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Global Gaming Business Magazine GGB August 2024 •Vol. 23 •No. 8 •$10 Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers iGAMING IN BRAZIL SPORTS BETTING INTEGRITY WHITNEY HOUSTON SLOTS WEST VIRGINIA’S SHAWN FLUHARTY Land vs. Online Crossing the Channels Light & Wondermatures as an end-to-end supplier of high-performing content across brick-and-mortar, online and social channels Smoking in Casinos Casinos continue to debate banning indoor smoking, and its potential consequences Global Gaming WomenVol. 23 • No. 8 COLUMNS CONTENTS DEPARTMENTS august 3 COVER STORY Era of Wonder Since its transformation from what was the former Scientific Games, Light & Wonder has led the way in providing high- performing game content across all available channels, both on land and online. FEATURES 14 The Smoking Debate As operators confront increasing calls to ban smoking on casino floors, many lament an uneven playing field that guides their policies. 24 Online Cannibalization? Operators and legislators continue to debate whether or not online gaming revenues cannibalize profits of brick-and-mortar casinos. 28 Tribal Sportsbook Model The Seminole Tribe’s compact wth Florida gives the tribe a monopoly on sports betting, but the Florida model may not work in gaming states hosting multiple tribes. 32 Brazil iGaming, At Last After years of waiting, it appears that online gaming in the potentially huge market of Brazil may finally be at hand. 38 Protecting Sports Betting Recent events show that solutions using artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies to ensure integrity in the sports betting space are, in fact, working. AUGUST 2024 www.ggbmagazine.com Global Gaming Business Magazine 10 AGA Seizing the Momentum 12 Fantini’s Finance Searching for Answers 4 The Agenda 6 By the Numbers 8 5 Questions 13 AGEM 36 Emerging Leaders 42 New Game Review 44 Cutting Edge 45 Frankly Speaking 46 Goods & Services 48 Global Gaming Women 49 People 50 Casino Communications4 Vol. 23 • No. 8 • AUGUST 2024 Roger Gros, Publisher | rgros@ggbmagazine.com X: @GlobalGamingBiz Frank Legato, Editor |flegato@ggbmagazine.com X: @FranklySpeakn Jess Marquez, Managing Editor jmarquez@ggbmagazine.com Monica Cooley, Art Director mcooley@ggbmagazine.com Terri Brady, Sales & Marketing Director tbrady@ggbmagazine.com Beck Kingman-Gros, Associate Publisher & COO bkingros@ggbmagazine.com Lisa Johnson, Communications Advisor lisa@lisajohnsoncommunications.com X: @LisaJohnsonPR Columnists Frank Fantini |Tres York Contributing Editors Rae Berkley |Jill R. Dorson |Kyle Goldsmith Jack Goodin |Andrew Klebanow Bill Sokolic twitter: @downbeachfilm|Buck Wargo ______________ • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Official Publication I n this issue, Buck Wargo does a great job of cov- ering the integrity issue in gaming. This is such an important story because if we don’t have integrity, we have nothing. When gambling in the U.S. first ventured out from Nevada, it was proposed for Atlantic City, New Jersey. And to say integrity didn’t play an important role in its legalization in the Garden State is to undervalue its importance. During the legalization campaign, gambling boosters had to fight the impression that organized crime was involved somehow. And to make sure it didn’t get involved, they wrote myriad rules and regulations that everyone involved in gaming had to adhere to. Applications to work in the casinos were at least an inch thick for lowly line employees and reams of paper for a “key” license, which was required for management positions. Vendors to the industry had to submit proof of ownership without a hint of impropriety. That scrutiny essentially ensured that people working in the New Jersey casino business at that time had the utmost integrity. When then-Governor Brendan Byrne cut the ribbon in 1978 to open Atlantic City’s first casino, Resorts International, he told organized crime, “Keep your filthy hands off Atlantic City.” But there were some glitches. I recently had the opportunity to finally see the movie Owning Mahowny, which characterized the scam that Brian Malony, a bank clerk in Toronto—played admirably by the legendary actor Philip Seymour Hoffman—pulled on Caesars Atlantic City while I was employed there. Malony (Mahowny) was able to wire money to the cage at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, which was then transferred to the Atlantic City property, because New Jersey integrity laws didn’t allow a direct transfer. Malony was a compulsive gambler, and gambled away millions of dollars at Caesars and elsewhere. As a baccarat dealer, I had never encountered a player who dealt the cards so fast with tens of thou- sands of dollars riding on each hand—risking racks of purple $500 chips. As soon as one hand was over, the cards were out for the next hand. (In those days, baccarat