Credit card bans, Brazil plans ahead, 888 & Betfred appoint new executives

This week brought a number of regulatory changes which, although still a work in progress, are almost certainly going to pass the last hurdles and become laws. In the meantime, prominent companies from the gambling industry have appointed new executives. Let’s take a closer look.

Australia is in focus this week as the country is pushing ahead with a planned reform of the use of credit cards for the purposes of online gambling. Legislators in the Australian parliament are insisting that credit cards should be eliminated when it comes to online betting, as this is already the case in the land-based sector.

Although no final decision has been reached, there seems to be sufficient backing for the measure, as indicated by Communications Minister Michelle Rowland. The newly proposed measures come amid a pivotal time for the gambling industry in the Down Under, with a new research tying gambling addiction and problem gambling to at least 184 suicide cases in eight years, and the country also introducing a national self-exclusion program.

Speaking of decisive legislative steps, Brazil has pushed a sports betting bill through its Lower House, with Bill No 3626/23 now to get its day in the Senate before it can be enacted into law. The piece of legislation is seeking to add to provisional measure No 1.182, which is the law that currently regulates the sports betting industry in the country.

Should the new bill pass, the state expects to see as much as $335.65m generated in contributions to the budget from the industry in 2024 alone. More news has to do with regulation this week as the Dutch Gaming Authority or Kansspelautoriteit stated that it would suggest improvements to the existing regulatory framework to help licensees better intervene in cases where they may be slow to respond to potentially dangerous gambling patterns.

People on the Move

Two big events this week with 888 and Betfred in focus. Betfred USA has appointed a new Chief Executive Officer in the face of Kresimir Spajic, an industry veteran who has held various roles across some of the most prominent companies in the industry and will now focus on helping the company elevate its business in the United States as it pursues further growth. Betfred USA is already present in 10 states.

In a similar vein, 888 has appointed a new Chief Financial Officer, Sean Wilkins, who is going to take the reins officially on February 1, 2024. In the meantime, the group’s Chief Strategy Officer, Vaughan Lewis, will also assume the responsibilities of a CFO from the outgoing Yariv Dafna. The group has hailed this transition as seamless and thanked Dafna for his service.

The Business Roundup

Livespins has continued to grow and expand its offer over the past weeks, with this week being no exception – the company teamed up with Slotegrator, a powerful aggregator of content and platforms, making it possible for Livespins to reach new operators and their audiences quickly and efficiently. Both Slotegrator and Livespins have been keen to expand their presence in gaming markets by bringing innovative and quality experiences across the board.

ReelPlay and Yggdrasil have teamed up for the release of a brand-new slot game, Hercules 10K WAYS, which introduces players to the popular namesake mechanic, 10K WAYS. Players get to enjoy a slot that provides them with a 96.1% RTP and has a maximum win set at €183,244, along with the signature 10,000 paylines.

Flutter Entertainment has revealed a rebranding for its PokerStars VR brand which is known as Vegas Infinite moving forward. PokerStars VR is an ambitious project undertaken by the company to provide players with more technology-oriented and out-of-the-box products, an ongoing mission that Flutter will pursue under the banner of the new brand.

Not least, Incode, a company that specializes in leveraging AI to improve Identity Verification and Authentication has signed a deal with MaxBet, an operator of betting and gaming products, to help the latter with a range of crucial parts of the experience, including onboarding, mandatory checks regarding source of wealth, and responsible gambling interventions.

The Industry Talks

In this week’s series of interviews with prominent industry leaders, we have had the opportunity to catch up with Nailed It! Games Pawel Piotrowski, co-founder of the award-winning studio. Piotrowski made a compelling argument about how games are designed today and the overuse of "innovation" to simply signify aesthetic and visual changes in the design of the games. He also spoke about how Nailed It! Games bucked this trend and created products of true innovative value.

We also caught up with Relax Gaming’s Senior GPO Callum Sultana just in time for the release of the company’s acclaimed Money Train 4. Sultana spoke about Relax’s own approach to creating innovative titles and said that the company has the goal of creating the Best Game of the Year – Every Year. He also discussed the company’s philosophy in bringing titles that are always better than their predecessors.

Not least, we heard from Leonardo Baptista, the CEO & co-founder of Pay4Fun, who discussed how the sports betting sector can capitalize on innovation in payment solutions, and the trend that the vertical needs to specifically follow if it wants to pull ahead.

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