iGaming Operators News
SPORTS BETTING OPERATORS
- BET365 grows but loses ! The operator recorded a strong growth (with more than £3.4bn)during the last year but also a huge loss of £61,2M, but that doesn’t prevent the bookie from having huge ambitions: they still aim new markets !
- GiG expands in two further regulated provinces in Argentina through a partnership with Bplay. The two new provinces aimed are Cordoba and Mendoza.
- BETR secures market access in 3 new US states. The microbetting company will now reach Pennsylvania, Colorado and Kentucky, through agreements with Cordish Gaming Group for Pennsylvania, in Colorado, Betr has a deal with Boulter Developments and in Kentucky with Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. In the two last cases, Betr had to give up some equity. On the other side, Betr won’t renew Massachusetts temporary sports betting licence.
- 7K Partners launches its mobile app for affiliates. This multi-language app is available in portuguese, spanish and english and will allow affiliates to have a clear view on the visits, registrations, FTDs, commissions and CPA. In this app, the affiliate can also reach directly its affiliate manager. On top of that, it is possible to set sub-affiliation and get 10% of the RevShare earned by the sub.
CASINOS OPERATORS
- Gaming1 now has the right to operate the Casino de Davos and the Casino de Crans-Montana in Valais from 2025 to 2044 (Switzerland). In the Gaming1 plans : modernizing both casinos, moving Davos to a nearby facility and open a new sports bar. Concerning iGaming, the numbers of online casino licenses have increased in Switzerland, with 12 operators.
- BetGames announces the launch of a bespoke version of its crash game “Skyward” tailored for Betano in Brazil. Another sign of the growing power of Betano, since the operator will be able to display localized animations and adaptations to meet Brazilian players expectations. This is also showing how bookies are now focusing on a market-by-market product strategy, where initially they were building the most “global” offer.
- GiG launched two new casino brands : PlayR and Palasino. The company still aims to grow with its affiliate strategy but also keep focusing on its provider vertical. PlayR.bet is aiming mainly the Brazilian Market. Regarding Palasino, it’s a joint venture with the well known Palasino Group (a landbased casino operator) but aims to go online with GiG knowledge.
LOTTERY, BINGO & SLOTS
iGaming Affiliates News
Company Results
General News
- Catena Media launched in Vermont, right after online sports betting went legal. The affiliate anticipated market opening with lots of Vermont-oriented content on its owned assets but also on its partnership such as NJ.com and Thesportingnews.com
- Finixio strengthen its gambling team with the arrival of the first Head of Gambling Content. Sacha Kinser arrives right after an Head of Content role at Game Lounge. Finixio’s gambling team is now up to 25 full time employees, and more than 20 websites, of which its flagship brands sportlens and thesportdaily. The affiliate is also aiming to hire journalists from The Daily Mail, Daily Express and The Telegraph
- Affiverse media published a podcast in partnership with Wade Tonkin, Director of Global Affiliate Marketing at Fanatics. Wade gave strong feedbacks on how they went from $6M revenues to $100M, helped a lot by affiliation. He also gives advices to launch an affiliation program where he discloses some tips concerning Fanatics affiliation strategy, such as being open to social network affiliation, PPC, SEO…
- IGB Affiliate got Pauline Andrew (Head of Paid Media @ Genesys One. They discuss what differs from a good performer or less performing affiliate. The good ones know their traffic and how it behaves, relying strongly on data. She also gave few tips when entering the casino affiliate market, that you can find directly here
- Raketech CEO Oskar Mühlback stepped down from his position with immediate effects. After 4 years in the position, the former CEO leaves for strategic views differences. That being said, the affiliate company expects a full-year revenue betwen €65-70M with an EBITDA estimated to fall within the range of €23-25M. Revenues are splitted 85.5% from Casino and 14.5 from sports betting. On Q3 2023, performance is coming from Nordics mainly (€10M +58%), Rest of Europe (€1.1M +73,6%) and US slowing down at €1.1M (-25%), Rest of the world doubled at 9.3M€.
- Casino Guru partners with affpapa to propose a new professional course titled “iGaming affiliate management essentials”. In 90minutes, participants can back their knowledge with a certificate.
- 888 Affiliates announced the end of its affiliate program for William Hill and 777.com in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman. They’re not going to pay CPAs and Revenue shares. They recently announced the same news for Norway and Peru following the new gambling bill, requiring operators to get a local license.
- MECN published the Q3 report for the Gambling industry, focusing western europe. This report show us great insights regarding operators performance per products, per geos and per competition. Giving you great inputs for your comparison and for your content !
- In general, professionnal of the industry estimates the business climate as satisfactory or goodMost of the responders also see LatAm and US as the biggests growing markets for 2024 In Europe, growth is quiet limited, but Italy and Spain are perceived as biggest opportunites MECN also estimated the Market Cap of key companies in the industry, and we can see some affiliates, with BetterCollective caped at 1.1bn GBP, GIG 0.30bn GBP, Gambling.com 0.29bn GBP, Catena Media with 0.08bn GBP; followed by Raketech 0.06bn GBP and Acroud 0.02bn GBP They also displayed the revenue growth per operators, leaded by Bally’s Interactive A quick Affiliate benchmarking, focused on the brands the most advertised on Affiliate website… No surprise, Bet365 is leading !
