April 03, 2015

Man Utd v Liverpool: The 1915 Good Friday betting scandal

Manchester United against Liverpool is one of football's most intense rivalries but few have been as controversial as Good Friday 1915, when one of British sport's worst betting scandals took place.

Manchester United against Liverpool is a match which rarely fails to deliver some element of controversy. But the recent Steven Gerrard 38-second red card has nothing on the tie between the clubs 100 years ago.

On that day, there were "two matches going on at once" during a crucial bottom of the table clash at Old Trafford.

After an approach by a third party, some players from both sides hatched a plot to rig the game for a 2-0 home win, which eventually saw United avoid relegation.

"There was the realistic possibility of relegation for both of the sides - so it was an important match," says Graham Sharpe, a sports writer who has researched the fixture.

"It was overshadowed by the First World War, which had been raging for several months, and you could make the case that those players thought to themselves, 'when this season has finished, there may not be one to follow'."

Many footballers had already signed up to fight, while others played on.

There were rumours about the honesty of the tie, even before kick-off.

There were eyewitness accounts of the two sets of players meeting up in Manchester pubs to discuss the outcome, before bets were placed at up to 8/1.

Bookmakers were naturally suspicious if they saw "significant amounts of bets" on one particular outcome or score, Mr Sharpe says.

A crowd of up to 18,000 witnessed one of the fixture's most extraordinary passages, when United were 1-0 up and won a penalty.

Patrick O'Connell, a centre half and the side's captain, stepped up and hit it so far wide it nearly hit the corner flag, according to match reports.

Mr Sharpe explains: "From all reports, he walked back up the pitch laughing as he thought 'well it doesn't matter, we can get another goal whenever we want one'."

There are accounts of a dressing room row at half-time, with some players who were not in on the plot threatening not to come out for the second half.

And after United got a second goal, the bet was nearly ruined when Liverpool forward Fred Pagnam hit the crossbar.

"A number of his teammates gestured angrily towards him," Mr Sharpe says.

"It's almost as if there were two matches going on at once."

Suspicions were raised almost immediately after the game, with an inquiry announced shortly afterwards.

Later that year, Liverpool players Tom Fairfoul, Tom Miller, Bob Purcell and Jackie Sheldon and United's Enoch West, Sandy Turnbull and Arthur Whalley received lifetime bans.

Lawrence Cook, of Chester, and Manchester City's Fred Howard were also banned for their parts in the scam.

The Football Association said the players had "sought to undermine the whole fabric of the game and discredit its honesty and fairness."

Players were then called up to fight in the war.

When they returned, many had their bans lifted in recognition of their war efforts, while Turnbull received a posthumous pardon as he was fatally wounded at Arras in 1917.

However, Enoch 'Knocker' West, who had refused to admit his role in the plot and even sued the FA for libel, was not pardoned and remained banned from football for 30 years.

A recent campaign to clear his name has stalled because the FA said his documents were lost.

Alex Jackson, Collections Officer at the National Football Museum, thinks the player's motivations for the plot could be similar to that of the US baseball players involved in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

He said footballer's wages had fallen after the outbreak of war and - similar to the Chicago White Sox players - financial reward was the aim.

Mr Sharpe believes it was "a combination of 'let's stick two fingers up to authority' and 'let's cover ourselves in the event of losing our livelihoods or in fact our lives".

Mr Jackson said: "It was probably the biggest scandal of the time as it involved quite a number of players and two of the biggest clubs in the league.

"It is interesting that the players were approached by a third party to arrange the scam, but they were never found out".

Mr Sharpe said the match changed the way the British betting industry operated.

"It was the first major case of its type and will have made the authorities wary of this sort of behaviour. For that reason, it will never be completely forgotten."

April 02, 2015

PokerStars confirms Beta launch of sportsbook

PokerStars, the online gambling brand owned by Amaya Gaming, has confirmed the launch of its new sports betting platform in Beta mode.

PokerStars announced in January that its online sportsbook would launch ahead of schedule during the first quarter of this year.

The service went live on Tuesday and is currently only available in Beta mode.

A PokerStars source told the Pokernews.com website that the sportsbook would soon be available from internet browsers and mobile, as well as being fully integrated into the new PokerStars 7 client.

The beta launch is the last step before the sportsbook is officially launch in some selected markets – a move that is expected to take place within the next few months.

The launch comes after parent company Amaya Gaming posted heavy growth across its key financials for 2014.

In a statement accompanying the results, the firm said: “The corporation anticipates PokerStars will launch its beta version of its sports-betting product, available both on the web and in the PS7 client, in certain jurisdictions in the near future, with rollout to other markets across the dot-com network through the next two quarters of 2015.

