SCCG Weekly Newsletter #115
Stephen Crystal
??????”Top Gaming Industry Voice”. Innovating & “Powering” the Gambling Industry in Las Vegas & Worldwide for over 33 Years!??????
LAS VEGAS, NV, USA, October 19, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Symplify, the market leader in CRM and AI cloud solutions, has increased its focus on the North American casino and iGaming market and has created a US entity, Symplify US, naming Stephen A. Crystal as President of Symplify US. Crystal will carry this responsibility while continuing to serve as Founder and CEO of SCCG Management.?
Symplify's CEO, Robert Kimber said: "As part of the Symplify story, I am pleased to welcome the next and natural step of Symplify, establishing a permanent presence within the continental United States. The gaming market in the US is becoming home away from home for Symplify technology. We meet like-minded innovators who need a platform that understands the marriage of traditional casino entertainment and the expectation of the newly transitioned digital user. Applying our thorough understanding of the digital gaming market, together with SCCG’s close knit relationship with brick-and-mortar casinos, has proven to be very successful. Establishing a US base with my friend and colleague Stephen Crystal in charge, is an exciting and self-evident opportunity for Symplify.”
Symplify, through its continued development of a suite of new products based on analysis of current market demand, seeks to increase its efforts to put these new capabilities in the hands of US brick-and-mortar and online gaming operators.?
SCCG Management Founder and CEO Stephen Crystal said, "The powerful capabilities created by the Symplify suite of solutions – powered by AI and Machine Learning – are not only industry-leading, but they're also industry firsts. A decade ago, AI was a marketing term broadly plastered across products to draw unwarranted attention to the emergent technology. Today, machine learning has graduated from being the true technology powerhouse across sectors like health care, finance, retail sales, travel, and social media. Symplify is the only CRM solution provider that has leveraged Machine Learning as the anchor for casino gaming operators. Now it falls to the team at Symplify US to help share the power of the Symplify solution with North American casino gaming operators. We want to let their marketing teams know that we have a CRM solution that adds value without the cost of too much labor, time, and attention."?
The advancements made to support North American casino gaming have been showcased at SBC and, most recently, at G2E and have met with solid approval by industry leaders."?
Symplify knows that in iGaming CRM, there is never any shortage of ideas within marketing teams. The shortfall comes at execution. Symplify is the single CRM Ecosystem that provides gaming operators across ten communication channels. Symplify brings to the table, exactly what you need from your CRM platform:?
Symplify has a portfolio of hundreds of gaming customers, and its users say:?
ABOUT SYMPLIFY?
Symplify is an award-winning SaaS company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in Malta, Italy, Spain, Denmark, USA, Hong Kong, and Canada. With over 20 years in the industry, Symplify creates truly personalized player experiences through an AI-driven CRM ecosystem featuring cutting-edge technology, where customers are in control of their own data. Their success stems from working closely with their customers and developing features enabling the CRM team to be best in class. Symplify brings you the future of iGaming CRM, now.?
ABOUT SCCG MANAGEMENT?
SCCG Management is a consultancy specializing in sports betting, iGaming, sports marketing, affiliate marketing, technology, intellectual property protection, product commercialization, esports, capital formation, M&A, joint ventures, casino management, and governmental and legal affairs for the casino and iGaming industry.?
ABOUT STEPHEN A. CRYSTAL?
Stephen A. Crystal was, from 1992 - 2000 top USA gaming regulatory and licensing Attorney for casinos, riverboats, and tribal gaming. From 2000 – 2006, Crystal was the owner and operator of several casinos on Fremont Street, in Las Vegas, NV, as President and co-Founder of Barrick Gaming, employing thousands and managing 2500 hotel rooms and 250,000 square feet of gaming in six properties. From 2007 - 2018 Stephen Crystal served in several senior executive roles in the gaming industry and made numerous gaming technology investments and exits, including ETGs and Esports. From 2019 to the present, Stephen Crystal built Las Vegas-based SCCG Management into the largest worldwide boutique advisory firm for iGaming, sports betting, and casino operations in 11 countries. During this period, Stephen also served as Head of North America Development for Betfred Sportsbook USA, opening up close to 20 statewide markets.
CONTACT?
Stephen A. Crystal
SCCG Management?
+1 702-427-9354?
When people speak about the stock market, they often claim that it is a perfect financial market. Every stock is theoretically priced according to its value because consumer supply and demand have dictated its price. The same can be said about pregame odds on sportsbooks and sports betting exchanges. But does a perfect financial market actually yield the most accurate predictions?
