Lawrence Lessig will examine regulation in address

The hot topic of discussion in both player and operator circles this year has been the question of genuinely regulating the borderless online gambling industry, and this interest is reflected in the choice of speaker for the keynote address at the industry's most important conference event.

Expert Internet academician Professor Lawrence Lessig will deliver the address to the Global Interactive Gaming Summit and Expo (GIGSE) to be held May 16-18 at the Palais de Congres in Montreal.

Lessig is one of the world's foremost experts on intellectual property in the age of digital communication, the founder of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society and the authority on "cyberlaw" - the evolving law of the Internet. He has written several books, including "Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology" and "Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity."

In his two previous books, "Code" and "The Future of Ideas," Lessig concentrated on the destruction of much of the original promise of the Internet. Blending knowledge, insight and eloquence, these books are profoundly important guides to the care and feeding of innovation, intellectual property, free speech and privacy.

Lessig's keynote address will focus on the unique issues the industry faces. In this lecture, titled How Regulation Will Happen: The Leviathan Is Coming - The Only Question Now is How, Professor Lessig will draw from a range of work in legal theory and technical design to draw the map of his approach, outlining how those who depend upon liberty for their livelihood can survive in the perfectly regulated world that could be.

Expected to be the largest event ever for the interactive gambling industry, GIGSE will attract close to 2,000 individuals from 45 countries. Headed by this year's Platinum Sponsor, WireCard, over 120 companies will be exhibiting or sponsoring activities at the tradeshow.

From elegant roulette to a slot that will have you in a whirl, a great new selection

King Neptune's Casino (www.kingneptunescasino.com) and Trident Lounge Casino (www.tridentloungecasino.com) in the Trident group have four superb new games in the April releases that will surely meet the most exacting demands for variety and quality.

Featuring traditional, mythical and humorous themes, together with high action video poker the games combine fast action and smooth operating characteristics.

Leading the releases is a standards-setting fresh version of the popular European Roulette Gold game, in which the latest technologies have been used to present an outstanding example of an easy to use and brilliantly themed traditional casino game with real ambience.

European Roulette is the result of intensive player research in order to achieve the ideal balance of elegant and sophisticated atmosphere married to hi-tech efficiency. The result is an improved offering that is far and away the best of its genre currently on the Internet.

Outstanding graphics showcase the razor sharp quality and true colour reproduction of the walnut-rimmed table through to the wide choice of player controls and assists, and the game delivers fast and positive action and the feel of solid quality.

Control buttons such as Call Bets, AutoPlay, Redo and Undo are sized and positioned for maximum convenience, together with zoom in snapshot windows to ensure that players remain in the picture and on the numbers.

Through the use of new wheel animation technology, interactive chip selection, animated 3D chip action, precision graphics and crystal clear ambient sounds this online game has an authentic feel, and the new ‘brass’ frame buttons and the inclusion of a useful Bet Timer add to the quality and the realistic experience of the game.

Extending Trident's selection of big, epic-themed games, is the new video slot Avalon which summons back the mythical past when chivalrous knights roamed the land doing good deeds and magic was everywhere.

All of this history is captured in beautifully rendered graphics in the 5 reel, 20 pay-line Avalon – a game in the highly entertaining Australian style, with free spins, mystery multipliers, Scatter and two Wild opportunities and a Gamble feature where the intrepid can double or quadruple wins on the right selection of suit or colour.

With up to 15 Free Spins (with the possibility of up to 7 times multipliers) this is a game that ranks high in terms of excitement and opportunity.

The fifth in the popular series of six 100 Play Power Poker VP games, the new Double Joker multi-hand video poker offering sets new levels of excitement and action in this popular genre, on which thousands of players have found hours of solid entertainment and reward.

Up to 100 hands of video poker at a time can be played simultaneously with a wide choice of wagers. For the gambler with a good bankroll and a penchant for action this is the ideal game, and it comes on the features-rich Viper software platform with autoplay and a range of player assists..

There’s an major thrill warning from Trident with the launch of Twister, a 5 reel, 15 pay-line video slot that is set to blow players away! With Wild and Scatter symbols, a Free Spin bonus feature with spins within the free spins, together with a double-your-money gamble opportunity with a $10 000 ceiling, it’s easy to see why this one could have slots fans in a whirl.

If 3, 4 or 5 of Twister’s TV scatter icon appear across the reels, look out for excitement of 20 Free Spins capable of doubling all winnings. And for those ready to “Gamble” with the forces of Mother Nature, a chance to double their windfall winnings on the colour of the cards is available.

This tornado of fun and thrills has a humorous airborne trailer park theme that has everything from pick-up trucks to outhouses up in the air and an amusing cast of characters populating the lines, all executed in bright, clear graphics and backed with easy to use player controls.

Twister will keep you on the edge of your seat, with hours of great entertainment and the possibility of substantial rewards – for example the top jackpot in the base game is a cool $75 000, and that can be lifted by the Twister to 150 000 with free spins.

Poker magazine's expansion plans reach the land of Oz

Bluff Media's popular poker magazine, Bluff has extended its reach Downunder with the announcement this week that the first edition of Bluff Australasia will hit newsstands around the country today (on April 27.)

Bluff Australasia publisher Alan Hyman said the magazine would follow Bluff’s tradition of taking a unique look at poker.

"We’ve been waiting for the right time to launch Bluff in Australia and we’re finally able to share this fantastic magazine with a brand new audience,” Hyman said. “Unlike the USA, the poker phenomenon is just taking off in Australia. This means that we can help people just starting to make decisions about where to play, which games are best suited for them, and show them why poker is such an exciting sport.”

Managing editor Sean Callander said Bluff Australasia would combine the best of the US material with all the latest news on the local poker scene.

“Bluff already has an awesome line-up of columnists like Andy Bloch, Antonio ‘The Magician’ Esfandiari, Annie Duke, Phil Gordon and Mike Caro,” Callander said. “These writers will continue to present their thoughts on strategy and guides for assisting players with their games. But you’ll also find profiles, features and stories from the latest happenings in Aussie poker.”

Highlights of the first edition of Bluff Australasia include:

• Our reigning world poker champion Joe Hachem talks about life as the most visible man on the world poker stage in the lead-up to his WSOP title defence later this year.

• They don’t call Lee Nelson ‘Final Table’ for nothing! The reigning Aussie Millions champion shares the secrets of his success in a revealing chat.

• The pub poker craze that’s swept Sydney has started its march across the country. We speak with those at the heart of the pub poker movement, and feature all the news from the Australian Poker League’s huge Freeroll event.

• We highlight the local players who’ve been starring in the US and Europe.

Plus: results from the NZ Poker Championships, the latest news in Aussie poker, coverage of Joe Hachem’s battle against some of the AFL’s biggest stars, plus more.

Now Fox Sports is being dragged into the litigation, too

Calvin Ayre, the CEO of Bodog may have dismissed the Blue Moon Entertainment litigation with contempt and threats, but the TV doccie company showed this week that it meant business by adding Fox Sports to the list of defendants in its plagiarism action against the gambling group (see earlier InfoPowa reports)

In an amended statement filed this week in a Los Angeles County courthouse, Babette Pepaj, a documentary-maker doing business as BlueMoon Entertainment, clarified and increased by one count of action her complaint against Bodog Entertainment Group, Calvin Ayre, Fox Sports Net, Inc. and other entities.

The case arises from claims by Blue Moon that Ayre's new TV reality show Wild Card Poker is a rip-off of an earlier "Poker Showdown" concept that Blue Moon came up with - allegedly at Bodog's request.

