MGM Resorts International

Jeff Mochal has joined MGM Resorts International as senior vice president of corporate communication, where he will be based in Las Vegas and report to Ayesha Molino, who has been promoted to senior vice president of public affairs.

Mochal will oversee the company’s corporate communications and strategic positioning, leading issues management strategy and proactive media relations, internal communications and social impact and sustainability messaging strategies for issues affecting the company on a global scale.

“Jeff is joining the company at a crucial time. His skills and expertise will be invaluable as our industry recovers from the pandemic and MGM Resorts seizes on rapidly growing opportunities in mobile gaming and executes on its goal to become the premier global omni-channel gaming, hospitality, and entertainment company,” said Molino.

“Jeff’s strong background and years of experience defining a corporate mission and strategy as a clear and compelling narrative makes him a valuable addition to this leadership team.”

Gaming1

Gaming and sports betting operator Gaming1 has appointed Lana Khoury to the role of chief information officer, building upon a 20-year career in the technology and consulting industry.

Chosen for an ability to align business and IT by managing technology in pursuit of an organisation’s success, the position will see Khoury build on the awareness of the group’s brands, as well as implementing organisational changes to support the company’s agile delivery model and data-driven focus.

Sylvain Boniver, COO and co-founder at Gaming1, noted: “I am delighted to welcome Lana to the team. A world-class addition, her appointment forms part of a recruitment drive aimed at accelerating our continued international expansion into crucial markets.

“With a precise and technically-minded approach, as well as an impressive skillset and portfolio, she is exactly what we need to take our brand to the next level.”

A Game Above

Nicolas Fleiderman has been selected as the new chief executive officer for A Game Above, taking over fromSteen Madsen who stepped down earlier this year.

Fleiderman’s appointment comes soon after the customer experience campaigns and consulting agency celebrated its first anniversary.

In his new role, the new CEO will focus primarily on the company’s growth within regulated markets across Africa, Europe, the US and Latin America as well as the ‘omnichannel opportunity’.

Bill Pascrell III, president of A Game Above, stated: “An industry veteran of Nicolas’ calibre is totally the right call for the A Game Above team at this point in the business mission. The commitment to detail and delivery is obvious across Jakob Famme and Ismail Vali’s experience and day-to-day.

“As president, I’m looking for the medium to long term performance and structure that builds reliably to success. Nicolas’ appointment delivers a  dealmaker and sole decision-maker with a solid track record that speaks to only one outcome: getting the job done, and done well. I’m very much looking forward to working with him.”

Checkd Media

Manchester-based social media marketing and technology business Checkd Group has hired Glenn Townsend as poker manager for its Checkd Media division.

Townsend, who was previously marketing manager at partypoker liver, will take on the role of delivering Checkd Media’s poker strategy, which centres around the Footy Accumulators Poker League.

Alex Beecham, Checkd Media managing director, commented: “Glenn’s track record with partypoker live shows that he has the drive and expertise to maintain the momentum that the Footy Accumulators Poker League has picked up over the past year.

“We intend for poker to continue to be a strong element within our product mix, engaging our communities and driving traffic.”

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A Game Above

Bill Pascrell III has been unveiled as the new president of customer experience marketing agency A Game Above where he will direct and lead outreach and operations across the USA and Canada.

The company specialises in work across a number of business verticals, with clients targeting consumers, other businesses and content partners targeting community audiences.

Jakob Famme, A Game Above COO, commented: “Bill Pascrell III was our first choice to lead and grow A Game Above in the important North American market. As the individual who led the precedent-creating campaign to legalise sports betting in New Jersey – a model that is now followed across the USA – his network, knowledge and know-how is unparalleled in the industry.

“We’re honoured to have him introduce A Game Above to North America, especially given the need to constantly convert and retain customers across the hybrid online and brick and mortar distribution channels that many A Game Above promotions are focused upon.

“As quarantine curfews relax, and the public return to play on property as well as online, we look forward to helping betting and gaming clients gain, retain and maintain their player audiences across all channels and products by leveraging our customer experience promotions.”

Spectrum Gaming

Juliann Barreto has been named as the new chief financial officer and chief administrator of Spectrum Gaming Group, after having first started with the firm in 2018.

