The state-owned Israel Sports Betting Board (ISBB), monopoly operator of the Winner Toto betting product in the Middle East nation, has tapped LVS Ltd. and Lotsys SAS – two subsidiaries of state-owned French retail sports betting monopoly Française des Jeux (FDJ) – to handle ISBB’s online sports betting needs. The contract, which followed an international tender issued in April 2011, is for a 10-year term beginning July 26, 2012, with an option to extend the relationship to cover ISBB’s retail betting channels. LVS will bring its Advanced Betting Platform to the party, while Lotsys brings its vast lottery and gaming terminal know-how. ISBB CEO Itshak Lary called the combination “a state of the art, robust, scalable and service oriented solution” that will “attract new punters by enlarging their options and offers.”
Belgium has awarded the last of its planned 34 land-based sports betting F1 licenses, with the lucky recipients being Tipico, Ladbrokes, Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), Mybet, Circus Leisure, Casino de Spa and Pas.co BVBA. Only these 34 operators will be eligible to apply for the F1+ online sports betting licenses, and only a lucky 10 (approximately) can expect to be granted such an honor. (Belgium Gaming Commission spokesman Peter Naessens told eGamingReview that 10 is about all the market can bear.) Four F1+ licenses have already been granted to Unibet, Bingoal, Vincennes and La Dernière Heure (via Betfirst.be), leaving only six or so remaining openings.
Not likely to be among those lucky six are Bwin.party, which remains firmly ensconced in the BGC’s bad books. In June, the Court of First Instance in Brussels rejected Bwin.party’s bid to have its name removed from the BGC blacklist of unlicensed operators, but Bwin.party has since undertaken a fresh legal challenge at the Administrative Court of Belgium, although the specific arguments underpinning this ‘once more unto the breach’ effort haven’t been made public.
Meanwhile, the BGC has added another 10 domains to its blacklist, including betfred.com and www2.williamhill.com – the second Hills site to be branded with Belgium’s scarlet letter. It’s not clear whether Hills engaged in the same customer redirect tactics that Bwin employed when its .com site was initially banned. The BGC blacklist now contains 45 names, and the target for year’s end is an even 100. The other domains blacklisted this week are: bingocams.com, 32redbingo.com, zeturf.com, winpalace.com, bidyes.com, gimigames.com, rivapoker.com and stargames.com.
