Veikkaus, the Finnish gambling monopoly, has warned it is expecting to lose €50m in revenue next year because of new corporate responsibility measures.

In a statement, the operator said it expected earnings to fall to about €963m – around the same it generated back in 2014 when it was structured as three different companies.

The new responsibility measures blamed for the predicted revenue drop include mandatory identification for its slots and other games, reducing the number of slot machines it operates, and introducing a completely new, more responsible marketing strategy.

Financial reporting will also be updated to bring it in line with the International Financial Reporting Standard.

Veikkaus’ CEO, Olli Sarekoski, has previously admitted the operator hasn’t done enough to reduce gambling harm, and the company’s marketing has come under fierce attack by Finland’s National Institute for Health and Welfare, national media and the public this year – causing it to take the drastic step of unilaterally suspending advertising in August (read more).

The operator reported a 4% fall in year-on-year revenue for the nine months to September 2019.

Staying with Veikkaus, just last week AYO.NEWS reported Yggdrasil’s casino games portfolio had gone live with the operator (read more).

AYO.NEWS says:

Veikkaus is in a difficult position. Being the only license operator in Finland, it is well and truly under the spotlight all the time, and is expected to be a beacon of responsibility. However, as we all know, in reality it also has to compete with a huge number of unlicensed offshore operators – none of whom are under the same scrutiny or subject to the same rules.

If ever there was a case for market liberalisation to promote responsible gaming it is the Finnish situation!

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.

TruNarrative and Playtech have launched a new iGaming global compliance platform.

According to the companies, the new platform enables Playtech’s customers to benefit from a single platform to manage customer risk, including: Age & Identity Verification, Document Validation, Safer Gambling Services, PEP & Sanctions Screening and Ongoing Monitoring.

Gaming operators using Playtech’s IMS platform can now use the TruNarrative solution via direct integration, enabling multi-brand risk management strategies to be built from within a single platform.

Discussing the platform head of regulatory affairs and compliance at Playtech, Ian Ince, explained:

“The increasingly complex regulatory framework is the single biggest challenge facing gambling businesses operating in regulated markets. This partnership will help operators answer this challenge.”

While VP of product strategy at Playtech, Anthony Evans, said:

“In linking Playtech’s core gaming products and its BetBuddy safer gambling analytics software with TruNarrative’s compliance platform, we are enabling operators to access a unique safer gambling solution.”

And, head of gaming at TruNarrative, Adam Doyle, added:

“We are excited to be working with Playtech and are looking forward to delivering truly innovative customer onboarding, safer gambling and risk management solutions to its partners.”

London-based games studio BF Games has entered a deal with operator Giant Gaming Group.

The partnership will see the studio’s complete portfolio of 53 casino games offered across the Malta-licensed operator’s four online casino brands: LuckyDino, Casino JEFFE, Ola Spill and Kalevala Kasino.

BF Games’ line-up includes popular titles like Book of Gods, Stunning Hot, Stunning Hot 20 Deluxe, Crystal Mania and Hot Classic, and new releases such as Bonnie & Clyde, Aztec Adventures and Road Cash.

Commenting on the news CEO of BF Games, Piotr Szpoton, said:

“We are pleased to join forces with Giant Gaming Group and to offer our growing portfolio of games to its customers.

“We have had a fantastic year entering new markets and partnering with a number of great operators and we look forward to adding new content and extending our presence in global markets next year.”

While CEO of Giant Gaming Group, Harold Bagnovecs, added:

“All our casino brands were created to deliver an experience that will keep our players entertained and excited. By partnering with BF Games we will add some world-class titles to our existing offering that we know will be loved by our client base.”

BF Games will be showcasing its portfolio of online content, alongside its extensive range of retail products, including slot machines and betting terminals, at the world’s biggest iGaming trade show, ICE London 2020, between February 4th and 6th. The BF team will be at Stand S3-248.

AYO.NEWS says:

Though they’ve been around for a couple of years now as something of a dark horse in the highly competitive casino games market, BF Games seem to have found their stride in 2019, going live with a number of new operators and aggregators including LeonBets Casino, PlayFortuna, ORYX Hub, SoftGamings, BetConstruct, Soft2Bet, Pariplay (read more) and EveryMatrix’s CasinoEngine (read more).

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.

Bitcasino.io has pledged to fund the planting of 101,010 trees (at $1 per tree), through the viral #teamtrees movement.

The cause, which pledged to plant 20 million trees by the start of 2020 has been supported by high-profile figures in the tech industry like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, but so far Bitcasino.io is the only company of its kind to lend its support.

Through November Bitcasino’s players had the opportunity to donate their unused Loyalty Club points to the cause, and all contributions were matched Bitcoin-for-Bitcoin by the Bitcasino team.

