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African iGaming Alliance (AiA) CEO Peter Kesitilwe hopes the inaugural Africa Safer Gambling Week is the start of a new era for collaboration across the continent’s licensed sector.

The AiA hosted the first Africa Safer Gambling Week this week, bringing together stakeholders such as regulators, operators and industry associations on a range of issues relating to safer gambling.

As Kesitilwe explains, a key theme of the week has been turning conversations on safer gambling into practical actions.

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Convened by Texas State Senator Bryan Hughes, the hearing in the Senate Committee on State Affairs examined the relationship between federally regulated derivatives markets and state-prohibited gambling. Research from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming in April found that 43% of activity from sports event contracts came from two states, Texas and California. A separate breakout of Texas activity alone is not publicly available.

At Tuesday’s hearing, AGA Vice President Tres York testified before the committee alongside Robert DeNault, head of enforcement and legal counsel at Kalshi. The AGA, one of the nation’s most strident critics of prediction markets, argued that an event contract on the Cowboys to beat the Giants does not differ fundamentally from the same wager placed at a sportsbook.

As with California, sports wagering is illegal in Texas. Greg Abbott, a three-term governor, is up for re-election in November, along with Dan Patrick, his lieutenant governor. Patrick, who vehemently opposes sports betting, also serves as president of the Texas Senate in his current role. Several attempts to legalise sports wagering since the 2018 PASPA decision have been foiled under Patrick’s leadership.

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Another claim made by Black Cube’s report was that Evolution had accepted wagers in virtual currencies and cash. Spectrum confirms that wagers were made by end users using crypto currencies, however it was the operator, and not Evolution accepting these bets.

After assessing part of a 75-page PDF spreadsheet of transactions provided by Evolution, Spectrum found crypto wagers had been placed on Evolution games provided by Hub88, as alleged by Black Cube.

Up to 1,124 occurrences of virtual currencies being used were discovered by Spectrum, which added up to 11.5% of the sessions included in the spreadsheet provided by Evolution.