Tag: world

Fedor Holz Invests in eSports Company Envy Gaming Inc.

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Legendary poker pro, Fedor Holz, becomes the most recent public figure to jump onto the eSports train. According to ESPN, the German poker player acquired a minority stake in popular gaming company Envy Gaming. Inc. in the second quarter of 2017’s fiscal year. Envy Gaming is the parent company of the Dallas Fuel and the renowned Team Envy both of which Holz will be a minority owner.

The venture into the eSports world is certainly a bold move for the poker Phenom who has won nearly $27 million in live tournaments with the most recent being in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) $111,111 High Roller for One Drop where he cashed in nearly $5 million. During this event, Holz’s had left a few Easter eggs that hinted his intention to be an eSports entrepreneur – he donned a Team EnvyUS jersey at the final table which he won and then proceeded to announce that he would be spending less time playing poker so as to focus more on his entrepreneurial ventures.

Holz’s relationship with Envy was initially set off by his friendship with Nathan “NBK” Schmitt, a former Envy Gaming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player who introduced him to Envy Gaming’s CEO Mike “Hastr0” Rufail. Holz expressed that his interest in joining the company was motivated by a number of reasons.

“I like to invest in things that I’m emotionally connected to because I feel that I contribute the most but I also get the most out of it,” Holz said in an interview with an ESPN reporter. “I like Envy, I like to watch, I like the way they build their infrastructure and team, take care of their players. And it was just a corporation I wanted to be a part of in some way.”

Envy Gaming which was founded in 2007 as a competitive Call of Duty team has already proven its success in the eSports industry – Team Envy bagged the 2016 eSports Team of the Year award at the NowTV ESports Industry Awards. Holz is confident that his input will come in handy especially in regards to mindset issues that may disrupt the performance of young players at the higher and more competitive levels.

“Talking to these players and seeing them myself, a lot of them still struggle with their mindset because they’re really young and the pressure starts really early,” Holz added. “I feel that the mindset or the way you approach the game has very low importance so far compared to more seen sports. I think we can bring some of that into the game, and I’d love to tackle more of that in the next year.”

How the Sports Industry is Being Disrupted by eSports

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It has been quite clear for a while now that the sports industry has been plagued by a plethora of issues – these include the drastic decline in live viewership as well as the possibility of the legalization of sports betting in all states which the leagues are not yet prepared for. The drastically declining live viewership has its roots deeply entrenched in the distribution model that has by all means been outdated. The dominant companies are to blame for this since they are responsible for the slow rollout and implementation of technological innovation in the industry – for instance, the NFL is still not allowing teams to post replay content on social media and FIFA snailed its way to the implementation of goal-line technology.

The sports industry has quite a lot to put up with and with the entry of eSports, the atmosphere is about to get even more competitive. eSports has been on a roll for a while now and as is stands, even people who are not avid gamers acknowledge its popularity. With the tremendous annual increase in viewership over the past couple of years, the eSports industry has bloomed rapidly thanks to the constant experimentation as well as the innovative ways it allows viewers to engage with online content.

Now, platforms like Twitch and even YouTube are facilitating the streaming of hundreds of games including popular eSports titles like League of Legends and Dota 2 both of which generate over 60 million viewed hours monthly. These numbers are significantly large and thus it is impossible to downplay the importance of game streaming especially after putting into consideration the current media landscape. eSports is breaking new grounds for content delivery and interactivity through a number of outstanding service models and this can be partially attributed to the inherently digital nature of eSports which makes the integration of new technologies rather easy and natural. On the same note, this presents new ways to cash in on revenues from different aspects of the eSports business models that are apparently way more efficient than those of regular sports. But why is there such a huge divide between the two?

As it turns out, eSports is more open to innovation, is very engaging and has the potential to grow into something much bigger. This does not necessarily mean that traditional sports completely lacks similar qualities – there are just a number of issues that are holding the industry back. One of the most significant being the dependence of large sports corporations like UEFA and FIFA on revenue streams from cable companies who in most cases buy rights to be the sole broadcasters of matches. It is rather obvious that this leaves regular sports in the stone age in terms of delivery as viewers are now migrating to streaming services. This is where the changes need to be initiated and many of them have already acknowledged the huge market shift and are already taking necessary steps towards regaining the lost glory. Meanwhile, eSports has never shown as much promise as it has now.

