infinity gaming magazine - february 2016 infinity gaming magazine

CEO MICROGAMING

AWARDS2016

APP

InfinityGamingwww.gaming-awards.com | ISSUE FEBRUARY 2016

FRONT COVER - APP AWARDS

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW - DAG HASCAL

WIG AWARDS ANNOUNCED

GAMING + ARTICLES + BUSINESS+ GLOBAL+ ONLINE + NEWS+ APPS + AWARDS + etc

2 FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

APP AWARDS

DAG HASCAL INTERVIEW

TOMORROWS WORLD

Are back and categories announced

Crocs Resort Costa Rica

Christina Thakor-Rankin

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10

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Opinion Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in all external articles are

those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official

policy or position of The Infinity Gaming Magazine Any content

provided by our feature writers or authors are of their opin-

ion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethic group,

club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

58

3FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

APPS ARE GREAT

THE PLEASURE IS TO PLAY

Paul Swaddle

Liz Karter

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4 EDITOR NOTESLana welcomes you to the December

edition of Infinity Gaming Magazine.

6 OUR WRITERSMeet our feature writers, the superb

writers on our rosta.

23 GENTING BOSS DEPARTSPeter Brooks leaves UK role

27 LADBROKES FOR TABCORP

Bookmaker wanted Ausiie firm

37 GREECE NEW LICENSINGOnline gaming reform

41 AMAYA APPEAL KENTUCKYRuling

42 UPDATE ON IRELANDGaming Legislation

51 PROFESSOR NELSON ROSEWhat Should Daily Fantasy Sports Do Now?

+ ALL THE LATEST NEWS

& Opinions

4 FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

Welcome to the latest edition of Infin-

ity Gaming Magazine and we are now in

the midst of the busiest part of the year

for many with exhibitions and events,

with the most important happening on

the 1st February at the stunning Savoy

Hotel, the 9th International Gaming

Awards is just around the corner and

time to celebrate a very competitive

year.

The event was sold out many weeks

ago and tickets are now like gold dust,

so if you have one hold on to it you are

one of a very lucky group.

In the magazine we have all our superb

writers covering the world of gaming

with Christina Thakor-Rankin looking

into the future, Professor Nelson Rose

talking about Fantasy Sports, Liz Karter

again with a super gambling responsi-

ble article and JJ Woods discussing the

current legal situation in Ireland.

A note from the editor

Welcome to the February edition of the Infinity Gaming Magazine and what an exciting part of the year this is.

It’s Winter and time for the

awards season to begin

Finally we have a great interview with

Dag Hascal from Crocs Casino in Costa

Rica, of course not just the articles but

all the latest news from around the

world.

Enjoy the magazine.

So, “To Infinity and Beyond!”

Regards,

Lana

The Editor

Lana Thompson - Editor

CONTACT USClever Duck MediaCentrix@KeysKeys Park RoadStaffordshireWS12 2HA UKTel: +44(0)1543 478 889

PRODUCTIONClever Duck MediaCentrix@KeysKeys Park RoadStaffordshireWS12 2HA UK

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Editorial Content & PR

[email protected]

6 FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

Christina Thakor-Rankin

Liz Karter – Psychotherapist specializing in women and problem gambling

Christina is Principal Consultant at 1710 Gaming Ltd, a specialist betting and gaming consultancy, delivering a range of services including licensing and compliance (incl. regulation, money laundering and social respon-sibility), business start-up, training and strategic re-engineering, project management, research, business analysis and development, to start-ups and established multi-national operators and providers, gambling regu-

lators, law enforcement and government agencies, media, and specialist interest groups and associations within the sector, in both established and emerging markets across the world.

www.1710gaming.com

Liz Karter is a specialist in gambling and women and has worked as a therapist in gambling addiction since 2001. Liz is also author of the book “Women and Prob-lem Gambling” published in March 2013.

In January 2010 having worked with all leading UK problem gambling treatment agencies, and having successfully established the first UK groups for women with gambling addiction, Liz launched Level Ground Therapy. A treatment service in the City of London, Level Ground specialises in meeting the individual needs of women with gambling addiction.

Throughout her career Liz has been regularly con-sulted by the media regarding her specialisation and has made frequent national TV and radio broadcasts including This Morning, Radio 4 You and Yours and Women’s Hour and given numerous national newspa-per and magazine interviews.

Infinity Gaming Magazine Contributing WritersA magazine is only as good as the content inside and with some of the leading specialists within the gaming industry. With

specialised articles covering customer service, the gaming law, new prducts, technology and current affairs with the sector

the Infinity Gaming Magazine is delighted to showcase our superb line-up of contributing writers.

Paul Swaddle - CEO Pocket App

A self-confessed ‘gadget geek, Paul Swaddle has been working at the leading edge of mobile technology for the past 15 years. He co-founded Pocket App in 2011 to bring the creative and technical development ele-ments of mobile technology together under one roof. This unique approach continues to differentiate Pocket App in today’s increasingly competitive landscape.