“The company anticipates launching sports betting on mobile in 2015 as well.”

Playtech acquires majority stake in TradeFX

Gaming software and services supplier Playtech has conditionally agreed to acquire a 91.1% stake in TradeFX, an online CFDs and binary options broker and platform provider.

The deal includes an initial cash payment of €208 million ($225.1 million) and an earn-out payment of up to €250 million based on future performance.

Playtech said the acquisition offers a “compelling opportunity” to enter the growing and complementary vertical driven by similar core competencies.

The company also noted that the deal is directly in line with its strategy to acquire “profitable, regulated, highly cash generative” businesses that hold “market-leading” positions.

TradeFX, which provides services in more than 100 countries around the world, posted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $34.9 million in 2014, as well as a group margin of approximately 40%.

Mor Weizer, chief executive officer of Playtech, said: “In addition to being immediately and significantly earnings enhancing, the payment terms for the acquisition are weighted towards future financial performance of the business.

“TradeFX's proven management team has a strong cultural fit with our business and is incentivised to stay with the enlarged group.

“The acquisition adds weight to the strong momentum with which we have started the year and which has continued throughout the first quarter.

“Following the acquisition, Playtech will retain significant resources to continue to pursue further acquisition opportunities.”

NetEnt strikes Codere deal, secures UK licences

Online gaming content developer Net Entertainment (NetEnt) has announced that it has signed a licence agreement with Spanish gaming operator Codere, as well as confirming it has been granted licences to operate in the UK market.

Under the agreement with Codere, NetEnt will deliver a range of casino games to the operator’s online casino in Spain.

NetEnt is currently in the licensing process in Spain in the hope of launching its products and services in the country this year.

“Codere is a market leader in Spain, which is one of our prioritised countries when it comes to new regulated markets with strong growth potential,” NetEnt Malta managing director and chief of European market operations, Enrico Bradamante, said.

Meanwhile, NetEnt has also revealed that it has been awarded operating and software licences for the UK market by the UK Gambling Commission.

NetEnt has been operating under a temporary licence since the introduction of new regulation in the UK late last year.

Per Eriksson, president and chief executive officer of NetEnt, said: “This is a milestone for NetEnt and we are very pleased to have been approved for UK licenses by the UK Gambling Commission.

“Britain is the largest gaming market in Europe and is central for our growth strategy to expand on regulated markets.”

April 01, 2015

UK jockeys allowed to wear individual betting sponsorship

The Board of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has approved a proposal from the Professional Jockeys Association (PJA) that the Code of Conduct regarding sponsorship of professional jockeys by bookmakers should be relaxed, on a trial basis.

Betting operators will now be permitted to sponsor individual jockeys, as opposed to the previous regulation which only permitted sponsorship agreements involving 50 or more jockeys.The Board provided approval of this at the end of 2014, and such deals will be permitted to commence as of 1 April 2015. The trial will be reviewed after nine months.


Sponsorship agreements will only be permitted with betting organisations with broad funding deals in place with British Racing, in particular those paying the full Horserace Betting Levy or equivalent through commercial or voluntary arrangements, including Additional Voluntary Contributions.

The terms of all such contracts will be subject to registration with and final approval by the BHA. The Rules preventing a jockey associating with betting organisation representatives on a racecourse remain in place and non-riding commercial agreements with betting organisations will continue to be registered separately.

Will Lambe, Director of Public Affairs and Policy for the BHA, said: “The move to permit sponsorship of individual jockeys by bookmakers will hopefully have a beneficial financial impact on riders at all levels. The previous regulations only allowed for block sponsorship of 50 or more jockeys by a bookmaker, and these terms obviously proved overly prohibitive as no such deals were signed. In approving this proposal the Board gave careful consideration to integrity concerns, particularly around perception. We have already permitted individual non-riding promotional deals with bookmakers for two years with no integrity or perception concerns having arisen, while bookmaker branding presence is of course already widespread on British racecourses.”

Nigel Payne, Chairman of the PJA: “We have been working closely with the BHA on this project for some time. We are particularly delighted as this offers new earning potential for our members and excellent sponsorship opportunities for bookmakers. We will be urging our members and their sponsors who enter new contracts to respect our ongoing arrangement with Stobarts. Co-existence with the Stobart posteria site will help protect this company’s immense contribution to the vital area of Career Ending Insurance, which addresses a significant issue of jockey welfare.”

