Author: Charles Shephardson

The prediction markets industry has exploded into mainstream finance, but its two biggest figures are engaged in a rivalry that has grown deeply personal. Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan and Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour have transformed what began as healthy competition into something resembling outright obsession, according to a New York Times investigation. The pair have traded public insults, competed for the same investors, sponsors and staff, and filed competing trademarks while cultivating the same political allies. Kalshi’s lawyers reportedly met federal prosecutors to raise concerns that Polymarket was continuing to serve US customers despite being barred from doing so. Polymarket…

Blask tracked casual casino games across 28 regulated markets over the last 30 days, ranking each genre by the number of distinct operator casino brands carrying a given title. The analysis also measured how many of the 28 countries each game reaches, giving a clear picture of lobby presence at scale. Results reveal which single games have won the widest distribution, and how quickly the competitive gap narrows once a genre fills with rivals. Aviator leads the entire dataset, not just the crash category, with its 748 brands topping every other casual title tracked in the study. Pragmatic Play holds…

Boyd Gaming has lifted its full-year online earnings guidance following stronger-than-expected growth from its Boyd Interactive business throughout the second quarter of 2026. The operator now expects its 2026 online EBITDAR to land between $35m and $40m, representing an upward revision of around $5m from previous guidance. Boyd reported total revenue of $1.03bn for the three months to 30 June, marginally ahead of the same period last year despite continued softness in its Las Vegas destination business. Growth across the Midwest and South operations, the online segment, and the managed business helped offset the weakness seen in Las Vegas during…

Las Vegas Sands has reaffirmed its long-term target of generating $700m in quarterly EBITDA from its Macau operations, even as the 2026 FIFA World Cup weighed on second-quarter results. The company posted net revenue of $3.15bn for the three months to 30 June 2026, representing a 0.7% decline compared to the same period last year. Casino revenue remained the dominant income source at $2.34bn, though that figure represented a 3.1% year-on-year drop that dragged overall results lower. Revenue from rooms, food and beverage, mall, and convention, retail and other activities all moved in the opposite direction, recording growth across the…

Australia’s 20 largest superannuation funds collectively hold at least A$14.8 billion in listed gambling-related companies, according to a newly published industry study. The Alliance for Gambling Reform commissioned the research, titled Bad Bets: How our superannuation companies are investing in gambling stocks, conducted by sustainability data firm SustainoMetric. The study examined direct equity holdings and responsible-investment policies across all 20 funds, identifying investments spread across 198 listed gambling-related companies. In total, the 20 funds held approximately A$1.18 trillion in listed equities, with gambling-related shares representing slightly more than 1% of that combined figure. AustralianSuper recorded the largest exposure at A$4.9…

Adrian Ford, general manager of Football DataCo, has taken a firm public stance against the scraping of official sports data, calling the practice equivalent to theft. Football DataCo is a jointly owned licensing arm established by the Premier League, the English Football League, and the Scottish Professional Football League to manage data and intellectual property rights. Ford made his comments speaking to NEXT.io, following a failed legislative attempt to make data piracy a criminal offence under UK law. Liberal Democrat peer Lord Foster tabled amendments to the Sporting Events Bill that would have criminalised the taking of sports data, but…

The UK government is moving to redirect financial penalties issued to gambling operators away from third-party recipients and into its own central accounts. The shift represents a significant change in how regulatory fines and penalties within the gambling sector are handled and distributed across the country. Previously, penalties handed down to operators by the Gambling Commission could be directed toward approved third-party organisations, including charities and research bodies. Under the new arrangements, those funds would instead flow directly into government coffers, giving ministers greater control over how the money is ultimately allocated. The change has been anticipated for some time,…

ONDISS has officially launched FIRST, a Tier-1 sportsbook technology provider, into the Argentine regulated online gaming market through City Center Online. City Center Online is one of the leading regulated .bet.ar operators in the region and a key strategic client of the ONDISS platform. The launch expands City Center Online’s entertainment offering by introducing a full online sports betting vertical, powered by FIRST’s internationally recognised sportsbook engine. This milestone follows the recent authorisation of online sports betting by the Santa Fe Lottery, the provincial regulatory body overseeing the region. City Center Online is now among the first .bet.ar operators to…

Germany’s gambling regulatory landscape continues to evolve as the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder, known as the GGL, advances plans for LUGAS expansion. LUGAS serves as a cross-operator player monitoring system designed to track gambling activity across licensed German operators in real time. The GGL has outlined ambitions to strengthen LUGAS as the lead evidence provider within Germany’s interstate gambling framework, marking a significant regulatory step. Germany’s Interstate Treaty on Gambling established the legal foundation for a unified licensing regime, with the GGL acting as the central supervisory authority across all participating states. LUGAS plays a critical role in that framework…

FIFA has confirmed that no match-fixing suspicions were identified at any point during the entirety of the 2026 World Cup tournament. The governing body for international association football deployed its sports integrity monitoring taskforce across all 104 games played during the competition. The taskforce operated at full capacity throughout the tournament, examining every match for signs of betting-related manipulation or suspicious activity. FIFA centralised the monitoring process by collecting betting reports and relevant data submitted by each of its taskforce member organisations. Large-scale coordination between multiple organisations allowed for a thorough and consistent review of betting patterns across the entire…