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Welcome to Bet Sage's
Online Gambling News Section, featuring the latest breaking
gambling industry news courtesy of
InfoPowa
News. This is your
one stop source for all
and any of the latest
developments concerning
all aspects of the
Online Gambling
Industry.
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Detained former Betonsports CEO comes out fighting
After 10 months under house arrest in St. Louis and with the US Department of Justice charges against him still untested in a court of law, David Carruthers might be expected to be growing impatient with his invidious situation.
Carruthers, then the high profile chief exec of Betonsports.com, was arrested in July last year by US authorities at Fort Worth airport in Texas whilst transitting from the UK to Costa Rica. At the time Betonsports was one of the leading public companies in the online gambling industry, a situation dramatically reversed by the subsequent enforcement activities of the US Department of Justice (see previous InfoPowa reports)
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Austrian giant now has 729 000 registered active players
Austrian public company Bwin has released its latest quarterly report with the good news that things are getting better after a tough recent history that saw significant short term losses, mainly due to the UIGEA impact on subsidiary Ongame.
Gross gaming revenues of have climbed Euro 18.1 million to Euro 89.4 million in Q1 2007 (Q1 2006: Euro 71.3 million excl. US operations) Sports betting made up the bulk of the increase at Euro 50.1 million (Q1 2006: EUR 39.2 million) with an impressive registered and active player membership of 729 000 and 182 000 new real-money customers.
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Legislative carve-outs open the way for more horse betting
According to press releases distributed through PRWeb this week, sections of the horse racing business in the USA have been quick to urge Americans to use the Internet for their betting and racing information.
TVG.com, website for TVG Interactive Horseracing, "...the interactive home for online gambling, betting and wagering on Horseracing" is offering a six month free membership to all new subscribers to TVG.com. Just log on and join!
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"Soft game" downloads offered commercially
BSkyB group in the UK has launched an interesting new casual games portal branded Sky Games.com which offers online play or downloads of a wide selection of games from diverse platforms at a reasonable cost.
Over 100 games, through a partnership with IGN Entertainment's Direct2Drive, a fellow News Corporation company are available to users, with Eidos, Vivendi and Bethesda game providers already signed up and the promise that more are in the wings.
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Brindley dominates in exciting finale to star-studded tournament
Roy 'the boy' Brindley took home the Betfair.com Poker Masters of Europe trophy and $120 000 at the weekend after an exciting heads up with top Swedish pro William Thorson, who had to be content with a second placing payday of $70 000.
Brindley was chip leader for the majority of the final table, making few mistakes in the company of some of the biggest names in European poker.
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Betonsports founder pleads not guilty to racketeering and other charges
Gary Stephen Kaplan, the founder of besieged Betonsports.com online gambling group who was arrested in Dominica last month on a slew of alleged US crimes and extradited back to America, appeared in court this week.
Kaplan had been sought by the FBI for some eight months (see previous InfoPowa report) following the arrest of the company's CEO, David Carruthers and others triggered a Department of Justice action that has brought the company to its knees. Carruthers, a British subject, remains under house arrest in St. Louis and still awaits trial on charges he has strongly denied.
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Canadian publisher to acquire veteran news agency
The respected and long established Reuters news service will soon change ownership, it appears. Canadian publisher Thomson Corporation has agreed to buy the company for a reported GBP 8.7 billion ($17.23 billion)
The deal will create the world's largest financial news and data group, the deal-makers claim.
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Remarkable growth in six months
A new feature article on the PPA site by Dan Cypra of the PocketFives.com portal reveals that the Association has enjoyed an astonishing growth in membership to almost 500 000 - most of it since the advent late last year of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in the USA.
The US law, which attacks financial transactions with online gambling sites, appears to have given added impetus to the growth of the players' pressure group, which is headed by Michael Bolcerek and former US Senator Alfonse D'Amato.
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100K weekly satellites switch focus to the world's biggest poker event
The Gibraltar-based Mansion online gambling group is building up some serious World Series of Poker steam with a change in focus on its daily $100 000 guaranteed tourneys that will make 8 WSOP main event packages available every day for the next week.
The daily $100 000 Guaranteed Tournament will be turned into the Mansion Team PokerNews Main Event Satellite � with eight of the $12 500 packages up for grabs every day.
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Responsible gambling organisation welcomes former gaming exec
Gamcare, the responsible gambling body based in the UK has appointed a new member to its Board of Trustees. President of the board, Lord Andrew McIntosh welcomed Simon Thomas, an experienced gaming executive, aboard last month.
Thomas is an Honours graduate from Bristol University who worked in London's merchant banking sector before joining bingo and gaming management company Thomas Estates, where he became managing director. The group was sold to Riva Gaming in August last year.