was played at a big 14-seat table, and the players dealt the cards, not the dealers.) So there were definitely holes in the integrity laws. Caesars AC was closed for two days as punish- ment for violating those laws, but that was really a slap on the wrist. Lots of other jurisdictions copied the integrity of the New Jersey regulatory system, so that today’s land-based gaming properties are fairly trusted and respected operations with a high level of integrity. Today, with the expansion of online sports bet- ting and iGaming, the integrity of the industry has again come into question. There have been some horror stories about how online sportsbooks (OSBs) lure players in and the lengths they go to keep them. All the major OSBs have appointed responsi- ble gaming execs, but how much power do they have over how the OSBs conduct their marketing or how they address compulsive players? As you can see from the land-based experience, sometimes integrity can be hard to pin down. For OSBs, the hurdle has become advertising. Despite “best practices” guidelines set by the American Gaming Association, lots of OSBs have doubled down on ads that are often annoying, sometimes unethical and always expensive. And not just expensive in terms of dollars but expensive in terms of what it might cost the sports betting community. Many European countries have outright banned sports betting and iGaming ads. In North America, Ontario has already moved to limit advertising and many U.S. states are examining how to do the same. Integrity is not something you can apply to off- shore, illegal OSBs and iGaming websites. Those sites are usually predatory, unregulated and devious, putting customers at risk financially and physiologi- cally. The solution is obviously a safe and viable legal market, but when you have OSBs that limit the participation of skilled players, you are encour- aging the illegal market not only to survive but expand and thrive. Not every player understands the nuances of a legal versus illegal market. So you see, integrity is the key to a successful and respected gaming market. OSBs and iGaming operators still have a long way to go, but if they pay attention to their land-based cousins, that road will be shorter. Integrity Matters BY ROGER GROS, PUBLISHER Global Gaming Business AUGUST 2024 THEAGENDA For brands that play to win. This may be the hospitality business, but you know the competition for players makes for a less-than-hospitable environment. So we’re in the trenches with our clients every day, fighting to outsmart, out-maneuver and outperform the pack. Contact chad@goodgiant.com to hear how we do it.6 Global Gaming Business AUGUST 2024 First Time for everything T he May edition of the Optimove Insights Americas Pulse Report, published by EGR in late June, fea- tured a graph outlining the rate of first-time depositors for sports betting in the U.S. as compared to the rest of the world. Using February as the baseline of 100 percent, the number of account openings in the U.S. fell by more than a third to 64 percent in May, which continued the downward trend that first started in April. This is mainly attributed to the fact that the NFL football and NCAA basketball seasons are both concluded by the end of March, marking the beginning of the slow period for U.S. sports. Conversely, the ending of the Premier League sea- son in the U.K. and big international soccer tourna- ments such as the UEFA European Championships and the CONMEBOL Copa América are big account gen- erators elsewhere around the world. Virtually all global sports betting markets are expected to see increased ac- count signups and handle during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, which began July 26 and run through August 11. BYTHENUMBERS T he recent spate of gambling-related scandals in U.S. professional sports, including federal fraud charges for Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and the lifetime banning of MLB infielder Tucupita Marcano and NBA forward Jontay Porter, appear to have rubbed off negatively on U.S. sports fans. According to a nationwide survey from aGamble.com with 1,205 participants, 57 percent of respondents indicated that they believe in- sider betting scandals are “widespread” among players and personnel. Just under half (49 percent) said that if match-fixing was discovered to be widespread, they would stop watching sports altogether. Broken down by league, a whopping 74 percent of respondents said they felt insider betting was rampant in the NBA. The NFL was second at 65 percent, followed by MLB at 43 percent and the NHL at 18 percent. Regarding last year’s championship games, 36 percent of respon- dents said they felt the 2023 Super Bowl, a 25-22 overtime win for the Chiefs in Las Vegas, was affected by insider betting. The 2023 NBA Finals was second at 26 percent, and the 2023 World Series garnered 19 percent. U.S. vs. Rest