Public Gaming International March/April 2021

49 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • MARCH/APRIL 2021 As the Maryland General Assembly enters its nal stretch, lawmakers are still working out the details of a new sports gambling industry in the state. A bill setting up an industry with a combination of in-person and online betting cleared the House of Delegates and is now in the hands of a Senate committee, which heard pleas ursday from businesses that want to be included in the plans. Maryland voters overwhelmingly approved legalizing betting on sports during last fall’s general election. WORLD NEWS Great Britain Gambling Commission introduces stronger regulations for online slots games Measures that will “strengthen the protections and controls for those who gamble through online slots games” were announced by the Great Britian Gambling Commission on Tuesday. e changes are intended to make online games “safer by design,” with the Commission focusing on on- line slot games since these have the highest aver- age losses per player of online gambling products, with the average player losing £67 per month. e changes, which follow a consultation by the Commission, include bans on: Features that speed up play or give the illusion of control over the outcome Slot spin speeds faster that 2.5 seconds; Sounds and imagery which give the illusion of a win when the return is in fact equal to, or below, stake. The amount of money being staked on illegal gambling websites doubles to £2.8 billion (USD 3.8B) in the last year in the UK e report released by PWC ursday says the proportion of UK online gamblers using an unlicensed operator grew from 2.2% to 4.5% in the last 1-2 years. e amount of money being staked on illegal gambling websites doubled to £2.8 billion (USD 3.8B) in the last year in the UK, according to new research released by PwC on ursday. Nearly 460,000 people are using unlicensed betting websites, up from 210,000 two years ago. La Française des Jeux: 2020 Results Preserved Despite the Impact of the Health Crisis After the signi cant impact of the health crisis on the rst half, which saw stakes fall by 18%, the gradual recovery during the summer continued throughout the second half, with an increase of 3%. Over the year, FDJ recorded €16 billion in stakes, a decline of 7% compared with 2019. Strategic digital investment has en- abled the growth acceleration of online stakes, to almost 10% of total stakes. Stéphane Pallez, Chairwoman and Chief Executive O cer of FDJ group, said: “2020 was an unprecedented and contrasted year during which FDJ demonstrated resilience and solidarity. e health crisis had a particularly strong impact on our business in the rst half. But the recovery in the second half, combined with the Group’s responsiveness and relevant digital strategy, enabled us to preserve our performance and annual results. I would like to thank our employees for their commitment, and to renew our support for our network of retailers, some of which have been severely im- pacted. As 2021 gets started, while uncertain- ties persist, the Group remains con dent in its prospects for sustainable growth, consistent Pollard Banknote subsidiary, Next Generation Lotteries has signed a five-year contract with Denmark's Landbrugslotteriet ("Lottery") Under this agreement, NGL will deliver its Player Account Management solution, Lottery Platform, retail solution, and Class Lottery ra e through a cloud-based installation to the Lottery. e solution NGL will provide uses a Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model, which o ers greater exibility, reduced costs and a shorter time to market. is contract makes Landbrugslotteriet is NGL's second customer in Denmark as it currently provides eInstant game content to Danske Spil. EL welcomes ESA statement on de- prioritising gambling complaints e European Lotteries (EL) welcome a recent statement by the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA), to give a lower priority to gambling complaints as they are considered a matter for the national courts. e ESA, which has worked on a number of gambling-related cases over the years such as previous interventions on issues such as Norway's right to maintain a monopoly on gaming machines, will no longer consider it a priority to use its infringement powers to promote a single market for gambling. e European Commission took a similar approach back in 2017. According to the o cial ESA statement, the EFTA Court, and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) have ‘’repeatedly recognised EEA States' considerable margin of appreciation to restrict gambling services when pursuing legitimate public interest objectives such as the protection of minors, the ght against gambling addiction, and to combat irregularities and fraud’’. Gambling complaints would be instead handled more ef- ciently by national courts when facing problems with EEA law in the gambling sector. EL continues to call for the support of national gambling policies through the principle of sub- sidiarity, sustain the current widespread model of national lotteries in Europe and safeguard the bene ts of national lotteries for society. Hungarian state lottery company aims to expand abroad State-owned lottery company Szerencsejáték has the know-how and the capital to weigh an expansion abroad. CEO Gábor Czepek said that Szerencsejáték could consider entering the “less-risky” business of online sports betting on foreign markets that “have a culture similar to the market in Hungary”. Finland: Veikkaus’ profit fell sig- nificantly due to the coronavirus epidemic The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has fined online casino and sportsbook operator Casumo £6 million (US$8.28 million) for social responsibility and anti-money laun- dering failures. German State Treaty ratified by 13 Länder Germany’s new, expanded regulatory frame- work for gambling moved closer to imple- mentation, after the state parliaments in Schleswig-Holstein and Sachsen rati ed the treaty. Approval from the state legislatures mean that 13 of the country’s 16 federal states have now rati ed the Glücksspielneuregulier- ungstaatsvertrag (GlüNeuRStV), according to the Deutscher Sportwettenverband’s tracker. It required approval from at least 13 to be imple- mented, per Article 3 of the legislation. WLA Remaining on a path of con- tinuous improvement e WLA is dedicated to continuously im- proving the products and services it o ers to the WLA membership. In keeping with this theme, we are pleased to announce several measures taken recently to strengthen the WLA’s position as the industry-leading body representing the interests of the state-regulated lottery and sports betting sector. e WLA moved its headquarters from Basel, Switzerland to Lausanne, Switzerland in May of last year. Parallel to the move to Lausanne we have been working on refreshing the WLA’s corporate design. In November of last year we began with the redesign of the WLA logo. After considering various ideas we settled on a design proposal by the Buntin Group, a brand identity agency from Nashville, Tennessee, USA. With regards to solidifying the WLA’s corporate identity, one of the rst measures we have