BUSINESSMAG www.gaming-awards.com | ISSUE NOVEMBER 2014 FEATURE A Christmas tale from Tina Thakor-Rankin InfinityGaming New CEO of Ladbrokes? The App Awards All the winners inside The IGA Finalists Announced for 2nd Feb gala event BCN World Barce- lona all over? Andrew Totten- ham money laun- dering article EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW HENRY BIRCH Chief Executive Rank Group
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Infinity Gaming Magazine - December 2014 Infinity Gaming Magazine
This is a free sample of Infinity Gaming Magazine issue "December 2014 Infinity Gaming Magazine" Download full version from: Apple App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id760294895?mt=8&at=1l3v4mh Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.presspadapp.infinitygamingmagazine Magazine Description: Are you in $260 Billion Market? Infinity Gaming Magazine is a publication which focuses on business in the gambling and gaming industry globally, providing latest opinions, solutions, strategies and ideas for the gaming business today. Infinity Gaming magazine features include updates on the most successful companies ,interviews with industry CEO’s, trends in affiliate marketing, customer service advise for land based casino resorts and online gaming companies, online gambling start-ups. We ... You can build your own iPad and Android app at http://presspadapp.com
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BCN World Barcelona ............................................44-45 Could it be the end of the Casino resort plan?
Marty Baird latest excellent article...................46-48 The December edition of Customer Service
Gold Coast question ..............................................52-53Echo boss questions viability of resort
Gala merge their online .......................................54-55Now one big family
Andrew Tottenham latest article ......................56-59December article Money Laundering
Infinity Gaming .......................................................How and where can you read the magazine?
HENRY BIRCH30
THE APP AWARDS
MONEY LAUNDERING
GHOST OF XMAS PAST
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Welcome to the December edition of the Infinity Gaming Magazine.
What a month this has been, we launched the App Awards on the 8th December with attendees from Europe and the US flying in to celebrate an industry that now has had over 70 billion downloads! Very positive things from that event and will now be a permanent fixture on the awards calendar for the App Gaming Industry. Congratulations to the finalists and winners. You can see all the photos inside. Not just that but the finalists of the 8th International Gaming Awards have been announced following weeks of deliberation from our judges. We want to thank each and every one of them for their time and support, thanks guys and gals. You can view the full list of all the finalists inside, can’t wait till the 2nd February going to be a great fun night at the Savoy Hotel and looking forward to meeting you all there.
Of course we have some truly amazing articles inside as always from Marty Baird, the superb Andrew Tottenham talking about an industry taboo subject and the equally brilliant Tina Thakor-Rankin and her seasonal take on The Ghost of Christmas Past. Not forgetting our Exclusive inter-view with the Chief Executive of the Rank Group Henry Birch. How do we fit it all in one maga-zine? I do not know, but enjoy the magazine all the seasonal best wishes and a Happy New Year to you all, catch you on the other side.
Enjoy!
Lana x
InfinityGamingEDITORS NOTES
EDITOR’S LETTER
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Christina Thakor-RankinMartin R. BairdAlex W ParienteAndrew TottenhamJJ Woods Professor Nelson Rose CONTACT USClever Duck MediaNewmarket 20 Centrix@KeysKeys Park RoadStaffordshireWS12 2HA UKTel: +44(0)1543 478 889 [email protected] PRODUCTIONClever Duck MediaNewmarket 20 Centrix@KeysKeys Park RoadStaffordshireWS12 2HA UK
C H A M P A G N E R E C E P T I O NA P P A W A R D S
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The Champagne ReceptionAPP AWARDS 2014
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“ Great atmosphere, lovely people and so relaxed, the making of a truly superb event, bring on 2015.”
When the first ever App Awards took place on the 8th December operators turned up from all over the World for a
glamorous afternoon at the Jumeirah Carlton Hotel in Knightsbridge.
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“ A brilliant ceremony why the App Awards has not been done before is amazing, definately one that will be here for years to come, can only get bigger. ”
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App AwardsThe Ceremony
On the 8th December 2014 the App industry turned out for the first ever Gaming App Awards, to recognise and celebrate the huge success of the App. Now with over 70 billion downloads to date, which is ten downloads for every person on the palnet, why the App Awards did not happen sooner is a mystery. Well no longer the App Awards have arrived, with attendees from all over europe and the US a
new event is on the calendar. It was only in 2008 that the first ever App was born and back then there was only 800 Apps available in the first year to download. Now there is over 3 million Apps available between Apple and Android Stores. We have come a long way in just 6 years, but the journey has only just begun.