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Was British Columbia study initiative spurred by recent reports from provincial casinos?
The provincial government of British Columbia is commissioning a new study on problem gambling, a week after news reports that casino employees often encounter distressed gamblers, and some who are aggressive or threatening at casinos in the region.
CBC News reported that a spokesman announced: "A proposal call has been issued for a contractor to survey the prevalence of problem gambling, to compare it to other jurisdictions and recommend ways to address the problems.
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European betting companies may be licking their lips, but there are legal uncertainties
The Czech Business Weekly carried an intriguing interview with corporate lawyer Jindich Rajchl, who does work for the giant Austrian-listed betting group Bwin Interactive among others.
The article claims that foreign online gambling companies are betting they're onto a Czech business jackpot because government officials will never be able to stop their Internet activities run from abroad. Austria-based Bwin Interactive Entertainment AG is one enterprise benefiting from laws that have only served to block competition from domestic entities, the report reveals.
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Playwize plc seeks shareholder authority to raise capital for marketing
It appears that Playwize plc, the AIM-listed games developer with links to Microgaming may be gearing up to market its reportedly exciting new animated 3d poker software package which was the subject of much publicity last year.
The company is apparently seeking shareholder authority to raise additional capital for further development projects and marketing initiatives aimed attracting licensees to the new product, which could ultimately see additional sites joining the Microgaming Poker Network.
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PPA chairman gets coverage in Boston press
Over the weekend an article on Internet poker authored by a familiar name appeared in the Boston press, where Poker Players' Alliance chairman and former Senator Alfonse D'Amato described the campaign by Congressman Barney Frank to legalise online gambling in the United States as "heroic."
"Perhaps the biggest government blunders in U.S. history have been prohibitions," wrote D'Amato in the Boston Herald. "The prohibition against alcohol led to black market smuggling and speakeasies, and reaped huge profits for organized crime. Today, the prohibition on Internet gambling promises to funnel players underground, diminishing society�s ability to deal with serious challenges such as underage and problem gambling, and, more importantly, interferes with the right to individual liberty and privacy."
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Canadian online poker player beats the big names
The 18 year old Canadian online poker star Will Ma (better known as cuteipi314 in the virtual arena) emerged as the champ in the final table of the Grand Prix de Paris at the Aviation Club de France in Paris this weekend.
Unfortunately, French officialdom's clampdown on the originally World Poker Tour event means that Ma's truimph over some heavyweight poker pros will not be seen on television, but that did little to dampen the enthusiasm and excitement that the tournament generated. At one stage Ma lagged behind his heads up opponent by 2 to 1 on chip count.
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Procedural restrictions stymie Menendez bill
Texas state Representative Jose Menendez's bill HB 3186, which proposed improving the legal position for Texas poker players' game of choice, has been [temporarily] stymied by a procedural time-out according to media reports from the state that gave Texas Hold Em its name.
Rep. Menendez's bill was scheduled too far down a very full list of legislative proposals to reach the floor of the House for its second reading before the time deadline, the reports indicate.
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Malta registered UK gambling group achieves 27001 certification
Betfair Holdings (Malta) Ltd has achieved high levels of professional governance and standards with the ISO 27001:2005 certification. The award represents a new international standard for an Information Security Management System (ISMS).
With its headquarters in Hammersmith, Betfair becomes the first iGaming company to be certified globally by the International Standards Organisation.
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Fears that Linden's virtual world could be used by criminals and terrorists
The Telegraph newspaper in Britain carried a report on the much discussed Second Life phenomenon from Linden Labs this week, airing opinions from legal and financial experts who claim that the lax regulatory regime could provide a haven for money launderers, fraudsters and even terrorists to hide and move funds.
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Seven individuals and four companies accused of conspiring to violate laws prohibiting Internet gambling
American news wire services reported late Friday that anti-online gambling operations in Utah have netted seven individuals and four companies accused of conspiring to violate laws prohibiting Internet gambling. The defendants live in Las Vegas, but two of the companies were based in Draper, a Salt Lake City suburb, according to the indictment.
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Though the Korean Internet Safety Commission has tried to restrict public access to foreign-based Korean-language gambling sites, the numbers are still rising
The number of Internet gambling sites, which target Koreans but operate their servers overseas in order to avoid the grip of domestic laws, is on the increase at a breakneck pace, says the Korea Times in an article this week.
Officials at the the Korea Internet Safety Commission told reporters that the body had asked the country's Internet service providers to block access to 549 foreign-based Korean-language gambling sites in March alone.