Lauded as being “instrumental in the growth, development and operations” of the organisation, Barreto’s experience is said to have played a significant role in assisting clients worldwide with economic regulation and policy within both the casino gaming and hospitality industries.

Additionally, Barreto is the financial director for the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States, for which Spectrum serves as executive director.

Prior to working at the group, Barreto was the CFO for international restaurant and real estate firm, Aoki Group. She also is a co-founder of a popular Miami-based restaurant.

Barreto started in the gaming industry in 2007 working for Ernst & Young, where she advised private equity firms in the acquisition of hotels and casinos.

Quanta

Isle of Man based blockchain lottery operator Quanta has added further experience to its expanding roster after appointing Frank Schuengel as it’s Nigerian subsidiaries new chief operating officer.

The group asserts a current focus of streamlining business activities and rolling out an updated version of its innovative blockchain lottery product throughout Africa, starting with Nigeria.

Quanta’s board of directors made the decision to appoint Schuengel as the new COO after a thorough analysis and review.

“I am delighted to welcome Frank as our COO,” noted Harmen Brenninkmeijer Quanta’s CEO. “Experienced management will be vital for the success of Quanta.

“Frank is an e-gaming industry veteran whose global expertise and technical knowledge will benefit the company on its road to commercial success. I am confident that his extensive skillset and proven leadership will help us to focus on our goal of delivering value for our clients and shareholders.”

BetSperts

Sports betting social platform BetSperts has completed its Q1 seed round of funding led by Parlay Capital Holdings.

In addition to completing its first financing, the crowdsourced firm has added David VanEgmond, the current head of strategy and corporate development at Barstool Sports and former Head of Strategy at the FanDuel Group, to its Board of Directors.

In the funding statement, new appointee VanEgmond commented on his addition to the board, saying: “I am thrilled to be joining the board to help support the next wave of innovation and growth for the company.

“BetSperts is extremely well positioned to be the digital community for sports bettors. Their engaging and transparent platform is unique in the sports betting market which is continuing its significant expansion in the US.”

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Moderating ‘The balance between responsible gambling and business’ panel, Steen Madsen, CEO of A Game Above, raised the question over whether monopoly-based lotteries truly prioritise the customer.

He said: “I have the feeling that some monopolies are stating that they are justified because they believe they are more responsible than smaller operators simply because they have been around for many years. They believe that because they have been around, they are more likely to put the customer first.

“Having said that, realistically, where is the customer in all of this? It’s not just about the business, it’s not just about donating to good causes. Is the customer helped by having a monopoly that limits the products available?”

Madsen was joined on the panel by Vincent Perrotin, head of CSR at Française des Jeux, Tay Boon Khai, chief risk & compliance at Singapore Pools and Adrian Sladdin, director of Seventh Wave Corporation.

Defending the customer-first approach, Perrotin explained that monopolies must pay attention to customer demands if they wish to maintain player engagement and avoid channelisation to unlicensed lotteries.

He said: “It is not right for us to say whether we are more responsible than other operators. But France has had a monopoly for some time, we have a very long tradition of protection and responsibility. But we have also been confronted with the same digital revolution that everyone else has had to face.

“What is important for a monopoly to do its job today is that it needs to prioritise customer experience. At the end of the day, if we do not do this, customers will begin to favour the illegal, unlicensed operators which subsequently endangers the monopoly. We don’t have a choice – we have to be very cautious and pay attention to what it is our customers are saying.

“When it comes to the products on offer to the public, there is a balance between offering a high-risk product in terms of problem gambling. This is something that – for the regulators – is an issue generally. But it is also an issue for the monopoly. We need to keep that in mind and accompany our offering with the appropriate responsible gambling tools. It is all about the balance between principles and reality.”

Responding to Perrotin’s point, Madsen suggested that there have previously been instances in which responsible gaming has been used as a way to generate publicity for the operator – something which he explained does not truly consider the end customer.

He said: “I’m glad to hear that you are considering the customer because that is super important in my view. What I have experienced is that some monopolies have been using responsible gaming as a ‘political football’ for publicity – using measures as a way to say they are more responsible than others. But I don’t really think that the end customer really understands what it means for them.”

