Author: Andrew Fletcher

Speaking at an SMF Panel on machine games duty and social harms, Alex Ballinger, Labour MP for Halesowen, made a direct call for a new Gambling Act. Ballinger, who serves as co-chair of the APPG for Gambling Reform, said: “We would like to look in the medium term for a new Gambling Act to recognise the complete change that we’ve seen in the types of gambling, the new forms of online gambling and the like.” The MP appeared at the 30 June presentation to lend his support to the SMF’s new policy paper calling for a doubling of machine gaming…

The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has issued CA$120,000 in monetary penalties to Great Canadian Entertainment for serious software compliance failures. The regulator flagged 40 instances where revoked or unapproved bill validator software was installed across multiple Ontario casino sites between February and March 2025. Bill validators are standard components inside gaming machines that verify the authenticity and value of cash inserted into the terminal. These components also play a significant role in anti-money laundering controls embedded within gaming machines, making their integrity a regulatory priority. AGCO did not publicly disclose the specific locations where the unauthorised software had…

Entain’s Italian business could be the next asset on the chopping block following the operator’s recently announced sale of its CEE division, according to analysts at Rothschild & Co Redburn. The Ladbrokes and Coral operator recently confirmed a 20% initial sale of its CEE division, which includes its Polish STS and Croatian SuperSport brands, to local JV partner EMMA Capital for an initial £366m. The move follows significant Remote Gaming Duty and General Betting Duty hikes introduced in the November Budget, which reshaped the financial outlook for many UK-facing gaming operators. Analyst Andrew Tam at Rothschild & Co Redburn noted…

Edinburgh-based payments orchestration firm BR-DGE has secured £10m in fresh funding, with US gaming investor Bettor Capital joining the round as a new backer. The capital injection will support further development of BR-DGE’s platform, strengthen its go-to-market activity, and drive geographic expansion across new markets in H2 2026. Bettor Capital joins alongside BR-DGE’s existing investors, marking the US firm’s latest move into core gaming infrastructure. BR-DGE has grown its platform volumes 15-fold in less than two years, a trajectory the company expects to continue with monthly transactions topping 100 million by year end. The firm’s orchestration platform combines routing, tokenisation,…

Ian Bradley has been appointed co-CEO of FIRST.bet, joining forces with company founder Tom Light to lead the B2B sportsbook platform forward. Bradley stepped into the role earlier in June 2026 following his departure from DraftKings, where he served as senior vice president and managing director of the operator’s B2B segment. His tenure at DraftKings spanned more than six years, making him one of the longer-serving senior executives within the company’s B2B division. Before joining DraftKings, Bradley spent almost four years at SBTech, holding senior positions including chief strategy officer and chief product officer. Earlier in his career, he accumulated…

Fanatics, the US sports merchandising and betting giant, has entered the UAE market through a joint venture agreement with local licence holder Momentum Group. Momentum has dominated the UAE’s emerging gaming market since it was awarded a lottery licence back in 2024, giving it a significant head start over potential rivals. The move follows Fanatics’ broader regional expansion strategy, which earlier in 2026 saw the company announce plans to build a new office in Qatar to serve as its Middle East hub. Sheikh Jassim bin Mansour bin Jabor Al Thani, director of the government communications office in Qatar, welcomed that…

The Social Market Foundation (SMF), an influential UK thinktank, is set to release a report calling for a 40% Machine Games Duty on Category B gaming machines. The proposal would double the existing tax rate on Category B machines from 20% to 40%, targeting devices that include Fixed Odds Betting Terminals with a £2 maximum stake and £500 top prize. The SMF has previously influenced UK gambling tax policy, having helped convince the Government to hike online casino and sports betting taxes in the 2025 Budget alongside the Institute for Public Policy Research. The thinktank claims the proposed duty increase…

Denmark’s gambling market posted a deceptively stable performance in 2025, with its overall gross gaming revenue masking a sharp divergence between verticals. The online casino sector grew by more than 12% year-on-year, rising from 3.8bn DKK to 4.3bn DKK, making it a significant outlier in an otherwise contracting market. Lottery, sports betting, slot machines and land-based casinos all recorded falls, though the losses were broadly offset by online casino’s gains. The country’s total GGR came in at just under 11.5bn DKK, representing a decline of less than 1% compared to the previous year. Perhaps most notably, 2025 marked the first…

RedCore CHRO Oksana Izmailova has shared her predictions for the future of the global job market in a candid and wide-ranging interview with NEXT.io. The conversation, the second part of a longer interview series, covers RedCore’s competitive hiring strategy and what trends professionals should expect in the years ahead. Izmailova was asked why candidates consistently chose RedCore during periods when talent had the upper hand, and what has kept them there long term. “Because we never tried to compete on money alone,” she explained, noting that while RedCore offers a strong compensation package, salary alone would not explain its retention…

Stakelogic has been ordered to pay £122,835 following a Gambling Commission investigation into the speed of its online slot games available in Britain. UK-licensed companies are required to maintain a minimum gap of 2.5 seconds between spins on all online slot games offered to British players. The Commission first became aware of the issue when Stakelogic’s ‘Tiger Temple 88’ game was found to have a spin cycle of just 1.97 seconds, falling well short of the required standard. Regulators then undertook a broader investigation, re-testing Stakelogic’s entire games portfolio to determine whether the problem extended beyond a single title. That…