Trends, News & Interesting Reads

In November 2022 Golden State voters will vote on a referendum that, if passed, will bring sports betting to California. Details, such as who will control the new betting opportunities, whether sports betting will be available only at land-based casinos or through online casinos sportsbooks and the role that the state’s gaming tribes will play in facilitating retail and online casino sports betting in California must still be worked out.

Throughout the United States legislators are looking at video and online casino gaming critically and considering the need to regulate different sectors of the industry.

Sports betting enthusiasts in Arizona had expected that they would be able to place legal bets on the 2021-2022 NFL season this year but a lawsuit by the Yavapai-Prescott tribe may put a damper on those plans. The tribe claims that sports betting is unconstitutional because, in negotiation with gaming tribes in the state over a renewed compact, the state presented the terms as non-negotiable and rural tribes were excluded from the negotiations.

Over the course of the pandemic, the gaming industry has been playing an important role in helping people stay connected and stay emotionally healthy. Now, gaming influencers are finding themselves on the front lines in the battle to fight mental and emotional distress caused by pandemic stress and isolation.

Since Facebook Gaming launched in 2018 the company has made major strides in creatively advancing its platform to serve gaming enthusiasts on all levels.

As game companies venture into the world of cloud gaming, Steam, which pioneered the concept, is showing every indication that it will continue to be an industry leader in the years to come.

The fourth wave of COVID-19 is still creating global havoc  financially, economically, educationally and in almost every other way. In Vegas however, the gaming industry is seeing profit and growth. Vegas’s July 2021 revenue was the strongest since the pandemic hit in March 2020.

In the 1940s and ‘50s sports betting, which had previously been a neighborhood bookie-type affair, was taken over by the mob. Anti-Mafia actions by the U.S. government wrestled the lucrative industry from the hands of the mob. Now, sports betting, both land-based and online casino sports wagering, is once again being consolidated in the hands of a few operators. Observers see both pros and cons in the change.

Gaming influencers have, for the most part, reacted with stunned shock to the California lawsuit which was filed last month against Activision Blizzard. The lawsuit alleges that female employees of Activision Blizzard, which publishes World of Warcraft, were subjected to a toxic environment of sexual discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

You don’t have to be a digital artist to design your own video game using the game creation software program. The platform gives anyone the tools needed to construct a digital space that’s goofy, beautiful, strange or creepy and above all, allows for the creation of a zone where players can peek into the corners of the creator’s mind.