“Our players just loved the game we did for Euro 2016 so we are now giving them more of what they want with Rio Fever,” says Mathias Larsson, CEO of XIN Gaming. “We are one of the few developers with the resources and expertise to be able to release games that link to special events on the calendar.

Rio Fever is a 50-payline online slot that offers up fantastic winning potential. The game features high-quality graphics that depict various athletes, boxing, running, doing gymnastics and participating in a whole range of other Olympic sports.

There is a generous re-spins feature in Rio Fever from XIN Gaming. When the Torchbearer symbol lands on reel 1, then the player receives 3 re-spins. The first reel is held while the remaining symbols spin; if any more Torchbearer or Wilds land on the reels, then the will also be held in place for the remaining spins.

Players can also earn up to 12 free spins when three scatter symbols land on the reels. During this bonus round, the re-spins feature can be activated, offering players even more generous winning potential.

Play the new Rio Fever online slot at your favourite XIN Gaming-powered online casino today! It is available on both desktop and mobile platforms, so you can play from virtually anywhere!

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The new Theme Park: Tickets of Fortune online slot is a 50-payline game that provides players with a wide range of ways to win big. Betting is fixed at 25 coins, and players chance choose denominations between 1c and $1 – and there is also the opportunity to adjust the bet level between 1 and 10. As such, there are many ways to wager, so both high rollers and penny slots players will feel right at home.

The main draw of this new online slot is its Carnival Game bonus feature. As players earn tickets throughout the game, they can choose to spend them on one of six different bonus rounds, each of which are based on a classic fairground game:

–          Punchbag

–          Sledgehammer

–          Can Tower

–          Skee Ball

–          Fishing Game

–          Duck Shoot

Each of these rounds is a fun mini-game that provides players with the chance to win cash prizes, multipliers and free spins.

“With the release of Theme Park: Tickets of Fortune, NetEnt is making sure that players have the slot game ride of their lives,” says Simon Hammon, Chief Product Officer at Net Entertainment. “Its vivid graphics, and fantastic range of mini-games and features, bring all the fun of the fair to our customers’ platforms.”

The new Theme Park: Tickets of Fortune online slot from Net Entertainment is now available at online casinos on both desktop and mobile devices.

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Effective in October, the new measure will provide bar and club owners with a commission based on the amount of money that their poker machines make. It is aimed at compensating the 966 venues across the country that host pokies, providing the owners with a commission worth up to 1.28% of the weekly turnover on their pokies.

The new measure has responsible gambling advocates concerned. With club owners being offered a commission based on the amount of money that players spend on pokies, staff members are less likely to intervene when they suspect that a player is exhibiting problem gambling behaviour.

Denise Roche, spokesperson for The Greens expresses these concerns:

“You have got a guy sitting there for hours obviously in distress and you have got staff who may want to intervene but the venue owner is saying ‘no, no we want to get our 1.28 per cent’.”

Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne has also acknowledged this issue, stating that ‘venues may be incentivised to maximise income relative to costs’. He also notes that this may lead to a ‘risk of some venues being less likely to intervene when problem gambling is suspected or occurring’.

Dunne has suggested counterbalancing the issue by offering fair and adequate pay to gambling venues. This would provide the venues with the resources necessary to combat problem gambling among their players, intervening when appropriate to offer them potential assistance.

The new commission scheme will take effect in October 2016, and it is likely to spark up plenty of debates. We will keep you posted as this story develops.

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Birds is a cute and quirky online slots game that offers players a fun online gaming experience. It is 25-payline game that has a Free Flights format. This means that all birds that are involved in winning combinations will fly away and new birds will take their places. This can lead players to triggering even more winning combinations in a row.

When four consecutive wins (or Free Flights) occur, the player will trigger the free spins round. There is no limit to the number of free spins that the player can receive. The round will keep going until the player can no longer hit anymore Free Flights.

All wins on this game can be gambled. After any win occurs, you can click the Double Up button to play a Heads or Tails game. If you guess correctly, then you’ll double your prize. You can continue to double up as long as you continue to guess correctly.

“The artists have cultivated an enjoyable, extremely friendly atmosphere in our new Slots3 title,” says Stephen Jackman of Betsoft. “This game is a true delight to the senses and introduces an innovative reel mechanic that we are proud to share with the iGaming industry and community of players.”

The new Birds online slot from BetSoft is now available at a wide range of online casinos across the web. Players will be able to access this fun and exciting new game from their tablets, smartphones or desktop computers.

