UKGC issues fines, Entain closer to STS acquisition, industry events on the horizon

The United Kingdom Gambling Commission has once again issued a penalty this week, targeting Star Racing Limited, operating Star Sports, with a £594,000 fine over social responsibility and anti-money laundering breaches.

This is the first time the regulator has targeted Star Sports. The regulator said that the enforcement was necessitated because of deficiencies registered in the period between March 2020 and May 2021. This makes the latest penalty in a long series of enforcement actions that the regulator has taken this year.

As a reminder, the United Kingdom is currently running public consultations on a revision of the country’s gambling laws, with legislators and consumers calling for more player protection in the industry.

Big movers and big changes

In other news, Entain is hoping to move forward with its pursuit of STS Group, Poland’s largest sports betting company and operator. Entain has revealed this week that it has received antitrust approval for the transaction, which is set to be finalized in mid-August.

This makes one of the biggest and most recent acquisition moves that Entain has undertaken. Entain sought to acquire other assets in Europe over the last several months, including a move on SuperSport, a Croatian betting and gaming operator.

Now, Entain can pursue further growth in Poland after the regulator, the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, has greenlighted the deal and will allow it to move forward. Meanwhile, Mateusz Juroszek, STS Chief Executive Officer, and his family invested in Gaming Innovation Group this week to become the largest shareholder in the company.

Sportradar andCaesars Sportsbook have strengthened their partnership with the companies agreeing to collaborate on the provision of optical tracking data from the NBA. This will allow Caesars to strengthen the quality of its in-play sports betting markets and provide greater value to customers.

Both companies welcomed the opportunity to continue working together and building a strong relationship over the coming years.

Kentucky’s betting industry readies to launch

In the meantime, Kentucky has been able to settle on a sports betting date launch for its newly-regulated industry. The Bluegrass State expects to be all systems to go on September 7 with retail and September 28 with online and interactive sports wagers.

A regulated sports gambling industry is designed to help tackle Kentucky’s state deficit and also plug the gap when it comes to sports betting offers in the state with residents often traveling beyond state borders to place a wager instead.

In Europe, Bragg Gaming Group has confirmed that it had launched its content portfolio with Adjarabet in Georgia. The partnership sees Bragg Gaming bring a number of its own and third-party games to the Flutter Entertainment brand and significantly bolster the available games.

Push Gaming has expanded its content reach and partnership list through a new tie-up with bet365. The prominent operator of online casino and sportsbook will now see a series of the supplier’s games arrive on the market, along with Fat Series, Jammin Jars, Razor Shark, and Big Bamboo among others.

EGBA has released new information about the effectiveness and outreach of its Safer Gambling Messaging in 2022. The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) reported that it saw 45.5 million safer gambling messages placed by its members sent to customers.

That marked a 20% annual increase with 48% of these communications built in a highly-personalized manner so as to have a stronger impact on the audiences. This personalized approach is something that EGBA vows to continue pursuing as the best and most impactful manner of helping improve responsible gambling across the board and protect consumers in the process.

Events on the gambling industry calendar

As to the industry in general, there is a busy schedule ahead. The SBC Summit Barcelona 2023 will feature a special Affiliate, Marketing & Media Zone. SBC Events, the hosts of the event have big expectations from the upcoming edition which is hoping to reunite 15,000 delegates. Meanwhile, AffPapa’s iGaming Club Amsterdam 2023 has already sold out, with the format seeing all available seats snapped up.

Similarly, Eventus International is gearing up to bring more insights into South Asia and Sri Lanka in particular with the upcoming SPiCE Sri Lanka 2023. The event is now less than two weeks away and will be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka on July 26 – July 28. Hipther Agency, too, has revealed further plans for the upcoming Digital EXPO 2023. This list of events is crowned with the fresh announcement and introduction of SBC Summit Rio 2024.

The Experts Talk

Before you finish up your weekday reading, you may want to find out more about what’s on Roberto Regianini, CEO at FBMDS. Regianini wrote about the significance of cultural identity and how it can be leveraged in online casino games. The games that factor in this are likely to be more successful as are the studios that make them, Regianini said.

Andrew Foster, Chief Business Officer at Enteractive, in the meantime spoke about player engagement and retention, a matter of continued interest about the industry, business, affiliates, and virtually anyone involved.

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