S o might begin the gambling version of Dickens’ seasonal story – a cautionary tale
of how the past impacts upon the present and the future, the influ-ence of ‘ignorance’ and ‘want’, and the clear message to think about what the future holds and repent and make changes before it is too late. So might begin the gambling version of Dickens’ seasonal story – a cautionary tale of how the past impacts upon the present and the future, the influence of ‘ignorance’ and ‘want’, and the clear message to think about what the future holds and repent and make changes be-fore it is too late. Where however, Dickens requires
the assistance of all three appari-tions to show Scrooge the error of his ways, the gaming industry needs only one – the ghost of Christmas Past.
Gambling tax is not a new concept. In fact, the UK has always taxed gambling – initially the tax being paid by the customer at 10% and then 9% - on either their stake or
their winnings. The switch from customer paid gambling tax to operator paid Gross Profit Tax was brought about by the
first off-shore revolution in the final years of the 1990s. UK operators faced losing their traditional custom-ers to a new generation of off-shore operators offer-ing duty free betting to UK customers. An advertising ban prohib-iting off-shore firms from targeting the UK had little
impact as customers actively sought out those companies who could of-fer them better terms, after all, why would any UK customer continue to play with a UK operator who added 9% tax to their stake, or took
FEATURE ARTICLE
The Ghost of Christmas Past
Our superb feature writer Christina Thakor-Rankin com-pares the ghost of Christmas past to the HMRC and the gambling tax for her December seasonal article.
By Christina Thakor-Rankin
‘The UK white list was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of its burial was signed by the Commission and the Commons, and the presiding judge at the Judicial Review. The Treasury did not sign it. But Treasury’s name was good upon ‘Change for anything it chose to put its hand to. The old white list was as dead as a doornail.’
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9% tax from their winnings if they could play tax free with someone in Gibraltar or the Isle of Man? In short, too high taxation, advertis-ing ban circumvented by customers seeking better deals, and limited powers of enforcement against those who operated illegally. The only way for UK operators to survive was to move their remote operations (then predominantly tele-betting) so that they too could offer tax free betting. The net im-pact was, not unsurprisingly, a sig-nificant drop in tax revenue, UK jobs moving off-shore and no controls or protections for players. Gross Profit Tax in 2001 was de-signed to re-dress the balance: shifting the tax burden from the customer to the operator, allowed UK companies to offer tax free bet-ting within the UK, and a gentle-man’s understanding that UK firms would repatriate bringing back jobs and players to the UK. Whilst there
were many factors behind the deci-sion, what is often forgotten is that the introduction of GPT also saw an increase in tax – whilst the out-going customer gaming tax was 9%, the incoming GPT was set at 15%. Given that only a few years earlier betting tax had been reduced from 10% to 9% the alarms bells should have started to ring out then, but when GPT was introduced the UK industry, and the world, were both very different places. The gaming sector was predomi-nantly land based and remote was extensively driven by telephone betting. The internet was still in its infancy and user penetration fairly low, so whilst operators saw some overseas business, the UK market was naturally ring-fenced and able to support a higher level of tax at the time. At the time no-one could have predicted at the time exactly how this technology would revolution-
ise both the world and the gaming industry, but within only a matter of a few years, the UK was again under attack. This time however the number of marauding overseas operators was not a handful, but hundreds, and the imbalance no longer a customer facing 9%, but operator bottom line hit of 15%. Conversely, this meant that off-shore operators had 15% more to spend on marketing and customer bonuses, so again, not unsurpris-ingly, UK operators were losing out. The changes to the Gambling Act in the noughties attempted to ad-dress and acknowledge the global nature of internet gambling and its impact on UK operators by bringing in the white-list. Whilst this consid-ered the impact on jobs and player protection, it failed to resolve the real issue of tax. In fact the white list made matters worse by sending out the message that it was accept-able to target UK customers from overseas jurisdictions – provided it was an approved jurisdiction.
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O nce again, operators had no choice but to leave the UK in order to survive.
