For months, representatives of the gaming industry have marveled at how sports leagues, particularly the National Basketball Association, have made such great strides toward accepting sports wagering as mainstream entertainment.

Two major entertainment brands began work Thursday on changing the face of live performance — and the Las Vegas skyline — with a ceremonial groundbreaking for the 18,000-seat MSG Sphere at The Venetian.

Nevada gaming win tumbled for the second straight month as the Gaming Control Board reported a 7.7 percent decline, with Clark County and the Las Vegas Strip off by double-digit percentages.

Counter drones, security robots and gun detection technology were just of few of the items on exhibit at the five-day show dedicated to physical and cybersecurity. GSX, which attracts more than 20,000 industry professionals, ends Thursday.

Just three resort property labor agreements remain unsigned after the Culinary union on Tuesday reported that it had reached a tentative deal with the Margaritaville casino at the Flamingo.

AGS, the nation’s second-largest manufacturer of Class II slot machines used primarily in tribal jurisdictions, on Monday announced a three-year marketing partnership with the National Hockey League team.

Credit Suisse expects U.S. sports betting net revenues to surge to $4.5 billion by 2023 and continue climbing as legalization spreads. UK-based William Hill is in a very strong position to capitalize on the widening market.

A bid to add sexual harassment prevention guidelines to state gaming regulations is shaping up to be a debate over whether existing federal harassment rules already provide enough oversight for the industry.

Bill Hornbuckle, an MGM executive and one of the nine members of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority board, on Thursday said his company fears that its customers would be “choked out” by people wanting to park close to the stadium on event days.

The move comes as companies and cities across the country begin to phase out single-use plastic straws; MGM Resorts International announced its own “Straw Reduction Initiative” in May.

William Hill US has signed a partnership with the Vegas Golden Knights in the first deal between a sports book operator and a National Hockey League team.

Several months after its casino building closed, the Lucky Dragon’s hotel tower could soon be shuttered too.

Betting in Greece has become quite expensive these days, as the state’s authorities set out new regulations for online gambling, demanding operators to pay up a staggering €5 million before they can acquire a sports betting and iGaming license. Just to be clear, the Greek Ministry of Finance has stated that the future internet sports betting licenses cost €4 million, plus an additional 1 million EUR for other online gaming services.

Operators seeking online licenses in Greece will first have to deposit an initial €500,000 to start the application procedure. In addition, the companies will have to prove that they hold a license in another EU country. Blacklisted operators will not be considered for the renewal, and freshly issued permits will run for five years.

Unfortunately, one of the leading gambling establishments on the market, GVC Holdings has revealed a subsidiary in January 2018, whose operations under a temporary Green license received a tax audit assessment. The inspection relates to activities between 2010 and 2011, for which the company now must pay €186.8 million. Important to mention is that during this period, the business was owned by Sportingbet https://lcb.org/casinos/sportingbet-casino.

On the positive side, operators who apply and obtain their licenses under the new regulations, will experience a variable tax system. The country’s authorities will not tax any winnings under €100, but every accumulated prize from betting that is between €100 and €500 will incur a tax rate at 15 percent. Furthermore, every winning above €500 will trigger a 20% tax rate and so on.

To sum up, the new regulations are in fact a product of a consultation. The Ministry is still expecting to hear opinions from various gambling enterprises, bars, legal entities, regulators and public services. The discussion is scheduled for October 10th.

Source:

“Greek licences will cost up to €5m under new regulations”, igamingbusiness.com, September 11, 2018.

Renowned online gaming software producer, Booming Games, has decided to take is players to Germany’s southeastern state of Bavaria by launching an homage to the famous beer festival – Oktoberfest.

That being said, Wunderfest Deluxe has hit the markets precisely on time according to the supplier, as there are only a couple of weeks left before the countdown of the nation’s annual celebrations…

The gameboard consists of 5 reels and 25 bet lines, designed to immediately launch its players to the world’s most prestigious beer hall. In addition, the gameplay features a cheerful accordion soundtrack, and a slight touch of Germany, thanks to its excellent graphic details and carefully designed symbols that represent the country’s long-standing tradition.

