News In Brief: October 7-October 11, 2024

The Australian Greens party has introduced a bill to ban online gambling advertising in response to declining government support for total prohibition.

A private member’s initiative authored by South Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, the bill attempts to force the government’s hand in responding to a parliamentary committee’s unanimous support for a full ad ban.

The bill resembles the committee’s recommendation on an advertising ban and would compel implementation within three years over four phases.

“If the major parties showed similar support to the Inquiry recommendations, this ban could be enacted immediately,” Hanson-Young told the Senate on Wednesday (October 9) after introducing the bill.

“Yet the Albanese Labor Government has since backed away from a full ban on gambling advertising, proving where their true loyalties lie — with the cashed-up gambling lobby and some of the big media companies and major sporting codes.”

Local media reported that the government will instead further tighten broadcast restrictions for online sports betting, while instituting a full ban on online advertising.

The bill is unlikely to make headway outside the Senate given that the government has a five-seat majority in the House of Representatives.

A New South Wales (NSW) government inquiry into allegations of animal cruelty in the state’s greyhound racing industry has been extended by more than four months and will now investigate possible financial mismanagement.

The inquiry conducted by the acting head of the NSW Greyhound Welfare and Integrity Commission, Lea Drake, will continue until April 30 after receiving a “high volume of submissions”, the government said in a statement on Friday (October 11).

Gaming and racing minister David Harris approved Drake’s request for the extension and to bolster financial management scrutiny in a revised term of reference, it said.

The expansion of the inquiry’s schedule and scope bode ill for the greyhound regulator, Greyhound Racing NSW, whose CEO resigned in July.

Rob Macaulay departed just hours after media reports of its chief veterinarian blowing the whistle on a “morass” of cruelty toward dogs and forged rehoming data. 

The NSW greyhound industry dodged a bullet in 2016 when the then conservative government reversed a decision to shut it down after pressure from industry, regional political forces and mass media with industry advertising interests.

Hearings in the current probe continue next week and will last until at least December, the statement said.

The National Lottery of Benin (LNB) is going public, with up to 45 percent of the shares in the company being listed on the Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM) stock exchange for Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.

The state of Benin currently owns 100 percent of the shares in the company, which has increased turnover tenfold between 2016 and 2023 where it reached an estimated FCFA100,000,000,000 (€153,403,182) for the year, according to the LNB. 

The sale of 35 to 45 percent of the shares was authorised by Decree No. 2024 – 1018, which was adopted by the Council of Ministers on July 17.

“This operation, which corresponds to a raising of an amount between FCFA33,600,000,000 and FCFA43,200,000,000 on the regional market, will allow the State of Benin, on the one hand, to guarantee the transparency of the partial sale operation and on the other hand, to contribute to the development of the regional stock market,” LNB said in a statement on October 3. 

The former owner of shuttered online bookmaker TexBet has been convicted in a New South Wales (NSW) state court and fined A$33,000 (US$22,000) for sending advertisements and allowing wagers from a customer who tried to close a company account.

The Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney on September 25 sentenced Tamworth, NSW-based O’Shea Bookmaking, which traded as TexBet, for breaching the Betting and Racing Act 1998.

The court found that TexBet sent four gambling advertisements even after the customer requested that the account be closed in May 2022. The company also accepted 75 bets from the customer after the request.

Online gambling regulator Liquor & Gaming NSW said in a statement on October 1 that the conviction was the first for an online betting agency for “direct marketing without consent and failing to close a betting account on request”.

Jane Lin, executive director of regulatory operations for Liquor & Gaming NSW, said TexBet “has broken a law that was put in place to protect vulnerable people who are trying to exclude themselves from gambling”.

However, the regulator’s statement referred to TexBet as if it were operational, with no clarification from Liquor & Gaming NSW that the operation was absorbed by a rival company a few months after the offences occurred.

TexBet was acquired for a reported A$10m by the Matthew Tripp-launched corporate bookmaker BetR in late 2022, then shut down in June 2023 after its customer accounts were moved to betR.

The fine is notable for being one of the largest to date for an apparent first offence by a corporate bookmaker, consistent with Liquor & Gaming NSW’s increasing impatience with industry lawbreaking. 

A second prominent operator excluded from a new federal whitelist has been able to obtain a state-level licence in Rio de Janeiro in order to remain in business during a current transition period.

Esportes da Sorte and its Onabet sister brand were officially authorised in Rio after acquiring the operations of Apostou.com operator ST Soft, according to a statement published late on Monday (October 7) by Rio lottery authority LOTERJ.

Both Esportes da Sorte and VaideBet, which was licensed by LOTERJ on October 1, were last week left off a national whitelist of websites permitted to remain in operation while their federal license applications remain under review.

The two Curaçao-licensed operators have been publicly connected to criminal money-laundering investigations and Brazil’s federal betting regulator indicated that they were not on the whitelist due to suitability concerns.

LOTERJ said it reviewed all documentation submitted by Esportes da Sorte and that the operator had also provided “certificates of suitability” before approval was granted.

Although the Rio lottery insists its licensees are legally permitted to operate throughout Brazil, Esportes da Sorte stated on social media that it still intends to obtain a federal licence and that it had filed an “administrative appeal” to that end.

France’s National Gaming Authority (ANJ) is launching a new campaign to remind players that online casino sites are illegal in the country and that as a result they are dangerous. 