Last week Bodog boss-man Calvin Ayre claimed the case had been thrown out, and said that Bodog.com was not through fighting it just yet. "We are actually not through with them (BlueMoon) yet," Ayre insisted. "I am going to make an example of these people to show what happens when you frivolously sue me."

Ayre explained that Bodog.com asked BlueMoon to submit a proposal for a television reality show just over a year ago, requesting the parameters involve poker and have Calvin Ayre appear in it. "Those are the only two similarities," Ayre insists.

The first episode of Bodog's show, which is hosted by Ayre himself appeared on Fox Sports TV last week. Attempts by BlueMoon to stop the show airing failed when a judge turned down an application for an injunction suspending the screening.

"Wild Card Poker" is a six-episode reality series about a $500 000 poker tournament, intercut with Costa Rican lifestyle elements and the activities of Bodog's billionaire founder and top man, Calvin Ayre.

Media reports on the latest developments suggest that [Blue Moon] Pepaj's lawyers have cleverly worked a comparative table into the amended version of the complaint. This allows the media to report specifically on the nature of the complaint and the similarities in concept.

Clearly the case has not "gone away" and more fireworks can be expected as lawyers on both sides carry the battle to the media as well as the courtroom.

STOP PRESS: As we went to press this week the following comment was received from the Bodog legal team:

"Fox was always a party to the lawsuit. Initially, the only relief being sought as against Fox was an injunction to prevent the show from airing. The Plaintiffs went to Court the week before the airing of the initial show to request an injunction. After hearing their argument a Justice of the Superior Court in California dismissed their application for an injunction and allowed the show to go to air.

"Since that time the plaintiffs have elected to bring an additional claim as against Fox. We take the same view of this new claim as we do of all the plaintiff's claims; that is it is completely without merit.

"Other than amending their claim the plaintiffs have taken no further steps to move the matter forward and as of this date none of the named defendants have even been served with a copy of any claim."

Sportingbet quick off the mark in offering Payne for interviews

The publicity guys at Sportingbet were ahead of the field this week in linking an announcement by the American Gaming Association with the availability for interviews of their high profile CEO Nigel Payne.

Yesterday's announcement by the American Gaming Association (AGA) recommended the creation of a one-year Congressional study commission that would evaluate the effects of online gambling in the United States, something which responsible US politicians like Rep. John Connors has been suggesting for some time as an alternative to a precipitous ban on the $12 billion industry.

Payne says that American tax collectors are losing out on billions of revenue dollars because they do not recognise this lucrative and booming industry. And, the US government refuses to license and regulate it, thus missing out on the opportunity to collect taxes and ensure responsible gaming.

Payne has offered himself for media interviews in which he is prepared to address:

* Why regulation of online gambling is the best thing for the internet gaming industry
* How regulating the internet gaming industry will benefit the American public
*How online gaming companies use state of the art technology to impose betting limits and identify underage and problem gamblers
* The popularity of gambling online

XXL Club launched its new online casino this week at xxlclubcasino.com, marking the first step in an ambitious plan for a future multiplatform operation.

Choosing Playtech as the turnkey provider, the Club said that online casino operations will be followed by an online poker platform, mobile gaming and an intriguing new and revolutionary land based gambling service, which is being kept under wraps until its launch later in 2006.

The announcement would appear to imply that in the XXL Club project, Playtech is moving toward the trendy "one stop gambling" site concept.

A XXL Club spokesman said this week that the Club had extensive requirements to create a new level of online gambling experience for customers. "Playtech acted like a partner during the buildup and realisation phase," he said. "Their technical experts and management team gave us critical professional advices on how to best meet XXL Club's ambitious project goals."

Describing the new venue as "...a new level of product sophistication to the online gambling community," Frank Lloyd, director of operations at XXL Club Casino said: "Today marks the start of a new era in the world of multiplatform gambling”, and revealed that XXL Club will primarily target customers in the European Union, with a special focus on the dynamic and vibrant Russian market.

XXL Club has established a dedicated office in Moscow, in addition to its headquarters in the British Virgin Islands, for quick, responsive service to Russian customers. A third office will be opened shortly to support the most common languages in Europe like German, French, Spanish, and Italian.

“We believe that a professional customer service department that offers a high quality standard of attention, a very user-friendly and attractive multilingual web site and fast and hassle-free payouts, 24/7/365 combined with state of the art, irreproachable and trustful software are the key ingredients for success in today’s highly professional and competitive online gambling industry”, Lloyd opined.

With over 85 casino games, including live gaming using advanced video streaming technology XXL Club Casino has a sophisticated, European Club theme backed by the full range of player and financial services. XXL Club Casino N.V. is based in Curacao, and the venture is backed by a "multi cultural" group of investors spread across Europe which makes it a unique powerful player in the fast growing PAN European gambling market.

More European players and revenues climbing

Turnkey provider Playtech has released impressive first quarter trading figures for 2006, indicating a very positive start to the year with revenues up almost 150 percent over Q1 in 2005.

Revenues overall were up 147 percent on Q1 2005 at $20.767 million, comprising a 136 percent increase in casino revenues and a phenomenal 1159 percent rise in poker revenues, albeit from a low base. New poker software is currently under further development at the group's facilities in Talinn, Estonia.

Licensees increased from 31 to 39 over the same period last year, providing a total of 115 sites using the Playtech software and services.

The origin of revenues showed a significant drop of 14 percent from players from North America (from 67 percent in Q1 2005 to the current 53 percent) whilst European and Asian Pacific players action increased by 6 percent and 14 percent respectively. Revenue contribution from the Far East has more than doubled over the past year.

Playtech’s Chief Executive Officer Avigur Zmora said, "During the quarter, which has included the company's IPO, we have significantly increased revenues across all of our sectors, both year on year and compared to the previous quarter. Based on this increase, and the underlying growth of existing clients, we are delighted to have traded in the first quarter of 2006 ahead of market expectations.”

He continued: "It is particularly encouraging to see that our drive into the exciting and fast growing Asia Pacific market is showing clear results. Revenue contribution from this region has more than doubled within the year whilst US players this quarter contribute approximately 50 percent of revenues, down from 67 percent this time last year. This clearly illustrates the ongoing success of our strategy to create a more balanced geographical business portfolio.”

No Foxwoods hassles here

The Nevada Appeal News reported on closer convergance between (illegal in Nevada) online gambling and playing games for reward using the Internet this week in a story on the PlayAway concept.

This caused grief for Foxwoods earlier this year when the huge land casino got into a wrassle with the local law over the concept, but apparently in Northern Nevada it's no problemo.

The story reports that Carson City residents who prefer to gamble on a PC no longer have to do business with an off-shore company.

But it's not really online gambling; it just seems that way. Northern Nevada land casinos are targeting the substantial group of players who like to spend leisure time at land casinos, then go home and continue gambling in front of the computer screen.

The Department of Justice advised the Nevada Gaming Commission in 2002 that the federal Wire Act prohibits Internet gaming. The law doesn't criminalise the online player, just the site that has the product. But, as one gaming control board member said, it's hard to prosecute an online company in the Caribbean.

Nevada's substitute for online gambling is called PlayAway, and it's catching on. In February this year, Casino Fandango was one of the first casinos in the state to roll out the system.

It works like this: Players go to land casino Fandango's keno desk and purchase PlayAway tickets in fixed denominations. They go home and log on to play the games. The player returns to the casino to pick up any earnings. Sound like Internet gambling?

"You've already won or lost before you turn on the computer," said Mark Clayton, a member of the gaming control board. He said Internet gaming is different because the player wins or loses based on how he or she plays online. "It was determined by the gaming-control board that this system did not determine the game outcome, and merely was a method to reveal the results of a game outcome determined at the licensee," Clayton said.