To sense the authentic atmosphere, developers have incorporated all inseparable parts of the festival itself; punters can expect to see pretzels, beer steins, wurst sausages, beer kegs and locals wearing traditional outfits. They are the key to winning more money, as landing three of the human characters pays out exceptional amounts.

Furthermore, the beer-themed slot offers plenty of winning potential by mixing its tempting selection of wilds, scatters and extra rounds.

Wunderfest Deluxe is developed in HTML5, offering enjoyable gaming experience for both desktop and mobile devices. Affiliate casinos have already launched the game, so feel free to check it out yourself at Videoslots, BitStarz, Net Bet or any other venue of your choice!

Check out the preview:

Booming Games is one of the leading B2B suppliers of online gaming software, so commit yourself to re-discovering its content and see why its innovative features are becoming a truly engaging component of online play, suited to players from every corner of the Earth…

The gaming industry has come a long way since Nevada blazed a trail more than a decade ago for gambling with real money over the internet.

One month after rolling out its latest state-of-the-art online slot, Rise of Olympus, Play’n GO has honored us with another fantastic addition to the catalog, only this time it’s all about magic!

The company’s most recent slot release, Street Magic, is an incredible performance of a mysterious trickster, known to its audience as “The Magician.” Not only is he a skillful illusionist, who helps all players to conjure up a win, the game’s protagonist is also a funny companion.

Why? Well, apart from pulling aces from up his sleeve once in a while, the main character can even add extra wilds and scatters onto the reels, making the entire gaming experience as transcedent as it can get!

It is a widely known fact that people (even some primates) are extremelly fascinated by magic, whether it’s because of the fun or its mystic elements... According to Play’n GO CEO, Johan Tornqvist, people are intrigued by irrational beliefs, often thinking that supernatural is real. Torqvist shared his opinion in a short inteview:

“Everybody loves the mystery and excitement of magic, and street magicians have revived the art and brought it into a new era. There’s a certain delight in being amazed by a magic trick and not knowing how it is done, and we wanted to bring that delight, and that mystery, into a slot game for audiences to enjoy.”

In a way, the software giant has already reached quite a magical status in the industry by winning various awards for quality gaming content and original omni-channel products. The supplier’s approach to HTML5 development has provided an enhanced user experience and thanks to its comprehensive back-office tools, operators are capable of supporting their platforms with expansive reporting and marketing services.

Street Magic is on the way of becoming an instant hit, not only because of its main features “The Wild Shuffle” and “The Transporting Man” but mainly because of the people’s obsession with sorcery, witchcraft or simply magic. Call it what you like, it’s all up to you in the end – either you practice some tricks or you get enchanted. In any case, make sure to have some fun first!

Microgaming is expending its network of independent game studios for content development by signing a partnership with Slingshot Studios. The software aggregators specialize in crafting top-performing slot games filled with innovative features and interactive gameplay. Thanks to the team’s passion to deliver vibrant titles to the market, producing high-quality products for avid slots fans will be brought to a whole new level.

The first official release will burst into action at partner casinos on October 10th, 2018. Cash of Kingdoms is a full-scale action adventure slot with progressive gaming features such as Invading WildsTM.

As a reminder, the fantasy-themed slot was already showcased on the third day of ICE Totally Gaming. Those who visited the show can probably still recall the medieval stage setting, with a skilled foot archer who stunned the audience with her daring performance.

According to John Coleman, CEO at Microgaming, the company’s extensive catalog will have multiple benefits from Slingshot’s expertise and unique approach to development. Their original content contains a multitude of extraordinary features, adjusted for targeting specific markets and customers. Moreover, the studio’s drive to produce challenging content is what makes them a perfect candidate for exclusive suppliers, added Coleman.

