Austria’s financial police have said they issued around €750,000 in fines for illegal gambling in the first quarter of 2024.
The financial police issued a total of €492,000 in fines during the same period in 2023, which is “mainly due to several major cases in the Salzburg area”, according to a press release on June 6.
Finance minister Magnus Brunner said: “The financial police regularly carry out targeted checks to protect the financial interests of the Republic and to take rigorous action against tax and social fraud, undeclared work and illegal gambling. This is the only way to protect honest companies.”
In total, 42 checks on illegal gambling were carried out by the financial police, resulting in 32 criminal charges.
Switzerland’s Federal Gaming Board (ESBK) has closed proceedings against Stake over its logo appearing on Swiss-based Sauber Motorsport AG’s F1 team products, including on its car, which appeared on Swiss TV.
The regulator launched a criminal investigation into the sponsorship in 2023 over concerns the online operator is not licensed in Switzerland and may be in breach of advertising rules.
The investigation noted that Sauber operates primarily internationally and that no events with the Stake logo took place in Switzerland, and did not target a Swiss audience according to a press release on June 4.
Stake games not being available in Switzerland were also taken into account as the operator has “taken the necessary measures to ensure that no Swiss players could register on the platform”, according to the ESBK.
The ESBK said: “The decision to discontinue the proceedings does not constitute a precedent. It is the result of a detailed investigation of each individual case. The ESBK will continue to carefully examine every suspected case of advertising for unlicensed casino games.”
The Missouri Gaming Commission has fined Boyd Gaming and Caesars Entertainment a total of $30,000 for various regulatory violations found during compliance audits.
Harrah’s Kansas City, which is operated by Caesars, was fined $15,000 after a review of paperwork from April 17 to April 23, 2023 revealed there were numerous discrepancies between the handwriting that recorded information on paid-out forms and the signatures on those same forms.
MGC auditors also found discrepancies in paperwork dealing with the reconciliation of kiosk forms and other transactions by cage employees.
At Boyd’s Ameristar casino, MGC auditors found eight unauthorized employees had access to the system that creates player accounts and/or prints player cards. Among the unauthorized employees were a restaurant manager, a food server and an executive casino host.
Those employees also had the ability to add or adjust points on player club card accounts. Other violations included failure to provide proper segregation to safeguard assets and reliability of casino systems, and a failure to provide necessary IT access system reports.
The company agreed to a $15,000 fine to settle the violations.
Representative Paul Tonko, a Democrat from New York, wants to ban slot machines on U.S. military bases under an amendment submitted to the House of Representative’s annual defense policy bill.
Amendment 624 to HR 8070, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), would prohibit the military from operating slot machines on bases. Tonko’s amendment was one of 1,316 proposed amendments submitted that lawmakers hope will be considered when the bill is taken up next week.
It is unclear if Tonko’s amendment will even be considered by the House Rules Committee. The U.S. Department of Defense operates more than 3,000 slot machines on military bases that generate about $100m annually, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, signed the state’s $53.1bn fiscal 2025 budget into law Wednesday (June 5), granting final approval to a graduated sports-betting tax that will see some operators pay up to 40 percent of revenues to the state.
The House of Representatives last month passed House Bill 4951, an omnibus budget bill, which included a new graduated tax rate for sports betting ranging from 20 percent of adjusted gross revenues up to 40 percent on annual revenue of more than $200m.
Pritzker’s original budget proposal released in February contained an increase from the current 15 percent to 35 percent, but lawmakers preferred the progressive tax rate.
The budget also includes a 1 percent increase in taxes on video gaming terminals (VGTs) to 35 percent of net terminal income.
Fanatics Betting and Gaming has agreed to a settlement with the Virginia Lottery over charges of accepting illegal wagers earlier this year, according to an agreement released Tuesday (June 4).
In April, Fanatics self-reported that it had improperly accepted wagers after the results were known and a single wager on an unauthorized sporting event.
The Virginia Lottery notified Fanatics on May 13 that the incidents violated the state’s Sports Betting Law and the lottery’s regulations. No specific information about the violations was contained in the four-page settlement agreement.
Fanatics agreed to a $7,000 fine. Fanatics operates a retail sportsbook and mobile skin in agreement with licensee Colonial Downs Group.
Financial transactions regulator AUSTRAC has begun investigating Mounties, New South Wales state’s biggest slot machine venue by profit, the Australian Financial Review reported on Monday (June 3).
The Sydney club is being probed over compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) law, the report said, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of correspondence between the regulator and the club.
It was not immediately clear if the correspondence is part of a wider communication with the industry, or whether Mounties is suspected of violating AML law, with AUSTRAC and Mounties declining to comment on the matter.
The probe follows several warnings by AUSTRAC officials in recent months that the regulator would move to investigate the lucrative slots segment after years of investigating Australia’s larger land-based casinos and several corporate bookmakers.
The NSW Crime Commission in 2022 reported that, despite its “high risk and inefficient” role in money laundering and not being widespread, slot machines were still being used to launder billions of dollars in illegal funds, particularly proceeds from drug dealing.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has scheduled another roundtable discussion for later this month on the practice of sports-betting operators limiting successful customers, even after none of the state’s ten licensees appeared at a meeting last month.
