Media Man International

AFR on the global streaming wars. We're looking at doing more back-up and cross platform management of our audio interviews from almost two decades in the game. Who to give the business to... Alphabet's TubeTube and/or Spotify or another? SoundCloud just about priced themselves out of the game at this stage and may be going down further, just as MeetUp did years ago when their price point was off. Talk about a competitive market sector. Almost disappointed Musk's Twitter doesn't offer a streaming service/platform, at least not at present. LinkedIn continues to tie the other platforms together nicely, so kudos to Microsoft on that front. Regarding Paramount Plus, The Twilight Zone gets our nod for best legacy/traditional show on any streaming service. YouTubes' 'Hacking Google' series recently won our 'Documentary Of The Month' award. Can AFR reduce the paywall charge for happy SMH subscribers? Feels appropriate to ask here! Friendly Faangs season is here with and without adverts. Pass on Google Box for now. Have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. Sydney Twitter Flock out. Tweet Tweet!

Amazon takes on Spotify, Apple with cut-price music offer (The Australian Financial Review)

Media Man International Blog: Interviews via Media Man

Interviews

Media Man International Blog: Pop Culture, Celebrity, Gaming, Casino and Sports Betting Connection

Pop Culture, Celebrity, Gaming, Casino and Sports Betting Connection

Celebrities have always been among the pastimes biggest fans, from Mozart and Casanova to Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and beyond.

Like the rest, they frequent gambling establishments to enjoy various entertainment options. The convenience and excitement of playing casino games at one of the many online gambling sites have attracted an increasing number of celebrities in recent years.

These celebrities bet for fun as opposed to high-rollers at world-famous casinos. They have a top time at casinos and enjoy the games on offer. Most winners give some cash to charity, while some put it back into the gambling industry as well as fund other endeavors.

Let's review a few of the famous and well known names who enjoy a punt.

TOP 5 CELEBRITIES

1. MATT DAMON

Actor and big roller, Matt Damon, kicks off the list of renowned gamblers.

Matt Damon is a professional poker and blackjack player, in addition to being a famous actor. He was acting as a law student and talented poker player Mike McDermott in the 1998 blockbuster Rounders gave the five-time Oscar contender and one-time Oscar winner a newfound passion for gaming.

Damon prepared for his role by training with Johnny Chan, a professional poker player. He is one of the world’s finest professional poker players. Damon owes him a debt of gratitude for teaching him the ropes of the game.

The famous actor from Hollywood kept playing traditional casino table games like poker and blackjack long after filming had wrapped up. Damon is periodically observed at some of the world’s most prestigious casinos, albeit he does not get to play there as often as he would like.

There are few specifics on what he’s doing with his earnings. Damon enjoys gambling and has even competed in several tournaments. He chooses to play at well-known casinos to pay out the most.

2. BEN AFFLECK

Ben Affleck, Matt Damon’s best friend, hardly needs an introduction. And he’s a card counter and gambler, much like Damon. In the 2013 crime thriller, Runner Runner, Affleck played a character who was up against a made-up empire of internet casinos. Even though the movie was poorly received by some critics, but not by hardcores, Affleck kept on gambling, and the personnel at the casinos where he played said that he always left tips.

3. GEORGE CLOONEY

George Clooney, the co-star of Matt Damon in several Hollywood films, has long been a fan of the casino scene and has been in the process of purchasing a Las Vegas gambling establishment since 2005. Unfortunately, this famous high-ideas roller never got off the ground, so he visited the casinos of others and appeared in films like Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen.

4. BRAD PITT

Brad Pitt is up next. Like many of his coworkers, it appears that the Ocean’s franchise introduced him to the joys of gambling, specifically card games like poker and blackjack. Before filming the gambling scenes, Pitt visited multiple casinos to hone his game and soak in the distinctive casino ambiance. He still likes to play blackjack at the casino whenever he has the time.