Sladdin vehemently dismissed the claims that monopoly-based lotteries prioritised their players, drawing upon the UK lottery as an example which he described as a ‘way of raising money’.

He argued that the only ‘tangible’ element of customer service originated from players’ hopes of winning the lottery, despite ‘miniscule’ chances to do so.

He added: “It is really interesting to think – where is the customer in all of this? Historically in the UK, I think that the first time we had a lottery was to raise money to send troops abroad to fight. We should never kid ourselves. The reason that we have lotteries certainly isn’t ‘for the good of the people’.

“The roll out of the lottery wasn’t to give the people of Britain a fun experience, it was quite clearly a way of raising money for the government, for diverting money into these ‘good causes’. I’m really not sure as to whether I buy into the notion that monopoly lotteries have a customer-first idea in the slightest.

“In terms of what I see here in the UK, the reality looks like people in the supermarket buying tickets in the hope that they may win. The chance of them winning is miniscule, and I’m not sure that the customer experience is really anything tangible other than people’s hopes. I don’t see that interaction between the lottery operators and the players, even if we do want to call it customer experience.”

SBC Summit Barcelona – Digital is a FREE to attend virtual conference and exhibition running from 8-11 September. To register for your free ticket or find out more please visit – https://sbcevents.com/sbc-summit-barcelona-digital/.

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In part one of ‘A shadow across the market’, A Game Above CEO Steen Madsen, and Jack Symons, co-founder and director of Beanstalk, talked about the impact of the black market on the regulated market and licensed companies and introduced us to its ‘first tool’ to provide aid to governments and regulators in monitoring and removing ‘black market threats’.

To culminate the two part miniseries, Madsen and Symons, both supervisory board members for Yieldsec.com, elaborate on the key issue of player protection as well as touching upon the dual strategy potential with Yield Sec.

Taxation and player protection

What does tolerating the presence of the black market mean, in practical terms, for the two key reasons? 

Taxation

The yield from taxation revenue upon betting and gaming will be depressed, frustrated and decreasingly predictable. Taxation yield upon legal, licensed betting and gaming will only be accrued from those sites who responsibly got in line, complied with conditions, gained licensing, pay taxes and operate according to rules and regulation, but who face daily unfair competition from black market sites.

For every site that gains a license, there are conservatively two or more who remain offshore, continue to target a market, but pay no tax, protect no players and comply with no rules. 

This duality of the marketplace, invisible to consumers due to the reality of finding operator results and brands online, is referred to by the term ‘channelisation’: the percentage of the betting and gaming universe that moves from a pre-regulated market status, as exists across most of Asia today, to a licensed and overseen status, once regulation begins. 

Channelisation is easy to understand when held up to the taxation revenue realised from any regulated market – the lower the channelisation percentage, the lower the taxation revenue realised from betting and gaming, period. 

If the black market is not effectively removed, or excluded from discovery, consumers will continue to openly engage with it, in much the same way as they did before regulation, aside from black market operators not being able to market themselves across traditional forms of advertising, such as sponsorship of sports teams or upon television ads. 

Online, however, and across the media predominantly frequented by today’s audiences, the black market exists tangibly and, in some cases, popularly, to the extent they can even drown out the awareness and relevance of licensed, tax-paying sites.

Player protection

Much as the black market creates instability for licensed operators’ revenues, and consequent unpredictability of tax yield, black market operators that illicitly target regulated markets create issues for individuals and society, primarily among minors and those at risk of gambling-related harm. 

We are all clear that betting and gaming comprise products that must be offered, operated and consumed responsibly. A system of regulation imposed by law, and executed by experienced, career-professionals across law enforcement and civil service working for the regulator in any market, is the clear sign that betting and gaming products are not meant for everyone.

Regulating a market when there has been little to no public education – not the fault of any regulator, to be clear, since this duty lies with government – is even more challenging for player protection since those at risk of gambling-related harm do not know where to effectively turn when facing a problem, and escaping a spiral of continued, compulsive play is almost impossible when no gambling cessation helpline or tool historically worked to effectively exclude the black market. 

