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Trending News Stories in the World of Gambling - November 21, 2022 (10 am ET)

Another One Bites the Dust

In case you missed it, Maxim Bet Sportsbook we hardly got to know ya.

That online sportsbooks announced its closure last week, joining what is thus far a rather small but fast growing list of casualties in recent weeks that include the likes of Fubo Sportsbook, BetAmerica and soon Fox Bet apparently.

Last week, Maxim Bet, which was limited to just the state of Colorado, issued the following statement:

On Wednesday, November 16, 2022, MaximBet closed its sports betting operations and is no longer accepting deposits or wagers. Customers can withdraw any deposited balances until Thursday, December 15, 2022. Any remaining player balances after this date will be refunded via check sent to the address on the account.

Colorado players log in to co.maximbet.com to withdraw. Indiana players log in to maximbet.com/bet to withdraw.

Open wagers are being returned to customers. The amount returned will be the greater of the original wager amount or the current fair value market pricing.

Customers can contact customer support at support@maximbet.com to void wagers and to request player withdrawals.

The anticipated Fox Bet closure has more to do with a complex arrangement between various entities such as FanDuel and PokerStars parent Flutter Entertainment and Fox Corp.

"Fox Bet is on borrowed time,” according to the research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming. “Both Fox and Flutter can terminate the Fox Bet agreement in August 2023 and essentially dissolve the business.”

Fox Bet is heavily promoted during the Fox NFL Pregame Show Sunday mornings.

The Maxim Bet closure comes just days before FanDuel CEO Amy Howe declared others are sure to follow in that path, and that FanDuel will pretty much help get them there.

“It should be clear that new entrants that are entering now at this point may face a real challenge taking on scale players who have more than a four-year head start,” Howe said at the company’s Capital Markets Day on Wednesday.

(Gambling911.com)

A Bunch of Big Names Affected by FTX Collapse

Our friends at CoinGeek reported on how the FTX Exchange named as its compliance officer one Daniel S. Friedberg well over a year ago. Few can say they were not warned of what could become of this organization if, say, there was a sudden drop in the price of Bitcoin. Friedberg was not only tied in with a massive online poker cheating scheme way back in 2008, he was actually allegedly heard on audio discussing a coverup.

Now the bloodbath continues with a number of companies adversely affected by the abrupt closure of FTX two weeks ago.

Institutional trading firm Genesis announced on Nov. 11 it had $175 million in locked funds within the firm’s trading account on FTX but that it had limited exposure and daily operations would not be negatively affected.

Others admitted to having more significant exposure. Venture capital company Sequoia Capital was among those that warned of substantial losses. In their case, $213.5-million investment in companies FTX and FTX US was now said to be worth zero.

The BlockFi exchange tried to calm fears that much of its assets were tied up in FTX.

“While we will continue to work on recovering all obligations owed to BlockFi, we expect that the recovery of the obligations owed to us by FTX will be delayed as FTX works through the bankruptcy process.”

Kris Marszalek, CEO of exchange Crypto.com, claimed that $1 billion worth of assets that the exchange moved to FTX was fully recovered. His company advertised heavily over the past year, including during the most recent Super Bowl broadcast.

The Amber Group advised that it had funds tied up in FTX yet to be processed but those amounted to just 10% of the company's overall assets.

Galaxy Digital, Wintermute, CoinShares and Pantera Capital were also adversely impacted.

Meanwhile, the New York Post was all over the Friedberg online poker cheating scandal connection Sunday.

Friedberg, who reportedly resigned from FTX company earlier this month as it filed for bankruptcy, appears to have since scrubbed his LinkedIn account, which now displays a message “this page doesn’t exist”. Online bios for Friedberg said he joined FTX after a stint at the Seattle-based law firm Fenwick & West, where he chaired the payments systems practice.

FTX, meanwhile, has taken down an “about” page that listed short bios for its top executives, including disgraced ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX co-founder Gary Wang and Friedberg, as well as links to their LinkedIn pages.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com

Stagnation of the US Online Casino Market

In 2013, New Jersey approved online gambling. Delaware had already gone live, and Nevada offered online poker, but NJ was the first state to bring on a complete set of online casino games. In these first few years, several other US states were still moving to pass bills that would legalize online casino gaming.

However, it appears that the US online gambling marketplace has lost momentum. And today, regulated online casinos are a reality only in six states—New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Michigan. There are currently just over 50 online casino operators registered within different states. And not many new operators have launched lately.

