Something for the last weekend - 05 July 2024

Welcome to what is, sadly, the last Something for the Weekend. We’ve had a great run, posted a few weird and wonderful things in the Diary, but it feels like it’s time for a change.

One of the early drivers for this weekly email was a conversation at a show in New York. An executive told us over breakfast that they liked iGB’s content, but just didn’t have time to read it during the week. “You should round up the good bits on a Friday,” they suggested.

And five years later, without much fanfare or promotion, plus remarkably few occasions where we just couldn’t be bothered, we’ve gamely produced this newsletter every week.

Now there’s a proliferation of weekly digests on the market we want to try something slightly different, drawing from not just iGB but also our expanded team that came on board through the acquisition of GGB. We’ve been working closely together to build something that leverages all our strengths, as we start to build out a genuinely global brand.

So having spent many Thursday evenings piecing these emails together, supported by a revolving cast of characters but in particular the consistent and outstanding production editor Guy Parsons (who may have edited more of these than I’ve written), thank you to all who read Something for the Weekend over the years.

We designed this originally as a word of mouth product, and to get to a few thousand readers without much of a push is pretty pleasing.

Anyway, we’ll get on with a few bits of news after we rummage around in the bowels of the Diary to bring you three choice cuts from years gone by.

Best of iGB Diary: Bronze ticket, Night at the museum and Regulator’s rifles bring yet more loaded questions.

Happy Friday igamers! This week the Diary cloaks itself in a vinyl dustcover, shuffles up the loft ladder into the attic and settles down next to a cardboard box full of old VHS tapes.?

Bronze ticket

We’ve all fantasised about what we’d do if we won the lottery. New house. New car. Fund the manufacturing and then subsequent distribution of a cereal made entirely of Cornetto ends ?.

Many people will have fantasised about quitting their jobs but how many lottery winners would get the chance to do so on national TV?

Reporter Natalia Escudero recalled how she got to live that dream, finding out that she was a winner in Spain’s El Gordo Christmas lottery, which carries a jackpot of €4m. Understandably ecstatic, she proclaimed boldly on the news programme she was corresponding for that she wouldn’t be coming in to work tomorrow, leading to a great ‘so who’s going to tell her’ moment.

Escudero didn’t realise that she had won €4,000, rather than €4m. A modest sum, but probably not enough to retire on.

No amount of apologies on social media could placate the masses experiencing a generous helping of schadenfreude (El Schadenfraudo?). The Diary would happily pay €4,000 to be a fly on the wall of the office the next time she came in.

Night at the museum

One piece of news that piqued the Diary’s interest this week was Hall of Fame Village gaining two Ohio sports betting licences.

The venue – next to the Pro Football Hall of Fame – is still under construction, but with a retail casino also planned, it’s hoped that it can integrated gaming seamlessly into the experience for Hall of Fame visitors.

Halls of fame seem to have a special place in US sports, but at the end of the day these are museums. So the Diary began to wonder about other museums getting in on the betting business. Not your Natural History Museums or your Smithsonians, though. And definitely not the Tate or the Louvre (can’t risk getting soup on your betting slips).

No, the Diary’s aware that this is a somewhat weird business plan. But surely it’s perfect for those classic pieces of Kitsch Americana that are roadside museums in the rural US.?

In Middleton Wisconsin, there’s the National Mustard Museum: perfect if the short-lived MustardBet is ever looking for a US-facing comeback. Decatur, Georgia is home to the Waffle House Museum. Waffle House is famed for its ability to keep its restaurants open at all hours, regardless of circumstances, so surely it could put together an app that avoids the dreaded high-traffic-induced outages during the Super Bowl.

And there’s so many more. Just outside of Elkhart Indiana there’s the National RV (that’s caravans to us) Hall of Fame. For those caravans that aren’t just good, they’re legends of the mobile home world.

If you want to travel to Alaska you’ve got the Hammer Museum; Somerville, Massachusetts is home to the Museum of Bad Art (news to the Diary, which thought it was in Duke of York Square); The Devil’s Rope Museum in Texas is devoted entirely to barbed wire. Yes, for most visitors, just learning about the history of barbed wire and the difference between stirred and welded razor wire is going to be thrilling enough. But for the rare visitor who wants even more entertainment, why not liven it up with a sportsbook?

