Pilot

What is Pilot?

All nine of Atlantic City’s casinos agreed to new labour deals this summer without a strike, although its union opted for just one-year deals instead of the typical length of three or more years. This was in response to increased uncertainty related to looming competition from both New York City casinos and New Jersey’s own online gaming industry.

In Las Vegas, the Culinary Union has unionised the entire Las Vegas Strip and secured historic wage increases during the last round of negotiations. Those deals are about halfway done now, and Culinary is no stranger to strikes, having used them as leverage to secure new deals in the run-up to the inaugural Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix in 2023 and and Super Bowl the following February.

Jess has covered the global gaming industry since 2022. A native of Reno, Nevada, he’d like to note that it’s Ne-va-da, not Ne-VAH-da.

About Pilot

This growth reflects the launch of eInstants and iCasino products across various markets, including Italy, Canada, parts of Germany, Mexico, the Czech Republic and Iceland. 

Veikkaus stated that Fennica now operates in 21 markets across three continents and gaming verticals. Fennica secured an UAE online supplier licence last year. 

Industry consultant Jari Vähänen, formerly a senior executive at Veikkaus, estimated the entire business could be valued at up to €4.5 billion following the liberalisation of the market.

How to play Pilot

In an April interview with iGB, Sher reflected on the challenges of regulatory uncertainty in Mexico

“Right now we are working based on a framework of laws which you cannot even call regulation, from 1947,” Sher said. “So it’s very hard to work long-term and to give long-term commitments. While the future is unclear in terms of regulation, we saw what happened in other countries in LatAm when they changed the regulation every other month.

“In Mexico, I think we are stable, we know how to deal with this market. Of course, we will be very happy if in the future, a proper regulatory framework will be introduced and not the way that we are working right now.”