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Two Bulgarian political parties have submitted an amendment to the country’s Gambling Act, seeking to ban betting ads nationally.
If this amendment is successful, Bulgaria will make a significant mark in history as the first European Union member to enforce a nationwide ban on gambling advertising.
This potential change could reshape the industry’s landscape, sparking a domino effect for other EU countries.
Bulgaria seeks gambling ad ban
As reported by Gambling Insider, the amendment to the Gambling Act was submitted to the Bulgarian National Assembly on April 24.
The two parties responsible for the submission The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) fervently support the updated regulations.
If the change to the current legislation is successful, it will ban all advertising across broadcast networks, social media, and published media, such as magazines and billboards.
GERB Deputy Chairman, Temenuzhka Petkova, said: “It’s no secret that over the past three years, gambling-related addictions have been extremely increased in our society.”
The Bulgarian National Revenue Agency (NRA) has been battling problem gambling for some time. Last year, the financial regulator stepped in to combat over 600 unlicensed sites offering games of chance.
Politicians like Petkova and Yordan Tsonev, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Group of MRF, are optimistic about the proposed ban.
They believe that this increased scrutiny of gambling operators in the country will not only protect Bulgaria’s younger generation but also lead to a healthier and more responsible gambling environment.
Gambling operators in Bulgaria have also received increased levies on their practices. In December 2023, due to the country’s parliamentary alterations, some of the fees these companies received would double and, in some cases, triple.
Bulgaria isn’t the only European Union member to increase the pressure on gambling operators to protect vulnerable individuals.
The United Kingdom’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) imposed updated legislation limiting the amount individuals can stake. In a substantial development that would damage the pockets of British gambling chains, the £5 ($6.26) maximum staking limit was introduced to cap the amount under-25-year-olds could bet.
Image: Ideogram.
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Microsoft’s decision to invest heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) appears to have paid off after the company revealed significant gains in its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday (25 Apr).
The world’s largest public company outperformed Wall Street expectations, delivering $61.86 billion in revenue after billions of dollars were invested in AI but the spending is set to continue.
Demand for AI is soaring and Microsoft has vowed to boost capital expenditure to scale up its cloud platform, Azure. It has benefited from increased spending from the client base, with $26.7 billion in revenue recorded on cloud products, overall.
The upturn meant the group’s share stock spiked 4% in after-hours trading, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stating Microsoft’s AI tools “are orchestrating a new era of transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry.”
Microsoft well placed as major companies compete in AI development
With its stock market value of almost $3 trillion, Microsoft looks to be the frontrunner in the AI sector, boosted by an increase of 35% in its shares over the last 12 months. However, this significant gain has been beaten by Amazon and Google, with their stocks growing by more than 65% and 51%, respectively in one year.
Meta is also striving to keep pace in the rapidly evolving AI race, as its CEO Mark Zuckerberg sounded a warning to investors that it will take considerable time before any significant returns are made on generative AI after he committed the company to further spending, ahead of a period of lower profit forecasts.
AI is a catalyst and key driver for much of the growth at present, as witnessed by Microsoft’s multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
These ambitions require great resources and a vast amount of power. Microsoft aims to acquire 1.8 billion semiconductor chips by the end of this year as well as to turbocharge its data center capability. Microsoft is also creating its own chips to meet the excessive requirements as AI models need to be trained on huge amounts of data.
Image credit: Ideogram
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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, xAI, looks like it has some serious venture capital money behind it with the commitment of Sequoia Capital, to invest in the company.
Musk launched xAI in 2023 with lofty ideals and plans to work on existential problems like understanding the nature of the universe.
In his efforts to raise up to $6 billion for his fledgling company, the 52-year-old billionaire has approached investors who previously supported his acquisition of Twitter (now X) in 2022. The latest funding round could mean that xAI is valued at $18 billion, reports the Financial Times on Thursday (Apr 25).
Sequoia, which invested $800 million in Twitter, has confirmed its intention to invest in xAI, although the exact amount remains undisclosed.
Elon Musk’s xAI levels up for the AI race
Sequoia’s support for xAI comes as no surprise, the Silicon Valley investment firm is a long-time collaborator and backer of Musk, including The Boring Company and SpaceX. Roelof Botha, Sequoia’s current boss, was hired by fellow South African, Musk at PayPal in 2000.
Musk’s xAI faces intense competition from rival AI companies in this red-hot emerging market sector. OpenAI and Anthropic are fellow start-ups making big waves and existing tech giants like Meta (who this week announced a significant increase in AI spending) and Google.
To keep his company in the race, the X owner has been acquiring the necessary chips to train AI models and hiring engineers and researchers, some of whom have come from his other company, electric car maker Tesla. The capital investment from Sequoia and other investors will help accelerate the development of xAI’s chatbot, Grok, bringing it closer to the performance of its rivals.
Musk’s involvement in the AI industry is not without controversy. He co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left its board in 2018 due to disagreements with CEO Sam Altman over the direction of research. Recently, Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, claiming they had compromised the start-up’s original mission of building AI systems for the benefit of humanity, a case that OpenAI has described as “frivolous” and sought to dismiss.
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