The Early Days

Though not the most prominent online gaming market, Delaware was the first-ever state to legalize online gambling in the US. The state authorized its three tribal racinos, Delaware Park, Dover Downs, and Harrington Raceway & Casino, to start online platforms in partnership with Scientific Gaming and 888. To date, no other operator has come on board. Nevada also allowed players to enjoy online poker games through various sites.

In NJ, online gaming companies such as Caesars launched soon after the introduction of the online gaming legislation in 2013. Another pioneering online gaming company to launch on US soil is Borgata New Jersey, which offers a complete casino lobby.

By the end of 2014, the online gaming industry had generated over $130,000,000, with an average monthly handle of $10,000,000. Since New Jersey had the highest number of regulated operators and a population bigger than Nevada and Delaware, it accounted for about 90% of online casino gaming revenue.

For the first 3 years, the US online casino industry only existed in three states. During this time, many proposed bills were voted down in other states, such as Pennsylvania. The revenue levels grew steadily, and in 2021, the US internet gaming industry earned over $3.71 Billion.

Online Casino Legal States

Online casinos seem to be taking too long to spread across America. The biggest concern for most states is the possibility of untamed gambling addiction. Some states are inhibited by traditional, religious, and social norms entirely opposing gambling activity. Since 2013, only six of the fifty American states have succeeded in legalizing online gambling. These are Delaware, New Jersey, West Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.

Caesars, Borgata, Fanduel Casino, and DraftKings are the most dominant operators running in the different states. With nearly 20 recognized operators, New Jersey has the largest and most diverse internet gaming marketplace. Connecticut only has two casinos, the Mohegan Sun and DraftKings. In most cases, state legislation requires that all online casinos be offered through partnerships between local land-based establishments and international online operators.

Connecticut was the last state to introduce online gaming. The previous few casinos to launch include Bally Casino, which went live in New Jersey in January 2022, and PointsBet, which joined the West Virginia market. Another recent launch came up in Michigan in April 2022, a gaming site known as Eagle Casino & Sports.

What Does the Future Hold?

As you may have noticed, very little has moved since Connecticut legalized online casinos. However, let’s look at what other states are doing to bring regulated internet gaming to their shores. New York wasn’t the most gambling-friendly state. However, since it recently legalized sports betting, online casinos may be on the way. A February 2022-proposed Bill 8412 is set to legalize internet casino games.

Indiana introduced two identical bills to regulate the state’s online gaming industry. HB 1337 and HB 1356 await approval by the House before the governor can sign them. Illinois, too, may soon be getting casino apps. Illinois already allows internet sports betting and horse racing. Residents can also play at DFS sites like DraftKings and FanDuel. This means that there is a high potential for Fanduel Casino to launch soon.

A few other states have a strong likelihood of reforming gambling laws in 2023 or in the next two or three years. Big brands such as DraftKings and BetMGM will likely launch in Florida and California. These brands already exist in these jurisdictions, offering DFS, sports betting, or in-person gambling.

However, a decade since the first step was made, only six states in America offer legal online gaming and there have been fewer new launches coming through recently. So where does it leave players from the remaining 44 states?

“If You’re Not Moving Forward, You’re Drifting Backward”

That phrase accurately represents the rest of US market. Due to “upcoming” legislation, there are almost no new groups that ready to spend money on launching new brands in US. It’s just not worth it, considering the time is limited. Or at least supposed to be so.

In UK, EU, Canada, the online gambling market goes through rapid changes: new brands popping up, endless number of mergers and acquisitions. Of course not all of those changes are for the best, but the industry is live and evolving.

But if we serf the web here, in US, we will find the same programs that ruled the market 4, 6, 8 years ago. No new alternatives. Bovada sister sites still hold the lion share, BetOnline group next, as if nothing changed.

The worrisome aspect here is that when there are no new competitors emerging, the old groups can get sloppy, as they know that players have no alternatives to go to.

Conclusion

USA online gambling market is in transition stage. The problem is that instead of being a phase, a bridge to the future, it became the new normal. Unfortunately, no one knows when it will end.

- B.E. Delmer, Gambling911.com

Trending News Stories in the World of Gambling - November 12, 2022 (1 pm)

Tom Brady's FTX Connection

Much of the news in the world of poker and cryptocurrencies involves the collapse of the digital currency exchange FTX. And now there's a new wrinkle....Tom Brady.

