GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 40- February 2018

tournament in 2018. It could be a very geopolitical tournament, given that it is being held in Russia, but gambling op- erators will still be hanging a lot of their marketing efforts on it in the first half of the year. GIULIO CORAGGIO Head of Global Gambling at law firm DLA Piper New licenses, new markets: The age of the .com when a single license allowed you to offer games worldwide is gone in most countries. A local license is being required in an increasing number of countries, and a European harmoniza- tion of gambling regulations seems still far away. The good news is that more and more licenses are becoming available, with Spain having just launched the tender and hopefully Italy soon to follow. The challenge will be to pick the right coun- tries to enter into and the right timing. An early entrance might be costly, but provide a head start for when regulations will become more attractive. Mutual recognition of online licenses after online poker sharing liquidity: Online poker sharing liquidity is now in place, at least in France where the first sharing liquidity license was awarded. The arrangement still needs to be implement- ed in countries like Italy where it faced some political objections. However, the strong harmonization across the European Union of sectors like anti-money-launder- ing and data protection should push at least for the expansion of sharing liquidity to other games like casino for cumulative jackpots and bingo and to the mutual recognition of technical requirements so that operators will not need to get the same platform approved in each country. Operators to speed up technological devel- opment to survive: The gaming industry has been tradi- tionally slow to change. But the growth of the Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence, block- chain, etc., is expected to shuffle the market. Entities from other markets might dominate the gaming market in the coming years. Operators and suppliers have no option other than to change, and do it quickly! COVER STORY Several gambling operators and affiliates were pleased to see the end of 2017 . But it is inevitable that the themes of regulation and compliance will continue in the key European markets in 2018 . LUKE SPACEY Affiliate Manager at AffAlliance My prediction would be that 2018 will be a year of crypto-friendly casinos. 2017 brought a lot of hype to bitcoin due to the crazy exchange rate rollercoaster, and as a result, more and more people started researching the topic. I think there might be a game-changing blockchain solution that will sparkle next year and bring changes to the industry. Also I think that some countries where gaming for bitcoin is popular will consider regulating it, which eventually will lead to bitcoin recognition and exchange rate stabilization. SWEETBET GPWA Private Member There will be an increase in the number of casinos that accept bitcoin and possibly other cryptocurrencies. The growing number of online casinos and sponsor programs will result in an even more competitive industry. This will lead to revised terms and conditions, payment structures and more activity quotas as sponsors do their best to survive. The quality of gambling sites will significantly improve as Google’s ranking demands increase, giving preference to informative, fast-loading, mobile-ready, secure sites. W W W . G P W A T I M E S . O R G 40