Colombia has been making huge leaps in the legalization of online gambling recently. Last year, Coljuegos – the Colombian gambling commission and main regulating body – began to finally issue licenses to allow various online casino operators to provide their services within the country. Since then, at least three different websites have launched .co domains in order to operate in Colombia, with a lot more on the way. With that said, their betting and casino services still remain limited compared to those of their European brethren, which is why Coljuegos has been moving forward with making further legalizations in order to give Colombian gamblers more freedom. Their latest development, which came into effect on November 14th, would allow for casinos to feature a live section.

Live casino is an extremely popular gambling activity which allows players to bet on real, physical, tangible casino games such as roulette and blackjack, which happen in a land-based casino (or at least on a set that’s designed to look like one). The games are broadcasted live through webcam, essentially streamed to the various gamblers, who are allowed to influence them and place bets on them. For example, in a game of live blackjack, you may place a bet and request the dealer to give you cards. As such, a real person curates your casino experience, just as they would in a real casino. Live casinos have been crazily popular in Europe not just because of the sense of tangibility and realism they offer, but also due to their variety and various themes and trends. In a typical online casino there will be multiple different rooms for each game with different limits, dealers/croupiers, spoken languages and even topics of discussion (it’s not too uncommon to see a room where the dealer chats with its players about politics or sports while dealing cards).

Colombia wanted a piece of the pie that Europe was having, which was the primary cause behind the legalization – to increase the liquidity of the country’s gambling scene. So far, licenses have been issued to allowed Colombians to enjoy live blackjack, roulette and, interestingly enough, baccarat. In addition, Colombian players who enjoy poker will also be able to play that live online, and internationally, too! According to the new laws and regulations put into place, they’ll be able to play against people from France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and other countries across the world that have agreed to share their liquidity when it comes to poker. In very simple terms, what that means is that Colombians can join various international rooms and, subsequently, win the price pools of other players, converted into pesos. While Colombia is still taking baby steps into the world of online gambling, things are looking more than promising for the time being, and it’ll certainly be exciting to see where things are headed next!

Gambling, much like smoking or drinking alcohol, has always been an industry squarely aimed at adults – you can’t participate in it unless you’ve got absolute proof that you are of legal age to engage in it, and if you find a way to subvert that, well, the casino’s not at fault at all! Still, despite all their claims that casino games are most certainly and without a doubt aimed at an adult demographic, the evidence against that is hard to overlook. Sure, traditional casino games like blackjack or roulette most likely won’t appeal to the overwhelming majority of children, and betting sites are typically far too complex for someone so young to successfully navigate, but what about slots? They’re pretty, colorful, have cute animal characters, and the overwhelming majority of them can (and probably will) be enjoyed by a very young audience. And worst of all, slots (unlike any other form of gambling) can often be played for free, without any sort of registration required. That, combined with their child-friendly appearance, could promote gambling to a young audience. Well, the Gambling Commission has noticed, and they’re having none of it.

Teaming up with the Advertising Standard Authority, UK’s Gambling Commission has officially issued an order for child-friendly slots to be removed from a large number of online casinos “effective immediately”. As many of you may be aware, the Gambling Commission’s word is basically law in the world of legal/licensed casinos, which is why many have begrudgingly began to remove many of the games which have been deemed to be aimed at children, such as NetEnt’s popular “Jack and the Beanstalk” slot. While many are upset by the sudden ruling, some casinos, such as William Hill, have embraced it as a way to win favor with Parliament, whose rulings (such as a ban on gambling-related advertisements) have grown increasingly more strict as cases of gambling addiction grow by the day. The newest ruling by the Gambling Commission has undoubtedly been made with nothing but the best of intention, but unfortunately, the murky wording of the order may give the Commission an excuse to pull practically any slot they like off any platform.