Working across a range of communications disciplines such as acquisition, loyalty, retention and customer de-velopment, Paul understands the importance of a stra-tegic and coordinated marketing approach, particularly between on and off-line communications. In the past decade he has enabled brands as diverse as Kellogg’s Fruit Winders, Barclays and Loaded magazine to get the best out of mobile.

7FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

8 FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

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9FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

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10 FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

Tomorrow’s World By Christina Thakor-Rankin

I f last year was about talk-ing about technology, and its pivotal role in ensuring future

market success, then this year has to be about understanding how we go about making that happen. We ended 2015, (and leaving aside the potential red-herring that is ‘omni-channel’, in favour of its more practical and prag-matic cousin ‘multi-channel) with a number of landmark develop-ments showing how seriously the industry is taking this, as well as some early examples of its impact within the land based sector. The launch of William Hill tech-nology R &D incubator unit WHLabs’ new accelerator pro-gramme, which saw the inaugural prize go to BetGame and their take on e-sports, to Coral’s ‘Connect’ concept continuing to show its rivals a clean pair of heels in the race for multi-channel in the UK. Elsewhere, Novomatic introduced the concept of continuous player experience to the land-based casino sector with the launch of its ground-breaking ‘Remote Play’ ‘machine to tablet’ gaming technology, and embrace biomet-ric technology in a way that could

revolutionise the way in which land based operators manage the whole customer experience in the future. For those not familiar with it, very simply, Novomatic uses fingerprint scanners to not only manage access and entry, but also employs the customer’s unique identifier as a virtual ticket or token to transfer cash and credits and activate game play – giving a complete log of the customer visit. The long-term operational cost savings and enhanced oppor-tunities of customer profiling this potentially brings both within a single and even more so across a multi-channel brand should not be under-estimated. This is all very exciting and for-ward thinking. It is however, only the tip of the technology iceberg. Whilst land has been a very use-ful sandbox for multi-channel and biometric technologies, the real potential and power of both of these concepts has yet to be unleashed. After several false starts, finally, 2016 looks set to be the break-through year for ‘Virtual Reality’ (VR). And this is not the old-school virtual reality of 3D graphics, or avatars living in a parallel com-

puter game universe – this is ‘proper grown-up’ virtual reality. Technology that will take us quite literally from the world that we can see, hear, touch and feel, into another world that we can also see, hear, touch and feel – the only difference is that the first is physical reality, the second a com-puter generated virtual reality. The closest example of what this new experience will be like and which most of us can relate to, is a dream that is so intense and so vivid, we are convinced it actually happened.

This is all very exciting

and forward thinking.

It is however, only the

tip of the technology

iceberg. Whilst land

has been a very use-

ful sandbox for multi-

channel and biometric

technologies

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INFINITY GAMING

Imagine being able to leave your im-

mediate surroundings and lose yourself

in a completely different world at the

flick of a switch. That is what the new

virtual reality promises. A fully immer-

sive sensory experience that lets you

explore other places, feel like you are

at a concert, turn an exercise session on

a tread-mill into a cross country run, or

actually enter a video game using just

a smartphone, a headset and a pair of

headphones.

For the betting and gaming sector, to-

day’s virtual reality could completely

revolutionise the customer experience.

Imagine a future where bets, rewards

and promotions are not limited to bo-

nuses, prizes and streaming but are

supplemented with the prospect of

pitch side seats to any number of dif-

ferent events, using technology which

will make the player feel like they are

actually there?

Even more exciting, virtual reality has

the potential to take the whole multi-

channel experience and completely flip

it on its head by allowing players to ‘vis-

it’ a casino (or bingo hall, or racetrack, or

even a bookies) from the comfort of their

own home. Put on a headset, and sud-

denly they are in the lobby of the casino

they most frequently visit – the exact

same layout, the exact same games and

the exact same experience from visit-

ing the cashier to playing the games by

quite literally using hand gestures to hit

‘spin’(– think Wii but with just hands).

Add in voice technology (think voice ac-

tivated search on Google, Cortana, Siri,

and those annoying telephone re-direc-

tion applications which require you to

speak your request instead of pressing

a number for a service) and the applica-

tion would enable the player to ‘speak’

to the cashier and other members of

staff.

For those who think this sounds a lit-

tle too fanciful, please note that con-

cept of virtual reality is no longer the

preserve of the little known company

Oculus Rift – the companies push-

ing it hardest are Samsung, Microsoft,

HTC, Sony and Google – virtual reality

is about to go main-stream. And whilst

promoting the wares of one supplier

over another is not normally advisable,

for those keen to understand the huge

potential of virtual reality, Google of-

fers a surprisingly impressive cardboard

VR viewer starting from around £15

and which will readers to see for them-

selves what all the fuss is about: htt-

ps://www.google.com/get/cardboard/.