The campaign, which is branded “100% winning?” started its broadcast on Monday, October 7 on web banners, testimonials on TikTok, broadcasts on Snapchat and Twitch, and interactive ads on gaming apps. 

According to the ANJ, half of all players said that they were unaware that online casino sites are illegal in France. 

A study conducted by consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers on behalf of the ANJ in 2023 found that between 3 and 4 million people rolled the proverbial and literal dice on illegal gambling sites. The study is the impetus for the new campaign.

The Swedish Gambling Authority (SGA) reviewed the technical requirements adherence of three licensees and found them to be in compliance, the regulator said yesterday (October 8).

All Swedish licensees must annually have their gaming, business and other systems checked and certified by accredited companies, the SGA said.

The regulator said it checked compliance of the three companies this Summer, especially with restrictions on deposits and playing time.

The companies were Paf International, Burstit, and LeoEx, the SGA said. 

The Nigerian Federation of State Gaming Regulators (FSGR) is in the final stages of launching a “universal” licensing framework as disputes between the federal gambling regulator and state regulators over the right to collect gambling fees drag on.

The FSGR says the new framework, which is designed by Deloitte, will promote reciprocal regulations among different state regulators and ensure their respective autonomy, according to local media reports.

The announcement came during a meeting between the Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LSLGA) and the Association of Nigerian Bookmakers (ANB), during which a spokesperson for the ANB once again highlighted the need for clarity on the role of different regulatory bodies in the country.

Earlier this year, Bashir Are, chairman of the FSGR and CEO of the LSLGA, warned that both operators and regulators were facing challenges, including multiple taxation and a lack of standardised gaming machine standards, as he called for standardised technical requirements for gaming machines and an agreement with regulators on the continent to tackle illegal gambling.

State gambling regulators are currently in conversation with the federal gambling regulator, the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC), through the office of the attorney general of Lagos state, in an ongoing effort to reach a unanimous decision to resolve the long-standing dispute between them.

Nigeria’s government is also trying and resolve challenges faced by the country’s gambling industry and has called on state and federal regulators to work together.

Ireland’s Retail Grocery Dairy and Allied Trades Association (RGDATA) has written a letter to Paschal Donohoe, the minister for public expenditure and reform, urging him to ban licensed bookmakers from accepting bets on the National Lottery.

The letter, dated September 10 but recently published, comes as Irish lawmakers are close to finalising amendments to the Gambling Regulation Bill 2022.

RGDATA, which represents more than 3,000 retailers, estimates that allowing bets on the lottery will see retail agents lose over €50m in fees.

Tara Buckley, the RGDATA director general who authored the letter, accepted that its members and other National Lottery agents “have a vested interest in seeing Lottery Betting being banned in Ireland”.

“However, if a ban on Lottery Betting resulted in more money being raised for Good Causes, less people being exposed to problem gambling environments and the cessation of a blatant undermining of the National Lottery brand, surely these are benefits worth achieving,” Buckley said.

In 2019, Donohoe during a parliamentary debate said there was no evidence to suggest that secondary lotteries pose a threat to the country’s national lottery.

A federal judge has suspended an injunction awarded last week to the state lottery of Rio de Janeiro that sought to block enforcement of new national ordinances on online betting.

Lottery authority LOTERJ had claimed that, among other regulations, a September 17 ordinance prohibiting all operators except those applying for federal licences was prejudicial to the state of Rio and its own, state-authorised licensees.

A federal judge overturned the injunction on Saturday (October 5), following a successful appeal by Brazil’s attorney general’s office.

Despite the decision, LOTERJ insisted that the operations of its eight betting licensees would be unaffected and that licensing rules enabling them to offer online betting throughout Brazil remain protected by provisions of a new federal law enacted last December.

In a statement, LOTERJ noted that its own licensees are already subject to regulation and required to pay state and federal taxes, "whereas the federal government continues to permit the operation of betting by companies based in tax havens without any controls or restrictions".

US-based gambling and hospitality company Wynn Resorts has announced that its United Arab Emirates (UAE) joint venture casino has received a commercial gaming licence, the first to be awarded to a casino operator in the federation.

Wynn Resorts said in a statement on Friday (October 4) that the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA) issued the licence for its Wynn Al Marjan Island project after a “diligent and extensive review” of its suitability.

“Wynn Resorts thanks the GCGRA for the confidence and trust the licence grant signifies and is proud to be the recipient of the first commercial gaming facility licence in the UAE,” it said.

The GCGRA has yet to comment on the licence award to the $4bn project, which is slated for an early 2027 launch and whose other partners are local companies RAK Hospitality Holding and Marjan, a property developer.

Wynn’s licence is the first casino “facility” licence to be issued by the GCGRA, following the issuance of a commercial gaming licence in July to Abu Dhabi-based The Game LLC to run the federation’s lottery monopoly.

Wynn Resorts will hold a private, invitation-only analyst and investor update meeting to discuss the UAE project at Wynn Las Vegas on Tuesday.

MGM Resorts International said on September 19 that it had filed an application for a casino licence for its proposed integrated resort in Abu Dhabi, confirming prospects for a competitive national market.

With the emirate of Dubai reluctant to entertain a casino, the potential granting of a casino licence to MGM in a single-licence-per-emirate framework would place it and Wynn Resorts in pole position in any expanded UAE casino industry.