PokerStars Announces 2019 PokerStars Player’s Championship

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PokerStars live events are coming back with a bang after the site staggered through the past couple of years with their live tournament series. Stiff competition from rival sites that upped their game in the same period was bound to cause a bit of a stir in the industry and they have indeed given PokerStars a run for its money when it comes live poker festivals.

In response to the growing competition, Daniel Negreanu on behalf of PokerStars announced the PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold’em Championship (PSPC). The announcement that was made in Prague highlighted the juiciest $25,000 buy-in event that is set to be held in the Bahamas and is anticipated to be the best event come 2019.

There are, of course, a plethora of $25,000 buy-in events around, but PokerStars will be giving out 300 free Platinum Passes or PSPC packages each worth $30,000 in preparation for 2019 – this will be done all through 2018 and will also include hotel and travel expenses. As such, by the end of 2018, PokerStars will have pumped about $8 million into the championship’s prize pool with an additional $1 million to be added to the first-place prize as soon as the event kicks off on January 6th, 2019.

“We expect the PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship will set the new global standard for live poker tournaments,” said Rafi Ashkenazi, the Chief Executive Officer of The Stars Group. “We want to demonstrate and reinforce our commitment to the game, and give something back to the players by investing in our live events in a meaningful way. Our objective is to create an event that brings professionals and amateurs together, creating many winning moments and unforgettable stories.”

Thanks to this new initiative, 300 ordinary or upcoming poker players will have a shot at playing alongside poker bigwigs for the mind-boggling prize money without having to battle through fields of thousands of players before they get to the final table. The next batch of Platinum Passes are to be awarded in the online Winter Series event that will take place from December 25th to January 7th – so be sure to add that to your calendar especially if you are not within U.S borders. More Platinum passes will be handed to poker players during the PSL Macau, IPO in Italy, PokerStars Festival London and all through 2018 till all the 300 Platinum Passes are in the hands of the lucky poker dreamers. Also, look out for the Platinum Passes at the PokerStars signature online series WCOOP, SCOOP as well as Sunday Million and Sunday Storm events.

Revel, Former Atlantic City Casino Headed for Sale

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With all the buzz that has been going on around the state of New Jersey between the tribal casino owners and MGM Resorts International, it seems that more parties are beginning to show an interest in getting a piece of the Atlantic City pie. Now, a Colorado company has filed for the license for former Atlantic City casino, Revel. The report which was issued by Moody’s Investors Service on Monday 11th December 2017 details the plans of a Colorado firm to buy the now shuttered Revel casino for $200 million – the Colorado company which is known as AC Ocean Walk LLC also had to put up $100,000 as a non-refundable application fee. Moody’s Investor Service also went further and issued another report for the company’s plans for the casino once it is acquired. These plans included a projected May 2018 launch date – if everything goes as planned, that is. In the report, Mood’s Investor Service outlined that AC Ocean Walk LLC had also briefed the ratings agency on the financing and subsequent plans.

According to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, AC Ocean Walk LLC which also happens to be controlled by Bruce Deifik applied for this license back in October and this application is the latest indication that it is only a matter of time before a deal for the sale of Revel casino is reached. Glenn Straub, the Florida developer who bought Revel casino out of bankruptcy about two years ago has however repeatedly denied claims of a deal to sell it off. Despite Straub’s consistent denials of the claims, the buyers are now in possession of mortgage details from a court proceeding that is set to determine whether he needs a casino license to reopen Revel under a different moniker, Ten.

Prior to its closure in September 2014, Revel had only been operational for only a little over two years within which it did not make any profit and also went bankrupt, not once, but twice. Regardless, AC Ocean Walk LLC believes that they could turn the tide on Revel’s ill luck thanks to the newness  and the overall good condition of the property as well as the company’s ‘good liquidity.’

Is Sports Betting on the Verge of Going Mainstream?

