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Apparently, the governance of the English Premier League (EPL) are in urgent talks with cyber-security experts in an effort to stop fans watching top-flight football on illegal online streams. This matters hugely to the EPL, which has sold rights to live football in the UK to BT Sport and bSkyb for billions on the basis that it attracts the young, …

Licensing expert David Clifton, of gambling consultancy Clifton Davies, takes a look at the recent movement by the regulator to tighten up money-laundering processes and doesn’t see any good news for bookmakers. The recent publication on the Gambling Commission’s website of a public statement highlighting failures in Paddy Power’s anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility processes is the latest in what …

SBC’s Football Odds Expert Jeevan Jeyaratnam, of odds compiling firm Super Soccer GPS, explains what happens when an unfamiliar name unexpectedly hits the team sheet. The promotion of Marcus Rashford into the starting XI for Manchester United’s must-win Europa League game with Danish champions Midtylland on February 25th 2016 was a landmark for the player, but created a wave of rapid …

Almost all betting operators have stated that through intelligence and effective data gathering they are becoming smarter…but so too are professional gamblers who are looking towards ‘big data’ to gain their advantage on bookmaker markets! Scott Longley examines new trends and strategies taken on-board by pro-punters… ______________ Scraping through against FC Midtylland may have given Manchester United boss Louis Van …

Toronto listed gambling investment firms buying industry assets in 2014 & 2015 were branded as game changers for the sector. In 2016 business-wide scepticism and criticism has grown of these merged enterprises and their governance, Scott Longley examines how and why opinion has turned on these new Canadian giants. ________________________________ David Baazov, the chief executive of Amaya, may be intent …

Having completed its takeover bwin.party Entertainment , Scott Longley asses the betting operators next steps as the new merged outfit targets a FTSE 250 listing. As the firm’s governance and leadership begins to execute the first steps of its integration plan, Longley details what may be the betting sectors most interesting merger.  ________________________ It didn’t take long for GVC to …

When I first started advising the UK betting industry in the 1980s, it lived in a very different regulatory world than it lives in today. It was a land-based industry. Remote betting took place only by phone. The Gaming Board for Great Britain (the predecessor to the Gambling Commission) had no jurisdiction as far as the betting industry was concerned. The …

As a currency Bitcoin has seen its critics and sceptics grow in the past months as its value continues to decline. Nevertheless Gaming Economics MD and SBC Contributor Lee Richardson tells the betting sector that the crypto-currency’s mechanisms may likely lead to much needed industry wide innovation and operational restructuring… __________________ Many of us have heard of Bitcoins. Some have earnt these digitally-created tokens, …

Daniel Graetzer of Mediatech Solutions takes a look at what omni-channel actually means for the gambling industry, and where it can make the most impact. While omni-channel is definitely one of the biggest buzzwords in today’s gaming world, don’t let it distract you from the opportunities it presents. 2015 brought us a constant stream of stories in the M&A columns …