Brady, Steph Curry and Kevin O’Leary are all reportedly set to lose big from Friday's FTX bankruptcy filing.

The Tampa Bay starting quarterback and seven times Super Bowl champ received an equity stake in the exchange.

“It’s an incredibly exciting time in the crypto-world and Sam and the revolutionary FTX team continue to open my eyes to the endless possibilities,” Brady said in 2021. “This particular opportunity showed us the importance of educating people about the power of crypto while simultaneously giving back to our communities and planet. We have the chance to create something really special here, and I can’t wait to see what we’re able to do together.”

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried warned investors on Wednesday that the exchange had a $8 billion shortfall and that FTX would require emergency funding. That emergency funding was yet to come as of Saturday.

The poker community was shocked to learn this week that FTX's head of regulatory compliance was tied to a high profile 2008 poker cheating scandal despite our friends over at CoinGeek having reported on this rather terrifying revelation last year already.

Mattress Mack is Ready for Primetime

First Jimmy Kimmel, then GMA, and following that up with ESPN. Houston furniture mogul Jim McIngvale, known affectionately as "Mattress Mack", has made the rounds of all the big name media outlets following his entertaining presence during this year's World Series.

Now he's set to truly make it to the big stage.....Gambling911.com (ahem).

Our own Thomas Somach sits down with Mack to discuss his beloved Houston Astros winning another World Series.

"We spoke for over an hour," Somach tells us as he anticipates the interview going live on the Gambling911.com website Monday.

We spoke with the beloved Houston icon last year but Mack's Astros came up short against Atlanta in that World Series.

Mack won big this time around.

33 Detained in San Antonio Gambling Raid

Nearly 60 gambling machines were confiscated and 33 individuals taken into custody following an eventing raid of two illegal San Antonio gambling dens.

Deputies were called to both locations around 5 p.m. Thursday -- one in the 2500 block of West Woodlawn Avenue and one in the 100 block of Esma.

Eighteen people, both employees and customers at the Woodlawn location, were detained after deputies found roughly 40 eight-liner gambling machines. They also found a stolen vehicle parked at the establishment.

“There are organized crime ties to this location as well as the other,” Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said.

The two businesses are believed to be linked.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com

Media Man

Gambling Millionaires and Billionaires

Denise Coates: bet365

Denise Coates: 'I’ve been bossy all my life.' Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian

Ruth Monicka Parasol (PartyGaming - GVC Holdings)

Ruth Monicka Parasol (born February 27, 1967) is an American entrepreneur and attorney who founded PartyGaming in 1997. The company merged with Bwin Interactive in 2010 to form Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment then the world’s largest publicly traded online gaming company. Parasol is the single largest individual stakeholder of Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment. (Wikipedia)

James Packer and his father, the late Kerry Packer (Crown Resorts)

James Douglas Packer (born 8 September 1967) is an Australian billionaire businessman and investor.

Packer is the son of Kerry Packer AC, a media mogul, and his wife, Roslyn Packer AC. He is the grandson of Sir Frank Packer. He inherited control of the family company, Consolidated Press Holdings Limited, as well as investments in Crown Resorts and other companies. He is the former executive chairman of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) and Consolidated Media Holdings, which predominantly owned media interests across a range of platforms, and a former executive chairman of Crown Resorts. (Wikipedia).

David Walsh (art collector)

David Dominic Walsh AO (born 1961) is an Australian professional gambler, art collector and businessman. He is the owner of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) and Moorilla Estate.

Background
Walsh grew up in a Roman Catholic family in the Glenorchy district of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, the youngest of three children. He attended Dominic College, and the University of Tasmania, where he briefly studied mathematics and computer science in 1979. Walsh made his fortune by developing a gambling system used to bet on horse racing and other sports.

Walsh describes himself as a "rabid atheist". He has been married twice, the second time in March 2014, to artist Kirsha Kaechele. He has three children from different relationships.

In 2001, he founded the Moorilla Museum of Antiquities on the Berriedale peninsula in Hobart, which closed in 2007 to undergo $75 million renovations. It was re-opened in January 2011 as the Museum of Old and New Art or MONA. MONA won the 2012 Australian Tourism Award for best new development and is a major Tasmanian tourist attraction.

In July 2012, Walsh was involved in a dispute with the Australian Tax Office, which demanded he pay $37 million from the profits of his gambling system. The dispute was "entirely resolved" in October 2012.

