Melco Resorts & Entertainment has announced its strategic plan to primarily focus on the Indian and Sri Lankan market with its casino venture in Sri Lanka. The company projects that the annual gaming revenues could soar up to US$250 million.

The Government of Sri Lanka has awarded This allows Melco to design and manage the casino and a portion of the hotel rooms at Sri Lanka’s US$1 billion Cinnamon Life Integrated Resort. The casino is slated to start operations in mid-2025.

During the company’s Q1 2024 earnings call, Lawrence Ho, Melco Chairman and CEO, shared his vision of Sri Lanka emerging as the Macau of Asia. He believes that by leveraging Sri Lanka, being the nearest gaming jurisdiction to India, can provide a unique gaming experience.

Geoff Davis, Melco Executive Vice President and CFO, added that India is undoubtedly the most intriguing feeder market with immense potential. While there is a certain level of domestic spending, the company’s objective will be to cater to those feeder markets in India and the wider region.

Davis anticipates that international play will eventually make up two-thirds of the company’s Sri Lankan revenues, with GGR comfortably in the US$200 million to $250 million range annually.

Melco has plans to invest US$125 million to design the casino, which Ho described as a “small bet for a potentially huge opportunity.”

The company, in collaboration with local partner John Keells, is significantly raising the bar to a world-class standard with this integrated resort and the casino they’re designing. While it’s a bit early to provide specific returns, the company is expecting returns that are very attractive and shareholder-friendly, that will also enhance shareholder value and probably offer returns that would be challenging to achieve in most mature markets.

This strategic move by Melco is seen as an excellent method to tap into a market with enormous potential in a capital-efficient manner.

Comparative study of Sri Lanka and Macau

Sri Lanka’s Flourishing Gaming Industry: Sri Lanka’s gaming industry, especially the online gaming sector, has been witnessing substantial growth in recent times. The surge in mobile gaming is attributed to the popularity of smartphones and affordable mobile data plans. The government is actively working towards establishing a regulatory framework for the online gaming industry. However, the industry faces a significant challenge due to the low internet penetration rate in Sri Lanka. Despite these challenges, the rising disposable income in Sri Lanka has led to an increase in spending on leisure activities, thereby driving demand for online games.

Macau’s Thriving Gaming Industry: On the other hand, Macau, often referred to as the “Las Vegas of Asia,” is the only region in China where gambling is legal. The gaming industry in Macau is one of the most vital industries, providing over 54,000 job opportunities. Macau’s gaming industry generated 19.3 billion patacas (US$2.37 billion) in its first monthly tally of gross gaming revenue (GGR) in 2024.

Comparative Analysis: While Sri Lanka’s gaming industry is still in its growth phase with a focus on online gaming, Macau’s gaming industry is more mature and primarily centered around physical casinos. Both markets possess their unique strengths and opportunities. It will indeed be intriguing to observe how these industries evolve in the future.

The rapid development of the iGaming sphere has become possible due to the advancement of the software used by online gaming. To provide users with exciting and high-quality products, the industry requires a deep understanding of cutting-edge technologies, concepts and approaches such as High Load, Big Data, High Availability, High Scalability, Realtime and Low Latency. Therefore, iGaming software developers are driving the global development of the industry and this is precisely what PIN-UP.TECH are doing.

The PIN-UP.TECH segment is part of the PIN-UP Global ecosystem and consists of IT companies specialising in software development for all their members. Among the achievements of PIN-UP.TECH are unique technological solutions which enable partners to maintain their leading position and provide players with a high quality service. Over 500 specialists from different countries are involved in the technical direction of PIN-UP, who ensure the stability of iGaming platforms, CRM, anti-fraud tools, affiliate systems and much more. Among the leaders of this professional team is Volodymyr Todurov, Chief Analytics Officer, who shared with SiGMA News comments about their unique work experience. 

Could you tell us more about the ML/AI model and how it works for you?

AI-based decision models meticulously scrutinise numerous parameters associated with each transaction, encompassing variables such as the frequency of bets, their sizes, the selected events, as well as their history. These parameters undergo analysis within the model, where those exhibiting the highest predictive efficacy are identified and incorporated into the forecasting process. 

IWe have employed machine learning with a primary focus on the extreme gradient boosting model, renowned for its efficacy with structured data. The crux of this approach lies in constructing an ensemble of models that iteratively refine each other, thereby bolstering the accuracy of the forecasts. The model is fed with an extensive betting history as input and yields a probability in the range of 0..1, indicating the likelihood of user involvement in fraudulent activities.

What are the advantages of an AI-based anti-fraud model compared to a classic one?

When we are confronted with vast quantities of data, the utility of ML/AI models becomes evident. They offer a heightened capacity to generalise information and discern patterns in customer behavior that elude methods like manual transaction analysis or the application of linear rules.

AI serves as an additional toolkit for the operations team, streamlining processes by reducing error rates and decision-making times for individual cases, while also uncovering fresh insights into our clientele. In certain respects, AI enriches our expertise and broadens our perspectives by employing a slightly divergent approach to decision-making. Many tasks can now be delegated to AI with autonomy. 