March 26, 2015

Trial over suspected Levante-Zaragoza fix gets underway

The preliminary phase of the trial investigating the alleged fixing of the Levante vs Zaragoza match in May 2011 has kicked off. Judge Isabel Rodríguez has begun to hear testimony from the suspects.

The first person to go before the judge was Jaime Sanz de Bremond, the lawyer representing former Zaragoza left-back Iván Obradovic, who confirmed that his client could not testify at this moment because he is on international duty with Serbia.

Villarreal's Ikechukwu Uche was next to appear in the courtroom in Valencia, accompanied by his lawyer. The striker declined to make any comments to the media.

Then came ex-Zaragoza captain Javier Paredes, who is now with Albacete. The defender was also tight-lipped on his arrival and departure.

March 24, 2015

Vietnam football matches listed for betting by 79 foreign firms

Vietnamese football matches have been listed for betting by 79 international bookmakers across the world, said Julie Norris, head of Interpol’s integrity in sport unit, at the conference on the prevention of match fixing held in Hanoi yesterday.

The conference had the participation of officials from Interpol, AFC, FIFA, and Vietnamese representatives from the ministries of public security, justice, finance, and sports.

Ms. Norris stressed at the meeting that criminal rings often back the manipulation of football games and they have the involvement of thousands of bookmakers across the world.

Nicholas Raudenski of the FIFA security unit added that the criminal rings can even ‘control’ and force referees and footballers to help manipulate matches.

Le Hoai Anh, general secretary of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), told the meeting that Vietnam has conducted effective cooperation with AFC and FIFA in the prevention of match fixing and detected several cases in recent years.

VFF is planning to set up an integrity unit to promote transparency and prevent wrongdoings in the coming time, he added.

March 23, 2015

Gamblers in Unshuffled Cards Case: Let Us Keep the Money

Gamblers who have been ordered to return $1.5 million they won at an Atlantic City casino that unknowingly used unshuffled cards asked a judge on Friday to let them keep the money.

The 14 gamblers say they won the money through no fault of their own playing mini-baccarat at the Golden Nugget in April 2012. They say that if the ruling stands, it would send a chilling message to the gambling public that no jackpot is ever safe.

"By ordering the patrons to return the monies that were paid out by (the Golden Nugget) nearly three years after the game ended sends incredible conditional messages to the public: A win isn't necessarily a win, and that casinos will go after winning players who are without fault" if the casino or one of its agents were to blame, the gamblers said in a court filing asking the judge to reverse her February ruling in favor of the casino.

Steve Scheinthal, general counsel for the casino's parent company, Landry's Inc., said the judge got it right.

"The trial judge considered the law and made a very thoughtful and correct decision," he told The Associated Press. "We see no reason why she would change her mind."

The judge heard the motion Friday but did not issue a decision.

At issue were games of mini-baccarat using decks of cards the casino had paid a manufacturer to pre-shuffle but that hadn't been shuffled. Once players realized the pattern in which the cards were emerging, they drastically upped their bets from $10 a hand to $5,000 and won 41 straight hands.

Last month, the judge determined the games were illegal under state law because they didn't conform to gambling regulations specifying the way each game must be played.

The Golden Nugget bought what were supposed to be pre-shuffled cards from a Kansas City manufacturer, which acknowledged in court it failed to shuffle them. The casino said its litigation with the manufacturer has been resolved, but a confidentiality agreement prevents it from revealing details.

The judge's February ruling was the latest in a long series of decisions that have seesawed between favoring the casino and favoring the gamblers. The owner of the casino, Texas billionaire Tillman Fertitta, originally decided to let the players keep their winnings, but that offer was contingent on them dropping other claims they made against the casino, including illegal detention, which they declined to do.

The casino paid out about $500,000 in winnings for the disputed games. About $1 million in chips remains outstanding.

Optimal Payments strikes €1.1bn digital wallet deal for Skrill

Optimal Payments has expanded its digital wallet with the €1.1bn reverse takeover of rival Skrill in a move that will propel the combined online payments business into the FTSE 250.

The company said the “transformational” deal would broaden its exposure to the “rapidly expanding online gaming sector” as well as the wider e-commerce world

The group has developed a payments technology system allowing gamblers to transfer winnings and place stakes across a range of gaming websites at the touch of a button, as well as enabling rapid-fire payments for live sports betting.

Skrill’s paysafecard brand is one of the largest pre-paid online voucher providers in Europe, enabling consumers without a bank account or credit card to purchase goods and services online.

“We thought they were out fishing for sprats and they have landed a whale,” said Ivor Jones, leisure analyst at Numis. “At a stroke, it brings a major competitor on board, sharply reduces [Optimal’s] exposure to Asia and brings credible venture capital investors on to the share register.”