In December 2013 Walsh gave a revealing interview on his personal philosophies, his quantitative approach to gambling, and the role of chance in his life to The Australian Financial Review's contributing editor Christopher Joye. He has stated that he subsequently developed a new chapter in his 2014 memoir based on the ideas that were formulated during this dialogue.

In October 2014 Walsh's book A Bone of Fact was published. The publisher described it as Walsh's "utterly unconventional and absorbing memoir".

On 20 July 2015 Walsh's partner Kirsha Kaechele gave birth to their child Sunday Walsh.

In the 2016 Australia Day Honours, Walsh was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for 'distinguished service to the visual arts through the establishment of MONA, and as a supporter of cultural, charitable, sporting and education groups.'

News

Denise Coates: the hidden 24/7 woman behind Bet365 - 9th July 2012

The founder of the highly profitable online bookmaking empire is arguably Britain's most successful self-made businesswoman

By Simon Bowers

The most visible face of online bookmaker Bet365, at least to Premiership football fans, is the actor Ray Winstone, who appears on half-time adverts during televised matches with updates on up-to-the-second odds - for example on whether Wayne Rooney will be the next goal scorer. But behind this most male of messengers is a passionate businesswoman, one of Britain's most talented entrepreneurs of her generation.

There is every chance you will never have heard of Denise Coates but with more than £12bn of bets a year staked with her highly profitable Bet365 online bookmaking empire, she is arguably the country's most successful self-made businesswoman.

"I really don't enjoy the attention. The public side does not come naturally to me," she explains, giving her first newspaper interview only after much persuasion. "I'm not saying I'm a shrinking violet. I'm not. I've been bossy all my life. It's just I very much enjoy actually running the business."

Coates can pass unrecognised through the streets of Stoke-on-Trent, where Bet365's success has made it the city's largest private sector employer, its unassuming offices a hi-tech hive of activity on the margins of an industrial landscape dominated by derelict pottery factories.

A gleaming Aston Martin, with personalised number plates bearing her initials in the small car park is the only overt sign of the fortune she has amassed. Certainly, Coates in person is striking in her lack of airs and graces.

In 12 years she has built Bet365 into a business with a revenue of £647m, only about a quarter of which comes from punters in the UK. Top-line operating profits of £147m are far greater than equivalent earnings from the online operations of either Ladbrokes or William Hill.

And there is a clue to Coates's success in the company name. "You start a 24/7 business and you work 24/7," she explains. "When you're not here [in the office], you take calls in the middle of the night, regularly – that's how the early days were. I've worked harder than you can possibly imagine. In the last couple of years, life has normalised … The impact on my life now is very different."

The latest filed accounts show Coates and her family have started to enjoy the fruits of their labour, sharing almost £75m in dividends over three years. Half of this has gone to Bet365's indefatigable founder, by dint of her 50.2% stake, making Coates a very rich woman indeed. Profits too have been used to subsidise Stoke City football club, which is majority owned by Bet365.

The Sunday Times' rich list published in April mentioned Coates almost as an adjunct to her father Peter Coates, the chairman of the football club, putting their combined wealth at £800m. In truth, however, while her popular and affable father has a small stake in Bet365, the business is controlled and run by his daughter.

"I'm not a social animal … I think there have been false assumptions made about my role," she says without a trace of irritation. "There was a misunderstanding that as dad was the chairman of Stoke, he ran Bet365 – something dad was always clear that he didn't do. However, the media decides, for whatever reasons, that maybe it makes a better story if they say he does."

She is similarly unperturbed about what it means to be a woman at the top of the bookmaking industry. "I never gave it a second thought. It didn't cross my mind. I probably had a few [meetings] at first where I had to put somebody right – but I knew my business, so it wasn't a problem … I just wanted to get on with making my business successful. I've never dwelled on the fact, or thought about the fact, that I was a woman."

Coates's start in the bookmaking industry was unremarkable. She began as a cashier, marking up results in a small number of betting shops owned by her father, and operated for him as a sideline to his main business which was football stadium catering. Outside the confines of the cashier's booth the bookmaking industry might have seemed to many a very male preserve, but Coates was blind to that and the trade appealed to her mathematical mind. "I really enjoyed it … by the time I left university [where she achieved a first in econometrics] I could run a betting shop."