Creative director at Slingshot Studios, Richard Vermaak, has also expressed his opinion on the agreement by saying:

“At Slingshot Studios, our energy and imagination push us forward. We love building games that people love to play, and we can’t wait to share them with Microgaming for their operators’ players to enjoy. Cash of Kingdoms is the first taste of what’s to come.”­­

Microgaming will be unveiling further exclusive studio partnerships in the coming months.

The topic of “Provably Fair” has been on our minds lately. We’ve previously chatted with SoftSwiss but we wanted to reach out to them again for a closer look at their PF technology. They gave some really great insight and we asked the questions we know you want answered. How can players be sure the results are not “rigged”? Are odds involved? What about RNG? Read on to learn more about Bgaming, how their system works, what’s in the pipeline for SoftSwiss and more.

Q: During our 2016 interview we lightly touched on SoftSwiss’s Provably Fair technology. This time we’d like to delve a bit deeper as more players are curious about how it works.

A: Absolutely, we would love to dig deeper here. It is always a pleasure to talk about something we really consider to be the fundamental challenge - for players to trust games they love and choose to play. In this regard, we gave it our best to make our Provably Fair (PF) feature well documented and understandable not just to developers like us, but to players as well. We do acknowledge though that players still face difficulties with PF technology. This isn’t necessarily because of its complexity. Many users simply enjoy playing games without any knowledge on how they are built. But to explain PF we need to explain how a casino game is structured, i.e. how it was technically built. So we stick to the method we’ve created and the description we maintain for PF in its simplest format.

Q: Does the provably fair system have anything to do with odds?

A: No, this is not quite how it works. Our PF system does not affect the game performance in any way, and players’ chances to win remain untouched. In other words, and it’s an important thing to understand, PF does not verify the game’s theoretical payout ratio - it confirms that any and all game outcomes were generated at random, without any bias towards the player and their actions.

Q: Can one PF system differ from another? Are there differences in the SoftSwiss offering as compared to others available in the market?

A: PF systems have a long history. Before cryptocurrencies became popular, every online casino was striving to make their own games due to lack of game content on the market. At that time the general idea was to generate thousands of game outcomes every hour and publish all of them into password-protected archives. A user could play, remember the round IDs they had and then, at the end of each hour when the password in the archive became public, the user could check those games to ensure the outcomes were known before the actual gameplay. Later this drifted into Control Fair, where a sequence of numbers was generated by the casino and hashed with the help of md5 algorithm.

When cryptocurrencies gained more popularity, a number of mostly non-licensed, non-certified websites sprang up and started offering games to play with crypto. Many of them provided technically simple PF checks where in the beginning you have two numbers - “server seed” and “client seed”, generated by the server and the player respectively before any bets are placed. When the player placed their bet, the Pseudo-RNG used these two numbers to generate the outcome. Therefore the “client seed” was directly affecting the game result, even though in an unpredictable way. This method is good, one can prove fairness with its help, but this is still not really very clear for a player.

We, on the other hand, wanted to make our PF different from what was available on the market and naturally, we wanted to stand out. So we stepped away from the merely technical method and presented an easy-to-use, transparent solution for the player and with the player in mind. This method accumulated the best features from the two mentioned above. Here is how it works: we generate the game outcome before the actual gameplay and we call it Result. For each game we generate a random string called Secret, simply because we cannot just show the Result to the player - otherwise, it all will not make any sense. Then all of the data is hashed and the Hash which equals the Result + Secret is passed to the player. Hashing is generating a string of symbols from any data. Restoring of initial data is impossible in this case. Hash function guarantees that the result will always be identical for one and the same input. Once there are several inputs it is unlikely to get matching results. We are using sha256 - well known and reliable algorithm. So when we say the data is hashed we mean that there is a string of symbols generated from Result and Secret data. There is a choice for the player to create a seed or have it pre-selected by the system - we call it Client seed. At the moment of actual gameplay, we take the Client Seed and apply it to the Result. Once the game is finished we pass the Result + Secret and Final Result to the player. Using all the data from the PF technology, a user can verify the fairness of the game. If it still sounds unclear, let's add some visual support here as well.

