Something Very Strange Happened At The Gibraltar Vs Liechtenstein Game Last Night

For a lot of football fans international friendlies are more trouble than they’re worth. They are cited as meaningless and present a disruption to the flow of a league season – or, more importantly, people’s Fantasy Football teams.

One of last night’s fixtures saw two revered titans of the game square off: Gibraltar and Liechtenstein. The former have only been playing competitively for under two and half years and immediately became European football’s new whipping boys alongside the likes of San Marino and Andorra.

The latter – officially a Principality – have fared a little better in their 34-year lifespan, despite receiving their record defeat at the hands of the mighty Macedonia: an 11-1 drubbing in November 1996.

It’s fair to say that nobody expected a game for the ages when the two sides met at Gibraltar’s Victoria Stadium, and… well, they were right.

They huffed and puffed along to a 0-0 finish but despite the lack of anything even approaching goalmouth action, the match definitely provided its fair share of notably bizarre incidents.

If you’d been relying on the BBC or the Guardian’s live score updates for this blockbuster clash, you’d have been forgiven for thinking that it hadn’t taken place at all.

Indeed, The BBC failed to update the game’s status from kick-off…

While every other game received a full-time score, the Gibraltar match still registered as not even having started.

The Guardian went one step further and didn’t even list the game at all…

The weirdness didn’t end there. Liechtenstein had three goals ruled out by Welsh referee Ryan Stewart, one of them a free kick which was chalked off with no apparent infringement occurring.

#Liechtenstein free-kick takes a deflection and finds its way into the back of the net but is bizarrely ruled out. pic.twitter.com/JL3c2ecMzQ

— FootballGib SC (@FGScoreCentre) 23 March 2016

Twitter user @aidan_2807 stated that after the three goals had been disallowed, a Gibraltar player walked off the pitch to be replaced only to high five the referee on his way to the dugout.

3 goals have been disallowed in the Gibraltar game an a Gibraltar player just got subbed and high fived the ref on the way off haha #fixed

— aidan (@aidan_2807) 23 March 2016

Other Tweeters soon began peddling a couple of choice conspiracy theories, the main one of which revolved around the amounts of money put on a seemingly innocuous game.

One user even tweeted UEFA, demanding Ryan Stewart be investigated for a game that he felt was “obviously fixed”.

£421,000 matched on betfair for Gibraltar v Liechtenstein. Three goals disallowed apparently. Who bet on a draw? #justsaying

— alexis zorba (@teletext_alex) 23 March 2016

@UEFA @FootyAccums you need to investigate this referee Ryan Stewart. The Gibraltar game was so obviously fixed! pic.twitter.com/Wwl7OGoj15

— Rich (@GamblerRich99) 23 March 2016

Let us be very clear here. We are in no way accusing anybody involved in the game or at any other level of being involved in anything irregular or illegal.

Instead, we are simply presenting both facts and opinions surrounding events on the field and pointing out that some of the goings-on were a bit on the odd side.

It’s certainly a strange case though, and one that looks to have dipped under word football’s radar.

Australian in-play betting ban set to remain in place until federal election - reports

The Australian government could be set to extend the ban on in-play betting on live sports until at least the next federal election.

According to reports in the Australian media, punters in the country wishing to place in-play wagers on live sports events will only have the option of betting with illegal offshore operators until the election, which could take place as late as January 2017.

In-play betting remains a subject of major debate in the country, with licensed operators pushing for the government to legalise such activities, while other parties and organisations have called for the current ban to remain in place.

Last month, Peter McGuaran, chief executive of Racing Australia, called for the government to introduce a blanket ban on all in-play sports betting.

However, major brands such s Ladbrokes, William Hill and Sportsbet have all spoken out in support of a regulated in-play betting system.

Reports that the ban is likely to remain come after the conclusion of a government-commissioned investigation into replacing the current Interactive Gambling Act 2001.

Major gambling operators, sporting bodies and integrity groups told the inquiry that there is no evidence to support a supposed link between in-play betting and the manipulation of sporting events.