"We're seeing more and more folks playing on it," said Chris Plummer, marketing analyst for the casino.

"Customers are really playing keno, but it doesn't feel like it," said John Taylor, president of GameLogic, the company that developed PlayAway. He calls it virtual play. "You have bought a multi-race keno ticket, What you're doing on Internet is merely revealing the results of the outcome of the keno races," he said.

Taylor said his company is providing its casino customers with new ways of using the Internet, something players want to use, but regulated casinos are prevented from using because of federal laws.

Six casinos in Northern Nevada are using the PlayAway system. It is set to roll out in casinos in Southern Nevada, New Jersey and Mississippi. The company even has a version for tribal casinos.

Tough final tourney round featured 30 women

Betfair's Poker Goddess tournament culminated in the Poker Ladies Night Live final this week, hotly contested by thirty very skilled and aggressive players.

This event was the highlight of a month of online tournaments and promotions as Betfair Poker searched for the Betfair Poker Goddess.

The players had a diversity of experience from professionals to first-timers, flying in from all over the United Kingdom and Ireland to meet for a chance to win a seat at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Ladies Event 2006 in Las Vegas. There was a GBP 3000 prize pool on offer for those unlucky to miss out on the top prize and everyone on the final table got a slice of the action.

Despite having never been involved before in a live poker event, Angela Thacker, 30 from Halifax, was crowned the Betfair Poker Goddess. She was presented with a giant plane ticket by Betfair's Head of Poker Ben Fried.

At the close it was Thacker against two other tough cpompetitors: Francine Brandler and Vera Duffy. Angela had a large chip lead and was playing with a confident and aggressive style which backfired when she allowed short-stacked Duffy to double up. But Angela knocked out Brandler (with three-of-a-kind two's) who had played consistently well up to this point.

Duffy, a 61 year old grandmother from Ireland, fought back to level chips before her all-in on a flush draw was called by Thacker with a pair of fours. Duffy, who had played superlatively throughout the night, was knocked out as the flush failed to appear.

Angela Thacker commented, "It's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I've never been to London before, let alone Las Vegas. This is my first experience and I've absolutely enjoyed it. The world is wide open."

Betfair Poker's Ben Fried was impressed by the positive atmosphere surrounding the event. "The sportsmanship and camaraderie between the players was fantastic. Remember poker is fun, and these ladies certainly had some of that. Well done to Angela - she's done brilliantly and we will be supporting her all the way at the WSOP."

Fresh from the Battle at the Bellagio, Schoenberg to be sponsored by Mansion gambling group

Erica Schoenberg gave a spirited and skilled performance before being knocked out at 16 in a field of 606 starters at the recent 4th WPT World Championships in Vegas, one of the last two women still in the fight with Vanessa Rousso.

Recognising this and other great gaming by the 28 year old top player, Mansion, the international Poker, Casino, Sportsbook and Sports Exchange gaming entertainment company, has provided a multi-layered sponsorship for what it describes as poker's newest rising star.

The Mansion sponsorship is a three-year partnership with Schoenberg. The endorsement requires that Schoenberg devote more time to live tournament play as a roving poker ambassador for Mansion, to compete on the international circuit in prestige land-based tournaments, plus represent the gaming brand at key industry conferences, exhibitions, and events.

Schoenberg will receive front line support from Mansion that offers her more than just a generous bank-roll. The glamorous Schoenberg will be groomed as a Mansion spokes-model and on-air media presenter, and will be actively promoted as the face of Mansion at the forefront of some very exciting projects for the company in the future.

"It is with great excitement that we welcome Erica to the Mansion team. Mansion is thrilled to endorse a player with Erica's obvious talents and skills that extend far beyond the poker table, and we look forward to developing a successful partnership with her," says David Kinsman, Chief Operating Officer of Mansion Limited.

Winning at cards is definitely not a new phenomenon for the former Blackjack professional, trained by the notoriously successful MIT Blackjack outfit. Competitive by nature, with a tournament beach volleyball career also on her resume, Poker is Schoenberg's new game of choice. Her results at the Bellagio and Foxwoods prove her ever-evolving style of poker will be a formidable force on the Texas Hold'em Tournament circuit.

"I am so excited to have joined with Mansion, and thrilled to have shown a top-twenty result at one of the most respected poker events worldwide. It is truly a premiere event with all the best players in the game," Schoenberg enthuses.

The partnerhip between Schoenberg and Mansion is both well-timed for the gaming giant, coming on the eve of the launch of MansionPoker.com, and preceding a multi-million-dollar roll out of a portfolio of sponsorships, investments and marketing initiatives set to substantially raise the company's global profile.

Editor's note: Mansion Casino just joined Casinomeister's Accredited Casinos section.

First quarter revenues dip, but plenty of cash in the bank for Israeli group, and casino revenues triple

The sale to Party Gaming of Empire Poker may have slowed down revenues in the first quarter, but it has provided the Israeli Internet gambling group Empire Online with an extremely healthy bank balance...and they're out looking for acquisitions according to its latest trading report.

The group reported a slight decline in first quarter gaming revenues this week, but said it now had up to $259 million (GBP 145 million) available for acquisitions.

Total first-quarter net gaming revenue was $21.1 million, compared to $22.5 million in the preceding quarter and $24.4 million a year ago.

The number of new real-money player signups in the period totaled 44 217, with more than half of the new customers resident in countries other than the U.S., where Internet gambling has uncertain legal status, the statement says.

Casino revenues nearly tripled year-on-year to $15.3 million, but poker revenues fell by 69 percent to $5.8 million, following the $250 million sale of Empire Poker to industry leader PartyGaming in February.

Empire said it now had $259 million of cash on its balance sheet at the end of the first quarter.

"The company now has the financial strength to diversify both its product and geographical exposure outside of the USA through value enhancing acquisitions," it said in a statement. "Empire Online is actively seeking to acquire complementary gaming businesses in such areas as sports betting, skill-based gaming and soft-gaming niches such as bingo," it added.

The company has not given up on poker - it runs the successful Noble Poker operation and a spokesman said: "In addition, the company is exploring further poker and casino acquisitions."

Canadian Gambling Association says $500 million is sucked out of the Canadian gaming business every year

Bull Rutsey, the head of the Canadian Gaming Association and top man in that country's $14-billion land gambling industry is not happy with the Internet gaming business, claiming it sucks $500 million a year out of the Canadian economy, which he would presumably prefer to see gambled in land-based ventures.

This week the Vancouver Province newspaper reported on his address to more than 600 gambling industry representatives in Vancouver for the Association's national conference and trade show to hear from experts and see the newest gadgets to lure customers to bingo halls, casinos, lotteries and horse-racing tracks.

Rutsey told delegates that Internet gambling represents the biggest threat to Canada's gambling industry: "Millions just disappear - the money is sucked right out of the economy," he claimed. "Internet gaming is a real competitive threat, and law enforcement needs to take steps to deal with the issue. It seems to be a case of benign neglect at this point."

The gambling chief said that online casinos, sports betting and horse races are illegal in Canada and the U.S., but in the past five years, Internet gambling has grown from a $5 billion business worldwide to $12 to $14 billion today. The Canadian portion of the business is estimated at $500 million a year.

And instead of provincial governments getting their share of the bets - $7 billion last year - Internet gambling revenues disappear into the pockets of organised criminals and private companies, often with offshore addresses, he said.

"Who knows what's really going on with these games," Rutsey said. "You could have underage gamblers playing, and if you've got a problem with gambling, the Internet is a perfect place to exploit it."

