Melco, MGM, Hard Rock to lead “internationalisation” of gaming brands

Sunday 13th of October 2019

Melco Resorts & Entertainment, MGM Resorts and Hard Rock International will be the leaders in 2020 in a continuing trend towards the internationalisation of gaming brands, Spectrum Gaming Group predicts in its lookahead for next year.

More jurisdictions in Europe, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere will seek out such brands as they continue to look to the development of IRs as economic generators, it says.

It’s top prediction for the year is that Japan will be the “Year of the Prefecture” with prefectures becoming fully involved in evaluating whether they will compete for an IR license. They will form advisory councils and working groups to help and by the end of the year one or more will have selected their IR operator partner, Spectrum says.

Meanwhile, the National Government will name the Commissioners to the Casino Regulatory Commission and the regulatory agency will become operative by issuing a series of regulatory guidelines.

Among its other top ten predictions, it forecasts that the Asia Pacific Group, the organization affiliated with the Financial Action Task Force in Paris overseeing anti-money-laundering issues worldwide, will continue to push countries in Southeast Asia to increase their regulation of gaming, especially in the areas of Licensing (determining beneficial ownership of casinos and online casinos) and anti-money-laundering.

It also sees crypto-based gaming gaining ground and further expansion of sports betting in the U.S.

Operators in Europe are likely to face increasing pressure from regulators over advertising amidst concern not enough is being done to promote responsible gambling. Regulators, especially in the U.K. have signalled a willingness to levy more fines, with greater penalties.