Dutch government extends lockdown: All casinos to remain closed
Due to high Covid-19 infection rates, the Dutch government has extended the country-wide lockdown until at least February 9. All casinos and arcade halls are to remain closed until that date.
5+1 gambling predictions for 2021
Making predictions for the new year is a time-honored January tradition. While we may have dropped the ball here, others have been more forthcoming with their prognostications.
Gambling news website Meneer Casino, for instance, has published its five casino predictions for 2021:
1. Coronavirus breathalyzers will become a common sight at casino entrances.
2. There will be ca. 50 licensed operators when the Dutch online market opens on October 1, 2021.
3. We will see much more local and typically Dutch content in the product portfolio of licensed online operators.
4. The ongoing shift to mobile will mean that portrait mode will become standard for new games.
5. More M&A.
Marketing and sponsoring expert Marcel Beerthuizen adds another gambling-related prediction to this list. The opening of the regulated Dutch online gambling market will lead to a major influx of sponsorship money. Professional football clubs are expected to profit most. But stakeholders should watch out for a backlash against the expected flood of gambling-related advertising!
Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas Sands founder and billionaire casino magnate, dead at 87
Sheldon Adelson, founder of the Las Vegas Sands group and the world’s 18th-wealtiest person with an estimated net worth of $36bn, died Tuesday at the age of 87.
Adelson was founder, chairman, and CEO of Las Vegas Sands, the company named for the iconic Sands Casino in Las Vegas. He grew Las Vegas Sands into a multi-billion-dollar casino corporation that currently owns integrated resort properties and convention facilities on the Las Vegas Strip, Macau, and Singapore with a market capitalization of almost $45 billion.
In 2013, he abandoned plans to build a $30bn “Euro Vegas” resort near Madrid, after failing to convince local legislators of the viability of his project. Adelson was a fierce opponent of online gambling and donated generously to US political candidates who supported his vision.
Adelson was a Trump megadonor and Republican party kingmaker who once suggested that the US should detonate a nuclear weapon on Iranian soil as a warning to that country’s government. Adelson also donated large sums of money to right-wing Israeli political parties and causes, as well as a network of far-right anti-Islam websites.
Upcoming events
The following events may be of interest to the GiH community.
Events
SiGMA Europe has been rescheduled to 13 – 15 April, 2021.
The third edition of CasinoBeats Summit will return to Malta from May 18 – 20, 2021, as part of Spring iGaming Week organized in partnership with KPMG and Gaming Malta.
The Betting on Sports America conference and expo has been scheduled for 8 – 10 June, 2021 and will bring together all the major players in the fast-growing North American sports betting industry.
ICE London 2021 will now take place 29 June – July 1, 2021, with the co-located iGB Affiliate London taking place 1 – 2 July.
iGB Live 2021 has also been moved to 28 September – 1 October, 2021, but will still take place in Amsterdam!
Webinars and virtual events
Mindway AI has published an on-demand webinar on player profiling and efficient responsible gaming interventions.
G4 and KPMG have joined forces to offer a safer gambling training for customer support professionals on 28 January, 2021.
Sportradar, the global provider of sports betting services, announced the launch of Sportradar Connect, a new curated event series. The first session, on 23 February, 2021, will feature Ted Leonsis, founder, chairman, principal partner and CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment in Washington DC.
Join the iGaming Next Power Hour every Friday @3pm CET for a short, compact, educational and social weekly digital gathering with some of the brightest and most connected minds of the industry.
Netherlands Gambling Authority fines Curacao-based operator €600k over online gambling offenses
The Netherlands Gambling Authority has issued a €500,000 fine to Curacao-based Virtual Coin Gaming NV for offering online gambling services to Dutch consumers without a license. An additional €100,000 fine was issued against an unnamed individual connected with the business.
Virtual Coin Gaming NV offered its gambling services to Dutch players on the Netherlands-facing domains www.futgalaxy.nl and, later, on nl.futgamer.com for an eight-month period between February and October 2018. The websites furthermore offered the Dutch iDEAL payment method and also failed to bar minors from participating in its games.
Other news
The Dutch government-sponsored Anti-Money Laundering Centre (AMLC) has published a description of how online gambling can be used to launder money, including a brief overview of relevant jurisprudence.
Holland Casino will henceforth exclude under-24s from its loyalty program.
Online slots developer Stakelogic has co-founded the Dutch Gambling Association (DGA), which has launched a new white label casino platform.
Dutch psychology student Indy Mellink has designed a new gender-neutral card deck, replacing King, Queen, and Jack with Gold, Silver, and Bronze.
iGaming solutions giant Playtech expects earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to rise to at least €300m in 2020.
William Hill has revealed that net revenue was down 16% year-on-year for 2020, despite reporting a 9% rise for the fourth quarter.
The Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has taken over management of France’s self-exclusion scheme, as it continues to fulfil core duties as the country’s new unified gambling regulator.
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