Turning to the world of biometrics and

one of the more interesting develop-

ments - a concept and technology vari-

ously referred to as ‘emotion detection’,

‘sentiment analysis’ and ‘neuro-market-

ing’ is already used in a number of sec-

tors.

In simple terms, this is next genera-

tion facial recognition technology used

to track, analyse and gauge the user’s

emotional reaction to an event or trig-

ger. Technology which started off by

mapping and recognising physical fea-

tures, has now developed into some-

thing which is able to decipher and

identify expressions and ‘recognise’

emotions such as sadness, joy, surprise,

disgust, distress, anger – in fact the very

latest software claims to be able to tell

if a person is ‘smiling, but not with their

eyes’.

12 FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

The software requires special cameras

that are capable seeing in multiple di-

mensions similar to ‘a human eye’, and

which can work with other software

such as facial analysis and

hand tracking, to support

a more intuitive and natu-

ral interactive experience.

Just think how this tech-

nology could be used in

the world of gaming. Im-

agine a game that could

monitor, track and as-

sess a player’s emotions,

moods and reactions so

well, that over time, it will

be able to successfully

predict a player’s reaction

to different outcomes and

pay-lines, and understand

what might make that

player play for longer or

higher stakes. Commer-

cially, this could be very

lucrative.

Conversely, if a game can

identify when a player is

happy, and how to main-

tain that state, it can also

in theory, identify when a

player is angry, frustrated,

distressed or desperate,

and what might take the

player away from that state. Implement-

ed appropriately, an application that is

able to assess and react to a player’s

mood and emotions during the gaming

experience, could prove to be the most

effective responsible gambling tool

ever.

Instead of reacting after the event, ei-

ther as a result of observation of the

player, or prompt from an algorithm trig-

gering an alert, an application which can

predict what might make a player play

more, should in theory, also be able

to predict what might make the player

play less, or even walk away completely.

If it can do this, then it should also be

able to present them with a message

that is most likely to resonate with their

emotional state at the right time. So,

not a message at a set or given time to

say how long they have been playing,

or when their losses reach a particular

value, but rather at the time when the

application assesses it is likely to have

the greatest impact. If the application

senses anger or distress it could even

pause play and enforce a break.

And again, if this sounds fanciful, bear

in mind that this technology is already

in use in several industries; from film

producers and advertising agencies to

lawyers trying out their final summing

up speech, to gauge the emotional im-

pact and reactions of their target audi-

ence. And rather like virtual reality, to

take any new tech-

nology from concept

and niche market to

mainstream requires a

big technology brand

to get behind it – and

they don’t come much

bigger than Intel.

The new Intel Re-

alSense camera can

detect hand move-

ment and has the 3D

capability to support

facial analytics, and is

already available in the

latest generation of

laptops. If you bought

a new Acer, ASUS, Lev-

ono, (to name a few)

laptop recently, there

is a fair chance that

you are now in posses-

sion of a camera that

supports facial analyt-

ics.

We are moving into a

new world of technolo-

gy that is very exciting,

but also potentially,

very dangerous, and which has the po-

tential to be for both good and bad, in

equal measure. A world in which play-

ers are exposed to an experience and

level of engagement and excitement

we never thought possible; but also one

in which it will be easier to lose sight

of reality, and exert a degree of control

over players in a way which is less than

desirable.

This is very powerful technology in-

deed, and in rushing to embrace it, we

should never forget that with power

comes responsibility.

Tomorrows world

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A maya to Appeal Ruling by Kentucky Trial Court in Rare and Controversial Suit Brought Under Arcane 200-Year-Old Commonwealth Law.

Amaya today announced it will appeal a judgment issued yesterday by a state judge in the Commonwealth of Ken-tucky and will avail itself of any and all remedies available to it. The litigation was filed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 2010 and sought recovery of alleged losses by Kentucky residents who played real-money poker on PokerStars’ website during a period between 2006 and 2011.In the decision, the judge imposed an approximate-ly US$290 million award, which he trebled to approxi-mately US$870 million excluding interest and applicable costs, in favor of the Commonwealth. The latest ruling is in stark contrast to the same trial court’s decision just last month when it determined that damages should be based on the net losses of players. Yesterday’s order applies a methodology that is not grounded in appli-cable law as it calculates damages based on gross losses of players without any reduction for winnings, bonuses or free play. “This is a frivolous and egregious misuse of an antiquated state statute to enrich the contingent-fee plaintiff ’s attorneys hired by the Commonwealth and not the people of Kentucky,” said Marlon Goldstein, Execu-tive Vice President, Corporate Development and General Counsel of Amaya. “Given that PokerStars only generated gross revenues of approximately US$18 million from Kentucky customers during the five years at issue, a dam-ages award in excess of US$800 million is notable only for its absurdity.”To bring the action, Kentucky relied on a centuries old statute that was intended to allow individu-

