Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | April 2009 Marvel-lous opportunity Playtech Ltd, a London-listed leading provider of turnkey products for online casinos including software, hosting, customer service and transaction management, has signed a licensing deal with Marvel Entertainment Inc. The deal gives Playtech access to Marvel superhero brands, including The Incredible Hulk and Fantastic Four. The company says it plans to use the rights on a multi media basis, including for online and mobile products. Playtech also released its new and improved Bingo, which comprises a range of fresh features and enhancements. The new release provides a cutting edge look and feel, designed to appeal directly to the company’s broad Bingo audience, offering a super- sized embedded chat, and a clear call for action. Racing Handicap Australian authorities have reportedly blocked online broadcasts of Australian horse races from being distributed in Asia. Officials cited the need to honour an agreement with the Hong Kong Jockey Club as the reason for preventing access to the race day webcasts of TVN. But racing insiders say the HKJC has made no request to block the service, complaining the move has left the way open for pirates, who are stealing the signal and redistributing it anyway. Murray Bell, the Hong Kong-based racing expert and pundit, says there are now websites in the US and China that offer the Australian racing signal to members. He adds that the Chinese sites—set up by illegal bookmakers—are also picking up other racing from around the region and even offering voice over commentary in Mandarin Chinese. Ayre Raising You can be the nicest and most successful guy in the world, but if the US government decides it doesn’t like you then you could have a problem. That’s pretty much the current position for Calvin Ayre, the 46 Briefs International Briefs Canadian gambling tycoon who founded a six billion dollar a year business through his online brand Bodog. The difficulty for Mr Ayre is that US authorities allege he funded part of it by taking bets from American residents, in defiance of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act When IAG saw Mr Ayre in Macau a year ago, he didn’t stay for cocktails, glancing sceptically at our digital voice recorder as if it were some kind of FBI listening device. Does that make us an alleged accessory? Now the indefatigable Mr Ayre has taken on a new challenge— and a potentially equally robust jurisdictional power—in the form of the People’s Republic of China. He is said to be trying to crack the challenging China online market. The plan appears to be to promote play for fun games that should in theory be under the radar of China’s Internet censors, then use the customer database to market an online sports wagering service to them. Getting the money is always the hardest part in China, and he may be hard pressed to find affiliate partners. As one Europe-based online gaming executive told IAG at a recent conference in Macau: “Calvin is a great guy, but if you want to do business in the States, you just can’t go anywhere near him.” Meanwhile, Bodog says its has signed an exclusive brand licence agreement with Asian online gaming operator Haydock Sports Limited. It will allow Bodog to set up a sports betting service aimed at Asian customers before the start of the 2009-10 European football season in the summer Haydock Sports is based in Manila in the Philippines. Haydock’s managing director Ian Dunning is a former Managing Director Asia at Victor Chandler. “We know that Bodog was considering a number of potential licensees, but we were confident that Haydock would emerge from the exhaustive diligence process as the premier choice of partners in the region,” said Mr Dunning in a prepared statement. “We expect to have a Bodog suite of products in-market prior to the start of the next European football season,” added Mr Dunning. The licence arrangement between Bodog, based and licensed in the Caribbean state of Antigua and Haydock provides an exclusive licence to the Bodog brand for online gaming within Asia. Haydock Sports has been operating in Asia since 2006 under the authority of an interactive gaming licence issued by First Cagayan. More recently, Haydock launched www.9play.com , which offers cutting-edge sports book and casino products in Chinese and in English to the Asian market. Bodog has its head office, and is licensed in, the Caribbean nation of Antigua. The Bodog group of companies includes an online sports book, casino, poker room and a suite of other world-class gaming products. Bodog says it does not offer “for money” gaming services in North America. Gaming services offered and operated in North America under the Bodog brand are made available exclusively by Morris Mohawk Gaming Group. GPIC Posts 2008 Results Gaming Partners International Corporation, a leading worldwide provider of casino currency and table gaming equipment, has announced financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2008. For the fourth quarter of 2008, the Company reported revenues of US$15.7 million, down 21% compared to revenues of US$19.9