Interviews
- Jamie Walters, CEO of QiH Group gives his thoughts on the increase of compliance for affiliates. The Gambling Commission for (UK) consultation launched in November includes proposal to ban or limit wagering requirements and end the practice of mixing products types within a promotional offer. For him, being more demanding in matter of compliance will have multiples impacts:
- Operators becoming more and more picky on their affiliate partners.
- It will become more manichean for affiliates : either affiliates would be strong enough to comply or smaller ones would choose the easy way, choosing black markets if they’re pushed out operator’s program.
- Apps4Web Media Director Alex Windsor tackles wether an affiliate can enter the US market. Entering the US market supposes some adaptation regarding the strategy, since the sports seasons are different, for instance NFL is only 17 games long (where soccer team such as Man City plays 61 games) → what to publish during off season? That’s why a multisport assets could be a topchoice, since NBA and NHL have 82 games.
Alex Windsor also brins EEAT to the table “Gone are the days where you could hide who you are, now you need real authoritative authors that can add value to your users”.
Market Moves
NEWS FEED
- KVA Founders launch a new affiliate quality mark on 6 markets (Germany, Sweden, Spain, Norway, UK, Denmark). Called QMRA (Quality Mark Responsible Affiliate), it cost €695 for a yearly membership. 81 affiliates and 10 operators have signed up the code in NL for the KVA Quality Mark, surfing on the ban of gambling ads in July 2023.
- Delasport published its 2023 review, pointing out a shift in legislation (Germany, NL and Sweden introducing their own regulations where Malta’s and Curaçao’s where prevalent.
M&A Moves
- Revpanda acquired Leetz Media to build the ultime traffic powerhouse. The amount was not disclosed. It allows Revpanda to strengthen its presence in Europe, North America & India thanks to Leetz’s portfolio.
- FDJ moves forward with the acquisition of Kindred Group after having received the approval from the french competition authority. They’re now waiting for the final approval of Kindred Group shareholders. Upon their approval, FDJ would become one of the biggest european operator. Acquisition should be proceeded early October.
- Sportingtech partners with 23:59, the event software. Operators will have now the opportunity to personalize their offering with the major events worldwide, faster. This partnership is supposed to bring an advantage to SportingTech in the Brazilian market, that the provider is aiming strongly.
- The New York State Gaming Commission approved Penn Interactive’s acquisition of Wynn Interactive. ESPN Bet went live on friday hould be live by the end of the week of September 23rd.
SEO/SEA/PPC
- Google started phasing out third-party cookies. For now, it looks like only 1% of Chrome users (Worldwide) have been impacted, but the search engine is willing to deliver its roadmap concerning third party cookies !
- OddsChecker published its rankings on the UK Market, with Bet365 leading the market but BetUK was the biggest mover in December
Regulatory Updates
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USA
Vermont: Online sports betting went live at midnight on January 11 with 3 licensed operators (FanDuel, Fanatics & Draftkings). Draftking is now live in 26 states, Fanatics in 10 and FanDuel on 25.
New-York : Joseph Addabo filed a new bill to legalise online gaming and internet lottery. The proposal came back after a first try in 2022, but since, only sports betting have been authorized. NYC is the biggest betting market in the US, and Addabo’s analysts pointed out the new bill could allow 1bn$ in tax revenues per year.
California : after the bill failure in 2022, it looks like California sports betting can not be live before…2028 ! The first bill only had 18% of the vote (the conflicts between operators and gaming tribes probably did not help a lot). FanDuel then, hired a pair of executives coming from tribal gaming, and it looks like it helps, since both worlds are now aligned on the operating model. Anyway, 40M-people state is not likely to have sports betting before the SuperBowl LXI in 2027.
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Italy
Sweeping changes in Italian Online Gambling in order to protect players and even more minors. To this matter, a new licensing framework have been introduced: – each online gambling license will incur a €7M authorization fee + a 3% operating fee. Operators should also contribute 0.2% of their net revenues annually to fund responsible gaming campaigns. The government anticipates at least 50 operators (on the 83 existing) applying for the new concession.
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France
ANJ about to limit the amount of sports on which french players can bet. 772 competitions are opened to sports betting now, 180 have been deleted from the list, mainly in eastern in order to avoid match fixing.
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Indonesia
Governments cracks down on online gambling ! Too much advertising on social media (youtube and Meta) lead to a blocking access to 596,348 websites and IPs, 173,134 Meta pages, 29,257 file sharing accounts and 5,993 Google and YouTube channels. They also blocked more than 5000 bank accounts related to online gambling.
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Brazil
- Lula made the regulation official in Brazil, ratifying a new regulatory framework for sports betting and iGaming. If you followed the full story, you might be surprised that iGaming came back to the table, since it was removed by the senate. Lula also vetoed an income tax exemption for customer earnings under R$2,112 (394€), earnings above would be taxed at 15% where operators will be taxed at 12% GGR. Operators will be forced to have a brazilian board member earning at least 20% of shares.