Rutsey admits online gambling is difficult to stop, but says that land casinos are fighting back by providing more than a place to play cards and slot machines. "To compete, we need to create compelling experiences for the public with live entertainment, food and beverages," he urged.

In Canada, the gambling industry employs more than 50,000 people. Casinos take in the biggest share of gambling money, followed by the lotteries. Bingo has been losing players, but the lottery corporation is trying to revitalise the game with Chances, its new brand for "community gaming centres" featuring bingo as well as slot machines and licensed facilities.

Millionaires Club jackpot is the one to hit

Much of the action on big win progressive slots shifted to Cryptologic casinos this week as the Millionaires Club jackpot climbed through $2 389 999, setting new Internet gambling jackpot records by the day. The huge popularity of the Millionaires Club 9-line bonus slot machine has already driven the jackpot over historic levels and is currently growing at a rate of over US$35 000 per day.

Anyone winning over $2 million on InterCasino.com progressive will get a special bonus - a brand new BMW as well! This sporty little BMW is worth $35 000 to match the first double millionaire's new lifestyle.

Politicians demand stricter enforcement of anti-gambling law on minors

Philippino politicians alarmed by the incidence of underage gambling in the nation have passed a resolution urging police and local government units to strictly enforce the law prohibiting minors from gambling establishments.

In filing House Resolution 1214, Palawan Representative Abraham Mitra cited a recent study, which showed that "...some students were already gamblers and that as many as 85 percent had tried their luck at some form of gambling while in the course of their schooling."

Commenting that school authorities were alarmed after receiving what he described as "...a crescendo of complaints from concerned parents about schoolboys squandering lunch money on bingo, lotto, horseracing, cockfighting, and casinos," the politician noted that: "If treated with indifference, such activity may interfere with a student's personal relationships, school or work activities, and they may even incur debts of substantial amounts due to addiction or continued patronage of gambling activities."

Mitra said it was the duty of the police and the LGUs to keep students out of gambling establishments since gambling operators turn a blind eye to juvenile gambling in order to generate large revenues.

And eCOGRA certification could be achievable for B&W operations

Swedish gambling software developer and turnkey provider Ongame will benefit significantly from its recent acquisition by Bet and Win, it seems. Europe's largest gambling group has decided to concentrate on using Ongame's poker going forward.

From mid-2006 Ongame will be the platform of choice for Bet and Win online operations, to the disadvantage of previous provider Boss Media. It is believed that as much as 10 percent of Boss Media's current online poker revenues come from licensing its software to B&W. The good news for Boss is that B&W will be extending its casino software license from Boss until the Fall of 2007.

The gains are not solely in Ongame's direction, however. The Swedish company has successfully passed the stringent inspection and probity processes of eCommerce and Online Gaming, Regulation and Assurance (eCOGRA) which opens the way for B&W online casinos and poker rooms to apply for the eCOGRA "Play It Safe" seal, provided its requirements can be met.

Nicely timed for World Cup fever

The marketers at Cometa Games have impeccably timed the launch of the company's latest product to coincide with World Cup fever, it would appear.

Branded ‘World Cup Shootout’ the mobile phone game challenges players to beat the goalkeeper in a fast-paced game of skill, placing bets on the outcome of each penalty kick.

Players bet cash on each kick and can aim the ball at different areas of the goal, all of which are worth a different reward if a goal is scored in that spot.

‘World Cup Shoot Out’ is one of the first games to be made available on Cometa’s new mobile casino application, which allows players to download and play games, quickly, conveniently, securely input credit/debit card information and request payouts from winnings.

Rob Anderson, managing director of Cometa Games has great hoped for the commercial success of the product and says: “’World Cup Shootout’ has been designed to capitalise on the capabilities of mobile phone handsets and the way users interact with them.”

But does this infringe the Molnick patent?

Unless there has been an unannounced licensing of the Mel Molnick patent for "live over the Internet" gambling, Kiwi Gaming could be the next target for the HGN - i2Corp inventor, who has been litigating in defence of his expansive patents over the past few years.

The reason? Kiwi Gaming has launched live gaming with real people dealing at its tables via a live video feed, enabling Internet players to see and chat to its casino dealers. The games offered include blackjack, roulette, baccarat and sic bo.

Bets are made in the same way as in the standard online versions, but players can chat and see Kiwi Casino’s dealers while they play. With multi-window Support players can enjoy three live blackjack tables simultaneously, or any combination of live and standard games. Players can enhance their live gaming experience by maximising the dealers’ screen, a feature that is also compatible with Kiwi Casino’s full-screen mode. In addition to this the quality of the video can be adjusted to accommodate the speed of an individual player’s internet connection.

It is not at this time known which software Kiwi is using for the new offering. Kiwi Gaming is an independent offshore operation and part of New Zealand's land-based casino group - Christchurch Casinos, based in Christchurch, New Zealand. The operation is currently licensed and operated from Antigua & Barbuda and uses Playtech software.

Kiwi Gaming was in the news for another reason, too this week - its FastWin Casino subsidiary launched Tequila Poker, which combines elements of five-card poker and Blackjack.

Players are dealt four cards, and then have to choose whether they want to go for a Tequila Poker (poker hand) or High Tequila (high-point total hand). The players are then dealt another two cards. The five best cards out of six make up the final hand. Tequila Poker joins FastWin Casino’s current selection of games including a variety of progressive games, table games, video slots, arcade games and regular slots.

But not from gambling software

Not long ago IQ Ludorum powered online casinos seemed to be everywhere as the gambling software developer and turnkey provider signed up licensees across the globe. But it went into a steep decline with financial troubles that now seem to be coming right, judging by its latest acquisition.

In an all shares deal, the company has acquired First Pay, a listed online debit card solution specialist valued at around GBP 3 million. With its sportsbook software in use at growing Betcorp, and First Pay's prime client World Sports Exchange going strongly the arrangement would seem to hold the promise of good returns through a useful diversification that moves away from IQL's traditional approach.

“The developments today reflect a fundamental shift in IQL’s business model towards recurring revenue and sales linked to the dollar volume of transactions," explains IQL head honcho Mike Muscato. "Gaming is expected to continue a double-digit, multi-billion dollar year-over-year growth and IQL is now poised to maximise its participation in this growth.”

Antigua-based gaming operator WSEX, part of the NetBet group of companies, will deliver US$250 million in payment processing volume to First Pay over three years under the terms of the deal.

IQL is now aiming some products and services at individual consumers and, through First Pay, will profit from debt card fees.

Sean Forward, founder of WSEX, has relocated to Antigua from the UK to take up an executive role at IQL, and will be responsible for the First Pay launch. IQL has also announced a deal for its IQ-Softech sportsbook to Betcorp.

The deal with Betcorp sees IQL providing software solutions for the routine management of a call centre and online sportsbook. Betcorp have been using IQ- Softech for five years, something which is predicted to continue.

There is also a planned payment-solutions deal between the two companies

Online poker site gives blonde airhead a chance to recover losses

It has become almost impossible to escape the grinning and rather vacuous visage of American heiress Paris Hilton as the media voraciously follows her latest inconsequential antics in glitterati-land, but this month she hit the silly-ass headlines by losing her GBP 100 000 and some change Bentley car in a poker game at a land establishment.

Whilst many shook their heads that such an airhead should be allowed to roam loose, the folks at Party Poker saw an opportunity in Paris' s folly and have come up with an offer to replace the expensive wheels...if she can beat PartyPoker host Mike Sexton in a heads up No-Limit Hold 'Em game.

This astute marketing and publicity offer is open to Hilton for thirty days, and will take place online at Party Poker, no doubt amidst a high profile media blitz that will appeal to both Party Poker and Hilton, who is a notorious publicity hound. In fact, if Hilton prefers to play the challenge on land, Party will agree to that too.