Q: How do players know that the most favorable house result isn’t the one selected?

A: So we already mentioned that we know the outcome of the game before the bet placing stage. But what if we generate this outcome to be always losing for a player intentionally - let’s say a dealer always hits Blackjack? This is a reasonable question to ask. To answer that one we need to get back to the Client Seed term which you already know about. This tells us that a player can modify the result by choosing any number that we apply to a pre-generated outcome - the Result. Applying Client Seed to Result is different considering the type of game: cutting the deck in card games, scrolling reels in slots. This is exactly the Fair part that is happening in the player’s world and it is not something technically difficult for the player to grasp. As the game outcome is random, the Client Seed can be considered a random value as well, as this does not affect the player’s chances. Based on the example of the card game, a player can see what deck was generated before the game began, how the deck was cut using the number the player has chosen to be the client seed and how the card was dealt according to the game rules. 

Q: What factors reassure players that the results are randomly generated at the exact moment a bet is placed?

A: Players are mostly concerned that the casino is cheating and the game outcome is affected by the bet made, e.g. the player bets on black and the cheeky casino shows red. Well local authorities and financial offices have this concern as well, so all of the activity of a casino is regulated and sometimes quite heavily. Luckily there is a range of licensing and certification offices out there that game providers can refer to. At the moment, the fairness of our games is certified by iTechlabs and BMM laboratories. And getting back to our PF technology - we generate the outcome before the game. Now having the visualization and the description above, the player can easily verify that the game is fair.

Q: Does the PF system take the place of RNG or is it used in conjunction with it?

A: PF is used together with RNG. Let us sum up: the outcome is generated before the bet with the use of RNG. At the moment when the bet is placed there is a Client seed coming from the player and we take this seed and add it to the generated result - cutting the deck for instance - and pass this info into the game for the player to check the result for fairness.

Q: Can PF technology be applied to games from any provider?

A: This is a scheme used on the provider’s side, which in our case is Bgaming. If you were to ask if there is any other game provider that can apply our approach to PF, the answer would be yes, they can. Our PF is about transparency and explaining to the players how to check the game for fairness. We openly share the information on how it is built with our competitors by describing this at the website.

Q: What's new with SoftSwiss in general? Any reveals scheduled for this year?

A: Recently the SoftSwiss Team has been busy expanding the geography of the offering. Bgaming has just been integrated with Jackpot.de, an immensely popular German social casino platform and its proprietary brands MyJackpot.com, VeraVegas.com and Merkur24.com. Social casino is a new prospect. We pay close attention to the regulated national markets, therefore recent certification for Romania under ONJN regulations is one of the steps towards the worldwide provision of our games. Scandinavia has always been a strong market for us, thus we've made sure to apply for the Swedish license coming in 2019 amongst the first to offer the possibility for the Swedish players to play at SoftSwiss casinos non-stop.

Much more exciting news is coming. So stay tuned.

It's a dreary day in Western Pennsylvania. You have probably read about it. The rain has been falling steadily for the past three days and the rivers and streams are overflowing their banks.

Homes are flooded and cars are door-deep in water throughout my home town of Sutersville, PA. All of the main roads near my brother's home are blocked by water.

The basement of our home is filled by three inches of water. We can't even sweep it oout because the drain is overflowing. Help! We need somebody with a maritime pump.

It took a couple of hours...

...of cleanup before I could even get into the basement to use the computer. We needed to do some laundry and placed a basket of dirty clothes in the car to take it to the laundromat in West Newton. We got only so far before we were stopped by firemen from the Sutersville Volunteer Fire Department. Sorry, they said. The road ahead is blocked by four feet of water.

