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CHINESE APPROVAL FOR FOOTBALL
Inspired Gaming’s Virtual Football lottery game has been approved by China’s Ministry of Finance (MOF)
China - Virtual Sports
Inspired Gaming’s Virtual Football lottery game is to be supplied to the Chinese market exclusively via AGT, which is a joint venture between AGTech and Ladbrokes. Virtual Football will be Inspired’s second rapid-draw, fixed-odds virtual sports lot- tery game to launch in China, following the launch of Virtual Motor Racing in 2011.
PHILIPPINES - PAGCOR RECYCLES FOR SCHOOLS In a bizarre claim to fame, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) has announced that it is the first casino operator in the world to utilise discarded slot machine parts to produce functional school desks. By recy- cling old slot machine stands, PAGCOR was able to donate a total of 1,160 desks to 19 public schools in Manila.
Maricar Bautista, PAGCOR’s assistant vice president for cor- porate communications, said the company has been donat- ing fabricated desks since 2010 to help ease classroom fur- niture shortage in public schools. “We collect the old wooden stands of our slot machines from our Casino Filipino branch- es in Metro Manila and they are brought to PAGCOR's Imus warehouse in Cavite for fabrication."
PAGCOR said the two- or three-seater fabricated desks cost about P600 each, much cheaper compared to commercial- ly-sold school chairs, which range from P2,000 to P2,500 per unit. Teachers from beneficiary schools said the fabricat- ed desks, which are sturdier and stable, fared better than their old plastic furniture.
“This is another testament to Filipino ingenuity. As we often say, only in the Philippines can we find such a unique idea,” said Ms. Bautista. A claim no one is likely to dispute.
CAMBODIA - EGA SIGNS TWO DEALS WITH LT GAME Pan-Asian casino group Entertainment Gaming Asia has signed agreements with gaming equipment supplier LT Game to help facilitate the refocusing of the company’s Dreamworld Pailin casino operations in Cambodia.
As part of its previously-announced efforts to refocus its operations and streamline costs for Dreamworld Pailin casino in Cambodia, the company entered into a machine participa- tion agreement with LTG who will supply, install and provide maintenance for 30 electronic gaming machine seats on a revenue sharing basis. The LTG gaming offering will consist of semi-live electronic baccarat androulette table games. Under the terms of this agreement, Dreamworld Pailin and LTG will share in the gross net win before tax from these machines on an 85 per cent/15 per cent respective basis. The contract term is five years commencing with the live operation of the machines.
In addition, the company has signed a distribution agreement with LTG which grants the company the exclusive right to market and sell LTG gaming products to designated casinos and gaming venues within Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines. The initial duration of the agreement is six months in Cambodia and Vietnam and one year in the Philippines. Subject to the achievement of certain sales tar- gets, the Company is entitled to renew the agreement for successive one year periods under the same terms.
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Televised in sports lottery stores, Virtual Football will offer a high frequency of betting opportuni- ties with four matches every twenty minutes. Virtual Football features cutting edge graphics, exciting audio commentary and fixed odds betting markets, such as: half time and full time outcome (win, lose, draw), correct score, total goals, and accumulators. Virtual Football will initially be launched in Jiangsu Province, the largest sports lottery market in China with a 14.6 per cent mar- ket share.
Inspired’s Virtual Motor Racing product, known locally as Lucky Racing and also supplied to the Chinese market exclusively by AGT, is currently live in 1,350 sports lottery stores in Hunan Province. Since launch, sales have totaled over RMB 820m (USD $132m) and bets on Lucky Racing make up 36 per cent of all lottery sales in Hunan Province. Lucky Racing is a rapid-draw,
fixed-odds virtual sports lottery game depicting a computer animated Grand Prix style race. Televised in sports lottery stores, Lucky Racing offers a high frequency of betting opportunities with one race every ten minutes.
Luke Alvarez, Founder and CEO of Inspired Gaming Group, commented: “We are extremely pleased with the performance of Lucky Racing in Hunan Province and we look forward to launching our Virtual Football in Jiangsu Province. The appetite and potential market for our virtual sports lottery games in China is significant. China is a country we’re particularly excited to be doing business in.”
Sun Ho (John), Chairman and CEO of AGTech, added: “Inspired’s Lucky Racing is a fast-paced and fun new entertainment offer in China. It’s proving popular with lottery players in China and we are confident that the new Virtual Football game will also be popular.”
Mr. Alvarez recently participated in a technology- oriented trade delegation to China, hosted by George Osborne MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Goa’s offshore casino industry suffers high taxation and fees
INDIA Higher taxes and fees instigated by the new Goa government, which came to power in 2012, have resulted in a number of casinos having to close their doors. Of the 19 casinos operating in Goa, three of the six offshore casinos (the remainder in land-based five-star hotels) have ceased operating. The Kanda Casino, a casino vessel abandoned on the river Mandovi by former Haryana Minister Gopal Kanda, was seized and towed by the port administration in October.
Narendra Punj, Managing Director of the company which operates the Deltin Royale Casino, com- mented: “It’s a struggle. It is a question of survival.” Officials, however, say that the business has picked up with the depreciating rupee. Most Goan casino clients are from north India. With the depreciating rupee, travelling abroad is expensive and it's cheaper to play in Goa than abroad. Each of the three function-
ing off-shore casinos get a footfall of around a 1,000 visitors per day. Visitors have to report at the casi- no counters along the Panjim riverfront and are then taken on speedboats to the anchored casi- nos in the river.
Goan Minister, Manohar Parrikar, was swept to power 18 months ago with the first clear majority in two decades, after he had campaigned on a promise to close down all casinos in the state because they were 'corrupting Goan culture.' Once in power, however, Mr. Parrikar performed a U-turn stat- ing that the industry was indis- pensable to the Goan economy. Now members of the Congress government, currently in the opposition in Goa, are demanding the closure of the casinos. “The opposition wants to stop casinos so that the revenue collection of the government suffers (referring to the tight financial conditions of the Goa government after the ban on mining)," alleges Mr. Parrikar.
Malaysia Resorts World Genting, previously known as Genting Highlands, Genting’s original mountain top- resort casino, could be facing a tax hike on its profits in the upcoming Budget 2014. It would mark the first time that the Malaysian government has revised gaming taxation since 1998 when it increased what it took from 22 per cent to 25 per cent. The government is looking to gaming to help reduce the country’s budget deficit, which in 2012 came in at 4.5 per cent of GDP. Research group RHB said: “We believe there is a possibility of an upward revision in gaming taxes when Budget 2014 is unveiled on October 25 as the Government explores ways to beef up its coffers.”
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