iGaming News

Replying to Fred Done's forecast of 495 Betfred closures, Kenny told the Financial Times he used "the same script" himself when he represented bookmakers. He wants machines and online slots taxed harder than bets on sport.

Long-term unemployed Universal Credit claimants would receive a cut-rate allowance on a prepaid card that cannot be used for betting, alcohol, cigarettes or cash withdrawals. The opposition's plan puts betting on the same list as tobacco and alcohol.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has told its staff to question DraftKings over the New York Times investigation and to survey how every licensed sportsbook uses AI and machine learning. It has not found wrongdoing, and any rule-making would come later.

Applications to Finland's National Police Board have risen by half since June, beating researchers' estimates, but processing now takes six to eight months and the market opens on 1 July 2027. The first licences will decide who can advertise to Finns first.

Early this month the chief commissioner told MPs the licence could come back in September. Instead the manager's term has been extended to June 2027, with the NICC citing "serious" new allegations about governance, leadership and culture.

New York's attorney general has filed a second state-court case against a prediction market, this time against Polymarket's US exchange, alleging an unlicensed gambling business open to 18-year-olds. The relief sought mirrors the Kalshi suit that drew the federal regulator into the fight in August.

Coljuegos, Colombia's gambling regulator, collected COP 977.2 billion for the subsidised health system in the first eight months of 2026. Online sports betting, up 84% on the World Cup, did most of the work.

Chile's telecoms undersecretariat has sent internet providers a second list of betting sites to block within 48 hours, mostly new domains and mirrors of international betting brands. The industry group representing the operators says some of the domains go beyond what the courts ordered.

Pennsylvania's gaming regulator approved two consent agreements over paperwork failures, one against a casino group that was the subject of a takeover bid until yesterday. It also added ten people to its exclusion lists, including a gambler who left a five-year-old alone in a casino garage.

A legislative audit says the Montana Lottery, the Department of Administration and the governor's office would not let auditors review emails about how the lottery handled its biggest vendor. When the contract was finally put out to tender, the incumbent's rate fell from 8% to 5.05%.

Brazil's president told a campaign rally that he will "end the bets", and a provisional measure is reported to be due on Friday. Licensed operators have started notifying football clubs that shirt deals worth more than R$1 billion could be terminated, while the government is still choosing between a full ban and an online-casino ban.

A Republican senator who co-sponsored a bill to classify sports event contracts as gambling wants the Senate Judiciary Committee to question Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden about trading on their fathers' office. Trump Jr.'s ties to Kalshi and Polymarket are one line in the case, and the committee's chairman is in no hurry.

Seven horseplayers say computer-assisted wagering has turned American pari-mutuel pools into an illegal gambling operation. The tracks and tote companies say the bettors cannot point to a single wager the syndicates affected, and a hearing is reported for 9 October.

Online casino carried Ontario again in August, with revenue up 25.6% on a year earlier, while sports betting revenue fell 9.6% year on year and 30% month on month on a weaker hold. Active accounts dropped 11% in a month.

Slovakia's gambling regulator says some internet and mobile providers are "systematically" dodging their duty to block its list of more than 1,000 illegal sites by pleading technical obstacles. It is already dealing with a case against a major mobile operator.

The 90-day suspension imposed in December 2022 was due to take effect on 30 September. Queensland has pushed it back a sixth time, citing "significant progress" but unfinished remediation, and kept the special manager in place until the end of March.

The government wants to stop licensed operators taking bets on Powerball draws now that the US game is sold as a National Lottery product. It is the EuroMillions ban of 2018 again, and the consultation runs until 4 November.

The Curaçao Gaming Authority now says the intruder in its licensing portal came in through an ordinary applicant account registered under a false identity in December 2025, and stayed until September. It also defended its licensing checks, in wording that appears to accept some questions were still open when licences were granted.

Korean casino operators can now borrow from the state tourism fund to build or expand, not just to cover running costs. The loans arrive as the government moves to raise the casino levy ceiling by half and make licences renewable every five years, and the industry is asking whether the carrot comes before the stick.

The Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission says Tabcorp ran its betting accounts for almost five months without the multi-factor authentication its licence required, while attackers drained customer accounts. The regulator also rejected Tabcorp's argument that the rules never required MFA at all.

North Carolina's regulator has fined two operators over self-reported failures: Underdog let 38 under-21s open sportsbook accounts, and bet365 sent a push notification to people on the state's self-exclusion list. Underdog left the market in December, which makes its fine a bill for a business that no longer operates there.

People Inc. has walked away from its June proposal to take MGM Resorts private, and MGM shares fell 8.6% after hours to $34.61, far below the $48.30 that was on the table. Diller keeps his roughly 27% stake and says he is still open to "a range of alternatives".

Tim Miller, a senior figure at the Gambling Commission for about a decade, has set up an advisory firm aimed at governments and regulators rather than operators, starting in North America. He says it will not be "just another compliance consultancy", and has already said what he thinks does not work: blanket prohibitions and ever-higher taxes.

The Conservative leader told The Sun that Labour is in a "tax doom loop" and that the operators who follow the rules will be the ones to close. Her intervention lands five weeks before a Budget in which the Treasury is reported to be modelling a doubling of Machine Games Duty, and as the Betting and Gaming Council puts the cost at up to 16,000 jobs.