Wire EMEA
Storm opens Shangri La in Kharkiv Te Shangri La Kharkiv casino is located in the five-star hotel
Kharkiv Palace close to Freedom Square in the Ukraine city of Kharkiv.
Te operator of Shangri La Kharkiv, a 1300 sq. m casino, is Storm International, which has been doing business in Europe and the CIS for decades.
UKRAINE LAND-BASED
Netherlands - Dutch authority fines affiliates The Dutch Gaming Authority has taken enforcement action against 15 affiliates who advertised illegal online games of chance on websites.
In total, the Ksa started 22 investigations. This resulted in 15 websites that violated the Gambling Act. In 13 cases, an order subject to a penalty payment has been, or will be, imposed. The other two are still under investigation. In some cases, the violation was immediately stopped, or the advertiser switched to advertising for licensed gambling providers and stopped advertising for illegal providers.
An order subject to a penalty payment is intended to stop the violation. The Ksa carries out re-inspections after the imposition of the load. If it then appears that the violation has not been stopped, the imposed penalty payment will be forfeited. This means that the penalty payment must be paid. The provision of games of chance without a licence is prohibited. The same applies to the advertising of games of chance that do not have a licence. With affiliate marketing, sites receive money when you click through to the online game of chance. The Ksa periodically conducts research into these advertisers.
UK - BGC campaign to protect young people Standards body the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has formed a cross-industry Ad Tech Forum with the largest online platforms to look at how the latest technology can be used to protect children and vulnerable people online. This cross-industry effort includes BGC members, such as Flutter, bet365 and William Hill, Advertising Association members, and the Lotteries Council.
Leading tech platforms Meta, Twitter, Google and Snap will provide their input into the forum – alongside advertising bodies – to work together and develop fresh ways of further protecting children online, including how data can be used to improve age accuracy.
BGC members have already taken major steps to protect young people, including new rules aimed at ensuring that children cannot view gambling ads on football clubs’ official social media accounts, while tech platforms continue to deploy ad targeting to ensure gambling ads are not accessed by those who are underage.
The Forum will build on the commitments made in the Sixth Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising, which stipulates that gambling operators must ensure all sponsored or paid for social media adverts are targeted at those aged 25 and over unless it can be proved the adverts meet a standard of age targeting verified by an agreed third party.
P10 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS
On December 5, Shangri La Kharkiv became the first legal casino to open in the Ukrainian city. Te international casino is located in the five- star Kharkiv Palace hotel in the very centre of Kharkiv close to Freedom Square. Ahead of the opening, representatives from Storm International held a press conference for journalists and the public.
Te casino is comprised of 1,300sq.m of entertainment space, including dozens of new slots, table games, roulette tables, a branded bar, lounge areas and VIP rooms. Te casino employs 300 trained staff.
“We are the first legal casino in Kharkiv and we hope that our business will flourish here. Walking around this casino, you can understand how pleased we are with the result,” stated Michael Boettcher, founder, Storm International.
“In the US, there are casinos in almost every state; in the East there is Macau, Singapore, the Philippines, etc. And now, in between Asia and the Americas is Ukraine, with a unique opportunity to capture a huge and valuable market in Central Europe and from Europe itself,
Austria bet-at-home cuts 65 jobs in Austria
especially from the EU because of excessive taxation and over regulation. And in Turkey, Israel and the Middle East, this business is prohibited. People from these countries and the countries of the former USSR can now come to Ukraine, where gaming is legal and where the government is responding to requests to better regulate and tax the industry, which will encourage more tourists,” stated Mr. Boettcher.
Te Shangri La Kharkiv casino begins to receive guests almost 10 years after the opening of the most expensive hotel in Kharkiv, Kharkiv Palace, which was built to coincide with the 2012 European Football Championship.
Over the last year of operation in Ukraine, Storm International has opened several slots halls in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Zaporozhye, as well as Shangri La casinos in Kiev and Kharkiv. Storm International also remains the only international investor in the country's new legal gambling market. Storm operates in Georgia, Armenia, Germany and Belarus, with further plans to open in additional Ukraine cities, newly legalised Myanmar, as well opportunities in Egypt and Batumi in Georgia.
Greece
Intralot has reported €302.8m consolidated revenue for the first nine months of 2021, an increase of 24.4 per cent on the same period last year. Lottery games was the largest contributor to the top line, comprising 60.7 per cent of revenue, followed by sports betting which contributed 17.5 per cent to Group turnover.
bet-at-home is cutting 65 jobs at its subsidiary in Austria as part of a restructuring plan to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Te aim is to adjust the cost structure of the group to better reflect lower anticipated sales revenues in the future and meet the financial burden of ongoing litigation in the Austrian courts.
Te German company, which operates with a Maltese licence, has been struggling with a combination of declining results and legal challenges in the Austrian market. Te group has scaled back its forecasts and announced a negative annual
result for the year as successful player lawsuits increase the financial debt burden on the business.
In the first half of the year, EBITDA fell by around two thirds to €5.4m, impacted by marketing costs associated with the European Football Championship and declining results in the online gaming segment in Germany. bet- at-home temporarily suspended business in October following a ruling by the Supreme Court in Vienna, which challenged the operator's view that it was a legitimate online casino provider in the Austrian market.
Technology contracts accounted for 12.2 per cent and VLTs monitoring represented 9.1 per cent, while racing constituted the 0.5 per cent of total revenue. GGR from operations concluded at €244.4m in 9M21, posting an increase of 21.2 per cent. Tis was driven mainly by the increased top line contribution of our US operations, the better performance of Bilyoner in the current period and the improved performance across most key regions mainly due to the COVID- 19 impact on the preceding year.
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