North America

Aristocrat Gaming has released its response to the case against its subsidiary platform Big Fish Games, which related to the operation of the online social gaming platform Big Fish Casino. Having acquired Big Fish Games from Churchill Downs Incorporated (CDI) in January, Aristocrat Gaming has affirmed its intention to work with CDI and clear Big Fish Games against any wrongdoing. …

Digital sports and media group Perform Media has announced a multi-year partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA). The deal will see Perform manage the league’s official websites in more than 15 international markets, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, India, Japan, Mexico and Spain. Through the partnership, Perform hopes to leverage its global editorial and commercial teams to manage the NBA’s …

Digital football community, Dugout (Dugout.com) has secured £8.2 million in its latest venture funding round, which the company will use to expand its technology offering and further support growth in the MENA (Middle East/ North Africa) region. Dugout’s funding round has been led by renowned US sports investors the McCourt brothers (David and Frank), who between them own the LA …

London-listed betting and racing systems provider Sportech Plc has detailed its corporate recovery plan, following a tough 2017 in which the company restructured its operations having undertaken strategic review and cost reduction programme.   Publishing its full-year 2017 results, Sportech governance declares corporate losses of £23 million, as company trading was impacted by a number of high-cost write-downs. In its …

US news sources have reported that the NBA (basketball) and MLB (baseball) leagues will move to divest their respective stakes in daily fantasy sports (DFS) operators’ DraftKings and FanDuel. In 2015 the MLB had participated in a $300 million investment round, backing DraftKings enterprise as official ‘MLB Fantasy Sports Partner’. The NBA acquired its stake in FanDuel, supporting the DFS …

Sportradar’s Neale Deeley spoke to SBC News about the potential of a legalised sports betting market in the US, which he says has been both “overestimated” in terms of how quickly it can all become real, and “underestimated” in relation to the size of each state. For example, he notes that people know about California’s huge economy, but don’t realise that …

BT Sport has announced that later this year it plans on launching BT Sport Box Office, a pay-per-view channel which will be available on BT TV and the Sky platform. This season, BT Sport retained the rights to Premier League football for a further three years, however, it appears unlikely for now that football coverage will be affected by the …

Leading daily fantasy sports operator DraftKings has launched its Australian enterprise, continuing its corporate expansion beyond its home US marketplace. Planning to fully launch its Australian DFS product during Q2 2018, DraftKings will operate under a Northern Territory Racing Commission – NTRC license. At present, DraftKings leadership remains quiet with regards to its upcoming Australian DFS proposition, and what sports …

Paddy Power Politics has priced ‘4/1 that Sean Hannity will leave his post as a Fox News political commentator in 2018’. The bookmaker opens its new ‘Trump betting’ market, following this week’s New York court disclosure that Hannity was a client of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer who is currently under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors. The Host of ‘Hannity’, …

As it continues to champion equality and inclusion within the industry, Caesars Entertainment has become a founding member of The All-in Diversity Project. The lead out initiative from All-in Diversity Project is the All-Index, a global industry standard index measuring progress for diversity and inclusion, which was built in partnership with Oxford Brookes University. It will provide a report on …