By now, most of us are familiar with the Gamestop Saga. An event in which retail investors drove up the price of Gamestop stock in a way that very, very clearly deviated from the fundamentals of the actual company. Granted, they were factoring in the possibility of a short squeeze and other market factors, but those retail investors were not concerned with doing analysis on the underlying fundamentals of the company Gamestop. That means that, although the stock market is supposedly a perfect financial market, and is successfully pricing securities at market prices, it does not mean that the prices of?those securities are?accurate predictions about the future of the assets they represent.?
The same is true about pregame odds in sports betting. There are an ever-growing number of retail gamblers entering the market. They often bet according to their gut, and if they do research, it is generally fairly surface level analysis. This means that, much like in the Gamestop Saga, the odds for certain pregame markets can become skewed relative to the actual probabilities of the underlying game events.?
A perfect market will yield perfectly accurate predictions if all players within it are actually making decisions based on an informed analysis of the value of the underlying good they are investing in. With the growing popularity of retail betting and retail investing, the market prices of stocks and betting markets are no longer being set according to underlying fundamentals. Because of this, those market prices will continue to become less meaningful predictors of the ultimate value of the goods they are meant to represent.
Sports-oriented streaming service FuboTV decided to cease their betting operation earlier this week after reporting a $100 million loss in Q3 of 2022. FuboTV entered an already saturated sports betting market hoping to take up market share by getting their sports-loving customers to convert to their book, but ultimately saw this as too big of a challenge.
Despite a growing subscriber base and increasing revenues, Fubo will still be reporting a loss of about $100 million in the third quarter due to their failed sports betting venture. FuboTV CEO David Gandler stated that, “Continuing with Fubo Gaming and Fubo Sportsbook in this challenging macroeconomic environment would impact our ability to reach our longer term profitability goals.” The company also expects to incur further impairment charges in the tens-of-millions of dollars, primarily related to market access agreements.
FuboTV attempted to leverage their own television streaming service with a second-screen experience, but ultimately they were not able to implement this business plan effectively. With a streaming and sportsbook account linked, the Fubo Sportsbook app could bring up markets for whatever a user was watching on their TV at the time. Fubo was hoping to utilize their current users as a client base for their sports betting product; a tactic used by other companies (see DraftKings, Fanatics), but unfortunately for them they did not stick around long enough to see the fruits of their labor. In the US market, a sportsbook operator has to be in it for the long haul, and Fubo did not seem to want to run the race.
The timing of the shutdown was a little peculiar, given that Fubo had just launched in New Jersey in early September 2022. Other than NJ, FuboTV was also operating in Arizona and Iowa, meaning that there are now three entities in total that will now be looking for a new sports betting partner. Fubo had also landed significant partnerships with the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, and with the MLS’s Houston Dynamo, partnerships which they will now have to void, which will most definitely come with further cash burn.?
When Fubo Sportsbook initially shut down without warning, users were unable to access their app to take out their funds. This left players with roughly a 48-hour window of uncertainty as Fubo was likely disabling all wagering features of their app. After this two-day period passed, Fubo’s app was back up for users to withdraw their funds, but this was the only functionality of the app. While this sportsbook venture has largely hurt Fubo, the parent company should do just fine in the long run. Their TV subscriber base is slowly increasing year-over-year, and a renewed focus in the increasingly-saturated television streaming business should result in sustained success for the company-just not in the sports betting industry.?
Gambling became legal in Liberia back in 1982 which was then boosted by their national football team’s great performance in the African Cup of nations in 1996 and 2002 making sports betting very popular in the country just like it is across most of the African nations. Retail/land based sports betting accounts for most of the sectors operations. A good?example is?Winners Inc., a very popular betting operator in Liberia first and the biggest. It has been in operation for over 10 years therefore becoming the most trusted sportsbook with numerous betting shops all over Liberia.?
Online sports betting on the other hand is still not well develop, the sector has not yet been legalized so the current gambling legislation in force only regulates land-based operations. In order for a company to operate legally in the sport betting market in the country it must provide its services through physical premises only. Away from this regulation there are plenty of international online sports betting platforms that accept players from Liberia. Most of these platforms belong to leading companies in the African sports betting industry who offer a wide range of sports betting games as well as betting promotions.?
Whilst traditionally as earlier mentioned above sports betting was limited to retail outlets dotted across the country, the increase in the internet connectivity created by access to cheaper smart phones and Lower data costs, coupled with money mobile technologies and COVID-19 pandemic led to growth in mobile and online betting in the country. With all these factors in play opposition representative Yekeh Kobulah recently said he will shortly introduce a bill in the legislature to legalize online and mobile betting see below his remarks;?
Regulation?
