottery authority LOTERJ, which also licenses and regulates online betting platforms in the state of Rio de Janeiro. LOTERJ intends to appeal the ruling, according to the Brazilian industry publication BNLData.

D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb has ordered Intralot to turn over documents as part of an unspecified ongoing investigation, according to the Washington City Paper.

The attorney general’s office filed the court documents on July 22, but they are under seal, as are any documents Intralot submits. Intralot, which used to operate Gambet DC, in July received a one-year extension worth $39m to be the D.C. Lottery’s contractor.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general told Vixio GamblingCompliance in an email Monday (August 12) that as a “general practice, we do not confirm, deny, or comment on investigative activity.” Intralot executives were unavailable for comment. 

Schwalb’s investigation is reportedly focused on Intralot’s business practices and its compliance with laws in the District of Columbia. Intralot launched Gambet DC in March 2020 but after several underperforming years, the D.C. Lottery made the switch to FanDuel. 

The future of the D.C Lottery offering sports betting is in doubt after FanDuel abandoned its partnership with Intralot once the D.C. City Council opened the market.

The Arkansas Supreme Court has issued an expedited briefing schedule in the lawsuit over the Pope County casino license amendment that required the first brief be submitted beginning on Friday (August 16) in an effort to rule on the matter prior to the November 5 election. 

The court-ordered final replies are due by September 26. In an order issued Friday, the court agreed with a July 31 petition to review the initiative that would remove the licensed casino from the ballot.

The petition by the Arkansas Canvassing Compliance Committee (ACCC) claims that Local Voters in Charge, a group supporting the ballot initiative, violated state election laws regarding signature collection and includes misleading language.

ACCC was joined by Cherokee Nation Entertainment, the casino’s license holder, in filing the lawsuit with the state's Supreme Court on August 1. The Cherokee Nation was awarded the fourth and final casino license in late June after the Arkansas Racing Commission (ARC) found that a competing application was invalid. 

The Oklahoma Choctaw Nation, whose proposal was rejected by the ARC, supported Local Voters in Charge effort to get the question on the ballot, according to media reports.

Voters approved four casinos in Arkansas in 2018, including one in Pope County. While the other three are open for business, the Pope County license has been tied up in legal battles since gaming was approved.

Rwanda has temporarily suspended the issuing of new gambling licences and the renewal of existing licences until a new gambling policy has been approved.

The announcement of the suspension was made by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) on August 9.

Prime Minister's Order No. 028/03 of June 28, 2024 granted the RDB regulatory oversight of gambling activity.

Internet gaming is regulated under a 2011 law governing gambling activities; however, the country has pledged to create a new regulator and introduce new online gambling laws for several years. 

The government of Gibraltar’s Gambling Division has reached a £40,000 regulatory settlement with an unnamed licensee after discovering enhanced due diligence deficiencies in the management of two higher-staking non-UK customers.

The settlement is in lieu of a financial penalty.

In a statement on August 7, the Gibraltar Gambling Division stated it does “not believe that there was any widespread systemic issue”.

Despite there being no evidence that either of the customers in question were involved in money laundering or terrorist financing “there are learning points for the wider industry”, according to the announcement.

“Firstly, there should not be an overreliance on unverified open-source material (or a customer's own bare assertions). Secondly, when a decision is made to ask customers to verify information or support their level of spend, a customer’s reluctance to fully cooperate should never be a reason for the operator to resile from this position,” the Gambling Division stated. 

The unnamed operator in question was said to be fully cooperative and “immediately moved to improve the process” and was deemed to be “fit and proper to continue to hold a licence”.

The UK Gambling Commission hosted the Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority in Birmingham last week to discuss common challenges and opportunities for collaboration.

The Gambling Commission said that since the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) conference in Botswana in October 2023, it has strengthened its engagement with African gambling jurisdictions. 

“This meeting was another successful step in sharing our learnings around gambling trends and technologies, the illegal market and how we can better share data to make gambling safer, fairer and crime free for our respective organisations,” the Gambling Commission said in a social media post on August 7.

In March, the Gambling Commission signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Botswana’s Gambling Authority.

The Gambling Commission has been working closer with regulators in other jurisdictions as the industry becomes increasingly “internationalised”, executive director Tim Miller told Vixio at ICE in London on February 5, 2024. 

“The UK is tiny and as a result our individual importance as a regulator risks diminishing. We see this as one way of addressing that through strong relationships with regulators across North America, but it's not the only part of the work we are looking at.”