SBC Summit announced, News Corp bows out of Betr, esports B2C scales down

Betr, a sports betting start-up in Australia that has faced some criticism over its promotional practices, has confirmed that News Corp, an early-day backer of the company, has decided to withdraw and sell its stake.

The exact reasons of this are not clarified, but News Corp’s exit was first reported in February. One suggestion is that Betr ran a little too loosely with its promotional offers, generating about AU$52m loss for News Corp, which invested around AU$75m when the betting giant was first starting out. The split, such as it has been, seemed to be conducted on amicable terms.

SBC Summit Barcelona 2023 has inspired SBC to pursue a new format, moving the event to Lisbon, Portugal, and rebranding the flagship event to simply "SBC Summit."

The upcoming event will be now held in Lisbon’s Feira Internacional de Lisboa on September 24-26, 2024, and it’s expected to have 25,000 attendees and host them on 100,000 square meters. This change of venue probably also has to do with ICE moving to Barcelona in 2025.

Entain and Real Luck Group, which own Unikrn and Luckbox respectively, have both released statements this week, confirming that they are scaling down their esports betting business-to-customer divisions. Esports has long been one of the fastest expanding verticals in the industry, but leveraging its full potential has proven difficult for some.

Speaking of esports platforms, Rivalry, another native esports betting platform, has further branched out into igaming with the launch of its own brand of dedicated slot experiences. Rivalry has used its momentum and success in the esports vertical and has ensured its business model sustainability by one – focusing on Millennial and Gen Z audiences, and secondly – by breaking ground into verticals that are not just competitive video gaming.

So far as original content goes, BetMGM and Inspired Entertainment announced a similar project that has to do with the launch of MGM Bonus City that creates a brand-new type of content, leveraging technology such as Virtual CGI and green screen technology. The title has been hailed as a brand new game genre by both companies.

Light & Wonder is also joining the list of companies to release an exciting new game this week as well, as the company debuted a Squid Game-inspired title which is still not available on the mass market and is expected to roll out in 2024.

Mindway AI and the National Council on Problem Gambling have formed a new alliance to boost awareness for RG in the United States. As part of this new opportunity, Mindway AI will offer its Gamalyze tool that will be now incorporated into the ResponsiblePlay.org and help consumers garner insights about their own gambling habits.

Winlandia, the rebranded Finnish online casino with global ambitions, has rolled out in the United Kingdom for the first time as well. The website brings its brand of games and experience and seeks to introduce them with local audiences in the new market for the very first time.

Casino Guru’s Beat

You must be aware that the nomination deadline for the upcoming Casino Guru Awards is fast-approach, but in case you haven’t heard – you should probably head over to the nomination page right now. There are still more than two weeks to submit your company’s entry for the prestigious event that will announce the winners during an official ceremony in February 2024.

Casino Guru also ran a forum poll that sought to better understand the habits of consumers and specifically – how they utilize RG tools to minimize the risk of harm. The poll has revealed that out of the 1246 that voted, 367 people do not use any responsible gambling tools at all.

As Daniel Dolejsi, the Community Manager at Casino Guru, puts it, the fact that there is a substantial number of players who are not engaging with these tools is a cause for concern and it begs the question why this is the case and what can be done to improve the numbers.

Casino Guru has had a bit of a cause to celebrate this week as well, as the Casino Guru Complaint Resolution Center has reached a new milestone – 30,000 published and $24m returned to players. Petronela Kontos, Casino Guru's Complaints Team Lead, hailed the achievement as a hallmark of the team’s dedication to helping players and act as fair intermediaries between them and operators.

The Industry Speaks

This week offered us the opportunity to take a closer look at more interesting developments in the gambling industry through the eyes of some of its most prominent stakeholders. We spoke with Galaxsys SVP, Sales & Business Development Gil Soffer who walked us through the company’s road so far, its focus on building marquee games, such as Totem, Roll the Dice, Roll the Board, and a desire to establish trust with player bases.

We also caught up with Olga Levshina, BGaming’s Chief Commercial Officer, who spoke about the company’s journey across different market, and its focus on emerging jurisdictions. BGaming is planning to move on markets such as Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Italy, and Switzerland among others, and its success there is partially guaranteed by the company’s unique approach to customization, which Levshina discussed in a separate article.

Our team also had the pleasure to catch up with Sebastian Bielski, ZEAL’s recently appointed Chief Financial Officer, who spoke about the company’s future and how apart from building robust products at home, ZEAL is also a company that focuses on developing the lottery vertical as a whole in local and global markets.

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