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Warrants of Seizure for millions issued by US Attorney's office
Judging by a press release from the listed Optimal Group Inc. this week it appears that the parent company for processors like FirePay has been under pressure from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York relating to its ongoing investigation of the U.S. Internet gambling industry.
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Anti-gambling body says the US Treasury is dragging its feet on regulation drafting
The Focus on the Family organisation is up in arms about the delays in introducing regulations for the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act signed into law last October. The legislation mandated the US Treasury and the US AG's offices to jointly prepare enforcement regulations for the act, which seeks to disrupt financial transactions to online gambling companies, within 270 days.
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The planet's biggest poker spectacular may be agin' online gambling, but mebbe not when it comes to paid advertising
Despite its cautious approach to Internet-sponsored contestants, the World Series of Poker appears to have no problem with accepting heavyweight advertising from online poker companies, judging by an agreement signed this week.
The agreement was between WSOP organiser Harrah's Entertainment and the no-gambling marketing and publicity arm of Party Gaming, Party Poker.net and renewed the product-placement agreement between the two companies for the 38th annual World Series of Poker Presented by Milwaukee's Best Light.
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More consolidation in the UK market
Players were being informed this week that UK online gambling sites Totalbet and Skybet are to merge in the next few weeks, creating a larger and more effective Internet gambling site.
Totalbet and several other top sites is part of 365 Media Group, which became part of British Sky Broadcasting Group plc in January 2007 (see previous InfoPowa report).
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Maximum betting limits raised in the sunshine state
Unless Florida governor Crist vetos it (an extremely unlikely occurrence) Florida poker players will be able to up their bets from July 1 following passage of a bill through the Florida House and Senate that raises the maximum betting limits in the state.
While poker has been legal in Florida, the maximum betting limit had been set at $2, with a maximum of three raises in any betting round. The pending law has raised the betting limit to $5.
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| 11 MAY 2007 : HEADLINES |
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Swedish provider elects new board...and CEO departs suddenly
Big moves were afoot at Boss Media, the Swedish online gambling turnkey provider this week when the company released its quarter 1 results and made changes to the board of directors that included the departure of the CEO, Johan Berg.
Operating profit was well up at 39 percent, and there was an 8 percent rise in sales although royalty revenues were down 3 percent.
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Strong European licensees opt for popular online casino system
The Casino Module system is proving a strong seller for Swedish online gambling software provider Net Entertainment, which this week announced that a further four betting companies had signed up for the latest version of the popular product.
The latest agreements take the number of deals this year up to six. BetUnited, Begawin,Tower Gaming and Wauw Gaming are the new licensees, which combined have a presence across Europe, including Spain, Scandinavia, Poland and the UK.
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Shares slide on weak first quarter results
Shares in the Scandinavian focused online poker provider 24hPoker Holdings AB took a 19 percent dip this week on weak first quarter results.
The Swedish company's net income slumped to around SKR100 000 from SKR 9.1million in the same period last year as fewer active customers used its online poker network.
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IOWA University student hosted illegal Texas Hold Em games with $800 pots
The Des Moines Register reports that a 19-year-old University of Iowa student has been charged by local police with four gambling offenses on allegations that he was hosting illegal Texas Hold'em poker games with pots of around $800.
Police officials said that Jonathon Koch's Iowa City house was "devoted to illegal gambling" and that he had poker tables set up in his garage, basement and on the main floor.
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Top pros will be competing for millions.
There's a tough weekend for poker tournament fans and players ahead as the erstwhile World Poker Tour's Grand Prix de Paris and Betfair's Masters of Europe events unfold in Paris and London respectively.
After fierce competition since May 6, the final table has been decided for the Euro 10 000 buy-in Grand Prix de Paris, where nine survivors will bet and bluff their way to a winner's prize of Euro 422 560 this weekend. This year's big French event has been marred by the interference of French authorities and uncertain legal climate which caused WPT to remove the epic from its schedule, and it will not be televised (see earlier InfoPowa report)
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Representative Berkely from the great state of Nevada proposes independent survey
Feisty Nevada politician Shelley Berkely has come through with her promise to propose an independent enquiry into the practicality of regulating and licensing online gambling in the United States.
American media are today (Friday) carrying initial reports that Representative Berkely has introduced a bill proposing an independent, 12 month study of online gambling to be conducted by the National Academy of Sciences.
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Discriminatory online gambling legislation is here to stay
A spokesman for the United States Trade Representative argued Friday that it was not required to comply with a WTO ruling to open its borders to the Internet gambling industry because of an "oversight" in a decade-old trade agreement.
The major news wire services carried a report this week in which the United States said it will maintain a ban on Internet gambling services despite an adverse World Trade Organisation ruling.
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