Since that black market is just a Google search away, the much-vaunted goal of player protection has, to date, been but a hope. All of the provisions of the legislation, the rules from a regulator, and the fines and threats to licensed status upon regulated operators for breaches of protective measures, target one end: the protection of at-risk and vulnerable individuals. 

This will not happen, in any meaningful way, however, if we tolerate the black market and fail to introduce adequate provisions to allow regulators to monitor, police and enforce the meaning of licensing. Provisions for player protection, such as, for example, self-exclusion, will cease to be effective at the end of a list of licensed sites.

An at-risk consumer or minor need simply pick up their smartphone and conduct a swift search to discover dozens, if not hundreds, of unlicensed, black market operators who do not participate in any age verification or know your customer activity; who perform no ID or address checks to prevent money laundering; who share no self-exclusion information between different operators and brands; and, who are, visibly and practically only focused upon one thing: the money. 

From which they will not make any contribution to tax, good causes, levies for gambling education and cessation, etc. It is all pure profit, after their marketing and operational costs. 

The right tool for the sincerely regulated market: Yield Sec

Why then do we tolerate the existence of the black market, given its existence does not simply deflate the betting and gaming balloon, but threatens to pop it, altogether? To date, there have been no effective tools to simply allow for practical monitoring, policing and enforcement. 

Given our backgrounds across the gaming industry, in operational, advisory, and player protection roles, we are proud to be part of the team that recently announced Yield Sec, the first effective tool to aid regulators and government to monitor, police and enforce the licensed marketplace for betting and gaming, and remove black-market influence and instability.

The past several months spent realising Yield Sec – a product formed from a joint venture between customer experience specialists, A Game Above, and player protection experts, Beanstalk, the makers of gambling cessation product, Gamban – have been focused upon building a solution that caters to one essential: providing for a protected, licensed marketplace.

The operation of a sustainable marketplace, with cared-for customers and practically excluded minors and at-risk audiences, whilst raising valuable taxation revenues for society, predictably, is the only way to support our shared mission across A Game Above and Gamban: the customer experience. 

Player protection and the operation of a sustainable industry, onshore and subject to regulation, are, in our view, simply facets of the customer experience, overall.

Society has tolerated the black market, to date, as online betting and gaming, internationally, is a teen-aged, and still maturing industry. 

The regulators who have had to adapt to the rise and prevalence of online or igaming have done a great job with the tools they had and were often restricted by what the law permitted them to do, and also prevented them from doing in certain instances. The dual targets all regulators can focus upon with Yield Sec alongside their mandate are simple: player protection and tax yield.

Working with government and regulators, Yield Sec becomes the catalyst for a truly level, licensed playing field across betting and gaming. With the world’s largest real-time database of black market sites and presence online, Yield Sec transforms blacklist hopes into blocked sites reality and produces sustainable, predictable performance across taxation-raising. 

The solution additionally provides for sincere player protection since it removes the easy availability of irresponsible and unwelcome, unlicensed sites from everyone, including minors and those struggling with problems caused by gambling-related harm. 

Yield Sec effectively creates a regulatory ring-fence for all licensed and soon-to-be licensed markets, aligning the will of politics and legislation to control the offering, availability, and pervasiveness of betting and gaming, with the reality of monitoring, policing and enforcement.

Handling the black market: All-in or outlaw?

Rather than simply ignore black market operators, it would be wise to suggest a dual strategy for dealing with them: invite them back onshore, in return for unpaid taxes and fines for their historic illicit status, so long as they now go all-in, seek to license and fully engage with the legal, regulated marketplace; or, outlaw them further, in practical terms, and block their presence, across access to their sites, media mentions, payment processing, social media platform influencers, etc, by way of Yield Sec, and allied tools, that regulators and government can now rely upon. 

The social and economic consequences should we continue to tolerate the black market in betting and gaming are simple to foresee: 

• Declining tax revenues for government and good causes, since unlicensed sites steal taxpayers’ money
• A reduction in social responsibility and a hollow meaning to ‘responsible gaming’ making any aim of player protection an unrealisable hope for the future
• Reduced revenue growth for operators that did comply with the will of lawmakers and the actions of regulators, and gained licensing, yet face continued unfair competition from offshore poaching

Those are not consequences we need to accept nor should, for the continued benefit to players and taxation that betting and gaming can provide when holistically and sustainably managed by governments, regulators, stakeholders and industry, working together.