Consequently, AI facilitates the expansion of business volumes without a proportional increase in the risk-management team, streamlining daily operations by eliminating tedious routines and affording the opportunity to delve deeper into the analysis of other processes.

In your opinion, how can AI-based anti-fraud tools develop and what problems can they solve in the future?

Within the team, we outlined how we see the development of anti-fraud tools using ML and AI, and made our plans for the further implementation of these technologies. Our next step involves crafting a decision-making system using cutting-edge deep neural networks and generative artificial intelligence. By slashing decision times, we're getting closer to our goal of ramping up accuracy and speed in spotting fraudulent client behaviour.

This approach, with its knack for learning and adapting, dives deep into each client's history, employing various scenarios to pinpoint specific groups, including fraudsters. These new tools, once honed to a tee, are a real find for the anti-fraud team's daily grind.

For big businesses, they're like a trusty sidekick for retrospective checks, ensuring we've correctly labeled all clients as either "good" or "bad," so managers may not worry, knowing they haven't missed any troublemakers. And for small businesses, they're a game-changer, eliminating the need for a hefty analyst team right off the bat. Let AI take the wheel on manual tasks, and watch the anti-fraud department's efficiency skyrocket.

What are some ways to further improve the efficiency of anti-fouling processes? Tell us briefly about your approaches.  

Each team, taking into account the direction of the business and the number of specialists, has its own secrets of increasing efficiency and intelligently solving complex problems. For us, this is definitely procedures automatisation based on a DDDM approach, which allows us to think out of the box. We evaluate all workflows seeking optimisation points. Our goal is to find the manual procedure, so called “monkey job”, to automate it. 

The problem could be solved in different ways: I will give a couple of examples from our operations within the last few years. Previously, anti-fraud analysts needed to export a few csv-tables to merge them in order to understand if there are certain behavioural changes on player accounts based on financial and gambling history. We realised that we will save at least 10-15 minutes of manual operations per each case just creating a new default real-time dashboard with pivot tables and charts needed. 

Another case is reviewing current operations. Let’s take a look at the withdrawal confirmation process. Based on a DDDM approach we analyse the weight of evidence on each reason leading to manual withdrawal confirmation. Some of the reasons were created as a reaction to certain fraud cases to keep an eye on potential returning fraud. However, business expanded and more new players from new GEOs led to decrease the performance of the rule. So, we adopted the rule and made a 15% uplift in the team’s productivity in terms of their workload. The main point here is to run continuous analysis on workflow operations based on load and productivity measurements to find the optimisations combining management and automatisation. 

What processes does a business need to set up to integrate the DDDM model, how long can it take, and how fast does it generate revenue?

The main point regarding DDDM is the mindset. Senior managers must deny all arguments based on feelings, hopes and “expertise”. I mean, this kind of approach should be used only for some exceptions when you have no data to calculate your decision. Or when the problem is not worth calculating efforts. Every time you want to make changes on your product ask the team about numbers.

The very common mistake is so-called survivorship bias. Pay attention that you make conclusions using end-to-end analysis to relevant scope of entities. Based on practice, managers forget to make helicopter views on the issue pretty often. I will make an example within anti-fraud operations. A manager came with retrospective fraud activity analysis based on welcome bonus abuse within the last 4 months. 83% of users had the same patterns to create an alerting scoring trigger: first deposit over $13, using prepaid bank card, IP analysis mismatch (probably proxies or VPN). Looks pretty good, yes? 

However, I asked to make calculations if there is still a good efficiency if we will extrapolate this trigger to whole new users. Scoring models showed 5% efficiency. So, some combination of attributes could perfectly describe a group of fraud users and still be common for a bigger segment of good users. By the way, we added some gamestyle patterns to those welcome bonus hunters triggers to segregate from good players and keep the trigger in production.

Using DDDM will bring value from Day 1. You will avoid mistakes and increase productivity. The main point is to ask the team to show their number as the main argument on the business decision made.

Volodymyr’s short bio:

Volodymyr Todurov has eight years of experience in gambling, having held the positions of risk manager, and head of antifraud & analytics. He currently holds the position of chief analytics officer at PIN-UP Global. He is an expert in risk management operations of sportsbook, casino, affiliate programmes, marketing, payment systems. Volodymyr specialises in data-driven decision-making approach, economic modeling, and forecasting.

We're continuing our conversations with the experts at PIN-UP Global, so stay tuned to SiGMA News for more on the current engines of the iGaming sphere.

Upcoming SiGMA event: SiGMA Asia 2024, 2 – 5 June. Find all the details .

’s latest report reveals a mixed bag of results for the gambling industry in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2023. The report, which compares the performance of the industry with the same quarter of the previous financial year, covers both online and in-person gambling activities of licensed betting operators (LBOs) across Britain.