Representative Kolubah made the disclosure on Wednesday, 12 October when he was seen cutting tickets at one of Winners Incorporated, sales centers in his district on Old Road. The opposition lawmaker, who is on annual break, was spotted placing his drill, ahead of the crucial UEFA Champions' League group stage round three matches.
According to him, the bill will seek to regulate online gambling in Liberia by legalizing every aspect of the market, noting that would be nice for the country that is already struggling in poverty under the George Weah administration to benefit from the additional revenues that will be generated.?
The industry is regulated by the National Lottery Authority (NLA) which was formed in 1982. It had briefly stopped operating in 1990 but returned in 1993 when it issued the first Act of legislation that regulated all games of chance.?According to the gambling laws, betting is legal, the lenient rules have attracted many sports-books to setup operations with outlets all over Liberia however it’s important to note that Liberia has no laws that cover online sports betting , therefore it’s smart to say that Liberia is a safe haven for any operator that may wish to expand its operations in the country.
Payment menthols
Liberias sports betting industry being mostly land based, punters have to place bets in outlets and then take back their betting slips to cash out their winnings however as the market’s online facet isn’t regulated yet players have a variety of payments from all illegal online operators sites.
There are no restrictions on which payment options a betting site can provide to its players so a wide range of payment choices are availed from e-wallets to Visa cards and other cards are accepted across different operators sites too.
Gambling is currently a permitted activity in Mexico, subject to obtaining governmental authorization to conduct gambling activities. It is an activity that is subject to federal regulation and not to regulation at the state or local level (except when tax matters are involved). The Mexican Gaming Law does not specifically identify gambling products, but rather lists what are games, and if wagers are crossed on any of those games or for any sweepstakes, a permit is required from the Secretaría de Gobernación (SEGOB).?Sports betting is classified as remote betting.
Mexico has permitted sports betting since 2005 due to the modification of Mexico's gambling laws, which were issued in 1947, allowing the Secretaría de Gobernación (SEGOB) to grant gambling licenses.?
Mexican land-based casinos have been able to launch online gambling sites since 2004. Since then, many have signed partnership agreements with international online gaming companies, and sports betting has spread rapidly.?Sports betting venues are often part of much larger gambling establishments. Licensed online gambling sites obtain a "Mexican Federal Gaming Permit".?
Due to concession requirements, only Mexican companies can obtain a remote gaming license, but it is possible to partner with foreign companies, which is the only way to obtain a Mexican license currently, through a partnership or by leasing the license from a Mexican licensee.
According to estimates by the Association of Concessionaires, Operators and Suppliers of the Entertainment and Gaming Industry in Mexico (AIEJA), sports betting has become a growth industry and currently generates around 8.43 billion pesos per year realized mainly through offshore betting sites. It is estimated that online sports betting in Mexico could grow by 25 to 30 percent annually over the next six to seven years.?
At the same time, sports betting is also increasingly visible through sponsorship deals in Mexico. More than half of the soccer teams that make up the first division of Mexican soccer are now sponsored by betting companies.
Several sports are quite popular for betting. As in most nations, soccer betting is the most popular in Mexico. Bettors like to bet on both local and international leagues, such as the Premier League, Spanish League, and the Bundesliga. Boxing is the next most popular sport in the country. Other prominent sports for betting are bullfighting, horse racing, greyhound racing, Jai Alai and even cockfighting.?As for the latter, Mexico is one of the few countries that allows cockfighting. However, in Mexico City and some states prohibit the activity and any associated betting.
The best Mexican online sportsbooks should offer safe deposits and reliable withdrawals. In addition to that, betting sites must provide desktop gambling with or without a download. Mexican sports bettors want sites that are compatible with sports betting on smartphones, including live and live betting. Above all, the best Mexican online sportsbooks should have a reputation for security, customer service and reliable payouts.
Mexico is full of online betting opportunities
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Since July, the crypto market has taken a hit, but we have still been seeing big collaborations across various blockchain companies and newly formed web3 organizations that are building different products that can bring value to their users.?
Starting from Mastercard, they just partnered with Paxos to help banks offer crypto trading services. The two companies will enable banks to issue digital assets and enable them to settle those transactions on their networks. Various other collaborations Mastercard is looking into, and clearly show how serious this market is being taken.?
Im sure you heard about Shopify, one of the biggest e-commerce platforms, where millions of users sell items and are known best for ‘dropshipping’ products. Eventually, they just partnered with Novel, a startup that provides tools that allow developers to create and manage virtual goods on the e-commerce platform without having to write code. This will allow Shopify merchants to support Ethereum NFTs on their stores using novel’s API. In addition, Shopify will be adding support for ERC-721 tokens in its Marketplace product, allowing anyone to list items for sale on its platform.?
