Hamster Mania

How to play Hamster Mania

Citizens gaming analyst Jordan Bender wrote in a 16 Sept. note that with the NFL season now under way: “Genius should benefit from increased spending across both traditional sports betting and the emerging prediction market industry.”

Added Bender: Genius’ recent deals with Kalshi and Polymarket “have provided an incremental positive catalyst for [Legend founder] Mr Kisberg and team”.

“We think investors will be looking for signs that Genius can leverage Legend’s relationship to capture a larger share of the rapidly expanding sports betting and prediction market opportunity,” he aded in a note this week.

What is Hamster Mania?

One concern for operators is “the short duration of licences and renewal of licences”, notes Leckert. For operators, the casino business licence is renewable every three years, while the IR development-plan authorisation runs for 10 years, in contrast to the 18-year IR licence term in the Philippines, for instance.

Limiting the duration of licence validity “puts the entire capital investment at risk”, says Klebanow. Further regulations, including limiting residents to 10 visits per month and requiring them to present a ‘My Number Card’ when gambling, further erodes project viability. “Ultimately, casino developers individually concluded that developing an IR was too risky, and they took their billions of dollars in potential capital investment and walked away,” observes Klebanow.

Online betting on sports in Japan is in general is not permitted, with the exception of four sports – horse racing, bicycle racing (keirin), motorboat racing and motorcycle racing – each rigidly controlled and regulated directly by the government or government-affiliated public corporations.

What is Hamster Mania?

Spectrum Gaming Group’s 2022 report, which sits at the heart of the long-running dispute between the major games suppliers, has been unsealed as part of Evolution’s legal case against Black Cube.

Black Cube, an intelligence firm hired by Playtech in 2020 to look into alleged illegal behaviour at its rival Evolution, released a divisive report into Evolution’s actions. Evolution denied and refuted much of its findings.

Evolution then commissioned Spectrum Gaming Group to produce a report on its actions and the validity of the Black Cube report. Produced in 2022, the report has long been subject to confidentiality despite Evolution claiming the report exonerated the company.