of World: First Time Depositors (FTDs) Growth Trend8 Global Gaming Business AUGUST 2024 CALENDAR “TheyIt” 5QUESTIONS J oe DeSimone bought the Railroad Pass casino and hotel from MGM Resorts 10 years ago. He has spent that time upgrading the casino, adding hotels, truck stops and a new standalone restaurant, the Bullet Train. In the meantime, he bought a casino from Boyd Gaming in downtown Henderson he renamed the Pass Casino, and he’s also building a hotel there, the first for that neighborhood in Henderson. DeSimone was new to the casino business when he first started, but he’s now ramping up the gaming options at both properties. He spoke with GGB Publisher Roger Gros at his office in Henderson in June. To hear and view the GGB Podcast, visit GGBMagazine.com. GGB: As someone who had never been in the casino industry before, what did you see in the Railroad Pass? Why were you interested, and how did the sale go from MGM? DeSimone: My interest was that I considered the casino business as a kind of a sexy business for a young person at the time. And also a challenge. I wanted a change in my career, and that’s why it attracted me. For MGM, it wasn’t a critical asset for them, but it was for me. They gave me a good price and they walked me through the licensing process. They were really good people, and they still are. What did you see that you wanted to change immediately when you got in there? I wanted to make a statement to the people of Boulder City and South Henderson, as well as the customers and employees. We immediately did a lot of improvements to the property. We painted it, we re- placed the roof, replaced the air conditioning system. We redid the rooms; now I’ve just redone them again. So we wanted to make a statement that we’re here and we’re going to invest the capital. And we’re going have some fun doing it. You also added a truck stop, a large convenience store with fast food, and a gas station. What was the thought behind that? That experiment worked. If you park a truck at Railroad Pass, there’s not much in the way of options for food or accommodations. We have a casino with three restaurants, and we now have the Bullet Train restaurant. We also have entertainment and a sportsbook, and we have rooms. We have a separate menu for truckers, and they enjoy it. It’s kind of a captive audience, and it’s fun to see the same guys come through once or twice a week that are on different paths. So it’s been a good experience done very well. Halfway through this process, you were able to buy the Boyd-owned casino in downtown Henderson and transform that into the Pass Casino. What was the thinking behind that? Well, my first thought was economies of scale as it relates to my management people, whether it’s HR, se- curity or maintenance. And it went a long way towards saving some costs, but also generating revenues with the multi-play card system from Aristocrat. We’ve invested a lot of money in the Pass and have excit- ing things happening there, too. You recently removed table games from Railroad Pass. Why did you do that? Are you considering electronic table games? The time had come. We had one pit of games for a very long time. It was a loss leader. There wasn’t much demand for the games—we just weren’t getting enough play. And the cost of running one pit with six ta- bles is extremely high. We learned at the Pass, when we took the table games out of there, we saved a bunch of money and actually the slots picked up. The coin-in picked up, and so did our hold. We’re still trying to figure out if it would help to add ETGs. I went over with my slot people today, which machines I wanted, and we’re getting pricing now. 1 2 3 4 5 September 2-4: SiGMA East Europe , Hungexpo Budapest Congress and Exhibition Centre Hall E, Budapest, Hungary. Produced by SiGMA Group. For more information, visit sigma.world/cis/. September 10-13: European Conference for the Study of Gambling (EASG), A.Roma Lifestyle Hotel, Rome, Italy. Pro- duced by the European Association for the Study of Gambling. For more information visit EASG.org. September 24-26: SBC Summit , Feira Internacional De Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. Produced by SBC Events. For more infor- mation, visit sbcevents.com/sbc-summit. October 7-10: Global Gaming Expo (G2E) ,The Venetian Expo, Las Vegas, Nevada. Produced by Reed Exhibitions. For more information, visit globalgamingexpo.com. October 21-24: World Lottery Summit , Paris, France. Produced by the World Lottery Association. For more information, visit world-lotteries.org. November 11-14: SiGMA Europe, Mediterranean Maritime Hub, Xatt il-Mollijiet, Marsa, Malta. Produced by SiGMA Group. For more information, visit sigma.world/europe. November 27-28: Eastern European Gaming Summit , Inter Expo Center, Sofia, Bulgaria. Produced by the Association of Gaming Industry in Bulgaria. For more Joe DeSimone Next >