als who incurred gaming losses to sue their opponents; it was never intended to authorize the Commonwealth to sue and collect such losses for its own benefit. In fact, no other state in the union has brought an action under this type of antiquated statute to recover alleged gaming losses in the name of a state. Amaya intends to post a bond to stay the enforcement of the order and to appeal in early January. The appeal will, among other arguments,raise factual and legal errors (including violations of the state and federal constitutions) that include, but are not limited to, the trial court’s ruling permitting the Commonwealth to as-sert standing, its failure to find facts that give rise to the violation of the statute, it’s clearly erroneous decisions of law, and its failure to properly apply the law to the facts. Amaya will also vigorously challenge the trial court’s calculation of alleged gaming losses, which was based on an improper reading of a 100-year-old leading appellate decision. Regardless of the dollar amount, to the extent the PokerStars entities may be ultimately obligated to pay any amounts following exhaustion of all appeals and other legal remedies, Amaya intends to seek recovery against the former owners of the PokerStars business. Amaya has been a leader in promoting the regulation of online gaming in the United States. Earlier this year, following an extensive review, Amaya received approval to begin operating its PokerStars brand in the regulated market of New Jersey, which it plans to launch in the first half of 2016.

GAMING NEWS

Amaya to Appeal Ruling by Kentucky Trial Court

21FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMINGINFINITY GAMING

22 FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

Interview with Dag HascalCEO & Owner Croc’s Casino Resort Costa Rica

So it is a family affair the new ven-ture, how much input and creative control will you have Dag?

I like to offer my creative input and

empower the Team to utilize that infor-

mation appropriately based upon their

own expertise.

The resort opened back in Febru-ary 2015, how has it been received since you opened?

We have been recognize both domesti-

cally and internationally by many Media

and Business Institutions, and com-

bined with our 5 star International rat-

ing. We are the Hottest Destination in

Costa Rica!!!

TCSJohnHuxley supplied the equipment for the casino, how pleased are you with their service and quality?

TCSJohnHuxley is a highly professional

gaming equipment manufactures. They

were selected for our project because

they provide the highest quality gaming

equipment at very competitive pricing.

The entire process was seamless from

start to finish of our project, their qual-

ity of service is second to none in their

industry.

For all our international readers what is the situation in Cost Rica, are local players allowed to gam-ble and is there much competition in the way of casinos there?

All players worldwide are allowed to

gamble in our casino. The legal age to

gamble in Costa Rica is 18 years old.

There are others Casinos in Costa Rica

however at Crocs’ Casino Resort we are

proud to say we have the number one

Casino in all of Costa Rica. Our poli-

cies and the newest technology in the

games set us apart from all competitors.

Where did you manage to find the casino staff and dealers, are they from Cost Rica?

Our entire Casino staff are Costa Rican

residences, we personally trained our

dealers to provide the ultimate guest

experience in the gaming industry of

Dag thank you for speaking to us to-day, you are the owner and CEO of Croc’s Casino Resort in Costa Rica, can you start by telling us about the resort and when it opened?

Croc’s is our best expression of com-

munity culture, customer service,

class and superb construction. Our

Grad Opening was February 12, 2015.

Would this be the first of many or will

Croc’s Casino Resort be a one off?

We have no current plans for physical

Expansion, but our Brand has a Life of

its own.

The day to day operations will be run

by Rory Hascall, can you tell us about

Rory please?

Rory is a brilliant and Determined Lead-

er who pushed the opening of this pro-

ject in 18 months which was Astound-

ing. He has a long experience in Las

Vegas Casino.

23FEBRUARY 2016

INFINITY GAMING

Costa Rica and worldwide.

When was the idea for the resort first thought of?

Five years ago Rory and I had a Fun re-

union evolving Crocodiles, and the vi-

sion cast at that time is what you see

today.

The management for the casino are they from the US?

The entire Casino management team

are Costa Rican residence and have the

highest level of integrity, ethics and

guest services.

The resort offers more than just gambling with the sale of condo-miniums, what does this offer po-tential buyers?

Croc’s Casino Resort is one of a kind

unique development in Costa Rica. Our

44 private owner’s turnkey condo resi-

dence, with our 152 Hotel rooms, with

so many more additional amenities is

why after only been open six months

we were award the number one Luxury

Resort in all of Costa Rica.

Finally Dag what is your hopes for the resort in the future, what type of customer are you looking for?

My hope is that Crocs provides wonder-

ful experiences and memories for our

guest that they will want to share with

everyone.

We are booking for Costumers both

domestic and International that expect

and appreciate our Las Vegas style Ca-

sino and awards winning 5 Star service.

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