The online market witnessed a significant growth with the total Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) in Q4 reaching £1.4 billion ($1.75 billion), marking a 5% increase from the previous year. This growth was accompanied by a 10% increase in the total number of bets and spins, reaching a record high of 24 billion. Consequently, the average monthly active accounts also saw a 2 percent rise.

A closer look at the online market reveals that real event betting GGY experienced a modest increase of 2 percent year-on-year, amounting to £565 million. However, the number of bets saw a decrease of 6 percent, while the average number of monthly active accounts only saw a marginal rise of 1 percent.

Online slots emerged as the major contributor to the overall growth of the online GGY. The slots GGY saw an impressive 11 percent increase during Q4, reaching £614 million. The number of spins also increased by 12 percent, and the average monthly active accounts rose by 7 percent to 4.2 million per month.

Contrary to the online market, the retail betting market experienced a slight decline. The LBO GGY decreased by 3 percent to £568 million, and the total number of bets and spins dropped by 1 percent to 3.3 billion.

In addition to the Q4 report, the also published its Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSCB) last month. The survey revealed that 48 percent of respondents had gambled in the last four weeks at the time of the survey. The most prominent demographic for gambling was men aged 45-54.

The Q4 report presents a dynamic picture of the gambling industry, with online platforms showing promising growth while retail betting sees a slight decline. As the industry continues to evolve, these trends offer valuable insights for stakeholders to strategize and adapt to the changing landscape.

Analyzing the global gambling markets reveals a fascinating diversity in their performance and growth trajectories. The United Kingdom, with its mature and well-regulated market, leads the pack with an online gambling market worth around $12.5 billion. This dominance is further underscored by the UK’s leading position in gross gaming revenue among European countries.

In contrast, the United States presents a rapidly evolving market. The state-by-state rollout of sports betting and online gaming has propelled the US online gambling market to a worth of around $11.0 billion. However, the participation rate in online gambling is relatively low at 7 percent, compared to a global average of 17 percent.

Brazil, a newcomer to the global gambling scene, has shown remarkable growth with an online gambling market worth around $10 billion. Australia, known for its love of sports and betting, boasts a significant gambling market worth around $6.5 billion.

In Europe, Italy’s well-established gambling market is worth around $4.5 billion, ranking high in gross gaming revenue among European countries. Germany, France, and Spain also contribute significantly to the European gambling landscape with their substantial gambling markets.

While the UK gambling market shows a 5 percent growth in Q4 GGY, it’s crucial to note the unique market dynamics and trends in each country. The global popularity of online gambling, driven by innovation, deregulation in key markets, and the pandemic, is on the rise. However, the regulatory landscape varies across countries, influencing the growth and nature of their respective gambling markets. This analysis underscores the diversity and dynamism of the global gambling industry.

In the third quarter of the fiscal year 2024 (ASX:BET), experienced a significant market shift. The company’s shares fell by approximately 11 percent, a change primarily driven by a 4.1 percent year-on-year decrease in revenue. The revenue for this quarter, ending on 31st March 2024, amounted to A$22.3 million (€13.7 million), a drop from A$23.3 million in Q3 FY23.

BetMakers attributed this decline to the soft conditions in the Australian wagering market, which accounts for about 25% of its income. The quarter was particularly challenging for Australian operators due to the competitive landscape, regulatory changes, and tax-related issues in Australia.

BetMakers’ revenue model is intricately tied to its customers’ performance, given its revenue share agreements with approximately 30 different wagering platforms. The company’s underlying EBITDA for the quarter was a loss of A$2.5 million, an improvement from the A$4.1 million loss in Q3 FY23. Despite the loss, the company registered positive net operating cash flows of A$1 million.

The improvement in EBITDA was a result of ongoing reductions in operating costs, which decreased by 8.2 percent quarter-over-quarter. BetMakers intends to implement further cost reductions in the current quarter. The first nine months of FY24 saw a revenue of A$73.7 million, marking a 5.3 percent increase from the same period in the previous year.

The third quarter was a period of significant change for BetMakers. The company signed new agreements with PA Betting Services, , and Gaming Innovation Group (GIG).

Post the quarter, BetMakers announced a binding agreement to acquire the assets of Racelab Global, an international supplier of racing wagering products and technologies. This acquisition, costing a total of A$1.5 million, added leading race form, preview, and statistics technology to BetMakers’ ecosystem, along with proprietary fixed odds pricing technology.

BetMakers is also set to receive early termination fees from Australian operator Betr, which will no longer require the supplier’s services after being acquired by another brand, BlueBet. BetMakers received an initial A$3.75 million from Betr in March, with further payments of A$2.25 million due by June and an additional amount between A$1.5 million and A$2 million to be paid by September.

BetMakers’ executive chair, Matt Davey, emphasized the company’s strategy of enhanced operating discipline, focusing on higher margin, capital light revenue growth, and profitability. He expressed confidence in the company’s progress and the pipeline of new growth opportunities. CEO Jake Henson echoed these sentiments, highlighting the benefits of their transformation program and the potential opportunities that position BetMakers for an exciting future.