Gamblers and poker players hate rain. It ruins all their plans.

Oh well. May as well watch the racing channel. I want to test the effectiveness of my new horse handicapping system.

By the way, the system is very effective. In fact it's so effective I don't know if I will share it with my readers. It has me really excited.

Using the system, I drove to The Meadows the other day and picked five winners in a row. They ran from odds-on favorites to horses that paid $9.40 for a $2 bet. Not bad for a system still in its testing phase.

It gives me 100 percent wins on eight races. I don't think you can do much better than that.

When I lived on St. Kitts in the Caribbean, I used to love the tropical rainstorms that would sweep in from the ocean. The sky would be a perfect blue and suddenly you would see a cloud materialize. Then in a matter of seconds you would be drenched with warm rain. It was messy but it was pretty wonderful.

It didn't bother the tourists but the islanders didn't like it. I would walk in the rain, enjoying the downpour, while islanders would rush past me with umbrellas, staring grimly ahead in order not to stseop into a puddle.

It's where I fished as a child is a raging brown river that is steadily rising. Some people have resorted to kayaks or boats to get around, while others are just staring helplessly at a river they cannot control. What can you do when nature goes mad? Absolutely nothing.

My brother Legs wanted to drive to The Meadows today, reasoning that there was nothing else to do. Good luck. There is no way to get past the swollen creeks to get to the casino and harness race track in Washington, PA. 30 miles away.

No, when it rains like this the only thing you can do is stay home. I don't mind it much. Hey, there is always tomorrow and for a gambler, that's enough.

I am also going to the Internet to study pot limit Omaha High. This is a game that is new to me but I am beginning to like it more and more. I will let you know how it treats me as soon as the rain stops.

MGM Resorts International said Tuesday that it could donate as much as $1 million to Oct. 1 - related charities if lawyers for Mandalay Bay shooting victims accept lawsuit notices on behalf of nearly 2,000 clients.

Last weekend, the industry has celebrated Yggdrasil’s first-ever branded game in partnership with Nitro Circus, that launched at an unforgettable event in Malta, featuring BMX riders Todd Meyn and Kurtis Downs.

The performance included a series of gravity-defying stunts in front of over 100 Yggdrasil clients, only to be continued into the night with a delicious barbecue prepared by the provider’s own chef, Ivan.

Nitro Circus is the world’s biggest action sports entertainment brand, co-founded and led by a legendary action sports athlete and stunt daredevil, Travis Pastrana. The trademark has a huge global clientele and will be touring Europe in conjunction with the game launch in November 2018.

Ever since the company initiated the Slot Shots Tournament in 2016, its popularity has rapidly evolved. This year, the tournament reached a whole new level due to the series of extraordinary and unforgettable event experiences, such as the Nitro Circus stunts. The guests were given an opportunity to participate in the event after the performance by experiencing the game’s exclusive features and bonus rounds. Likewise, they were invited to compete against each other in a special BOOST contest.

Karin Wahlstroem, Yggdrasil Gaming CMO stated:

“We have a very close relationship with our partners, so putting them at the heart of unforgettable events like the Nitro Circus preview is important to us. Our events give clients a deeper perception of our game, and the concept behind it, which is our goal for the Slot Shot Tournaments. This is the first of many memorable events that we are planning, so come along and Join The Ride!”

Yggdrasil Gaming has already announced its next release for September 24th. The game is called Wolf Hunters and it features a spooky werewolf story with monstrous wins, 20 bet lines and an RTP at 96.3%. The gameplay includes sticky wilds, respins and collectible extra rounds as well, so stay tuned!

Take a closer look at the Nitro Circus event by clicking the video below:

Source:

“Yggdrasil presents first branded game partnership with spectacular launch event”, yggdrasilgaming.com, September 7, 2018.

The state Gaming Control Board wants its nearly 3,000 licensees to assure it is addressing workplace sexual harassment.