SBC CIS Editorial Team is happy to present a quick recap of the gambling industry events, news, regulations and partnerships that happened last week.
SBC Barcelona Summit will offer a series of 30 exciting roundtables, which will cover key topics from both the industry and global markets. This approach will allow the participants to actively interact, focus on discussions that meet specific business needs, and provide interactive solutions to overcome various challenges.
Ukraine — The Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lottery (KRAIL) appealed to the staff of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) and law enforcement agencies to prevent Parimatch from reinstating its operations in Ukraine despite being banned. KRAIL experts have identified links between Parimatch and the newly created BuddyBet brand, owned by Winever DV (Curaçao), which previously operated Parimatch websites before the brand got into the sanctions list in Ukraine.
Despite its troubles in Ukraine, Parimatch continues to be the sponsor of the English Championship’s Leicester City club by signing an extension of the agreement. The brand, which is currently managed by BVGroup, a Gibraltar online gambling operator, will be represented on LED panels along the pitch, club’s training facilities, King Power stadium interview backdrops, website banners and in both online and offline advertising.
Kazakhstan — The Ministry of Culture and Sports filed a lawsuit against the prominent local sports betting operator Olimp.kz with a demand to revoke its betting licence. There is currently no information on the reasons behind the Ministry’s lawsuit. However, back in July 2023, the Minister of Culture and Sports of Kazakhstan, Askhat Oralov, publicly announced his plans to withdraw betting licences from three operators at once, without specifying their names.
The Department of the Financial Monitoring Agency (AFM) for the Almaty region of Kazakhstan has started a pre-trial investigation into the 1Win online casino to prove its illegal activity in the country. According to posts on the agency’s official social media pages, 1Win illegally targeted citizens of Kazakhstan with their ads, and what’s more — the brand offered sports betting without a proper gambling licence. AFM representatives emphasised that 1Win was active not only in Kazakhstan, but also in the Eastern European countries and far abroad.
Romania — The National Gaming Authority (ONJN) has decided to revoke Cash Gaming SRL’s slot machine licence. This happened due to the company’s failure to fulfil mandatory payments. Faults in Cash Gaming’s Q1 2023 filings showed that the company had not paid the full authorization fee and the tax, leading to this discrepancy being identified. During the quarter, Cash Gaming was required to pay a commission of RON 1.6 million, but only RON 371,039 was paid out. Similarly, the tax for this period was RON 179,325, but Cash Gaming only paid RON 40,330.
Ivan Kurochkin, Partner at 4H Agency, in his op-ed at SBCCIS.com talks about responsible gaming, regulatory issues, social responsibility and why it is crucial to understand the variety of instruments responsible gambling can offer for players, regulators and operators all over the world.
Denis Parkhomenko, Chief Product Officer at GR8 Tech, sat down with the SBC editors to chat about the role of personalization features in the development of the sports betting platforms, player retention, partnership management and many many other critical parts that make up a successful and efficient sports betting solution.
Bulgaria — The National Revenue Agency of Bulgaria (NRA), created a new unit called “Prevention and Counter Action Against Money Laundering”. This is an important part of the government commission responsible for overseeing the country’s gambling industry. These changes have been included in the updated gambling regulatory framework establishing the authority of the director of the National Revenue Agency as the supreme legal entity over all gambling enterprises in Bulgaria.
Germany — The Federal Gambling Authority (GGL) considers Malta’s recent Bill 55 (the Gambling Amendment Bill) to be incompatible with the European Union laws and member states’ protection measures. Maltese President George Vella signed Bill 55 in June, allowing the Maltese courts to refuse to recognize and enforce foreign judgments related to online gambling operators registered in Malta in cases when actions of an operator don’t contradict the Maltese Gambling Law. Such a decision has drawn criticism as it may set a precedent to allow national courts to refuse to recognize and enforce the actions of foreign governments or authorities that regulate gambling.
Vlad Slyusarenko, CEO of Bet on Good Foundation and Marketing Director at TVBET, in his recent interview with SBC talks about the work done by the organisation since its launch. He insists that every company in the gaming industry should be doing even more to support humanitarian initiatives in Ukraine, a country in the East of Europe that was brutally invaded by the Russian Federation in February of 2022. For the full interview, please follow this link to our website.
Entain has received unanimous shareholder approval to complete the acquisition of STS Holdings, an online betting group listed on the Warsaw stock exchange. Entain’s Board of Directors today announced that its £750 million offer has been accepted by the STS shareholders, who own 99.3% of the total share capital, represented by over 155 million shares. Once the acquisition is complete, Entain will delist STS Holding from the list of companies traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
Podcast Review: Convergence Of Gaming and Sports Media Is The Future of Betting
Ahead of SBC Summit Barcelona, the new iGaming Daily podcast episode was dedicated to the conference agenda. Hosted by SBC News’ Senior Journalist Ted Orme-Claye, the episode features Sam Sadi, CEO at Livescore, who focused on the convergence of iGaming and sports media and their role in the future of sports betting. At the Summit, Mr. Sadi will be moderating a panel entitled “Game On: Unleashing the convergence of gaming and sport-media for the future of sports betting”.
Winbet has returned as the sponsor of the Bulgarian football team Botev Plovdiv. Winbet logo will be put on the official and training kits of both club teams, as well as at the Hristo Botev stadium and the Nikola Shterev-Starika sports complex. In addition to Bulgaria, Winbet is currently present in Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Tanzania and Belarus.
NetBet and Spadegaming entered into a strategic alliance to enrich the experience of its players, and bring a selection of games from Spadegaming, including Legacy Of Kong Maxways, Gold Panther and Fiery Sevens to the vast audience of the NetBet platform partner-operators.
Stay tuned for more news this week and subscribe to our Telegram channel!