"Paris has said she is mad about poker and that she always wins in Vegas. We're offering her the chance to get lucky and she doesn't even need to leave her house," stated Warren Lush, the spokesman for PartyPoker. "We're aware that her parents have banned her from gambling at their casino. This online challenge solves all her problems...she can cover her losses without stepping foot in there."

As we went to press, Hilton had not responded to the challenge.

Keep your eyes on those credit cards

Swedish police in Skaraborg, Sweden were closing in on a credit card skimmer this week following reports of losses on Internet poker sites that the real card holders had never visited.

Nine local residents reported that their bank accounts had been hit by withdrawals, apparently through large payments to Internet poker sites that the card holders claimed they had never visited. The complainants told the police that according to their bank statements, each lost an average of 10 000 kronor in the scam.

The police investigators quickly identified a common thread, because all nine complainants had earlier shopped in the same (non-gambling) venue.... and paid with the abused credit cards.

The indications are that a cashier at the shop either wrote down or otherwise recorded the critical information on the credit cards, and then either sold on the information or used the details to gamble in online poker rooms. The fraudster is thought to have registered with false names and addresses and then supplied the details from the cards.

The nine people who were prejudiced in the scam have been reimbursed by the poker rooms concerned, and an arrest is thought to be imminent, according to a police spokesman.

"It seems that the banks aren't putting any pressure on these poker sites to begin checking that the card number matches the name - maybe that's a bit slack," said police Inspector Christer Jönsson in a remarkable understatement.

The case again highlights the need for care with credit cards...and a definite requirement for online poker room operators to tighten up on security checks. The police report did not identify the poker sites concerned.

New Vegas advertising will back airline colours

Readers will recall an earlier InfoPowa report in which the Bodog group's plan to use a private airline to push its branding was in progress.

The marketers' dreams have now become reality, and branded flights into Las Vegas's McCarran Airport are now happening regularly.

This week, the company added to the impact by completing plans to support the flying brand with some Las Vegas billboard advertising. To further remind gamblers offline of their online opportunities a billboard bearing a photograph of a branded Bodog plane will go up next month on East Tropicana Avenue in Las Vegas.

Earlier this year, Bodog marketers inked a deal with InterAir Media, a broker specialising in the airline industry, to sponsor branded airplanes flying from McCarran International Airport.

The aircraft belong to Allegiant Air, a low-fare carrier based in Las Vegas that offers service to 32 American cities. The first branded aircraft went into service last week, and five others are scheduled to join it within days.

The six planes are being painted with the bold colours and Web address for Bodog.com, which offers online sports betting, poker and casino games.

The deal is effective for three months and cost the company an estimated $500 000. Included is in-flight announcements about Bodog.com and brochures about the Web site available in seat pockets.

One of the innovative ideas being deployed involves the tray tables on the aircraft - these have been decorated so as to appear to be a blackjack table bearing the Bodog brand - getting the passengers in the mood for that Vegas action.

Another UK big name newspaper adds gaming entertainment

The major UK newspaper The Guardian has added skill games to its website Guardian.co.uk this week, selecting GameAccount as the provider.

Guardian Unlimited users will have access to ten classic real-money multiplayer games and tournaments through GameAccount’s network, joining players from over 130 countries worldwide.

Online skill games are a significant growth area in terms of popularity and revenues and GameAccount’s established industry status offers a natural partnership opportunity, allowing players to register and play for fun or real money.

GameAccount will deliver classic multiplayer and ‘heads-up’ games such as Gin Rummy and Backgammon, as well as unique P2P variants of other games, including tournament Blackjack, Mah Jong, and a variety of popular Solitaire and card formats. The integrated network also supports bespoke tournaments where the multiplayer games lobby allows players to see opponents’ moves in real-time, and is supported by in-game and ‘messenger’ chat functionality.

“We are excited to be adding skill gaming to our online portfolio. P2P games offer our readers a competitive and engaging gaming alternative that enhances our existing games and betting offering,” said Annie Wilson, Online Partnerships Manager at The Guardian.

According to Kevin Dale, Chief Executive at GameAccount, the demand for online skill gaming by blue-chip consumer brands continues to increase. ”The Guardian deal is another milestone for GameAccount. I am absolutely confident that our partnership with The Guardian will prove to be a long and successful one, with customer choice and total satisfaction clearly the number one priority.”

GameAccount powers leading online partners such as Sportingbet, Paddypower.com, SkyBet, FHM.com and Wanadoo.

More consolidation as Ladbrokes lowers the boom on Playboy site

The trend toward industry consolidation has claimed another online gambling site, according to advisories sent out by Ladbrokes to affiliate marketing organisations last month.

In the advisory, Ladbrokes announced its decision to close the Playboy and sportsbook programs on the Tradedoubler affiliate program by 1st May 2006.

Affiliates (and presumably players in due course) will be transferred to Ladbrokes Sportsbook and Casino.

As far as is known at going to press, players have not yet been contacted on the development, but this is presumably being planned. InfoPowa could not get a response from Ladbrokes on the subject.

Another contract for FUNtech subsidiary

FUNTech's fantasy sports subsidiary Fanball was earning it's multi-million dollar acquisition price this week with the announcement of a significant deal with the British SkySports television group.

The agreement is for Fanball to provide British Sky Broadcasting with fantasy sports games on the Skysports site.

The new site is scheduled to be launched this spring before this summer's World Cup soccer and will be built by Fanball who will also host, operate and maintain the online fantasy sports website. The site will be accessible via links from the Sky website, and will be customised to the look and feel of skysports.com.

Skysports.com already attracts more than seven million unique users per month and has recently launched a dedicated World Cup site.

Fanball provides fantasy sports contests, content, strategy and insight, and has exclusive, white-label distribution agreements with leading organizations such as AOL and Nascar.com. The company also creates and provides league-hosting software, content, real-time sports statistics, and interactive games for the web and other convergent media platforms.

Fun Technologies CEO Lorne Abony said, 'This is a terrific step forward in our drive to extend our leading fantasy platform into the UK and Europe."

FUNTech is believed to have paid $12.5 million for Fanball in a series of recent acquisitions that included a $23 million deal to take over a major competitor, WorldWinner.com

Advertising code drafted with ASA help to be assessed for public reaction

The BBC reported this week that UK-based casinos and gambling websites could be allowed to advertise on television and radio under a relaxation of rules as part of the reformation process being overseen by the UK Gambling Commission.

Drafted by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Gambling Commission, the proposed new code will be submitted to the British public for opinion and input in the coming months.

The code will clarify a provision of the Gambling Act 2005 - to be introduced next year - allowing for advertising rules to be relaxed, although the UK government stresses that the new rules will be subject to "very tight controls".

Betting services, bingo halls, gaming machines and football pools will be covered by the new rules, as well as overseas companies operating online gambling sites.

The current rules on advertising gambling are about 40 years old and are seen by some industry observers as restrictive. In print adverts, casinos are limited to printing largely factual information about their premises. Television adverts for all betting, gaming and lotteries - except for the National Lottery - are banned.

The new code is expected to take effect by September 2007 when the Gambling Act 2005, which allows for more casinos to open, comes into effect.

Gambling Commission deputy chief executive Tom Kavanagh said the code was needed to co-ordinate advertising rules for all sectors of the gambling industry, and would mean that "both online gambling and casinos will have more freedom in what they can say", he added.

"The thinking behind it is really that the current restrictions are around 40 years old and do not make a lot of sense in the current regulatory environment," he said.