JP Morgan has been mentioned a couple of times in the past, on tokenized assets and adoption across cryptocurrencies, due to his insights and interest across the crypto and web3 space. He recently highlighted that we should see a new feature to accept tokenized euro deposits soon. He had already enabled deposits across tokenized US dollars deposits with the JPM Coin. It will be truly a game-changer if they had to enable this for the Euro side.?
He is even looking into NFTs and their payment opportunities, though Brody Mulderig, covering Fintech at JP Morgan, said that they are not that user-friendly and need improvement before we can look at mass adoption.?
On the other hand, across web3 tech and development, the past months have been recorded as an all-time high in active developers, mostly on the Ethereum network. A huge increase in smart contract deployments, which increased over 140% from the past quarter, and reached over 48,000 deployments. The Ethereum merge even hyped up the space, having a lot of new interested individuals looking into this new technology, that can be utilized to build and create decentralized systems, and inject functions on existing web2 platforms.?
Many exciting developments are coming up across the blockchain and web3 space in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for next week's update.
Old Virginia
We’ll start out stateside. Petersburg, Virginia has selected The Cordish Companies to develop the city’s first casino.
The firm received unanimous approval from the Petersburg City Council to serve as “development partner” for the East Coast destination’s proposed resort project.
?“An important part of our evaluation was to identify a development partner with a proven track record in developing and operating mixed-use and casino properties, a long history of revitalising cities across the country and strong community engagement practices,” City Mayor Sam Parham said.
Virginia’s first casino opened in July; a temporary operation in Bristol run by Hard Rock International pending the construction of a permanent facility.
Three other resorts are planned: one in Norfolk, one in Portsmouth and another in Danville. This latter venue will be a joint venture between Caesars Entertainment and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
Six degrees of regulation
Next, we’re Europe-bound. The Sanctions Commission of French regulator Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has been renewed.
Six members have been confirmed and will now serve a six-year term, responsible for issuing fines and suspensions, among other sanctions.
Frédéric Dieu will chair the commission, and is one of the two members from France’s Conseil d’état, alongside Dorothée Pradines.
Joining them are Fabrice Delbano and Véronique Boisselett, advisers to the French Court of Cassation, as well as Nicolas Brunner and Maud Choquet, judges from the Cour des Comptes.
Already, several issues have been brought before the Commission following a meeting of the ANJ’s nine-member college last month.
No operator may return to players more than 85% of the stakes they have placed, but seven were found to have violated this rule for the year 2021.
Another two operators also stand accused of disregarding their obligation to “identify and support people whose gambling is excessive or pathological.”
For science!
Heading north, LeoVegas Group has unveiled a four-year problem gambling research project in partnership with the Karolinska Institute’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience.
Based in Stockholm, the facility is one of the world’s leading medical universities.?
The research carried out, meanwhile, will aim to improve the understanding of how to identify signs of problem gambling, with the ultimate aim of preventing it entirely.
LeoVegas is providing funding and raw data to the research team, who will begin the project this Autumn.
“Responsible gaming is an important priority for LeoVegas Group,” said Gustaf Hagman, LeoVegas Group CEO.?
“We believe that our industry must take greater responsibility for contributing knowledge and facts about gambling-related problems, and learning how to minimise these issues.”
Crowning glory
In Australia, meanwhile, Crown Resorts has appointed David Tsai as CEO of its property in Perth.
Subject to regulatory approval, he will commence the role later this year. Tsai brings almost two decades of integrated resorts experience to Crown, having spent the last 15 years at MGM Resorts International.
There, he most recently served as President Midwest Group, leading the overall strategic direction and day-to-day operations of MGM Grand Detroit in Michigan and MGM Northfield Park in Ohio.
“Crown Perth is a world-class property and David is a world-class leader with a proven track record and deep experience in global hospitality and entertainment,” said Crown Resorts CEO Ciarán Carruthers.?
“I’m delighted to welcome him to the team.”
Tsai also served as President and COO at MGM’s Gold Strike Casino Resort in Mississippi, and was SVP and CFO at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
All for one and one for all
Finally, at a conference in Melbourne, UK Gambling Commission CEO Andrew Rhodes has encouraged greater cross-border collaboration as the sector morphs into what he called “a global tech industry.”
While speaking at the 2022 International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) Conference, Rhodes touched on a range of subjects.
He spoke about everything from the pandemic to the cost-of-living crisis, safer gambling measures and emerging products – with a focus, naturally, on the UK.