Once again the Treasury lost out. The latest changes to the Gambling Act appear to have finally taken into account the fact that gam-bling regulation and gambling tax must work together. The UK white list which legitimised targeting UK customers from overseas has gone (but in today’s .com driven world, this was only ever a red herring), and an attempt has been made to link UK customers with UK tax by rebranding GPT as the new PoCT.
And this is where the UK falls down. GPT was a ‘time-warp’ tax which could only ever have worked within the narrow context of the times in, and for which, it was created. The world has changed and is continuing to change. A tax, which with hind-sight was behind the times 13 years ago, is even less appropriate today. If 15% has been too high for the last decade, what logic dictates that imply changing its name will make it suddenly sustainable? What the UK sector needs is taxation and a system which is fit for purpose: taxation which is fair and propor-tionate and a system which protects
the legal and penalises or prohibits the illegal – right now it has neither. What we have is; too high taxation, advertising ban circumvented by customers seeking better deals, and limited powers of enforcement against those who operate illegally – in short, we are back to where we started. Unlike Scrooge, who needed the aid of the ghosts of Christmas Present and Future to show him the error of his ways and how things might turn out without a change of course, we needed only one apparition, the gambling industry needs only one – to see what both the present and the future hold, we need only look to the ghost of Christmas Past. As Tiny Tim, might have observed in the gambling version of events ‘God help us – Everyone’.
ABOUT THE AUTHORChristina Thakor-Rankin is Principal Consultant at 1710Gaming working with start-ups, investors, operators regulators, and industry groups internationally, covering all aspects of the gaming and gambling cycle - from initial research, licence and operational go-live, to new markets and opportunities, to customer engagement and experience. She has over 20 years industry experi-ence and has previously held roles at William Hill, Blue Square, Tote (Sport) and Virgin Games managing multiple business disciplines, func-tions and teams.
Rational Services Ltd, Douglas Bay Complex, King Edward Road, Onchan, IM3 1DZ
NO AGENCIES – DIRECT APPLICATIONS ONLYFor full details of our vacancies and details on how to apply, please visit www.rationalgroup.com/about-us/careers
If you have a passion for excellence, there could well be a place for you on The Rational Group team. The Rational Group employs industry-leading practices in customer service, product development, payment security, game integrity and player fund protection, and also holds more online poker licenses than any other e-gaming company. We apply the same high standards to looking after our people: The Rational Group is currently ranked the 14th best large company to work at in the UK by the Great Place to Work Institute.
The Rational Group operates gaming and related businesses and brands including PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and the European Poker Tour. These brands collectively form the largest poker business in the world comprising online poker games and tournaments, live poker competitions and poker programming created for television and online audiences.
Rational Services Ltd, Douglas Bay Complex, King Edward Road, Onchan, IM3 1DZ
NO AGENCIES – DIRECT APPLICATIONS ONLYFor full details of our vacancies and details on how to apply, please visit www.rationalgroup.com/about-us/careers
If you have a passion for excellence, there could well be a place for you on The Rational Group team. The Rational Group employs industry-leading practices in customer service, product development, payment security, game integrity and player fund protection, and also holds more online poker licenses than any other e-gaming company. We apply the same high standards to looking after our people: The Rational Group is currently ranked the 14th best large company to work at in the UK by the Great Place to Work Institute.
The Rational Group operates gaming and related businesses and brands including PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and the European Poker Tour. These brands collectively form the largest poker business in the world comprising online poker games and tournaments, live poker competitions and poker programming created for television and online audiences.
Newmarket Suite 20, Centrix@Keys, Keys Park Road, Staffs, WS12 2HA, UK
Tel 01543 478 889 Email [email protected] Website www.gaming-awards.com
The International Gaming Awards recognises and celebrates the very best from the land based & online gambling industry from all parts of the globe. Join us for the 8th annual awards ceremony
• Prestigous Industry Awards
• Global Creremony for the entire
industry
• Supporting International Charities
Visit the IGA website for more details - www.gaming-awards.com
The Polish government has issued a warning to online gamblers in the country that
they could be prosecuted should they play online using offshore unregulated online operators. The announcement by the government is the first ever move to prosecute players instead of operators for unlicensed online gambling. A statement on the website of the Ministry of Finance’s website says
it has proof of more than 24,000 gamblers playing online within the country using unlicensed online gambling sites from outside the country. It also says they have start-ed criminal investigations against some 1,100 players. Polish gambling law states that any online operator wishing to offer ser-vices in the country must have their servers based in the country and have to carry the domain ending .pl.