A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said casinos were currently "...extremely heavily restricted in terms of advertising. They will, in a limited way, be allowed to advertise more, but adverts will be subject to stringent rules about realism and social responsibility, and controls on when, where and what gambling adverts are allowed to do."

A key provision is that online betting sites based overseas would be banned from advertising in the UK "...unless they meet the same high regulatory high standards we have here," he said.

5 gruelling days of top class, big bet poker against the world's best concludes

With a prize pool of over $15 million and 606 ambitious poker players raring to go, this years World Poker Tour World Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas was always going to be exciting, and last night (Monday) Joe Bartholdi finally beat Davidson Matthew in a thrilling heads up with massive bets at stake.

Finishing in the early hours of the morning after an exhausting fight over several days through a field that originally numbered 606 players, Bartholdi won $3 760 165 for first place and entered the WPT annals as one of the biggest money winners in WPT history. Davidson Matthew collected the second placing prize of $1 903 950 after a magnificent final performance where 25K chips were flying and blinds went up to 400K-800K with a 100K ante.

Starting the heads up at 12.33 am Bartholdi held $21.675 million worth of chips and Davidson $8.35 million. It was all over by 1.46 am.

The final table of six top players started the action at 7.37 pm with James Van Alstyne a favourite with a commanding stack of chips. Joe Bartholdi was around a million chips shorter, whilst Claus Nielsen and Davidson Matthew had nearly 6 million apiece and could have easily taken the lead with one big pot. Men "The Master" Nguyen and Roland De Wolfe came in short-stacked but with the ability to jump right back into things. With big blinds (60K-120K) and only 6 players at the table, the stage was truly set for exciting action.

When the eliminations started at 8.17 pm Men "The Master" Nguyen was the first of the champs to head home, taking a 6th position prize purse of $292 915.

At 9.26 pm it was James Van Alstyne's time to depart in 5th place with $439 375 after a skillful performance. He was followed at 10.46 pm by Claus Nielsen at number four with $659 120 and at 12.02 am by Roland de Wolfe in the number 3 slot with $1 025 205 after a fine tournament performance - not bad for a freeroll.

This tournament marked the closest yet that a woman has come to making the Final Table of the WPT World Championship. Vanessa Russo of Miami, FL, finished "on the bubble" - seventh - but took home a consoling $263 625.

New Bingohall survey shows that online players are younger and still economically active

Recent surveys by one of the largest bingo sites on the Internet, Bingohall.com, have found that offline and online demographics of bingo players do not always match up. The study, which was completed by a random sampling of thousands of real money online bingo players at the site, has concluded that offline and online bingo players are definitely different.

Bingohall's vice president of marketing, Scott Logan says that typically, an offline or land bingo hall will feature table after table of mature and mainly retired ladies playing. "However, we've found this just isn't the case when it comes to online players."

Logan says that while the majority of his players are still women, the age demographic drops significantly, to around 35 years old. In line with this, over 50 percent of the players are still economically active and working full or part-time.

"We definitely see an influx of players logging on at the end of the working day in an attempt to relax and enjoy the evening with their online bingo friends", said Logan.

Bingohall.com offers a wide range of fun games such as bingo, slots, video poker and keno and awards over $8 million every month in prizes.

Another language-specific site for online casino

Money-Casino.com continues to expand its multilingual content with the launch this week of its Swedish version PengarKasino.com.

The new operation provides a fully localised gambling experience for the Swedish gambling enthusiast with an entire wagering process translated into Swedish: the website, sign up form, cashier, software interface, and casino games.

Joining Money's Spanish language Casino Dinero, the new venture is part of a strategy to reach out to other valued international markets. Sweden rates among Europe's top three fastest growing online gambling markets, and by adding national languages Money significantly enhances its appeal in the eyes of prospective gamblers, with increasing traffic and conversion rates.

Affiliates on the Money program will also benefit from a new affiliate software currently being launched, offering existing affiliate members and prospective partners improved tracking and marketing features.

The Money-Casino platform features no-download instant play Flash casino software with over 45 Flash games including table games, video poker, slots, and progressive jackpot games. The website is available in English, Spanish, Swedish and Hebrew and accepts Euro, US dollar and sterling.

Variety the spice at popular online poker venue

Riverbelle Poker Room in the BelleRock group moved a significant step further towards the one-stop integrated site this week by adding 19 different casino games to its offerings.

Distinguishing itself from the general run of competition, the Gibraltar-based site now offers its players the capability to play poker and any one of 19 different casino games within the same software.

With one download, players are now able to use one account to play the full variety of online poker and casino games, taking the gaming experience on River Belle to a whole new level of convenience.

With the new arrangement players looking to compete on the challenging poker tables of River Belle will be able to use their poker winnings on casino games and vice versa. As an added benefit the casino games available to River Belle poker players are Flash games, which do not add to the size of the software download and have no adverse effects on the player's connection or system performance.

The list of Flash games now available at River Belle Online Poker includes 4 styles of blackjack and 6 of video poker, 2 types of Roulette and a wide range of the most popular Microgaming card games and slots.

"At River Belle we don't just listen to our customers, we also try to anticipate their demands and be the first to market with the features that become industry standards," said Tim Johnson, Chairman of Carmen Media Group, owners of Belle Rock Entertainment.

"This extended variety of games is a huge step toward creating a one-stop gaming experience that makes a world of difference for our players."

Chinese tech company software behind a popular ancient game

Easybets players can now gamble on the ancient game of baccarat through the 21st century medium of the Internet.

The company has launched a new product branded Live Baccarat which will have special appeal for Asian gamblers, in conjunction with Entertasia Technology .

The six-month-old Chinese software company is already working with the Victor Chandler group and has now won a partnership from the BetOnSports subsidiary.

Entertasia Technology CEO Jason Chan hopes their Chinese background will give them the edge in the Asian market: "If you eat Chinese food, you would eat with chopsticks and not fork & knife. We designed Live Baccarat software based on the Asian mindset, understanding Asian gambling behaviour is one of the most important elements," he said.

"Several European online gambling companies have their eyes on on Asia, and in order to lead to guaranteed success they know they need local product that meets local players’ demand."

Easybets CEO Tim Lambe said there was good synergy between Easybets and Enterasia, Live Baccarat was a good product and this boded well for advancing his companys business in Asia.

Overwhelming opposition to banning Internet gambling

The recent poll conducted for OnlineGamblingMythsAndFacts.com (see previous InfoPowa reports) has now been completed, revealing what Americans really think about online gambling and the federal government’s most recent efforts to ban it.

The significant size of the poll of over 30 000 likely voters was conducted throughout March 2006 and overwhelmingly establishes that Americans do not want the federal government enacting laws that restrict a recreational activity such as online gambling.

Almost 80 percent of Americans are opposed to the pending bills in Congress to ban online gambling.

The poll also reveals that 78 percent do not think it is appropriate for the federal government to restrict what adults do on the Internet in the privacy of their own homes. Conducted by Zogby International, the margin of error in the poll is +/- 0.6 percentage points.

It's not just sinister Easter European networks invading your computers....

Without you realising it, attackers are secretly trying to penetrate your PC to tap small bits of computing power to do evil things, USA Today reports this week in an interesting article on the dangers of youthful hackers and "bot commanders".

And they've already compromised some 47 million PC's sitting in homes and at the office.

Bot networks have become so ubiquitous that they've also given rise to a new breed of low-level bot masters, and the article examines the cases of three teenagers arrested for this criminal activity. Using *armies* of hacked computers (or "bots") in the thousands which they remote control and hire out to anyone with the necessary cash and dubious purpose, these kids with more greed than morals can make good money. The downside is an increasingly severe attitude by the Courts, and the growing risk of being caught.