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With several legislations being pushed for at the Supreme Court, we should soon expect sportsbetting to explode nationwide the same way casino gambling quickly bloomed after it was officially legalized in Atlantic City in 1978. Now, the eagerly awaited Supreme Court ruling on New Jersey’s proposed legislation should be upon us within the next few months into 2018. This is even more exciting because the gaming expansion bill that was recently passed says that in case the Supreme Court rules in favor of New Jersey’s sportsbetting bill, the state of Pennsylvania will also move to have sportsbetting legalized.

D-Beaver County’s Representative Robert Matzie is the biggest champion of the legislation to legalize sportsbetting even though it is dependent on the Supreme Court decision to overturn the ban. Matzie has always been of the opinion that the growth of online fantasy sports has been a core propellant of sportsbetting – it is nearly mainstream at the moment. In a memo to the legislators, Martzie pointed out that:

“Sports betting in the United States totals an estimated $400 billion per year, with only 1 percent taking place in legal form. Fantasy sports betting draws in an estimated 57 million participants. The reality is that not only has the perception of sports betting changed over the years, but the ways in which to participate in some form of sports betting has greatly increased.”

In Nevada, about $5 billion was wagered on sports in 2016 and in October this year, sports bettors wagered a record-breaking $517 million. Compared to the amounts that are speculated to be wagered in offshore online betting joints, these numbers are rather minute – if sportsbetting is legalized then all that revenue will be channeled back to various states.

However, major sports leagues have been very open about their disapproval of the bill as evidenced by the huge role they played in opposing the attempt to lift the ban on sportsbetting in New Jersey. This is likely to shift with the new federal legislation that is being pushed for by NBA’s Adam Silver – this would be a logical move since it now seems to be inevitable that sportsbetting will be legalized and the only way to go about it is to find a way of profiting from it. Gamblers enjoy a plethora of options most of which are illegal and by passing this bill, the lawmakers are hoping that sportsbetting will gravitate towards legal market instead hopefully within the shortest time possible.

Bitcoin Futures Trading Takes Crypto to Mainstream Finance

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Today’s intersection of digital money and traditional finance being held at LaSalle Street in Chicago is set to be a game changer being that it will be the first major U.S. exchange that offers a Bitcoin-related product. Bitcoin is considered to be a wildly fluctuating currency but the large demand from individual investors has driven the cryptocurrency to rise by more than 1,500 percent in 2017 – in the past two weeks alone, its value has shot up by about 85 percent. These type of gains are powerful investor magnets even though they are the core reason behind the division between central banks from various parts of the world and Wall Street executives.

CME Group Inc., another Chicago-based exchange, and Cboe Global Market Inc. are offering futures that are anticipated to allow for great inflows of institutional money while at the same time easing the process of betting on Bitcoin’s decline. According to Galaxy Investment Partners CEO, Mike Novogratz, trading will most likely start slowly – the company is currently raising a cryptocurrency hedge fund whose target is $500 million.

Novogratz further added that, “If people have expectations that it’s going to have huge liquidity on day one, they’re just wrong. It’s going to take a while to build liquidity. People need to go through at least one cycle to figure out how it settles.”

The derivatives trading that the world is now witnessing is a result of Bitcoins record-breaking scores this year that were fueled by the high price gains it exhibited as well as its rogue anti-establishment endeavor to become free from government or institutional control. Derivative contracts are expected to propel Bitcoin further into the regulators’ domains, as well as the realms of institutional investors and banks.

“Derivatives should have the effect of bringing a deeper liquidity to the market which should reduce volatility,” said chief investment officer and co-founder of Monaco-based Altana Digital Currency Fund, Alistair Milne. “As the whole cryptocurrency economy gets bigger the volatility should reduce.”

Cloud9, Overwatch and Faker Triumph at The Game Awards

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Thursday’s The Game Awards that was held at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles was a very big day for eSports lovers who got to meet and see various eSports heavyweights nab some awards and recognition.