5. FLOYD MAYWEATHER

Although many have gambled on Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s bouts, the flamboyant boxer has been known to bet huge sums of money on other sporting events. He allegedly considered placing a $400,000 bet on himself to defeat UFC superstar Conor McGregor but ultimately opted against doing so after several bookies raised doubts about the legitimacy of such a wager. In 2012, he made headlines for placing a $1.1 million bet on the NCAA football game between Oregon and Arizona State, which he then boasted about on social media.

Media Man Wrap

Gamblers come from all walks of life. Celebrities want to take part in it regularly since they find it enjoyable. Games, especially gambling games, have been the film’s subject. Keep in mind that this is just a sampling of the famous people that enjoy gambling. Most famous people regularly indulge in gambling since they like it so much. As always, bet with your head, not over it, and have fun!

References:

Media Man Int Media Man Casino News Media Global Gaming Directory Wikipedia IMDb

The Hollywood Reporter Variety

Thursday, November 03, 2022

Media Man International Blog: Murdoch's News Corp-Fox reunion gambit comes as sports betting valuations tank

Murdoch's News Corp-Fox reunion gambit comes as sports betting valuations tank

Nov 2 - Rupert Murdoch’s proposal to recombine News Corp (NWSA.O) and Fox Corp (FOXA.O) and capitalize on sports betting has yet to convince Wall Street as the valuations in the once red-hot gambling market crumble, according to former employees, financial analysts and sports media experts.

While some former employees see the move as driven by the 91-year-old Murdoch's succession planning to consolidate power behind his son Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corp, people familiar with the Murdochs' thinking say they are serious about the sports betting opportunity.

"The proposal is 100% based on business rationale," a spokesman for Rupert Murdoch told Reuters. "Any commentary that implies it has to do with succession planning is absurd and comes from sources with no knowledge of the strategy."

There are other factors motivating the merger including a bid to achieve greater scale in news, live sports and information, sources said. Lachlan Murdoch did not discuss the potential deal on Tuesday's earnings call, but talked up the value of scale, "particularly (in) the next couple of years, when opportunities in the marketplace will emerge."

As recently as August, Lachlan Murdoch described sports betting as "a huge opportunity" for Fox Sports, telling Wall Street it would fuel viewer engagement. Combining live game broadcasts with News Corp's sports coverage would create a more compelling sports package, and strengthen the company's hand when it comes to sports betting, according to people familiar with the deal's logic.

But Wall Street's enthusiasm for sports betting has cooled since early 2021, as investors prioritize profitability over spending aggressively to acquire new customers. Thirty-six U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports betting, though the pace has slowed.

"The thing about the sports betting opportunity is it started off like a house on fire, with all the states approving it," said Huber Research Inc analyst Douglas Arthur. "But I'm not hearing as much excitement about it right now as I did nine months ago. If that's the rationale (for the merger), it's a pretty weak one.”

Since the start of 2022, the stock prices of 11 major publicly traded sports betting companies, including DraftKings Inc (DKNG.O) and Barstool Sportsbook's Penn Entertainment Inc (PENN.O), have tumbled by an average of 35%, according to Refinitiv data.

That does not necessarily mean the pace of legalized sports betting is slowing. Total wagers are expected to reach $390 billion globally this year, according to researcher H2 Gambling Capital. Kantar Sports analyst Ryan McConnell said the market is flooded with new entrants and consolidation appears likely.

Casualties are starting to build up. Streaming service FuboTV shuttered its sports betting service in October, and Churchill Downs announced in February that it would abandon online sports.

"It's a highly competitive market," said gaming industry analyst Steve Ruddock. "It's difficult for companies that aren't fully invested in that as their primary business to compete."

SLOW START

Since selling their movie assets to the Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) in 2019, the Murdochs laid a new course for a slimmed-down Fox, based on sports betting. The company soon paid $236 million for a 5% stake in Toronto online bookmaker the Stars Group which helped launch Fox Bet and owns the app.

Combining Fox with News Corp could bring a larger audience to sports betting, potentially increasing the financial rewards for attracting new gamblers and gaining more lucrative sponsorships from sportsbooks eager to promote their apps, said one media executive.

