
Playtech is delighted with its $105 million acquisition of CDF trading business AvaTrade.
Online gambling software giant Playtech has announced that it’ll acquire the platform that is currency-trading for $105 million.
The move is the latest in a string of online trading business acquisitions by Playtech as it seeks to diversify its offering beyond its casino, recreations betting and poker operations, at a time when the online gambling industry is coming under stricter regulatory and burden that is fiscal.
In February, Playtech bought Plus500 for £460 million ($718 million).
Plus500, like AvaTrade, in a ‘contract-for-difference’ (CFD) broker that allows customers to speculate on markets and trade on motions of a selling price without owning those assets.
In April this year, Playtech acquired TradeFX, a trading platform and payment solutions provider, for €208 million ($230 million).
Two Million Trades per Month
Founded in 2006, AvaTrade has 20,000 registered customers who execute significantly more than two million trades per month. The business’s total trading volumes surpass $60 billion per according to its website month.
‘The Ava Group is just a well-recognized and established online CFD broker with multiple regulatory licenses and a customer that is strong with insignificant geographical overlap utilizing the TradeFX Group,’ said Mor Weizer, CEO of Playtech. ‘We are very excited concerning the opportunities for the Group arising from the mixture of the Trade FX Group and the Ava Group which we are confident will deliver long term value for Shareholders.’
‘The acquisition of the Ava Group is another milestone that is important Playtech’s technique to expand and enhance its overall technology offering through numerous vertical areas,’ he added. ‘Since the current acquisition that is earnings-enhancing of and also the creation of our financials division we have looked for further possibilities to broaden our reach into this vertical.’
Optimal Strategy
Meanwhile, Optimal Payments has announced that it expects to complete its acquisition of rival on line payment provider Skrill by the end of the month.
The company will acquire Skrill in a reverse takeover deal for €720 million ($799.7 million) and 37,493,053 new ordinary shares.
‘Completion of the acquisition of Skrill continues to be susceptible to regulatory approval by great britain’s Financial Conduct Authority, which is expected to be made no later than 30 July 2015, unless the FCA exercises its statutory straight to interrupt the consideration period,’ Optimal said in an official statement. ‘Completion of the acquisition will shortly take place after the receipt of FCA approval.’
Optimal said the deal will be ‘transformational and value improving’ for the company, helping it to become the ‘leading payment and digital wallet provider with significant international scale and reach.’
Jackpot Digital Buys PokerTek
Finally, capping off a busy week for the industry’s M&A lawyers, software provider Jackpot Digital has announced a deal that will notice it acquire all the assets of PokerTek from Multimedia for $5.4 million.
PokerTek, which builds electronic table games, has created approximately $3.5 million within the last year, and Jackpot Digital said the integration of its existing platform with the acquired assets would ultimately enhance user-experience while increasing income for the company.
New Jersey On The Web DDoS Attacks on Regulated Web Sites Arrive with Bitcoin Ransom Notes
Recent New Jersey DDoS assaults on unnamed regulated sites had been followed by a ransom note promising future, more serious attacks https://playpokiesfree.com/indian-dreaming-slot/ should businesses not comply. (Image: rodin.com.au)
DDoS (distributed denial of service) isn’t a reality that any online gaming company ever wishes to deal with, but some regulated New Jersey web sites had to do just that last week.
New Jersey’s fledgling online gambling industry has been targeted, apparently for the first-time, by these distributed attacks.
Late week that is last at least four unnamed sites had been derailed by a hacker, or hackers, who flooded the sites’ bandwidths with traffic, rendering them inoperable, and ultimately taking them offline for around half an hour.
The attacks were accompanied by a ransom note for a sum that is undisclosed payable in Bitcoin, with a threat of a more serious assault to follow.
Not New, But Frustrating
DDoS attacks aren’t anything new for the online gambling industry, of course. In fact, they’re because old as the industry itself, but there are suggestions that incidents of the actions that are unwelcome been growing. Some professionals also claim that assaults across all online industries really doubled in 2014.
High-profile operators on the getting end this past year included Betfair, which was targeted on Grand National time, the UK horse race that is biggest meet of the year in terms of betting.