It also states that all money transactions would have to run exclusively through Polish banks,
with the tax rate was set at 12% for operators. There have been many objections to the Polish regulations and the government has said it will consider in the future that operators only need to have a local branch not all the servers based in the country.
H ilary Stewart-Jones has been appointed as the new Deputy Chairman of
online gaming industry supplier Playtech with immediate effect. The company announced today that Ms Stewart-Jones whose back-ground is in the legal area of online gambling where she is a partner of DLA piper law firm and previously held the role of Head of Legal at Ladbrokes, she joined the Playtech
board back in 2013 as a non-execu-tive director. “Since her appointment, Hilary has made a significant contribution to the company’s board through her extensive knowledge of the gambling industry. On behalf of the Board, I am delighted that Hilary has agreed to become my deputy,” Alan Jackson, non-executive chair-man of Playtech, said.
Nevada suffers third monthly revenue drop
A third consecutive month of revenue declines were an-nounced for Nevada casinos for October from the state regulator were disclosed this week, overall casinos won $913.6 million which also represents a 4.26% fall from October last year. For the full year Nevada has suffered a fall in total rev-enues of 3.29%.On the main Las Vegas Strip, which accounts for more than half of the state’s total, revenue fell by 5.63% from last year to $520.3 million. Baccarat revenues which accounts for the large major-ity of the state’s business dropped 35.51% to $97.3 million.
Stewart-Jones announced as Deputy Chairman of Playtech
The first casino integrated resort in South Korea will be open by March 2017 accord-
ing to the owners after the ground breaking ceremony took place this week. Paradise Sega Sammy – will cost US$1.7bn to build and will have a casino, hotel, spa and a theme park project say the owners. Developed in partnership with Japa-nese entertainment company Sega Sammy Holdings and Korean casino operator Paradise Group, the resort
will cater to both business visitors and tourists. It will offer a five-star hotel, a foreigner-only casino, convention centre, retail, an indoor theme park, restaurants and a standalone heal-ing spa where foreign visitors will be able to experience a Korean public bathhouse. The hotel will have over 700 bed-rooms, including the most expen-sive having their own pools villas.
The casino which will only be for overseas visitors will also have a VIP exclusive, private casino on the hotel’s top floor. In total 330,000sq m of land is being used for the project which is being leased from Incheon International Airport for a period of 50 years, with Paradise and Sega Sammy holding a 55 per cent and 45 per cent stake in the venture respectively.
South Korea integrated resort open in 2017
GAMING NEWS
UK: Gambling Commission release annual
The annual Gambling Com-mission report into gambling in the UK has been released
for the period ending in March 2014 with some interesting figures. According to the report the entire gambling industry in the UK gener-ated revenues of £6.8 billion from the period of April 2013 to March 2014, that represents a rise of £0.4 billion from last year or 6%. Of that non-online gambling figures showed that 47% of that went to casinos, bookmakers, lottery and arcades.
However the biggest rise in rev-enues went to online gambling for the year with a rise of 22% compared to 2013, of that online casinos enjoyed a rise of 15%. It was only the land based bingo sector that saw a fall in revenues for the year, but with the tax reduc-tion for the sector many operators will be positive for 2015. The controversial Fixed Odds Bet-ting machines (FOBTs) which are classed under B2 for betting shops saw only a small rise in revenues over the last year by £17.6 million
to £1.56 billion a rise of just 1%. The previous year the rise for 2012 to 2013 was 4%. Figures show that 102,715 people are employed in the gambling industry overall in the UK which is a drop of 5,357 from last year This is the first edition of Industry Statistics to include sales figures for the National Lottery, for which sales were £6.7bn during the pe-riod April 2013 to March 2014.
The iGaming Post is an online, interna-tional, daily newspaper for the gaming industry. It strives to cover all the latest headlines, delivering them seamlessly through smartphones, laptops and tablets all day, every day. The iGam-ing Post prides itself in reaching out to global readers, from online poker play-ers to the industry executives.
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Between The Infinity Gaming Maga-zine, The iGaming Post and the Inter-national Gaming Awards our network of followers on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin account for over 10,000 industry professionals and customers interested in the gambling industry.
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