But ultimately, his message transcended Britain. Regulators must often confront major multinational companies and concerns in one country may indicate similar issues are present elsewhere.
In addition, more M&A activity, alongside emerging technologies such as NFTs and cryptocurrency, posit new challenges, Rhodes said.
With this in mind, he urged regulators to collaborate more, commenting:“In a world where many of us have the same companies, operating at the same scale, offering the same products, why can’t we share notes on how they are performing?”
A Google search of “What is the metaverse?” yielded this vague definition: “A virtual reality (VR) space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.” When investigating further, I found this definition by JP Morgan. “The metaverse is a seamless convergence of our physical and digital lives, creating a unified, virtual community where we can work, play, relax, transact, and socialize.” When it comes to explaining what the metaverse is, I prefer to reference JP Morgan’s definition. As for me, that is a much simpler and more spot-on definition than the vague one yielded by Google. Both definitions lead one to ask themselves, how can anyone take a real experience and translate that into the metaverse? I will elaborate on this a little later.
First, let’s take a step back and look at the metaverse’s evolution. It started in 2000 with a game called Sims, where players engaged in a 2D world, living out the daily activities of one or more virtual persons in a suburban area near SimCity. The situation was about a real person sitting in front of a computer, simulating a virtual person’s activities, and building a city. Eventually, it evolved into 3D versions, with Sims 2 in 2004, Sims 3 in 2009, and Sims 4 in 2014. Each version added more and more features, building up greater functionality, goals, and aspirations for their avatar. Amid the release of the new Sims World came other simulated realities in games such as Roblox in 2006 and then the massive hit Minecraft in 2011. These Web2 games gave birth to the metaverse we have today.
So, what does this mean exactly? This means that for over twenty years, we have become familiar with a simplified version of the metaverse. Gamers have been simulating virtual people and building virtual worlds for a while now; expanding this concept into a full, immersive experience is the next step in its evolution. As they’re built today, the current metaverses are not unified, meaning they are each separate from each other, each having a little different dazzle within it. For me, the metaverse is best explained as taking your full self and immersing it into a 360-degree world, where everywhere you look, you see virtual items/land/space/avatars. Facebook Meta is a good example of this. Yes, there are other metaverses that still use a computer, like Decentral Land, Spatial, Wax Blockchain, and The Sandbox, but the type of metaverse I am going to dive into for this blog is solely based on the 360-degree immersiveness and the real-world experiences that can translate into these worlds; as I have an Oculus, and log into the metaverse worlds within Facebook Meta from time to time.
Stephen Crystal, Founder and CEO of SCCG Management announced a partnership with Growth Leads, providing business development, and strategic advisory services for the sports media intelligence company.
Stephen Crystal said of the partnership “Stadiuum has the potential to be a major player in the sports media and predictive analysis world. Lindsay and his team will join the long list of young entrepreneurs shaping the future of this industry powered under the SCCG brand. Stadiuum pairs published and aggregated sports news with live scores and predictive analysis tools, creating a one-stop destination for sports bettors and fans alike.”
Lindsay Gray, Founder of Stadiuum said “I speak for everyone in the STADIUUM Group Team when I say we're exhilarated and electrified by the SCCG & STADIUUM Group partnership. We have a strong US Market focus at STADIUUM Group and our intelligence driven B2C sports media brands. As quite an early stage startup, with big ambitions, this partnership will strengthen us exactly where we need it: US market entry & expansion, commerical partnerships, capital raising and tackling regulatory issues.”
STADIUUM Group was born in 2018 with a simple purpose: boost the sport and betting iQ of its users. This purpose drove us to begin building the world’s first true sports media intelligence platform. 25,000+ software development hours have now been spent building the smartest consumer-facing sports media product suite the world has ever seen.?
ABOUT STADIUUM
STADIUUM Group is a sports media intelligence company, strategically positioned at the intersection of sports, media, wagering, and technology. Our brands are carefully crafted to deliver intelligence driven user experiences, to a well-defined niche target audience.
ABOUT SCCG MANAGEMENT
SCCG Management is a consultancy that specializes in sports betting, iGaming, sports marketing, affiliate marketing, technology, intellectual property protection, product commercialization, esports, capital formation, M&A, joint ventures, casino management, and governmental and legal affairs for the casino and iGaming industry.
SCCG Management celebrates 2022 as its 30th Anniversary of leadership and innovation for the gaming industry.
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2 年Great info, thanks for sharing!
??????”Top Gaming Industry Voice”. Innovating & “Powering” the Gambling Industry in Las Vegas & Worldwide for over 33 Years!??????
2 年Another great issue from the team at SCCG Management !