US news diary (19 March to 26 March 2015)
A look back at some of the top stories from across the pond over the last seven days
Bwin.party’s Pennsylvania partner remains a mysteryâ¦
The mystery over the identity of bwin.party’s Pennsylvania land-based partner has sent the US rumour mill into over drive this week. The firm announced it had sealed a deal for if and when the state regulates egaming during its 2014 results presentation earlier this month, but refused to say who.
Bwin.party CEO Norbert Teufelberger had previously said the firm was in talks with “one of the state’s leading casinos”, causing a number of industry insiders to speculate that it had joined forces with the Parx Casino and Racetrack in Philadelphia.
But Parx already has a deal with GameAccount Network to provide it with a free to play platform, and CEO Dermot Smurfit confirmed to eGaming Review that the partnership was “exclusive for real-money gaming” if and when the state passes enabling legislation.
The final nail in the bwin.party/Parx coffin came when a Parx spokesperson told eGR the operator had not agreed or signed a deal with bwin.party. While the mystery over bwin’s partner continues, it is possible to whittle it down to a handful of likely candidates, including Valley Forge and Lady Luck.
Intrastate liquidity sharing goes liv…
Bwin.party may have got tongues wagging, but the biggest news story of the week came when 888 yesterday announced the Multi-state Poker Network (MSPN) between Nevada and Delaware had finally gone live, more than a year after the agreement was first announced.
The MSPN is not expected to be transformational in terms of player signups and revenues – Nevada has a population of 2.8m, and Delaware less than 1m – but the agreement is ground-breaking in that it paves the way for other states to join as and when they regulate.
As the only operator live in both states, 888 has taken advantage of the agreement to develop and launch the technology platform required for interstate liquidity sharing. This undoubtedly puts them in the driving seat as more states look to pass regulation, and operators to sign-up technology partners.
And with enabling bills in California and Pennsylvania allowing each state to enter into liquidity sharing agreements with other regulated jurisdictions, it would seem that all is not lost for US regulated online poker.
The daily fantasy sports war gets uglyâ¦
Daily fantasy sports (DFS) operator DraftKings has been scolded by the US advertising watchdog the National Advertising Division (NAD) after rivals FanDuel complained about it claiming to be “the largest US-based” fantasy sports site.
FanDuel is more than twice the size of DraftKings based on revenues and active players, and the NAD said that DraftKings did not deny that FanDuel was the larger firm, but said it was not US-based because it had an office in Edinburgh, Scotland.
In its response, FanDuel said that while it has an office in Scotland, most of its staff, in particular its senior management team, were located in the US.
It explained that CEO Nigel Eccles has a home in Scotland and works from the UK and the US, while its chief marketing, product and financial officers and 74% of its leadership team were all US-based.
In its ruling the NAD said that while some of DraftKings’ claims held water, taken as a whole the advertiser’s [DraftKings] evidence did not support its claims”.
DraftKings, who was advised not to use the claim it was the “largest US-based” DFS operator in future ads, said it “respectfully disagreed” with the ruling.