Shares in Aim-traded Optimal were suspended on Monday morning after it announced the proposed acquisition, to be financed by a fully underwritten £451m rights issue plus existing cash and debt facilities, after which it will relist on the main market.

Skrill, which shelved plans for a £160m listing in 2011 and was once chaired by the former investment banker Bob Wigley, is majority owned by CVC Capital Partners. The private equity firm acquired a majority stake in the business for €600m from Investcorp 18 months ago.

“PayPal is the 800 pound gorilla in this industry, and while I’m not sure we’re in their rear view mirror yet, there’s room for a number two,” said Joel Leonoff, Optimal’s chief executive, adding that the deal was “a very significant acceleration of our business plan”.

As well as online gaming, the group has ambitions to target a greater share of the mobile payments market, although it faces stiff competition from tech giants Apple, Samsung and Google.

The space is rapidly consolidating as payment providers try to scale up as quickly as possible in the heavily regulated space. Last November, Skrill itself announced that it was acquiring another competitor, Ukash, in a deal that is yet to be completed.

Beneath it all is the growing dominance of smartphones in ecommerce and online gaming. “It actually sits on something more fundamental, which is the move towards mobile commerce. It’s the mobile ecosystem that’s emerging here,” said Robin Speakman, analyst at Shore Capital.

Digital wallets are an increasing necessity for online gamblers, who tend to play across multiple sites. Customers in “grey” markets, where online gambling is not formally regulated, also use wallets as a way of moving their money to gambling websites.

“In certain jurisdictions Visa and MasterCard are not available for online gambling,” said Gavin Kelleher, analyst at Goodbodys.

Mr Leonoff said that customers used their wallets as a “hub” to move money between websites like PartyGaming, PokerStars and 888.

Higher transaction speeds offered by digital wallets were crucial for live sports betting, he added: “If you’re watching a tennis game, you can bet whether a serve is going to be in or out, so it has to be really fast.”

The combined business would be well placed to target demand from emerging markets and the rapidly evolving mobile payments market, he said.

“We also cater to a very significant proportion of the world that is unbankable and doesn’t have the facilities to provide credit cards. We have helped the online gaming companies gain access to customers in South America where US-verified credit card payments were hard to obtain, which has greatly facilitated approval ratings.”

Optimal said it would acquire the entire listed share capital of Skrill for €720m cash and 37.5m new ordinary shares, after which parent company Sentinel Group Holdings would own nearly 8 per cent of the group.

Optimal said the deal had an enterprise value of €1.1bn, valuing Skrill at a multiple of 9.3 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the 12 months to September 2014, adjusted to reflect ongoing annual cost saving synergies of $40m, plus net debt of €256m.

The combined group would have annual revenues approaching $700m, and ebitda of $175m, Optimal said, diversifying its geographic exposure and customer base, offering over 100 payment types in 41 currencies and 22 languages. This would enable Optimal to “capitalise on expected growth in the North American regulated online gambling market,” the company added.

Optimal’s full-year results, released in tandem with its announcement on Monday, showed an 83 per cent increase in profit after tax to $57.7m on revenues that increased 44 per cent to $365m in the year to December 31.

The results were boosted by the acquisition of the Meritus and GMA businesses in the US last summer, plus a “significant” contribution from the World Cup.

Optimal intends to raise £451m through a five-for-three rights issue priced at 166p per share, a 60 per cent discount to Friday’s closing price of 419p, which has been fully underwritten by Canaccord Genuity, Deutsche Bank and BMO Capital Markets. Lazard additionally advised Optimal on the transaction.

Optimal said it had received “significant” shareholder support for the rights issue, including its largest shareholder Old Mutual which holds an 11.3 per cent stake.

If shareholder approval is granted at a general meeting on April 16, the new shares are expected to start trading on Aim a day later, with the acquisition expected to complete “in the third quarter of 2015”, the company said.

March 18, 2015

Poland to relax strict online gambling laws

Poland are moving to more liberal online gambling laws after the European Commission approved the countries plans to allow overseas online gambling operators into the country. It is planned now that Poland will allow foreign operators to offer their services in the country without having to locate a base within the country.

Following a review of its current law, Polish ministers have lifted operator requirements to be partnered with a local partner.

It was last year that the EU Commission criticized Poland for its ruling that only online operators based within its borders were allowed to offer online gambling.

Currently only four online operators have been granted licenses to offer their services to nationals, they are Fortuna Entertainment, Milenium, STS and Totolek. A timeframe for the new laws is not known but it is expected to be changed this year.