Italian prosecutor wants top tennis players investigated for match-fixing

An Italian prosecutor has called for more than two dozen top tennis players to be investigated by the Tennis Integrity Unit for possible links to betting rings.

Roberto Di Martino has told the BBC that tennis authorities should be doing more with evidence he has gathered concerning at least two players who have ranked in the world’s top 20.

The Italians Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali are the only professionals to be investigated and charged thus far but Di Martino has called for others to be scrutinised by the TIU.

Speaking to the BBC the Cremona-based prosecutor said: “Surely if these foreign players were Italian, they would certainly have been at least questioned.”

Di Martino claimed that more than 24 non-Italian players had been mentioned by gamblers in recordings of phone calls and internet chat logs acquired through his investigation.

“Interestingly, they are not so-called second-tier tennis players, but also players of some importance,” he said.

Starace and Bracciali have been accused of conspiring to fix matches and are due to appear in court in May. They both deny charges of conspiracy to commit sporting fraud.

Virginia legalises fantasy sports

The bill, called the Fantasy Contests Act, is the first of its kind in the US and outlines how sites like FanDuel and DraftKings can operate legally in the state of Virginia. It was signed by governor Terry McAuliffe, who put the state's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service in charge of overseeing the industry.

The Fantasy Sports Act states that, alongside undergoing two independent audits every year, fantasy sport sites must pay a $50,000 fee to operate. All players must be 18 years or older and employees of fantasy sports sites are prohibited from participating in public contests.

Griffin Finan, director of public affairs for DraftKings, said: “We thank governor McAuliffe for his leadership and advocacy and are hopeful that other states across the country will follow Virginia’s lead. We will continue to work actively to replicate this success with dozens of legislatures and are excited to continue these efforts.”

World Match expands presence in Italy with GoldBet

World Match announces that has further increased its market share in Italy having signed a business deal with Goldbet. Under the agreement World Match’s games will go live on Goldbet.it.

World Match GoldBetOn its side, the Italian portal of online gaming enlarges its game offerings that now features as many as 117 casino games, in addition to the Poker platform and the brand new Bingo.

To date World Match boasts all the biggest Italian operators as its customers: a great success resulted from the ability to finalise a game engine that fully satisfies the habits and preferences of the Italian players. All World Match’s games are equipped with captivating in-play animations, hi-quality sound effects and great special features.

Moreover, Goldbet is going to activate the Network Jackpot, a Jackpot that is connected to different online casino operators, offering the same win amount. Hence the players contribute to the increase of the same Jackpot that can be won while playing in any of the partaking casinos.

The wide selection and the configuration flexibility of jackpots is one of World Match’s best selling points. In addition to the Network Jackpot, operators can choose among Fixed Jackpot with a fixed win amount, Progressive Jackpot with an increasing win amount, Fixed + Progressive and more.

Andrea Boratto, World Match, Executive Director, commented: “We are very pleased with our games going live on Goldbet, because it is one of the top IT operators and because this partnership reaffirms the trust in our company and products.”

Former Bwin execs face bribery charges

Several reports in Europe are naming both bwin founders Manfred Bodner and Norbert Teufelberger in potential forthcoming charges by prosecutors in Austria for bribery regarding a 2007 application for a sports betting license in Turkey.

According to reports both men while working for bwin are guilty of paying a €2.25 million incentive in order to bribe Turkish officials.

Bodner and Teufelberger are set to face charges imposed by Austrian law courts with regards to bribery, corruption, money laundering and breach of trust attached to national business standards.

TREND an Austrian news source is saying that charges relate to Bwin’s attempts to gain a Turkish sports betting license in 2007. The company is reported to have hired several lobbyist to help with its application.

The license in question was granted at the time but then revoked by the Turkish government and the €2.25 million payment was written off by Bwin.

Legal representatives of Bodner and Teufelberger have moved to dismiss the charges, stating that the allegations were “without merit”. Both of the execs were “fully confident” that the courts would side with them “in due course.”