Budding cyberthieves use basic programs and generally stick to quick-cash schemes. Brazen and inexperienced, they can inadvertently cause chaos: One teenaged terror is facing prosecution in Morocco on charges of releasing the Zotob worm that crippled systems in banks and media companies around the world; another awaits a May 15 trial for allegedly spreading bots that disrupted operations at Seattle's Northwest Hospital.

More elite bot herders, who partner with crime groups to supply computer power for data theft and other cyberfraud, have proved to be highly elusive. But the neophytes tend to be sloppy about hiding their tracks, and investigations leading to the arrests of some of these youths have given authorities their most detailed look yet at how bots enable cybercrime.

Top researchers at Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group often use a 7 percent infection rate as a point of reference. That means as many as 47 million of the 681 million PCs connected to the Internet worldwide may be under the control of one bot network or another.

And it's on the increase. Security giant McAfee detected 28 000 distinct bot networks active last year, more than triple the amount in 2004. And a February survey of 123 tech executives, conducted by security firm nCircle, pegged annual losses to U.S. businesses because of computer-related crimes at $197 billion.

Law enforcement officials say the ground floor is populated by perhaps hundreds of bot herders, most of them young men. Mostly, they assemble networks of compromised PCs to make quick cash by spreading adware — those pop-up advertisements for banking, dating, porn and gambling websites that clutter the Internet. They get paid for installing adware on each PC they infect.

"The low-level guys ... can inflict a lot of collateral damage," says Steve Martinez, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division.

Research into recent arrests has uncovered interesting attitudes. A prominent bot deployer, since prosecuted discovered rxbot, a potent but quite common computer worm, whilst working in an Internet cafe. Easy to customise, novices often start by tweaking worms and trading bots. "I see high school kids doing it all the time," reports one security specialist. "They trade bot nets like candy."

Eventually the youth infected thousands of PCs and started a business, working through a private Internet chat area. From June to September 2004, he made about $3,000 on more than 30 sales of up to 10,000 bots at a time, according to court records.

By late 2004, he started a new venture, signing up with two Internet marketing companies, LoudCash of Bellevue, Wash., and GammaCash Entertainment of Montreal, to distribute ads on commission.

But instead behaving responsibly by setting up a website and asking visitors for permission to install ads, he used his bots to install adware on vulnerable Internet-connected PCs, court records show. Typically, payment for each piece of adware installed ranges from 20 cents to 70 cents.

Working from home, he hired an assistant, and taught him how to spread PC infections and manage adware installations.Cheques ranging as high as $7 996 began rolling in from the two marketing firms. In six months, the two teenagers pulled in nearly $60,000.

The attitude shown in the court record is staggering. Communicating with his helper, he said: "It's immoral, but the money makes it right."

In early 2005 three other youthful conspirators were hitting their stride running a similar operation. From his parents' home an 18-year-old community college student, conspired with two minors in other states to spread bots and install adware, earning $100,000 from July 2004 to July 2005, until the FBI tracked the group down according to a federal indictment. During their hi-tech fling a hospital was almost disabled when its computers were infected and the network broke down.

In another case, an 18-year-old Russian-born Moroccan resident was caught by a university security specialist and the FBI in an international collaborative operation. One of many copycat hackers tweaking the ubiquitous Mytob e-mail worm, he created a very distinctive version designed to lower the security settings on infected PCs, install adware and report back for more instructions.

This hacker was particularly dangerous, because he also managed to convert a security patch test tool into a virulent, self-propagating worm he named Zotob. Much like Mytob, Zotob prepared the infected PC to receive adware. But Zotob did one better: It could sweep across the Internet, infecting PCs with no user action required.

Soon Zotob variants began snaking into older servers at the Canadian bank CIBC, and at ABC News, The New York Times and CNN. The servers began rebooting repeatedly, disrupting business and drawing serious attention to the new worm.

Within two weeks, Microsoft's Internet Safety Enforcement Team, a group of 65 investigators, paralegals and lawyers, identified the youthful perpetrator and pinpointed his base of operations, together with a suspected accomplice. The latter had been paying the hacker with stolen credit card numbers to create the Mytob variants and Zotob.

The USA Today story says that these examples represent mere flickers in the Internet underworld. More elite hackers collaborating with organised crime groups take pains to cover their tracks - and rarely get caught.

The article reminds Internet users once again of the vital importance of maintaining up to date security measures on their PCs at all times.

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa

30 percent growth in first quarter

Poker Pages Industry Index reports that the popularity of the game of poker continues to rise, with a 30 percent growth in the first quarter 2006 over a similar period last year.

The PPII for the first quarter of 2006 is currently at 130, indicating a growth of 30 percent over the same period last year - with total buy-in dollars just over $98 million. Growth over the last 12 months remains very strong, with the buy-in Index for the period at 155, pointing to a growth of 55 percent over the previous 12-month period.

Commenting on the latest figures, PPII founder Mark Napolitano, said: "Industry growth is also being helped out by a rising average buy-in per entry. The Average Buy-in per Entry Index for the quarter is 113, showing a growth of 13 percent versus the same quarter last year, with an average buy-in of $1 207 per entry. This also represents a trend with four consecutive months over $1,000."

March buy-in numbers showed a slowdown in growth at $33.9 million as a reslt of a 29 percent decrease in the number of players competing in the Party Poker.com Million Main Event and a slow month for the WSOP circuit, but April is likely to be a good month with the introduction of a new World Poker Tour Event at the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, as well as their $25,000 championship event later in the month at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

"Also, watch out for the newly formed International Poker Association's Tour to make a quick impact with its inaugural event in May," says Napolitano, who will be closely monitoring the stats for April, May and June, leading up to the World Series of Poker, to help determine the overall pace for 2006.

However, lest we become too complacent, PartyGaming's securities filings cite a study indicating that the growth of online poker revenue will slow sharply. While revenue grew at an annual rate of 158 percent from 2000 to 2005, the study projects annual increases of only about 18 percent from 2005 to 2010.

An anxious time for this $736 000 winner

Three big betting video poker Royal Straight Flushes in as many weeks early this year would be taken by many as the sign of a truly fortunate gambler, but for one online player it was the start of months of anxiety and stress as the online casino procrastinated over meeting that most important of all casino obligations - paying the player.

Those three Royal Straight Flushes netted the player $736,407.00, but weeks later he had received only $26 000 despite having requested payment in full on at least two occasions. And shortage of cash wasn't the problem - this is a well established and successful online casino belonging to a major, London-listed online gambling group.

The player was subjected to no less than 3 seperate and distinct "investigations" by Starluck Casino, an operation in the multi-billion dollar Party Gaming group. Then the casino stalled by claiming that it had not received the player's documents, despite the fact that those documents were sent thrice without hassles.

The breakthrough came when the player decided to contact an experienced mediator on the message boards, who took the case on some weeks later. He found the casino extraordinarily reticent about the whole affair, surely passing up a grand opportunity to generate some major PR on the event.

Pointing out the possibilities, the mediator, himself a highly experienced gambler, said: "I've never heard of anything even close to it happening before in my eight years of internet gaming."

The lucky gambler started with a wire transfer deposit of $5 000.00 and specifically decided to eschew any bonuses in order to avoid giving the casino any excuses for delays and disputes if he won. After the first Royal was hit he had an account balance of a quarter of a million dollars which from that point provided him with the financial power to continue at the $500 a hand level, hitting two more Royals.

Months after the event the player was finally paid in full, but it left a bitter taste for the many gamblers who had been following the posts detailing progress at leading message boards....and Starluck had squandered a brilliant opportunity to make a positive name for itself.