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Overall, the online slots developer saw a 519% surge in revenue up to $767 million. Bet turnover increased by 1085% to $600 000. This is one of the most successful results that we have seen for any new gaming operator. This is very encouraging for the company, and we are eager to see what comes next from Yggdrasil, based on this impressive growth.

Yggdrasil’s gaming growth has been attributed to its new deals. The company has signed a content supply deal with bet365, one of the web’s leading online casino providers, and has gone live on six different UK online gambling sites.

“Yggdrasil has kicked off 2016 with strong, mainly organic growth from existing customers and a number of exciting deals, launches and award,” says Fredrik Elmqvist. “We are already live with six operators in the UK and there will be more to follow in the coming months. It is certainly a very competitive market, and it is still early days, but early indications are encouraging.”

The company has also released 3 new games that have attracted plenty of attention from players around the world. Incinerator, Golden Fish Tank and Seasons all bring new themes and innovative gameplay features to the online casino market. It is no wonder why online gaming operators are so eager to work with Yggdrasil, as the company provides them with content that players are eager to try out. There is certainly more success in Yggdrasil’s future, and we can’t wait to see how the company grows in the coming year.

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From 7am to 6pm on Monday, October 14th, a life-sized casino made of cardboard will be located in the square. It will consist of 510 pokies, the total number of games that will exist in SkyCity Auckland if the convention centre deal is passed. The Greens encourage residents to visit the casino and write a message on the cardboard voicing their concerns to the government.

The idea of the protest is to show residents the scale of the SkyCity’s potential expansion. The gambling operator will be receiving an additional 230 pokies, and The Greens argue that this is the size of the average casino.

“SkyCity gets a whole new casino without having to go through any of the regulatory process required in law to set up a new casino,” says Greens co-leader Metiria Turei. “We want to show New Zealanders the scale of what the Government has gifted to SkyCity”.

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At the moment, the moment amount of revenue that pokies must donate is 37%. Mr Tremain would like to see that boosted to 43% over the course of the next four years, which would result in an additional $42 million being donated to local community groups.

He also wants to ensure that pokie grants are delivered back into the community from which the pokie revenue was collected. Low income areas have the highest pokie spending, but pokie grants are distributed evenly across the country. As such, disadvantaged communities receive a disproportionate amount of funding from gaming grants.

“There is a perception that money returned to particular areas is disproportionately low compared to the amount that was raised in that area through the gaming machines,” says Mr Tremain. “The potential harm from gambling in particular communities is not being mitigated through commensurate returns to that community.”

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South Dunedin’s new sinking lid policy aims to reduce the number of games until there are only five pokies clubs containing a maximum of 50 games. At the moment, there are 12 clubs with 168 pokies, making the rate of games 12 pokies per 1000 people.

Throughout the rest of Dunedin, there are 3.4 pokies per 1000 people, which is far below the national average of 5 games per 1000 people. There is a cap of 362 pokies in 30 venues, but some councillors want to see a stricter policy.

Councillor Richard Thomson has requested that South Dunedin’s sinking lid policy apply to the whole city. He believes that this will help to reduce problem gambling rates across all of Dunedin. As expected, club and pub owners are not on board, so there will likely be a heated debate over the issue.

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Councillors have spent the past few months reviewing submissions from other 10 000 sources. Responsible gambling group No More Pokies gathered 9000 submissions in support of the sinking lid policy, showing overwhelming support from local residents.

A number of provisions have been put in place in order to ensure that the number of pokies is reduced over time. Firstly, clubs owners that choose to relocate cannot take their pokies with them and they cannot offload the licenses to other operators. Clubs that merge can only host 5/6s of their combined poker machines; the rest of the games must be discarded.

Experts believe that problem gamblers will feel less compelled to engage in compulsive behaviour if there are fewer opportunities to gamble. As such, it is hoped that a decline in poker machine numbers will help to reduce gambling spending and problem gambling rates across Auckland.

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“We have examples of conflicts of interest that are at the root of some of the current investigations that are going on so there’s many examples without specifically naming individual ones,” says Chris Tremain, Minister of Internal Affairs.

Many different types of pokie grant fraud have taken place over the years. Many clubs and trusts provide pokie funds to individuals that are not eligible for grants while other organizations withhold their funding altogether. The goal of the new reform will prevent this from happening by making the system more transparent. Since more information about these transactions will be made public, pub owners and trusts will be more reluctant to circumvent the system.

At the moment, few details have been revealed – but we do know that these reforms will be implemented along with the Harm Reduction Bill. As more details about the legislation are introduced, we will keep you updated.

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