The Murdochs' early foray has been slow-going. The sports betting app Fox Bet is available in four states, with just 0.2% share of the U.S. market, according to researcher Vixio. A free version called Fox Bet Super 6 has attracted some 6 million users whom Fox hopes to eventually convert to gamblers.

The growth of Fox Bet has stagnated since market-leading FanDuel's owner, Flutter Entertainment Plc (FLTRF.L), acquired Stars Group in 2020. The companies have been locked in a dispute over the price Fox would pay to exercise its option to buy 18.6% of FanDuel. The matter is the subject of an arbitration case and Lachlan Murdoch told investors a decision is expected imminently.

News Corp has previously stumbled in sports betting. Last month, News' first direct investment in Australian bookmaking, Betr, went live ahead of the country's most-watched horse race, the Melbourne Cup. Within two days, an ad that ran in News Corp's tabloid newspapers triggered a regulator inquiry into whether the ads breached laws prohibiting inducement to gamble. Betr says it is cooperating with the regulator.

Matt Davey, chairman of Las Vegas sports betting investment firm Tekkorp Digital Acquisition Corp , which co-invested with News Corp in Betr, said News had seized on its media reach in Australia, where it sells more than half of all newspapers and runs sports-heavy cable TV channel Foxtel, to create a "pretty powerful combination" of media and betting.

At least one investor is waiting to be convinced that approach will work in the United States.

"Fox has got a far-reaching audience so it does make sense, if you're going to launch (sports betting) into the U.S., that you have that Fox network, distribution and partnership," said John Ayoub, a portfolio manager at Sydney-based Wilson Asset Management, which owns News Corp's Australian-listed shares. "But we'll probably need a little bit more detail."

Media Man International Blog: Punters slam News Corp-backed Betr for deactivated accounts

Punters slam News Corp-backed Betr for deactivated accounts

Scores of angry punters have accused News Corp-backed wagering group Betr of deactivating their accounts to prevent them claiming Melbourne Cup winnings.

The consumer discontent comes after Betr’s controversial 100-1 odds offer was embraced by hundreds of thousands of people. The group, led by gambling entrepreneurs Matthew Tripp and Andrew Menz, has congratulated those who backed Gold Trip to Melbourne Cup victory on Tuesday and said Betr had paid out all bets by the end of the day.

However, some disappointed users said their accounts had been deactivated without explanation.

Betr wrote to all suspended users on Wednesday asking them to verify the card details of their account or face permanent suspension. The Northern Territory Racing Commission, the authority Betr’s licence is beholden to, prevents betters holding multiple accounts with a bookmaker.

“Our systems have detected that you have made a deposit with a card that is registered to another Betr account holder. Using a card which does not match a customer’s account details is a breach of our terms and conditions,” an excerpt from the letter sent by Betr to affected users on Wednesday afternoon read. The bookmaker declined to comment.

Betr narrowly avoided losses of between $20 million and $50 million on the race after Gold Trip proved victorious over favourite Deauville Legend. Instead, it will pay 10,000 people who backed Gold Trip just over $1000 each.

More than 300,000 customers have joined Betr since it was launched in October, with an array of enticing odds including the 100-1 offer. The uptake has far surpassed expectations drawing suspicion from some the fledgling company may be out of its depth, having suffered a range of in-app issues earlier this month.

Betr was accused of having bitten off more than it could chew when it texted customers with a last-minute offer to take up an $150 betting voucher in exchange for their Deauville Legend bets late on Monday evening. Critics and media reports also pointed to Betr’s own bets on the favourite with rival Tabcorp to reduce its exposure by about $10 million as a sign of panic, but this is a relatively standard practice among bookmakers.

Betr was also rebuked by the NSW regulator on its second day of operations after it ran an aggressive marketing campaign about its odds offer in News Corp’s newspapers and is now the subject of an ongoing investigation into whether it has broken the state’s inducement laws.