To read Part One of A shadow across regulated markets click here

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With the introduction of Yield Sec, A Game Above and Beanstalk have noted that the collaboration has resulted in the ‘first tool’ to provide aid to governments and regulators in monitoring and removing ‘black market threats’, which has been hindering the progress of regulated marketplaces for licensed companies.

Steen Madsen, CEO of A Game Above, and Jack Symons, co-founder and director of Beanstalk, are both supervisory board members for Yieldsec.com and talked us through the thought process of their joint venture and the benefits that Yield Sec will bring to the industry.

Regulatory Evolution

When online betting and gaming began, circa 1996, there were no regulatory nor legal rules specific to the industry. Over time, successive jurisdictions have sought to curtail and control it, to either protect existing incumbent monopolies or to target online gaming specifically for two key reasons: taxation and player protection. 

Nearly all countries implementing online gaming controls, and a legal marketplace, have, however, suffered tax yield well below what they projected before creating the licensed market. In short, not all the business that exists online will migrate to legal, compliant and taxed online business after the legislative change. The online betting and gaming industry is, today, split over three states of regulatory existence, internationally:

1) Pre-Regulated Market: 

No specific laws exist in the market concerning online betting and gaming, chiefly concerning licensing, taxation and regulation. 

As such, there is no black or white market for online betting and gaming in such a territory – the market is permissible, both legally and practically, but all entrants acknowledge some legal risk concerning their future ability to enter the market if they choose to offer services in this pre-regulatory state.

2) Regulating Market:
In the process of drafting and enabling legislation and taxation: to varying extents, these markets may be labelled ‘grey’ if they have little to no policing or enforcement ability.

Germany, for example, is in this state presently, having announced a path to a protected market with licensing and taxation planned for 2021. 

Operating in a regulating market typically carries clear risk, most notably a possible inability to gain licensing due to so-called ‘bad actor’ legal clauses within future license conditions – if you stay in a market that has announced regulation is coming soon, you run the risk of facing a ‘cool-off’ period when licensing begins or, in some cases, being excluded altogether.

3) Regulated Market:

A market featuring licensing and taxation, with policing and enforcement, typically only against the licensed operators.

The UK would be a prime example, and even in this most mature of licensed, taxed and regulated online gaming markets, the present government has made very clear they are about to embark on a fundamental change to today’s business.

Player Understanding

Across this evolution, operators have progressed from open market status to increasingly regulated and restricted conditions across individual territories, as the once global business continues to fragment into very specific, locally-licensed operations on a by-country or state basis. 

Not all the businesses that were online shifts with the regulatory change, however, to become legal, compliant and taxed for the benefit of each local market. Some business remains online, adapts to changed marketing conditions and still services a country or state, illicitly, becoming a black market operator.

The issue with the status of this black market, historically and today, is that few, if any, consumers, actively identify the sites and apps of these operators as illicit, illegal or irresponsible.

Why?

Due to the nature of finding them and accessing their services. They look, feel and operate like any other online betting and gaming provider, and consumers locate them via identical means: search engines, social media influencers, online ads, referrals, PR mentions, etc. At no point did any consumer need to go to the bad part of town to find some betting and gaming – it was, and is, readily available via their smartphone handset and a Google search. 

Searching online for a casino or sportsbook will deliver mixed results: some legal, licensed sites, in those countries and states that have enacted and passed legislation to allow online betting and gaming; and, many unlicensed, offshore sites, based in locations like Curaçao and Panama, available online but without any reference to national or state laws, disrespectful of restrictions to specific products, and all, alarmingly, without any contribution to national/state taxation or facilitation of player protection measures.

If players are indifferent towards whether an operator is legal, licensed and regulated that is a by-product of the lack of education and public awareness, generally. The legislation and licensing of online gaming is a public policy that has seen little to no public advertising and campaigning, as, for example, the wearing of safety belts in cars or cessation of smoking in public places did. 

The mass-market have little to no understanding of what is and is not a licensed site, nor why such a system even exists, and is potentially helpful, and certainly harm-reducing, for them.

