Bovada to leave another state, Entain faces pressure, UK MP in trouble

This week in gambling news has been as interesting as they get. An MP in the UK got himself into what can potentially be serious trouble over his bet on a snap election called in July.

Although making for a good anecdote, it’s hardly the most serious story of the week. Bovada, a prominent offshore bookmaker is supposedly shown the door – this time officially – in Connecticut.

The website will be asked to officially leave the state and geoblock players from Connecticut who may try to access it and play there. This comes only several weeks after a similar thing happened in Michigan.

In the meantime, Entain is facing a $128m claim by investors who feel that the company’s previous operations through a subsidiary in Turkey have caused them harm. The claim specifically targets the company in connection with Headlong Limited, the Turkey-facing business subsidiary operated when the company was known as GVC Holdings.

Remember the politician who made a faux pas? This is one Craig Williams whom you may know from UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s close inner circle. Williams confirmed that he had placed a bet on a new general election taking place in July, days before Sunak said that this would be the case, and anyone else in the party supposedly knew.

It’s not yet clear that if his wager also predicted the date correctly, but there is growing suspicion that he may have known beforehand, prompting an inquiry from the UK Gambling Commission.

Then, there is Germany. The country is again agog, as Die Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder, the country’s gambling watchdog, has revealed plans to launch a comprehensive review of the rules of advertising gambling activities.

The study will seek to better understand how gambling advertisement impacts individuals who may not be gamblers, as those who are already gambling. GamCare has called for tougher measures on the use of business funds to pay for gambling expenses.

The charity has argued that it’s high time for banks to block such transactions when they come from businesses as they could be inadvertently hurting gambling addicts who are misusing company funds.

At the same time, GamCare has found out that there is insufficient support for people who may be suffering from gambling-related harm at the workplace with the issue not openly discussed by employers and not enough support being offered.

Gordon Moody, a company that focuses on supporting problem gamblers’ recovery, has published the results of its residential treatment experiment involving women. The results mostly indicated that all of the participants showed significant improvement by the end of the treatment. Although some have relapsed, almost half of them did not show any symptoms 6 months after the fact.

At the same time, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission has awarded a new grant worth $275,000 to specifically explore the impacts that gambling has on young people in the state.

Not least, we caught up with Gerard Busom, Senior Account Manager LATAM at Amigo Gaming, who walked us through how his company has harnessed AI to follow consumer preferences, optimize its assembly line and deliver hard-hitting products.

We also had another heart-to-heart with Oleg Yakovlev, Game Producer at Evoplay, who ran us through how his company builds fascinating titles and what allows it to remain flexible and innovative.

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