Hello everyone, hope you have all been well! Isn’t time just flying! It’s March already and we have some news to catch up on. Let’s not waste time and jump straight into it.
Paddy Power has been digging itself deeper and deeper in trouble. At the beginning of the year a tragic incident involving the death of a young Englishman kicked off a huge campaign of rage against this (and other) operators in the UK. There have been stones thrown on both sides with tabloids digging out stories about irresponsible behaviour and failure to comply with regulations by bookmakers. They on the other hand have accused the press of creating scandals and basically scaremongering by publishing not checked and exaggerated information.
At the same time, the released UK Gambling Commission stats for the previous year uncover the fact that despite anti-gambling advocates claims, the UKGC has reported that the 0.5% rate of problem gamblers has remained static between 2014 and 2015 (and is in fact a drop compared to the years before). Another interesting finding from the study is that 61% of the surveyed players still use a laptop/PC as their gambling device of choice, with just 23% using their phone and only 16% a tablet. So contrary to popular belief, desktop is still a king when it comes to gambling online.
Whilst that was all going on, Paddy Power was still in the process of merging with Betfair. The £5 billion deal was agreed back in August 2015 and got finally completed on the 2nd of February 2016. Recently published profits for Paddy Power were positive, despite increased gambling taxes and the ongoing media scandals. So all and all, forecasts for the new entity on the UK market are pretty positive.
Another good news is that Unibet is toying with the idea of introducing voice recognition allowing users to speak instead of type when playing casino games. The new feature is being reviewed by Apple and once it is accepted it will be made available over a major app update. Can’t wait to try it!
Ireland got tougher on gambling too. The ASAI (Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland) released some updates to the Code of Standards for Advertising & Marketing. To sum it up “Advertisements for gambling services or products shall contain a message to encourage responsible gambling and shall direct people to a source of information about gambling and gambling responsibly”.
A new player entered the British market. The Gambling Commission granted a license to Contagious Gaming early this March. The platform offers a full package of solution for gaming operators, covering sports betting, casino games, bingo and online lottery. It already had a license for pool betting facilities and with the new one they can offer sports betting on live events as well as casino options. The company had a blast on the ICE London 2016 and seems to be going strong with professionalism and a wide range of services under their belt. Always good news to have fresh players on the market and for sure the ones benefiting most from it are the end users.