Regulator’s rifles bring yet more loaded questions

Nebraska’s Racing and Gaming Commission is the gift that keeps on giving. Not content with spending $48,000 on a market study with more holes than Swiss cheese, it dropped a cool $30,350 on 10 semi-automatic rifles.

As the Diary told you last week, the Commission felt having the same guns as SWAT teams was absolutely vital, in case of an active shooter incident unfolding at the state’s casinos. Only it transpires the regulator is pretty limited on vehicles – it only has two to send the Commission’s very own Seal Team Six charging around the state.

These guns, it’s worth pointing out, are housed in the regulator’s offices in Lincoln. Say an incident kicked off at Harrah’s Columbus Racing – and assuming all the regulatory A-Team can squeeze into one vehicle – it’ll be an hour and a half in the car before it gets there.

Sadly, it doesn’t look likely that this Band of Brothers is deploying any time soon. Commission vice chair Shaun Greckel says the SIG Sauers will remain under lock and key until the team undergoes proper training and adopts some procedures for their use.

Greckel is taking questions on the authority’s arsenal after executive director Tom Sage went on personal leave. Sage is now retiring in March, which is fair – the Diary would be equally exhausted with so many questions about incomplete studies, shooters and even some pointed ones about improper auditing processes.

The week on iGB

Finland kicks off our last rundown of iGB’s most read stories, after the government set out its timeline and a first pass at draft regulations for the country’s liberalised online market. There’s going to be no legal betting until 2027, with draft legislation scheduled to land in parliament in 2025. Licensing will then run through 2026, overseen by a new regulatory authority, and interestingly, suppliers must secure a licence by 2028. After that point, licensees will not be allowed to take games from unregulated providers. Two interesting things: first, there’s a suggestion the state could sell some of its stake in Veikkaus. Second, the draft bill – all 400-plus pages in Finnish – doesn’t seem to have any sort of cooling-off period planned.

Heading down to Germany, we come to a story that proved slightly contentious on social media. Internet pile-ons aside, the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbeh?rde der L?nder (GGL) really did claim online black market activity made up just 4% of gross gaming revenue in 2023 . This equates to between €400m and €600m, with total revenue coming in at €13.7bn. Of this total, €3.0bn came from online. Now, these figures are contentious – other studies suggest illegal gaming makes up almost half of Germany’s online market. But the regulator claims this is the size of the problem, and that measures such as payment blocking are having an impact.

Kambi, meanwhile, has brought in Werner Becher to replace Kristian Nylén as chief executive . Becher is going to have scope to shape the company’s future after the supplier scrapped its long-term targets , blaming slow pace of regulation in “certain key markets” (*cough* Brazil *cough*) means plans to treble FY2022 revenue by 2027 is no longer feasible. Becher will now work with the board to evaluate the market and Kambi’s prospects with a view to announcing new targets.

Over in New York the State Gaming Facility Location Board approved a 27 June 2025 deadline for prospective downstate casino licensees to file their bids … only there’s a bill setting out a 31 August 2024 deadline awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature. The board acknowledged this brings it into conflict with the bill, filed by Senator Joe Addabbo, but argued the August deadline is simply too tight. But it could be nothing more than a gesture – if Hochul signs that bill, the 27 June deadline is superseded. In any case, don’t expect anything like a decision on licences until later next year.

Staying in New York, prosecutors are preparing to seek felony charges against disgraced basketball player Jontay Porter . The game-fixing charges form part of a wider case against an illegal gambling ring, with the former Toronto Raptors player accused of removing himself from two games so four illegal bettors could win ‘under’ props on the matches. He could be facing similar charges in Ontario soon, with a criminal investigation underway.

And of course, we know Labour won. But as the UK went to the polls, Nicole Macedo examined a surprising dearth of gambling coverage in the parties’ manifestos . Essentially, gambling isn’t a vote winner – or loser – she writes, and with the shockwaves from the Gambling Act whitepaper still rippling out, it seems politicians feel it’s all in hand. However, as Dan Waugh points out, others in the corridors of power seem determined to make gambling the new tobacco.

Waugh raises this point in the World Series of Politics podcast , where he joins Brendan Bussmann and Brandt Iden to discuss the election, and the bets placed on it, as well as some of the wilder suggestions that will apparently make the industry safer. Plain packaging for playing cards? We wish this was a joke.

Anyway, that’s all from me. You’ll find us pushing out the best industry news, analysis and data on iGamingBusiness.com . It’s been a blast.

Have a great weekend!

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