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What is Bomb Runner?
An Australian casino player is taking Royal Caribbean to court, arguing that the company banned him from sailing with its services and from playing at its casinos over his ability to count cards. After previously winning a legal battle against Star Casino, Mark Timothy Grant is now moving to confront the cruise line.
Grant argues that he has booked five Royal Caribbean cruises that were valued at a total of AUD 22,000. He booked the cruises with money he won playing at the Royal Caribbean’s ships’ casinos.
However, before he could even board the first cruise, Grant was told that he would not be able to proceed onboard. Grant had his son and partner along with him. The company only then went to inform Grant that he had been placed on a “no sail” list, effectively a ban, because of “breaking the house rules” in the casino.
What is Bomb Runner?
But, as Robinson warns, the opportunity to enter Africa doesn’t come without challenges.
“It’s profitable, it’s growing and it was for sale from a distressed vendor,” he says. “That combination rarely appears in regulated Europe, where scaling a B2C brand means paying up for customers against Flutter and Entain on thin margins.
“Africa isn’t saturated, but I wouldn’t call it easy either. Betway and the local incumbents are well dug in. The difference is that you’re competing for a market that’s still forming, at a fraction of the acquisition cost, and the operating margin is there if you get the payments and the product right. The risk is regulatory and currency rather than competitive.”
What is Bomb Runner?
Cirsa also holds a presence in Italy, and Angelozzi was asked whether this could cause any regulatory discomfort or revenue attrition.
But he said he was not concerned. “On the Italian antitrust, we don’t think we are in a risky situation because Italy is not the core of this deal and this doesn’t change the level of concentration in the country and will still be below 40% in each relevant market. So we don’t see that.
“We do not expect revenue attrition. These are complementary brands and complementary models, and we have a history of managing a multi-brand business in Italy, and we already have several brands that run in our business and that are complementary.”