Novomatic & Sazka Group partner up for Casinos Austria

Novomatic and Sazka Group, both privately-held firms, will pool their respective – already acquired or to be acquired – shares in Casinos Austria AG and Austrian Lotteries. Novomatic and Sazka will then create a joint-venture company.

“Subject to approvals from anti-trust and supervisory authorities being given, the two companies intend to establish a joint-venture company, where their shares in Casinos Austria will be joined together, to establish an evenly levelled partnership and pool the existing know-how in the best possible way for the future development of Casinos Austria,” Novomatic stated in a Friday release.

The deal also aims to solve existing legal disputes related to the shareholding structure of partially state-owned Casinos Austria, the announcement added.

It is unclear the total shares the combined partnership has in Casinos Austria as it was not mentioned in the statement.

This is “the first essential step towards providing a clear shareholding structure to Casinos Austria and making the company fit in the long term for the future challenges of the domestic and global markets,” Novomatic’s chief executive Harald Neumann said in a statement.

Casinos Austria owns 12 casinos in Austria as well as lottery business Austrian Lotteries. It controls Casinos Austria International Ltd, with investments in several casinos and other gaming-related businesses internationally.

Playtech unit Markets.com sees mass layoffs in restructuring of sales, retention and customer service operations

Retail Forex and CFD broker Markets.com, a unit of Playtech PLC (LON:PTEC), has issued pink slips to a large number of its sales, retention and customer service employees in both Israel and Bulgaria, as part of a major restructuring. More than a hundred employees in Israel, and several dozen in Sofia, Bulgaria have been affected.

The move affects many of the employees of TradeFXL, the Playtech unit which served the group’s online brokerage brands including Markets.com and binary options broker TopOption.

Apparently many top-level decisions at Markets.com are being made nowadays by Playtech management. One of those decisions was to automate the operations of Markets.com and the group’s other online trading brands. And, to remove incentive compensation (i.e. commissions) for most of those employees who remained.

The layoffs and departures have occurred in stages since last October, but apparently accelerated over the past few weeks since the company’s planned acquisitions of rivals AvaTrade and Plus500 were called off (more on that below).

Apparently a large number of sales and retention staff were summarily laid off, while another group was offered to stay but on new terms – fixed salaries instead of salary-plus-commission. Not surprisingly, many of that second group of employees have also left, especially the higher-performing sales people who could no longer earn large commissions.

The move to automate is not a new one in the industry, but seems to be a big gamble at a broker such as Markets.com, which as far as we can tell was performing very well of late before implementing the changes.

The reasons behind the move?

Other than the obvious benefits of automation (less people to manage, lower costs), a major driver was avoiding future potential regulatory problems.

Apparently the new bosses at Playtech were concerned with all the telephone contact commission-hungry sales and retention people were having with clients – a feature at many Forex brokers – and made a strategic decision to automate (virtually) all sales and retention operations, and eliminate commissions.

Internally, the company has been referring to operating ‘more like a bank’, meaning a more conservative approach to the business.

Playtech Plus500 deal cancelledThe restructuring is in part an outcome of Playtech’s inability to close on the acquisition of rival Plus500 Ltd (LON:PLUS), and adopt Plus500’s ‘automated’ approach to customer acquisition and retention. Playtech had offered to buy Plus500 mid last year for $700 million. The deal was approved by the boards and shareholders of both companies, but was cancelled in November after the UK financial regulator The FCA indicated that it was not going to approve the transaction.

As we wrote at the time, beyond pure growth and the desire of Playtech’s controlling shareholder Teddy Sagi to build Markets.com into the world’s leading retail FX broker, the key behind the planned deal was acquiring Plus500’s technology and processes. Plus500 has grown to be one of the world’s largest retail Forex and CFD brokers (2015 revenues of $276 million) with a bare minimum of staff, focusing its efforts on onboarding and serving clients in as automated a way as possible.

Without Plus500, Markets.com is instead going it alone in trying to automate a lot of internal processes and operations. And that means a lot fewer employees.

