Each week, CasinoBeats breaks down the numbers behind some of the industry’s most interesting stories. In the second entrant of the year we feature a UK withdrawal, new legislation and a £200,000 B2C sale amid restructure.

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The advertisement of random number generator games is set to be heavily restricted as confirmed in the draft gambling regulations submitted by the Greek Ministry of Finance to the European Commission.

The draft legislation comes as the Ministry of Finance seeks to implement further controls on the gambling industry.

As confirmed in the legislation, Random number generator games will be subject to a maximum stake of €2, with the maximum profit per gaming session set to be limited to €5,000.

Jackpot games are also set to face further restrictions, with pay outs set to be limited to a maximum of €500,000.

The draft legislation also outlines limitations that will be placed on the advertisement of random number generator games, whereby the games can only be promoted on the sites where they can be played.

200,000

Nektan CEO Gary Shaw has remarked that the £200,000 sale of the firm’s UK B2C business to Grace Media “is very reassuring to all stakeholders involved,” as previously announced “significant restructuring” continues.

The sale to Grace Media, which forms part of the Active Win Group, follows the appointment Mark Phillips and Julie Swan of PCR London LLP as joint administrators of group subsidiary Nektan (Gibraltar) Limited, which subsequently led to the sale.

Nektan states for the year ended June 30, 2018, the UK B2C business generated turnover of £19.4m and was loss making, with the sum payable as an initial £50,000 and the remaining balance payable subject to the UK B2C business meeting a series of agreed KPIs. The sale proceeds will be used by the administrators in the course of running the administration of NGL.

Nektan also says that the sale will have no impact on the ongoing business of the company, with a B2B partnership entered alongside Active Win to facilitate continued, uninterrupted delivery of services to the UK B2C business.

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Online gambling operator LeoVegas is pulling its Royal Panda brand out of the UK market, with poor performance meaning that the entity no longer operating across the region from Friday 31 January, 2020.

Acquired by the group in October 2017 for €60m, with the company adding a further €60m in earn-out incentives, an enlarged strategic UK footprint was initially lauded.

“This gives us two great brands with global appeal, which makes the scalability in the continued growth strong while strengthening our position in the UK,” Gustaf Hagman, CEO and co-founder of LeoVegas, commented at the time.

The decision to withdraw the brand from the market follows a financial update issued by the group related to 2019’s third quarter, when Hagman said: “The UK is profitable at group level but remains challenging, where Royal Panda in particular had poorer performance during the quarter”.

2020

888 Holdings has entered 2020 “with good momentum across several regulated European markets,” as the group stressed confidence in achieving its EBITDA targets for 2019.

Boosted by continued progress during the second half of the year, particularly in December where revenue reached “an all-time monthly record,” the post close trading update, which did not contain specific figures, pertained to the year ending December 31, 2019.

888 comments that its performance in the past year has been underpinned by the continued success of the Orbit casino platform across a number of regulated markets, as well as further good revenue growth in sport.

Despite acknowledging the continuing challenge across the poker market, the firm did stress that it’s pleased by progress made in the first-phase roll-out of the new Poker 8 platform during H2 2019.

Furthermore, a number of new products as well as the rolling out the final-phase platform across the group’s poker markets is to follow during 2020.

Switching focus to specific jurisdictions, 888 reported a continued revenue increase in the UK, with Italy also said to be performing well during the year’s second half, driven by growth in casino.