One form guide analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he expects Betr’s rapid growth to “backfire spectacularly”.

“Betr’s app so far has been a complete shambles,” the analyst said, adding it was a shame given the demand for competition in the market.

“There’s far too much onus on individual bettors to chase a bookie for their winnings and there are too many clunky apps with poor communication and service across the board.”

Others, including semi-professional punter Bryce Parker, came to the defence of the bookmaker. “I don’t get the amount of negativity thrown at Betr,” he said.

“In my opinion delayed payouts and poor customer service isn’t a bad price to pay with odds like that. They’re not forcing you to sign up. I’m not going to disparage the everyday punter getting the chance to win one grand off $10,” Parker continued, adding he thought Australia’s gambling scene had become too hard to please.

The owner of rival bookmakers Neds and Ladbrokes, Entain, said on Wednesday its yield from the Melbourne Cup had grown by 30 per cent this year, with bets on Gold Trip accounting for nearly 3 per cent of the hold. No other bookmakers disclosed their turnover to this masthead. Victoria Racing Club reported last year’s Melbourne Cup wagering yield was $372.8 million, up 1.9 per cent on 2020.

Entain chief executive Dean Shannon said it was easily the most bets the business has taken on a single race in its 10-year history and that NSW’s simultaneous race had boosted performance.

“The Big Dance has definitely added to the day. Betting on that race was 300 per cent up on a standard Sydney race on Cup Day last year, so it shows that these big events compliment each other,” Shannon said.

Wednesday, November 02, 2022

Media Man International Blog: Gambling companies get new advertising tag

Gambling companies get new advertising tag

Australian TV viewers will no longer hear the hastily uttered "gamble responsibly" tagline.

From March 2023, betting companies like Ladbrokes, Sportsbet and TAB must ditch the well-known slogan in favour of seven new and government-approved ones.

"Evidence and research clearly shows the 'gamble responsibly' message doesn't do the job of getting people to think and to minimise harm," Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth told ABC radio on Wednesday.

"So the new taglines, which were agreed with all state territories and the Commonwealth, are evidence-based and they actually have been shown to work."

The new mottos include "Chances are you're about to lose", "You win some. You lose more", "What's gambling really costing you?" and "What are you really gambling with?"

When on screen, they must accompany information about gambling addiction resources and appear in the largest font possible to take up a third of the on-screen space.

If the taglines are spoken, they have to be read slowly and calmly.

Online gambling firms must rotate through each of slogans over a 12-month period to stop viewers becoming acclimatised to a message.

While gambling critics welcome the changes, some want them to go further.

They're "welcome and a good start to the widespread reform urgently needed", according to Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie.

"Doing away with the 'gamble responsibly' message is appropriate because the problems in the online and sports betting industry are more about the predatory behaviour of that industry than the behaviour of gamblers.

"Of course there are many bigger reforms that remain unaddressed."

Mr Wilkie is calling for a ban on television gambling ads during G-rated viewing hours and the implementation daily limits on betting companies.

In NSW, parliamentary crossbenchers have pushed for a mandatory cashless gaming card to provide harm reduction benefits for problem gamblers and crackdown on money laundering.

A report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found Australians lost around $25 billion on legal forms of gambling from 2018-2019, one of the biggest per capita losses in the world.

Beyond the financial costs, the report also revealed for every person who experienced problem gambling, up to six people around them were negatively affected.

Articles via Media Man Int

Tuesday, November 01, 2022

Media Man International Blog: Interview - Greg Tingle, Founder and Director, Media Man Int, Media Man Australia, Australian Sports Entertainment and more

Interview - Greg Tingle, Founder and Director, Media Man Int, Media Man Australia, Australian Sports Entertainment and more

Monday, November 07, 2022

Media Man International Blog: Alphabet Directory

Saturday, November 05, 2022

Media Man International: News Update

Friday, November 04, 2022

Media Man International Blog: AFR on the global streaming wars. - Amazon takes on Spotify, Apple with cut-price music offer (Australian Financial Review)