Darkness Calls

The shadow of the black market across betting and gaming has long existed but is more obvious, today, than at any time. The more that markets regulate, adapt and experiment with aspects of the business like bonus, staking, activity and deposit caps, ID verification, KYC, AML, and further, the more the black market shadow comes to tempt players back to the ‘gambling they knew and loved’ and can still get, offshore but online, from unlicensed, illicit operators. 

No CRM and retention bonuses at licensed Swedish sites? No problem. Just hit Google and search for bonus bets or bonus casinos and you will find dozens, if not hundreds, of options. None are licensed. None protect their players. None pay any taxes or adjust their operations, advertising and business as usual functions to become and remain compliant. But, that’s the point with the black market.

The more conditions placed upon the licensed, legal, regulated business, and the more we continue to play the strange game of blame, name, fine and shame with regulators only able to punish the licensed operators, but never the unlicensed, the more risks we leave available and present for players, of all types. 

We also fail to consolidate and safeguard an industry that, from its inception, needed controls and oversight which the licensed operators have accepted, adapted to and welcomed, and should not face unfair ‘competition’ concerning since the black market sites they face do not participate for player attention and revenue on anything like the same playing field.

To read Part two of A shadow across regulated markets, click here.

The post <strong>A shadow across regulated markets,</strong> <br> Part one appeared first on CasinoBeats.

Described as a ‘technical and advisory solution’, the new tool will help remove the threat of the black market with Yield Sec aiding governments and regulators to ‘monitor, police and enforce the licensed marketplace for online betting and gaming’.

Yield Sec is said to prioritise both player protection and maintaining tax yield by blocking black-market sites via a real-time database, redirecting players towards licensed operators. 

Steen Madsen, CEO of A Game Above and a member of the Yield Sec supervisory board, said: “The operation of a sustainable marketplace, with cared-for customers and practically excluded minors and at-risk audiences, whilst raising valuable taxation revenues for society, predictably, is the perfect way to support our shared mission across A Game Above and Beanstalk: the customer experience.

“Player protection and the operation of a sustainable, responsible industry, onshore and subject to regulation, are, in our view, simply facets of the customer experience, overall.”

Additionally, the solution will provide player protection by removing the availability of unlicensed sites for everyone, including minors and those struggling with problems caused by gambling-related harm. 

Yield Sec will create a regulatory ‘ring-fence’ for all licensed and soon-to-be licensed markets for betting and gaming, thus ‘aligning politics and legislation to control the offering, availability, and pervasiveness of gambling products, with the reality of monitoring, policing and enforcement’.

Jack Symons, the co-founder and director of Beanstalk, said: “After an intensive period of research and development, we’re pleased to be announcing the launch of Yield Sec. Across most markets today, those at risk of gambling-related harm do not know where to effectively turn when facing a problem. 

“Escaping a spiral of continued, compulsive play is almost impossible when no gambling cessation helpline or tool has historically worked to effectively exclude the black market. Yield Sec will achieve this and provide for meaningful player protection. 

“Caring for the vulnerable is ineffective if we only place conditions upon licensed operators but then leave the unregulated black market openly available.”

Working with government and regulators, Yield Sec has been described as a ‘catalyst’ for a ‘truly level, licensed playing field across betting and gaming’. 

By using a ‘real-time database of black market sites and presence online’, Yield Sec hopes to transform blackmarket sites into blocked sites.

Bill Pascrell, III, President, North America for A Game Above, concluded: “For governments and regulators, Yield Sec is a tool for our time and the sustainable future of regulated online betting and gaming.

“Despite the loss of nearly all professional sport over the COVID-19 crisis, it is clear that black-market betting and gaming sites and apps benefited enormously – at no other point in history have we seen the broad presence and availability of so many unlicensed, unregulated offerings, none of which pay any tax, protect any players or provide for those at risk. 

“In targeting regulated territories, these black market operators are effectively stealing taxpayers’ money and avoiding the contributions that licensed, responsible operators make to good causes and the prevention of gambling- related harm.”

The post A Game Above and Beanstalk link up for Yield Sec launch appeared first on CasinoBeats.