In the open later to online casinos, the Commission never specifies an exact list of slots that violate their policies. They ask casinos and slot developers to use their own judgment – to quote directly from the document, “if you are uncertain about whether an ad might appeal particularly to under-18s, CAP advises you to exercise caution and amend or withdraw the ad.” For reference, according to earlier context, “ad” refers to both advertisements using kid-friendly mascot characters and slots that offer “free play” without a registration. This is a problem because, with a few exceptions (like the Playboy slots), the overwhelming majority of online slots can be subjectively described as meant to appeal to children and removed without a fair trial. Admittedly, the Gambling Commission hasn’t taken any actions other than implore casinos to moderate themselves, but if this trend continues, the whole thing may very easily be used to censor content that, for one reason or another, is unappealing to either casinos or the Commission.

NYX Gaming Group, a specialist in online betting, announced an anti-trust lawsuit against William Hill following the former’s failed $630 million acquisition by Scientific Games Corp, a casino equipment and lottery services provider. According to the lawsuit, the acquisition failed due to deliberate attempts to block it by William Hill, which is a shareholder of NYX with a vested interest in the company. Back in September, Scientific Games announced that it would attempt to create a global digital gaming system, which is why they chose to acquire NYX and have them aid the company in that rather ambitious venture. Even at the time, NYX’s shareholders (which hold 17% of NYX’s fully diluted shares) voted in favor of the acquisition almost unanimously. The emphasis falling on “almost”.

William Hill was firmly opposed against the merger, claiming that NYX’s purchase of OpenBet back in 2016 made the whole deal a lot more complicated than it should have been. OpenBet used to belong to William Hill, but upon its purchase for $354.5 million William Hill gained a certain amount of stock in NYX. NYX’s acquisition by Scientific Games thus results in a conflict of interest, as far as William Hill claimed. Their intention was to stall the deal, demanding to look over the various legal documents associated with it and an agreement about how certain assets could be transferred or liquidated could be reached. In what can be interpreted as a power move, William Hill made those demands very public, putting a lot of pressure on both NYX and Scientific Games.

William Hill may have had good points – I’ll spare you the math, but at the end of the day, it turns out that they own over 30% of NYX’s shares, and should have a say in the matter. The only problem is that not only did the stalling essentially kill the merger in the womb, it was also extremely costly for both NYX and Scientific games, which is why the former chose to take William Hill to court, accusing the company of wrongful conduct in violation of the New Jersey Antitrust Act. As of this moment, NYX is suing William Hill for injunctive relief, treble damages and attorney’s fees, among other punitive damages, claiming that their interference with a deal that NYX believe didn’t concern them was too costly to just let slide. Before too long, a New Jersey Superior Court will hear the case and, eventually, issue a verdict, and depending on that outcome, the NYX-Scientific merger might still happen. Scientific in particular have already invested $30 million out of the $630 million deal, so they obviously have a vested interest in NYX winning the lawsuit and getting William Hill to back off. Regardless, both sides have valid points, and at this point only time will tell which one will come out on top.

The world of gambling used to be stagnant. For decades, perhaps even centuries, casinos operated the exact same way, offered more or less the exact same games and bookmakers allowed the exact same bets. Going to a casino was a static experience, never changing, evolving or drifting past the familiarity. Casinos grew bigger and more numerous in numbers, gambling laws globally came and went, and yet in 1995 you could go into a casino and place a bet on blackjack or roulette just as you could in 1895. And then, all of a sudden, everything changed in the late 90s, when online casinos started to pop up. Gambling had reached the digital age, and as we all know, the online space is anything but stagnant.

Honestly, it feels like there’s something new and different going on every hour, and that holds true for the Internet in general and for the casino industry in particular. Big company mergers, new and revolutionary casino features, interesting stories and little-known trade secrets, we keep hearing those around the world all the time. In the present day, we can’t go a day without hearing about some kind of big event that happened somewhere in the igaming world. It’s far too much to handle, and that’s why we’re here. We’re NNP, a casino news network that has set out to curate, explain and provide stories to you, bringing you the facts of the industry and the opinions of the gamblers all in one place, in 600 words or less. We’ll bring you everything we deem worthy of your time, from the important, industry-defying stuff to the curious, incidental and funny. And we won’t leave a corner of the igaming world unturned.