Overwatch – Best eSports Game/Best Ongoing Game

The first headliner was Overwatch whose team walked away from the event with two awards – one for the ‘Best eSports Game’ which it also received last year and another for the ‘Best Ongoing Game.’ The Blizzard-game has been very successful and this is expected to get even better with their newly launched competitive scene that was kicked off on Thursday with the Overwatch League preseason. Being fan-voted awards, the backlashes that have arisen regarding Blizzard’s success with Overwatch were overlooked since the numbers clearly reflected how devoted its fans are. Overwatch beat out Rainbow Six: Siege, Warframe, Destiny 2, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Grand Theft Auto Online to win the title.

Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok – Player of The Year

Having been long considered as the world’s best League of Legends player it was not surprising that the decorated international eSports star would walk away with the award. Faker beat out Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac and Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David, Overwatch player Ryu Je-hong and Dota 2 player Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi.

This is, however, not the first time that Lee ‘Faker’ is basking in the glory of an anticipated win – he led his team, SK Telecom T1, to the League Legends World Championships for four consecutive years since 2013. SK Telecom T1 emerged the victor three times in 2013, 2015 and 2016 before they were beaten by Samsung Galaxy in 2017. Faker has also been for the past four years representing Korea as the mid-laner at All-Stars.

Cloud9 – Best eSports Team

To nab this award, Cloud9 bested some other great finalists that included Team Liquid, Lunatic Hai, FaZe Clan and even Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok’s SK Telecom T1. Earlier this year, the team raised about $25 million during their first round of venture capital financing and this award is a great way of capping off their already impressive year. The eSports team is popular for fielding professional eSports teams in Overwatch, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Rocket League, Vainglory, League of Legend, and Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. In the League of Legends Championships Cloud9 finished second and this earned the team a spot in the quarterfinals of the World Championships.

Other worthy mentions included; Capcom’s Resident Evil 7: biohazard (Best VR/AR game), The Last of Us Part 2 (Most Anticipated Game), Forza Motorsport 7 (Best Sports/Racing Game), Super Mario Odyssey (Best Family Game) and Injustice 2 (Best Fighting Game) among many others.

Over $60 Million Emptied from NiceHash Wallet by Hackers

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Cryptocurrency mining marketplace NiceHash on Wednesday was hacked and its wallet emptied of over $62 million worth of Bitcoins (4,449 BTC). In a statement posted earlier today, NiceHAsh officially halted operations and is currently carrying out investigations into how the security breach occurred. In the statement, the company said:

“Unfortunately, there has been a security breach involving Nicehash website. We are currently investigating the nature of the incident and, as a result, we are stopping all operations for the next 24 hours. Importantly, our payment system was compromised and the contents of the NiceHash Bitcoin wallet have been stolen. We are working to verify the precise number of BTC taken. Clearly, this is a matter of deep concern and we are working hard to rectify the matter in the coming days. In addition to undertaking our own investigation, the incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and law enforcement and we are co-operating with them as a matter of urgency.”

NiceHash further added that other than the obvious probe into their own employees and internal investigations, they had gone ahead to employ the expertise of “relevant authorities and law enforcement agencies” to assist in rectifying the situation as soon as possible. NiceHash also advised its users to change all their passwords with immediate effect since they are still unsure about what exactly the hackers obtained from the hack other than just the huge loot of Bitcoins.

NiceHash which was launched in 2014 allows its users to trade and sell hash power via its online marketplace by matching people with spare computing power with Bitcoin miners in need of the extra computing to create more crypto coins. Users can, therefore, reap the benefits of Bitcoin mining without having to invest fortunes in purchasing equipment or operating them. This is perhaps the biggest cloud mining hack of all time and considering how events play out after this, it is quite apparent that it will affect the cloud mining market from here on out. Already, questions are being raised about the essence of using cloud mining services instead of buying and operating machines personally, the latter being considered to be the safer option despite its cumbersome nature.

Aristocrat Shakes Up Social Casino Games with Big Fish Deal

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Last week, in a rare twist of events, Australian gambling machine manufacturers Aristocrat Leisure announced its intent to buy social casino games development company Big Fish Games in Seattle. The $990 million game deal is a rare occurrence hence it did not draw a lot of attention but from the looks of it, the results will definitely be headliners in social casino circles.

