Latest News of the Gambling Sphere: Gambling Markets in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Italy

What specialists have been included to the Expert Council that will work under the Ukrainian gambling regulator? What will be the features of a bot developed by Facebook that can play poker? What income did Italian online gambling operators receive in November 2020 and how much did the volume of gambling services grow in Kazakhstan? Read more about these and other news from the gambling market in our weekly digest.

The Expert Council at the Commission for regulation of gambling activities and lotteries

Meeting of the collegial body responsible for the regulation of gambling activities in Ukraine introduced the team of the Expert Council at the Commission. It includes lawyers Alina Plyushch, Andriy Astapov, Tetiana Tyshchenko and political scientist Anton Kuchukhidze. Borys Baum, freelance advisor to the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine was elected as the first deputy Head of the Council.

The Commission also approved the following draft decisions: On the approval of the requirements to public system of online monitoring and the approval of the procedure for the formation and maintenance of registers in the sphere of organizing and conducting gambling activities.

Earlier in the UGW Insider podcast, Borys Baum talked about the functions of Expert Council working under the regulatory commission. Read more details here >>>

State language servicing for customers of gambling venues in Ukraine

According to the law "On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" dd. January 16, 2021, all service providers, regardless of their form of ownership, will have to serve customers in Ukrainian. This requirement will also be applicable to the representatives of the gambling business who will conduct their activities in the country.

The law on the legalization of gambling activities adopted in the summer of 2020 already stated that the official language should contain the rules of gambling activities organizer, requirements for attending gambling venues and conducting activities, as well as informational materials with age limitation for customers, the chances of winning, the principles of responsible gambling and places offering help in fighting gambling addiction.

Facebook launches a bot that can play poker

According to LoginCasino online portal, Facebook has developed a ReBeL bot that can participate in games with incomplete information – that includes poker. The system is powered by artificial intelligence. It demonstrated a high level of heads-up play in unlimited Texas hold'em. Thus, compared to other poker bots, it uses less knowledge in the subject area.

ReBeL analyzes information about the game, such as known cards and bet amounts. When making any decisions, it takes into account how its opponents can assess their own position in a particular game.

Professional poker players including Greg Merson, Darren Elias, Chris Ferguson played against ReBeL during the tests. Ferguson admitted that the bot was a difficult opponent.

The volume of services in the field of gambling doubled in Kazakhstan

During first nine months of 2020, the volume of services provided in the field of gambling and betting amounted to 19.2 bn tenge, which is 9.7 bn tenge more than within the same period of 2019. In general, the indicators recorded for the first three quarters of the year turned out to be the highest within the last five years. This was reported by ranking.kz project.

In terms of the volume of services in the gambling industry, leading regions in the country were Almaty and Akmola, as well as Nur-Sultan.

At the same time, by the end of 2019, the number of companies operating in the gambling industry decreased in Kazakhstan. In particular, as of the beginning of 2020, there were 94 gambling organizations in the country, which is 10 less than in the previous year.

Italian online gambling operators calculate income for November 2020

According to AAMS gambling regulator, the total revenue of licensed online gambling operators providing their services on the Italian market in November 2020 amounted to €123.6 mn, which is 16.2% higher than in October. And compared to the same period last year, the growth comprised 42.2%.

In November, gamblers placed bets totaling to €3.35 bn on the websites of Italian operators. During the period under review, local online casinos paid out €3.23 bn to players.

According to November results, Reel Italy Ltd, Sisal Entertainment and Lottomatica became the leading operators on the Italian online gambling market.

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