Bitcasino rounded the total to the easily recongisable binary number of $101,010 to gain note with tech and cryptocurrency enthusiasts alike.

Commenting on the news Director of Casino at Bitcasino.io, Tauri Tiitsaar, said:

“It’s astonishing to see just how generous our players are, and we are happy to have been able to represent the crypto community in the #TeamTrees movement.

“By making just a small addition to our loyalty club, we were able to have such a big impact on a global cause, and want to take this as an opportunity to challenge others in our industry and community to stand together with us in raising awareness on the important topic of climate change.”

#TeamTrees was started by American YouTuber MrBeast, and quickly became one of the biggest fundraising challenges in the history of social media. In addition to Jack Dorsey the cause has also been supported by many social media influencers and entrepreneurs, including Jeffree Star, Pewdiepie and Elon Musk.

As 2019 draws to a close, the campaign has passed the 19 million mark. You can find out more about the campaign, and how you can get involved at teamtrees.org.

AYO.NEWS says:

Hats off to Bitcasino.io, both their players and their team! That is an impressive amount to raise in such a short time, and hopefully it will inspire other firms in the industry to get involved with similar projects.

AYO.NEWS just funded a batch of trees too 😉

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.

The Swedish Gaming Inspectorate has announced a new strategy against illegal gaming activities.

It has concluded the best way to combat the illegal gaming business is to encourage a form of self-regulation of the market, in which other entities in the market act to keep illegal actors out.

This means ensuring that subcontractors and payment service providers do not cooperate with illegal gaming companies. This approach is necessary because, as the Gaming Inspectorate itself admits, its opportunities to act directly are limited and will mainly focus on cooperation with other actors in Swedish and foreign authorities.

The Gaming Inspectorate does, however, have the opportunity to apply to the Administrative Court for the ability to block specific bank accounts.

A prerequisite for the goals of the new gaming regulation to be achieved is that those who conduct gaming operations in Sweden have a Swedish license “, states the Gaming Inspectorate in a press release sent out regarding the new strategy.

However, most of the illegal gaming activities over the Internet have their headquarters in countries outside Sweden and even outside the EU, which presents special challenges for Swedish authorities.

Providing illegal gambling or gambling without the necessary license is a crime in Sweden, as is the promotion of such activities. In this part, the Gaming Inspectorate needs to cooperate with police and prosecutors, along with other authorities such as The Consumer Agency and the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.

EveryMatrix’s CasinoEngine has entered an agreement with Flutter Entertainment (formerly Paddy Power Betfair), to provide its iGaming integration platform in several regulated markets.

The deal covers markets including Spain, Italy, Sweden and the UK, and will give Flutter access to an extensive selection of market-specific gaming suppliers, via a single integration.

UK-listed Flutter Entertainment plc currently serves more than six million players worldwide, operating major brands including Paddy Power, Betfair, Sportsbet, FanDuel, TVG and Adjarabet.

Commenting on the partnership Commercial Product Manager at Flutter, Jack Dinan, said:

“We have spent considerable time assessing potential B2B partners who could enhance our gaming proposition across International Markets. We are delighted to partner with EveryMatrix who have impressed us with their experience, professionalism, and reliability. We are incredibly excited by the imminent launch in Spain, which offers our customers a greatly enhanced portfolio of games and a seamless experience between products.”

While Group Chief Commercial Officer at EveryMatrix, Stian Hornsletten, added:

“Spain is the first market to tackle together with Flutter. To achieve their mission of bringing entertainment to life in a responsible way, Flutter offers players a unified experience across all gaming vendors by upholding total control over the gameplay window. CasinoEngine’s team, together with vendors, developed several features to comply with their strict requirements for user experience and responsible gaming.

“As such, our UI Communication Framework has been fully integrated with Flutter’s MARS Framework to collect the various in-game messages from different vendors and present them on the operator side in a unified way. This includes real-time balance updates, toggle audio across all vendors, stake updates, game load progress or game completion, for example. I believe that together we’ve created the most player-friendly and transparent casino experience in the industry and being their choice with our CasinoEngine Direct solution is an exceptional compliment.”

According to EveryMatrix, CasinoEngine Direct solution acts as an integration layer between the operator and casino vendor, on top of the gaming aggregation. This enables operators to quickly enter newly regulated markets with the most relevant country-specific content. The gaming library now includes more than 8,000 games and more than 140 game suppliers.

AYO.NEWS says:

Given the sheer scale of Flutter’s operations, this is a major deal for EveryMatrix. Just last week AYO.NEWS reported that Spanish content had been integrated into the CasinoEngine platform (read more). Staying with Flutter, in November the company reported strong revenue growth in Q3 2019, largely driven by the nascent US markets (read more).

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.