As we wrote above, most affected are employees at Markets.com / TradeFXL in the company’s Tel Aviv, Israel offices. The company is also shutting down its operations in Bulgaria, engaged mainly in customer service and documentation processing, shifting some of those jobs to Cyprus where Markets.com operating company Safecap is based.

Markets.com parent company Playtech is set to release Full Year 2015 results tomorrow, Thursday, February 25. We would expect the announcement will include some mention of the restructuring at Markets.com.

We have seen automating broker operations becoming a key competitive point lately among leading platform providers as well, such as at Leverate and SpotOption with its Spot+ system.

Paddy Power Betfair selects SafeCharge’s Personalised Cashier

The largest Internet betting exchange; Paddy Power Betfair selected SafeCharge to provide a comprehensive technology based solution for alternative payment method deposits and withdrawals.

SafeCharge today announced that Paddy Power Betfair, provider of a full range of sports betting and gaming products and one of the largest online gaming operators in the world has selected SafeCharge’s Personalised Cashier to facilitate the checkout journey of its players globally. SafeCharge’s Personalised Cashier is a unique technology-based solution for deposits, withdrawals and diverse alternative payment methods that optimises all aspects of the payment funnel.

The solution includes multiple approaches to assist players at home or on the go complete their deposits simpler and faster. For winnings the solution allows for a fully transparent initiation and management of withdrawal requests.

Stephen Moffat, Head of Payments, Paddy Power Betfair stated:

“We selected SafeCharge due to their proven and extensive experience in the online gaming industry and the superiority of their technology. They were able to provide us with a simple integration, a superior front-end Cashier solution and a quick and easy method to add multiple alternative payment methods.”

David Avgi, CEO, SafeCharge commented:

“We are proud to be selected by Paddy Power Betfair to facilitate the globalisation and diversification of their online payments which demonstrates their trust in the robustness, feature richness and the absolute availability of our services. Both Paddy Power Betfair and SafeCharge management teams are committed to achieve the vision of a more secure and effective journey for players during the sensitive processes of deposit and withdrawal.”

Macau Legend breaks ground on casino in Cape Verde

Macau Legend Development has begun construction of a US$ 272m casino complex in Praia, capital of the picturesque islands of Cape Verde. Local government seeks to increase the number of tourists visiting the country from 600,000 per year to more than 2 million and believes the new resort will help boost tourism figures.

Cape Verde PraiaThe island located in Western Africa is set to feature a 152,700 square-meter integrated resort and casino along with facilities such as function areas, a marina, a convention center, retail outlets, and an array of restaurants once the complex is complete. The entire task is thought to take up to three years to complete.

David Chow, Macau Legend Co-Chariman, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, laid the first stone during a ceremony to start the construction process. Chow spoke highly of Cape Verde and explained why his company has chosen this location to invest.

“Cape Verde is a Portuguese-speaking country that enjoys political stability, beautiful scenery and pleasant climate with convenient transportation network,” Chow said. “Tourism is the country’s core industry. In 2014, the tourism industry accounted for 22pc of its local GDP and is growing steadily. Cape Verde currently has four international airports; the largest one is in the capital city, Praia, which is also where our project is located.

First casino was built in the island in May 2013, when new gaming laws came into force that allowed casinos to be built on the islands of Boa Vista, Maoi, Sal, Santiago, and Sao Vicente. A US$ 5,45m Casino Royal opened on the premises of the Hilton in Santa Maria on Sal island.

This new complex is set to receive 15 years of tax relief and concessions, and a deal struck gives Macau Legend exclusive nationwide rights to online gaming, online sports betting, and physical sports betting for 10 years.

Chow believes that thank to its location the project will be able to attract tourists from North Africa, West Africa, Europe, South America, Central America and the Caribbean, creating a new market.

“Especially with the trend that more and more Chinese are emigrating and investing in these places and this saves them from flying long to Asia,” added Chow. “The project is also a first choice for short-term vacation, which will be comparable with Bali and Phuket and other world class tourist destinations.”