Insights

It is getting nastier every day in California as gaming tribes fight to keep sports-betting interlopers off their turf, but no matter how bitter the conflict becomes, the seeds of future business relationships are being sown.

Thomas Brandt, chairman of the Sports Wagering Application Review Commission (SWARC), sent a letter Friday to a legislative review committee urging them to approve the commission’s proposed emergency regulations, allowing them to begin the application process for competitive sports-betting licenses.

As operators look to transition from massive spending on customer acquisition to retaining those customers, some industry leaders argue that simpler approaches may be better.

A UK lawmaker has expressed concern about Iceland, a UK-based supermarket, offering consumers a buy now, pay later (BNPL) product to help them deal with the cost of living, while American Express has been told by India's regulators that it is able to onboard customers again.

Germany has jumped ahead of the EU with a new set of policies to deal with money laundering, as its finance ministry says it will be making a paradigm shift to “follow the money”.

In June 2022, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published a report, “Targeted Update on Implementation of FATF’s Standards on Virtual Assets (VAs) and Virtual Assets Services Providers (VASPs)”, which focuses on the state of the implementation of the travel rule, among other things. The travel rule is provided for in Recommendation 16 (R16) of the FATF standards and requires firms within the private sector to obtain and/or exchange beneficiary and originator information when making VA transfers across different jurisdictions. This regulatory analysis looks at the framework that included VAs and VASPs in the scope of FATF’s standards and provides details on legislative provisions which have been or will be implemented in various countries, as well as the consequences for a breach, when provided.

Mastercard has revealed plans for crypto payments to go mainstream, Coinbase is sued by another disgruntled exchange user and Tether says no to freezing Tornado Cash.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is consulting on a draft strategic plan for the next four years, which includes a focus on regulating new technologies, enhancing its fraud prevention tools and building a diverse and skilled staff.

The Association of Licensees, Operators and Providers of the Entertainment and Gambling Industry in Mexico (AIEJA) has requested that the federal government restructure and simplify taxes for casinos.

FanDuel Group, which was required to exit Nevada’s legal gaming market almost seven years ago, will re-enter the state as a licensed company after gaming regulators approved its partnership with Boyd Gaming to redevelop and rebrand a retail sportsbook in downtown Las Vegas.

Malta's gambling regulator has cancelled a licence, Ontario issues a fine to Unibet for non-compliant advertising and companies line up for Massachusetts launch.

The international card schemes have responded to the UK Treasury Select Committee’s investigation into recent increases in card transaction fees.

Payment service providers (PSPs) are to be required to provide consumers with better guidance on how to comply with know your customer (KYC) rules, Lithuania’s central bank has said.

The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has told a California judge that payments firm Block, run by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has unduly delayed submissions in an ongoing investigation into the fintech firm’s fraud handling.

​​​​​​​Operators in Germany that have applied for a new online licence but still have not been added to the federal regulator’s whitelist could be cut off by payment service providers (PSPs) next month, a legal expert has warned.

Casinos and smoking have always been joined at the hip, but one of the many legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic could be the eradication of smoke-filled gambling dens.

Walk onto any casino floor in the U.S. and you will still find most gamblers using cash to play a slot machine or place a sports bet, but a recent study on payment trends found the use of cash to pay for goods and services will continue to decline over the next three years.

UK-based operator Spreadex Limited, which runs spreadex.com, has agreed to pay £1.36m after a Gambling Commission investigation revealed a wide range of social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) failures.

Five crypto companies with operations in the US, including major exchange FTX, have been accused of misrepresenting the insurance status of customer deposits.

Prometeo, a Uruguay-based open banking platform, has rolled out a first of its kind account-to-account (A2A) service that enables merchants to receive payments in real time and with no intermediaries.