Online gambling software and platform provider Playtech has announced the release of its entire live casino game portfolio for mobile devices. The live casino product will be available on all mobile devices via the simultaneous release of iOS, Android and HTML5 apps. Aviv Nankin, Playtech’s live gaming overseer, said the release would offer Playtech licensees “additional ways to attract and retain players,” giving them “a strong competitive advantage” over their online rivals.
While Playtech is adding options for its licensees, it’s reducing them for gamblers in Canada. Following news that Playtech’s primary affiliate program Euro Partners would be withdrawing from markets in Finland and the Netherlands, Canada has been put on notice that it’s also on Euro Partners’ ‘Dear John’ list. On Monday, Euro Partners announced that it would no longer be providing marketing services for its brands in Canada or accepting any further traffic from the Great White North. Players on these sites – including Titanbet, Playtech’s sports betting operation – have been given until December 22 to withdraw their account balances.
The company issued no reason behind their decision, but a thread on the Gambling Portal Webmasters Association (GPWA) forum offered a clue. When a forum member responded to Euro Partners’ announcement by suggesting the company would soon be pulling out of the UK, a Euro Partners rep clarified that the company had no plans to exit the UK as “this is a regulated market.”
Playtech may be attempting to diminish its presence in grey markets like Canada in order to boost its chances of being considered ‘clean’ enough to enter the fledgling US online gambling market, which CEO Mor Weizer insists “remains an opportunity” despite the company having sold off its stake in US-facing online horse wagering operator Sportech in June. However, Playtech’s grey- and black-market operations in Asia now account for 25% of its revenue, a slice of illicit pie that is too lucrative to give up and too big to hide.
Further evidence of housecleaning apparently intended to impress US regulators is on display at Playtech’s struggling iPoker network, including the removal of any reference to US currency, with tables and tournaments converted to doing business in euros by mid-January. In December, iPoker will also eliminate great swathes of high-stakes tables, or as the iPoker announcement described it, “several of the unpopular and less cost-effective stakes currently offered.” As of Dec. 9, the largest NLHE heads-up stakes will be 5/10, with six-max topping out at 50/100 and full ring at 200/400. All full-ring fixed-limit tables will be eliminated effective Dec. 2.