Jordan Maynard, interim chair of the commission, addressed the issue before adjourning Monday’s (June 3) meeting.
“I want to note, and this is in the interest of full transparency, that FanDuel did reach out to me last Friday (May 31) to set up a time to follow up on the roundtable that we conducted last month,” Maynard said.
“I know that we plan to take this issue up again soon. In fact, we have it marked up for a public meeting on June 20 to have a follow-up.”
Maynard said he’ll ensure that “FanDuel and any other operator know that each commissioner will need to be updated in a way that is transparent and fully compliant with the open meeting law.”
Maynard’s comments come after all the state’s licensees refused to participate in the roundtable on May 21, after initially signalling to the commission they would attend.
Flutter Entertainment, the parent company of FanDuel, moved its primary listing to the New York Stock Exchange on Friday (May 31), completing a transition that has been in the works for a number of months.
Flutter debuted on the NYSE in January after moving its secondary listing from Euronext Dublin to New York. The company's primary listing had been on the London Stock Exchange.
“Today marks an important milestone in the evolution of Flutter with the commencement of our primary listing on the New York Stock Exchange,” CEO Peter Jackson said in a statement.
“This closely follows the recent move of our operational headquarters to New York, with both reflecting the increasing importance of the U.S. sports betting and iGaming market to our business,” Jackson said. “We have a fantastic position in the U.S., with FanDuel the clear number one operator, and we look forward to this next step on our journey."
The company also announced the immediate departure Friday of its chief financial officer Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson. Edgecliffe-Johnson will be replaced by Rob Coldrake, who joined the company in 2020 and was CFO of Flutter International.
In a letter to Penn Entertainment’s board of directors on Friday (May 31), the Donerail Group said the gaming company is over compensating CEO Jay Snowden, failing in the sports-betting market, and should consider a sale to create shareholder value.
Donerail managing partner Will Wyatt wrote the six-page letter to Penn chairman David Handler, noting the company has spent four years and billions of dollars in a bid to gain a foothold in the U.S. online sports-betting market, but those efforts have proven unsuccessful.
“Moreover, the growing pattern of guidance misses, alongside a demonstrated unyielding appetite to continue to invest in the company’s fledgling interactive projects, irrespective of past results and without a clear return framework, has significantly damaged the credibility of this management team and board of directors,” Wyatt wrote.
Wyatt questioned whether such credibility is beyond repair, as Penn’s share are down over 80 percent in the last three years because of such damage.
Over a three-year period, Penn spent about $551m to acquire Barstool Sports, only to sell the company in August 2023 back to its founder David Portnoy for just $1 as it instead entered into an agreement with ESPN to create the Penn-operated ESPN Bet, paying the sports network $1.5bn over ten years.
Penn also granted ESPN $500m in equity warrants. The Donerail Group, a Los Angeles-based money manager, has been a long-term investor in Penn.
Colombian regulator Coljuegos had 15 online gaming operators participate in a working group to address complaints made by players.
Last month, Coljuegos announced an investigation into routine complaints made by players against the platforms.
At the time, Coljuegos president Marco Emilio Hincapié said that the organisation took such “inconsistencies” very seriously.
They have now gathered to address those inconsistencies, including technological malfunctions and the non-payment of prizes.
Hincapié also took the opportunity to lay out an action plan for addressing illegal platforms.
He said that a consultation will be held with KIGGU, a cybersecurity firm, to discuss ways of blocking websites specifically associated with unlicensed operator 1Win.
He also said there will be meetings with the prosecutor’s office and the financial superintendency, amongst others, to discuss measures against illegal operators.
A Brazilian judge has denied the appeal filed by the Minas Gerais state lottery. The appeal was filed against an initial ruling that suspended the international tender for an operator for lottery games both in person and online.
This is the third time in as many months that the competition has been suspended. All three cancellations of the tender – which happens via the delivery and opening of envelopes – were due to challenges from companies.
The latest challenge, from Sistema de Distribuição Lotérica, cited the violation of minimum deadlines.
Despite this, the lottery has said that they will soon publish new dates for the continuation of a new tender.
Minas Gerais has a population of 21 million. They were one of the Brazilian states to sign a Direct Action of Unconstitutionality requesting the suspension of two paragraphs in Law 14.790.
Specifically, they took issue with the ability (or lack thereof) to advertise outside their borders and only allowing one concession per operator within Brazil.
Malawi’s gambling regulator says it has incorporated stakeholder feedback on proposed regulations that have yet to be published.
The Malawi Gaming and Lotteries Authority (MAGLA) confirmed the news in a very brief press release on May 30.
When the country’s parliament approved the Gaming and Lotteries Act 2022, it paved the way for the legalisation of online gambling, the creation of a new electronic monitoring system to bolster revenue collection, and new advertising rules aimed at reducing their proliferation and limiting their visibility.
MAGLA opened a brief consultation on a raft of proposed gambling regulations in April 2023, covering the proposed regulations under the act for online gambling, lotteries, lottery funds, advertising, player protection, electronic monitoring and sports betting.
Austria details illegal gambling fines, Stake cleared in Switzerland, casinos fined in Missouri and US senator wants to ban slots on military bases.