Sports betting tax revenue on the up, Brazil publishes new rules

Since legalizing sports betting on a federal level in 2018, the United States has had much good news to report. Now, a survey by LendingTree, an online lending marketplace company, has reaffirmed that there has been much that is good about the legalization of sports gambling in the country. The total tax contribution to local state coffers amounted to $2.5bn in 2023 alone, an increase of nearly 35%, the company reported.

Speaking of strong financial results, Betway's parent company, Super Group, recorded its best first quarter with revenue hitting €379.3m for the three months ended on March 31, 2024. The company saw an increase in the overall monthly active customers to 4.7m during the quarter and reported a solid profit from operations, bolstered by North American and African operations.

Super Group is not the only company to actually boast a rather strong result over the first quarter with DraftKings, America’s leading betting and gaming giant, also closing the books on a serious first quarter as well.

The Netherlands has moved against another gambling operator in the country which the Dutch Gambling Authority alleges has been operating without the proper license. Sarah Eternal has been named in the regulator’s official reprimand. The operator is said to be operating without a license and to be threatened by a €280,000 weekly penalty until it discontinues its offer targeting Dutch citizens.

Meanwhile, Sweden has decided to push forward with a legal amendment that would shutter the last standing Cosmopol Casino, the one in Stockholm. The Cosmopol Casino properties have felt the pinch of declining revenue and traffic, perhaps partially occasioned by the arrival of online gambling several years prior. Sweden is also looking to do more to address match-fixing by strengthening its understanding of the issue and preparing tougher regulations.

Paf, another Scandinavian company, has put forward immediate plans to reduce loss limits for certain age groups, hoping to strengthen its overall responsible play commitment to consumers. In the meantime, Brazil has put forward a second set of rules that outline what processes operators who wish to join the market have to follow to be allowed to operate locally.

Among the more prominent prerequisites is for the domain names to have "bet.br" in their name, as a way to filter rogue operators out. Enteractive, a company that specializes in reactivating consumers for the iGaming industry, among others, has received new funding from Bettor Capital Investment. The investment is non-controlling and only seeks to strengthen Enteractive’s global expansion in North American and Latin American markets.

Meanwhile, sports betting ads in the United States seem to be in decline. The 2023 budget spent on sports gambling advertisement amounted to $210m, a new survey by the American Gaming Association and Nielsen indicated. This could be partially because of toughening rules and changes in the way taxation works in certain states, cooling the frenzy that has commonly been associated with sports gambling messages.

The upcoming MARE BALTICUM Gaming & TECH Summit in Tallinn, Estonia, will also feature unique wellness sessions designed to break the ice between attendees as part of HIPTHER Agency’s original networking efforts.

SBC Events is also expanding its offices in Malta this week, with the organization opening a new place for its remote teams to come together and converge on what is one of the most important jurisdictions and venues in iGaming.

Speaking of major developments and events in the industry, Casino Guru Head of Sustainable & Safer Gambling Šimon Vincze attended the Ethical Gamblin Forum 2024 and participated in an interactive session that discussed at length the journey towards a Global Self Exclusion System, one of the projects that Vincze himself has been actively working on as part of the Gamtegrity platform.

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