Apparently, this deal with Aristocrat Leisure is Big Fish Games’ second major dealer – in 2014, Big Fish Games was bought by Kentucky Derby owner Churchill Downs for $885 million. Now, Aristocrat also seems to be toying with the idea of incorporating a business model that mixes their gambling expertise through their slot machine business and non-gambling social casino games where players get to play on virtual slot machines but without the perks of being able to win real money.

“The surprise announcement to acquire Big Fish for nearly $1 billion combined with its recent acquisition of Plarium for $500 million will transform Aristocrat’s digital business into a business that should generate in excess of $1.1 billion in revenues and $250 million in [EBITDA, or profit before taxes etc.] next year,”Eilers &Krejcik analyst Adam Krejcik said. “Following the acquisition of Big Fish, we expect Aristocrat will be the No. 2 social casino publisher worldwide. Additionally, Big Fish (along with Plarium) will help expand the company’s addressable market opportunities as it relates to social games.”

Aristocrat Leisure’s stakeholders are anticipating that the deal will be closed within the first quarter of 2018 pending regulatory approval which should follow shortly after. If things go as well as
Aristocrat hopes and the company effectively executes on the revenue expectations, Aristocrat is set to outgrow rival game company Zynga whose current market value is $2.5 billion.

“Big Fish’s digital-first social casino content and industry-leading meta-game capability and applications are highly complementary to Aristocrat’s existing and industry-leading land-based digital content business. The acquisition of Big Fish will immediately provide scale across our entire digital platform” said Trevor Croker, Aristocrat’s chief executive officer. “The strategic and financial benefits from the acquisition are highly compelling”

After the acquisition, Big Fish Games will continue to operate independently as a stand-alone business and this will be alongside two other Aristocrat-owned digital businesses, Plarium, and Product Madness. Furthermore, players will still get to enjoy fan-favorite Big Fish titles like Fairway Solitaire and Gummy Drop! as well as amazing titles from Big Fish’s globally top-ranked social casino app, Big Fish Casino.

Bitcoin Bubble Burst: The App That Warns Against Crashes

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One thing that ardent Bitcoin lovers and the usual Bitcoin vultures have in common is their need to keep their eyes on the charts – everyone seems to be having bubble predictions which are simply anticipations of a crash that is expected anytime soon. On Sunday afternoon Bitcoin’s value shot up to over $11,770 from a low of $9,9400 on Thursday. This rapid 1,434% increase in value that has been witnessed in just a few months has led people to think that its volatility is a clear indication that the Bitcoin bubble will burst soon.

Now, innovative apps are coming into play to help the Bitcoin community in monitoring changes in Bitcoin’s prices. Presented at the Disrupt Berlin hackathon, the Bitcoin Bubble Burst app is one such handy tool that allows Bitcoin users to focus on other important things while it monitors changes in Bitcoin’s price and related news events then alerts the users in real time. There are, of course, plenty other apps that offer alert services for changes in Bitcoin prices or trading volumes but the creators of Bitcoin Bubble Burst are offering something totally different with their app. While none of the other similar apps offer adequate warnings, Bitcoin Bubble Burst makes use of neural networks and an advanced machine learning system that they trained on data linked to Bitcoin price changes. These include trading patterns as well as key news items all of which are detected by the Bitcoin Bubble Burst’s system and once they attain a certain vital threshold, users are alerted via email with a logical justification of the warning.

“Sometimes huge events, like the ban of Bitcoin in China, are mentioned in social media and the news – before it affects the value,” the creators of BBB say on their website. The idea behind the project was not just to spot and monitor the dynamics of the Bitcoin ecosystem but also to offer Bitcoin users relevant advice on whether they should either buy or sell. Also, according to the creators, Bitcoin Bubble Burst will not have ads or spam and it will be an open source, encrypted service that will only give alerts when they are important.

Fundamentally speaking, the Bitcoin world is still unpredictable which therefore implies that the viability of this app, and other similar ones, still needs to be tested over a significantly extensive stretch of time. Other than that, the idea of having an app that does all the hard work for you is exceptional. Who wouldn’t want that?