Attackers usually time their efforts to coincide with large events that are sporting the hope that operators will simply spend up rather than lose business. PokerStars, Unibet, and state that is swedish monopoly Svenska Spel are all present victims.
Possibilities of Prosecution Slim
Despite the interruption that is initial it appears that the situation has become stable and has been effectively dealt with by the brand new Jersey market’s cybersecurity groups. The battle between online gambling sites and the hackers is certainly one of cat and mouse, of strategy and counterstrategy: as protection technology improves, therefore do the hackers’ efforts to breach it.
Nj Division of Gaming Enforcement President David Rebuck said this that the matter was now being investigated by state police, the FBI, and the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, as well as his own organization week. The various agencies, he said, were hunting a ‘known actor’ whom had ‘done this before.’
Possibilities of prosecution are slim, but. To date, only two guys have been convicted for launching DDoS attacks. Those had been two UK-based Poles who made the error of threatening an operator they knew actually and agreeing to satisfy him in a hotel room. The operator, of program, brought the authorities with him. In 2013, the hapless pair were sentenced to 5 years in jail with a court in the UK.
LVS Attack
Such attacks are perhaps not limited to online gambling, of course. In February 2014, Las Vegas Sands Corporation (LVS), owned by anti-online curmudgeon Sheldon Adelson, was subjected to a massive cyber attack that had been thought to possess emanated from Iran. On February 10, LVS was plunged into chaos as computers started flatlining and servers shutting down. Hard drives were wiped clean as spyware ripped through the business’s networks.
The decision was taken to sever the multibillion dollar operation completely from the Internet as hackers began compressing and downloading batches of sensitive files, comprising everything from high-roller credit checks to details of global computer systems.
The attack caused an estimated $20 million worth of damage. The attackers subsequently claimed their DDoS actions was been motivated after hearing remarks made by Adelson in 2013 about ‘dropping the bomb’ on Iran.
NY Casino License Bidding Process Receives One Applicant
Tiago Downs, the sole bidder for the fourth NY casino license, proposes an improved expansion package having did not impress last December. (Image: weny.com)
Regulators in New York State have slim pickings when they come to decide on the winner of the Upstate that is fourth casino in the economically deprived Southern Tier region.
Just one contender submitted a proposition for Monday’s deadline, while a rival pulled out at the eleventh hour.
The Tioga Downs racino in Nichols is usually the one and only applicant for the certain area, with a $195 million expansion proposal to its current facility.
The proposal that is aborted from businessman Jeffrey C. Hyman, had been pulled having been dealt ‘a fatal blow’ by hawaii’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
Hyman said his project would have been ‘seismic,’ which may have been what the environmental people had been complaining about in the beginning, specially considering there is an ongoing debate about fracking in the area.
Snubbed
Unfortunately, Jeff Gural, owner of Tioga Downs, failed to impress the Gaming Control Board at the original certification hearing together with his task in December 2014, although he’s got since come up having an package that is improved.
Back then, the board recommended three casino licenses, for Monticello, in the Catskills; Schenectady; and the Finger Lakes area, snubbing the Southern Tier and Tioga Downs completely, despite having been granted the capabilities to recommend a license that is fourth.
Gural was furious during the choice and very critical regarding the board. He argued that a casino in the Southern Tier would be perfectly logical, since the closest competitor is Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, 90 kilometers south in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
‘It’s got nothing to do with me, i’ve enough money,’ he fumed. ‘ But the social individuals associated with the Southern Tier?’
‘And what actually pisses me off,’ he continued, warming to his theme, ‘is the governor asked me to spend $800,000 of my money to pass Local Law 1, Proposition One [on the expansion of casino gaming]. What was that all about? We mean… the entire thing is sickening in all honesty with you.’
Outcry
Such was the outcry among locals, in reality, that Governor Andrew Cuomo intervened, asking for that the Gaming Commission reconsider.
‘As this would function as the last permit granted in New York State, it may excite national competition by interested events that distribute better still applications than the first round,’ suggested Cuomo. ‘If you agree to the request, the [casino board] should quickly establish a process for the fourth license that could be complete as expeditiously possible, whilst the Southern Tier needs jobs and investment now.’
The board complied, a choice it might probably now regret, itself facing a ‘bidding war’ of one and under political pressure to award a license to a man who has recently been highly critical of its decision making processes as it finds.