Unclear what to do next, she went on to train as an accountant within the family firm – a useful move, she reflects, though the work was "dry" and she hated it. Given the opportunity by her father to take over what Coates remembers as "a small chain of pretty rubbish betting shops", she jumped at the challenge. Very soon the shops' fortunes had begun to turn around and, with the help of a huge loan from Barclays, Coates acquired a neighbouring chain, doubling the size of the business at a stroke.

But turning round the fortunes of the shops – long since sold on to Coral – was not enough. Working from an office above one of her father's bookies, Coates starting to notice the emerging popularity of gambling websites. Quickly, she was convinced this was where the future lay.

"She just kept saying: 'This is what we're going to do, this is what we're going to do,'" recalls her brother John Coates, who helps run the business and is her closest adviser. "The internet was there and she just felt sports betting was the thing."

Others too, such as Coral and William Hill, were tentatively exploring what the internet had to offer, but none leapt into these uncharted waters with quite the conviction of Coates. Having failed to raise a penny from venture capitalists in London, she turned instead to her father, other family members and Royal Bank of Scotland for the backing she needed.

"We mortgaged the betting shops and put it all into online. We knew the industry required big startup costs but … we gambled everything on it. We were the ultimate gamblers if you like."

It was a bet that has paid off spectacularly, producing a hi-tech business that employs 1,900 staff in Stoke and spends £60m a year on IT. "Why Stoke? It's a simple answer: it's where I'm from," says Coates. "We began in a Portakabin on a car park near one of the betting shops. It's to a large extent down to an accident of birth … As to why we have stayed here when every other major competitor is based in a lower tax jurisdiction, that's a more difficult question to answer logically."

In his March budget, the chancellor confirmed he wanted to remove this uneven tax regime, proposing the introduction of a tax based on the punter's jurisdiction rather than that of the online bookmaker. Bet365 has long pressed for such a move, claiming that about half of the £130m in taxes the group pays to the UK exchequer is made up of duty they might otherwise largely avoid if they relocated offshore. "The area means a lot to us," insists Coates. "We've always worked in Stoke, we've always had businesses in Stoke. I would never what to spend large parts of my time abroad if I can avoid it."

While Coates displays a loyalty to her hometown, she is markedly less sentimental when it comes to sport. Unlike many of her bookmaking counterparts, she is rarely to be found at big sporting events holding forth on her opinion of the likely outcome. She retains a resolutely commercial focus. "I'm not a regular at the races. I'm a regular in the workplace."

The group's ownership of Stoke City is a project she has almost nothing to do with, leaving it to her father and brother, for whom it is a great passion. Her husband also works at the club, which has received about £60m in Bet365 funds since it was taken over in 2006.

While some of her family relish the high-profile challenge of owning a Premiership club, Coates herself is happy to remain almost invisible, left to get on with her job. So protective of her privacy is she that she declines to discuss her interests beyond work. "My family is what's important to me," is the nearest she comes, though she won't say whether she has children.

Although she has not won the Veuve Clicquot businesswoman of the year award or enjoyed the celebrity of internet entrepreneur peers such as Martha Lane Fox, Coates's success was finally recognised outside the betting industry last year when she was awarded a CBE. Should Bet365 continue to flourish, it is hard to imagine her remaining below the radar much longer.

*click here for full article and multimedia

(The Guardian)

Gambling

Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration (an amount wagered), risk (chance), and a prize. The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season.

The term "gaming" in this context typically refers to instances in which the activity has been specifically permitted by law. The two words are not mutually exclusive; i.e., a "gaming" company offers (legal) "gambling" activities to the public and may be regulated by one of many gaming control boards, for example, the Nevada Gaming Control Board. However, this distinction is not universally observed in the English-speaking world. For instance, in the United Kingdom, the regulator of gambling activities is called the Gambling Commission (not the Gaming Commission).The word gaming is used more frequently since the rise of computer and video games to describe activities that do not necessarily involve wagering, especially online gaming, with the new usage still not having displaced the old usage as the primary definition in common dictionaries. "Gaming" has also been used to circumvent laws against "gambling". The media and others have used one term or the other to frame conversations around the subjects, resulting in a shift of perceptions among their audiences.

Gambling is also a major international commercial activity, with the legal gambling market totaling an estimated $335 billion in 2009.[6] In other forms, gambling can be conducted with materials that have a value, but are not real money. For example, players of marbles games might wager marbles, and likewise games of Pogs or Magic: The Gathering can be played with the collectible game pieces (respectively, small discs and trading cards) as stakes, resulting in a meta-game regarding the value of a player's collection of pieces. (Wikipedia)