Online gambling is a strange world, sometimes.

Ayre responds to BlueMoon legal action for alleged copy-catting

Bodog founder and boss-man Calvin Ayre has been quick to respond to the news that doccie maker BlueMoon Entertainment has launched litigation accusing the gambling group of copy-catting it's concept for a poker tournament reality show (see earlier InfoPowa reports)

According to Gambling911, Ayre says the case has been thrown out but Bodog.com is not through fighting it just yet.

"We are actually not through with them (BlueMoon) yet," Ayre insisted last Saturday afternoon. "I am going to make an example of these people to show what happens when you frivolously sue me."

Ayre says that once an individual or company gets to be a certain size, "people start suing you".

He explained that Bodog.com asked BlueMoon to submit a proposal for a television reality show just over a year ago, requesting the parameters involve poker and have Calvin Ayre appear in it.

"Those are the only two similarities," Ayre insists. "The show is about my life. How the hell can they tell me what's going on in my life?"

Ayre also commented that a woman from BlueMoon suggests she spoke with Calvin on two separate occasions during parties.

"I don't remember this. She is one of many people I meet at parties and don't remember them later on I am sure."

The first episode of Bodog's show, which is hosted by Ayre himself is scheduled to appear on Fox Sports TV this week. Attempts by BlueMoon to stop the show airing failed when a judge turned down an application for an injunction suspending the screening.

"Wild Card Poker" is a six-episode reality series about a $500 000 poker tournament, intercut with Costa Rican lifestyle elements and the activities of Bodog's billionaire founder and top man, Calvin Ayre.

Two Party pioneers in the Top Ten

There was an interesting article in the UK newspaper The Independent this week that positioned two of Party Gaming's founding team on the Top Ten Rich List for Asia.

In its introduction, the report says that at the age of 25, Anurag Dikshit (pronounced Dixit) was just another computer engineer pursuing the fortunes of the dotcom bubble. Less than a decade later, the gambling software he created for online casino games has made him one of the world's youngest billionaires.

The 34-year-old co-founder of PartyGaming, which includes the world's most popular online poker site, has entered the Asian Rich List for the first time, ranked third, with a fortune of GBP 1.7 billion.

Dikshit's entrepreneurial drive is representative of many of the success stories featured on the new list. He went into business with the Californian Ruth Parasol in 1998, after studying at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, and developing software for American computer companies. Ms Parasol had sold her online pornography interests, worth millions, and wanted to invest in online gambling, which she predicted would be the next internet growth area. She considered Dikshit's skills crucial to the business, so allocated him shares in PartyGaming.

The company joined the London Stock Exchange last year in the biggest flotation of a British company in five years. According to the company, at any given time 70,000 people are gambling on its web-based system. And Dikshit owns a 32 percent stake.

Philip Beresford, who has compiled the Asian Rich List for the past decade, and is also author of The Sunday Times Rich List, said: "Overwhelmingly, this is a list of self-made people, with 290 people on the list making their own fortunes rather inheriting wealth."

The 58-year-old steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who lives in Kensington, London remains at the top of the list with a fortune of GBP 14.8 billion. The second entry is Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja, with a joint wealth of GBP 3.6 billion from their global finance, telecommunications, film and oil businesses.

In seventh position on the list is Vikrant Bhargava, marketing director of PartyGaming, worth GBP 592 million.

Poker Stars rumours growing

The venerable Sunday Times re-ignited speculation in London this week that the second largest online poker site in the world, PokerStars.com is moving toward a public listing (see previous InfoPowa reports)

The highly respected newspaper surmised that the company is preparing to float on the London stock market before the end of this year with a value likely to exceed GBP 1.1 billion.

The Scheinberg family, which owns the major shareholding in Pokerstars has been exploring an outright sale in recent months, and is reported to have been in talks with a number of investment banks, including HSBC and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein regarding advice on either a sale or a listing.

While no banks have yet been mandated, insiders have apparently informed the Times that the company was gearing up for a listing having apparently moved away from its initial brief on selling through NM Rothschild.

Pokerstars, like other recently listed online gambling groups Empire Online Ltd., 888 Holdings and Playtech, is controlled by Israelis. The company’s controlling shareholders are Isai Scheinberg, who lives in Canada and a relatively unknown Tel Aviv based businessman, Pinchas Shapira, who are believed to jointly control a 75 percent stake in the company. The remaining shares in the seven year old company are believed to be owned by employees.

The company, which is licensed on the Isle of Man recently announced the sign-up of its 5 millionth account, doubling the number of players on board a year back.

Party Gaming and Bet On Sports come through for charity

Kudos to Party Gaming and Bet On Sports, which have boosted the charity side of the upcoming Global Interactive Gaming and Expo Summit with generous donations of $25 000 and $10 000 respectively.

River City Group, the organisers for GIGSE which takes place in Montreal in just under a month's time have again included a fund-raising element to benefit problem gambling organisation Gordon House Association, a U.K.-based provider of residential support to gamblers recovering from addiction.

It's not too late for other online gambling companies to show a little heart and make contributions to a good cause. I-gaming companies have thus far come forth with over $50,000 in donations for the third annual charity event at GIGSE to be held between May 16-18.

Bright ideas from Dynasty Gaming

The growing legions of Mahjong fans will have an ultimate competition to look forward to this year - a Mahjong World Cup.

The company specialising in licensing software for this ancient game with a massive modern following, Dynasty Gaming Inc., says that it is to jointly create and sponsor the first World Cup of Mahjong tournament during December 2006.

Dynasty's partner for this first-ever tournament will be the Ho Group, the largest operator of casinos in Macau, off the coast of China, where the event will be held.

Dynasty is associated with Mahjong Mania, which was established in 2003 by Intertops co-founder Ian Sherrington. Ian is a member of the management team and has been a Mahjong aficionado since childhood, when he first played the game at school. Although he never played for money as a youngster, as an adult he wagered the game would be a big online winner. A little research uncovered an unfilled need for real-money, multi-player Mahjong on the Net. Much creative contemplation later sparked the development of the first edition of Speed Mahjong.

Mahjong Mania is a wholly owned subsidiary of Events International Holding Corporation, a company whose shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange Venture market under the symbol "EIH". . The company’s software development team is located in Montreal, Canada while the sales and marketing initiatives are undertaken by Mahjong Systems Limited, a Turks and Caicos registered company.

Other executives involved in managing the rapidly growing stable of mahjong operators include CEO and chairman Albert Barbusci, Adriaan Brink who is president of the company and Anthony Barbusci who is in charge of finance and corporate affairs.

Over half a million dollars invested in 19 players for top tourney

Poker Room.com has assembled, at a total cost of well over half a million dollars, a top 19 player team to compete in the upcoming World Poker Tour World Championships.

The championship starts today (April 18) at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and runs through to April 24.

Poker Room's team spots are worth $27,900 each, a value that includes travel and accommodation expenses and the $25,000 tournament buy-in. The team has been selected from a group of more than 100 poker players who represent PokerRoom.com in some of the most prestigious poker tournaments in the world. Members battle for available spots at major land-based events through online qualifying tournaments.

Overall, Team PokerRoom.com members comprise a diverse group of players, ranging from a sports apparel sales representative from Texas to California-based investment banking analyst, Jim Davenport, who landed an exclusive PokerRoom.com endorsement deal in early March, 2006.

Davenport received the $250,000 endorsement package, including travel expenses and buy-ins for at least 12 major poker tournaments, by winning the inaugural PokerRoom.com "Become a Poker Pro" event.

"Team PokerRoom is as much about the camaraderie among the players and enthusiasm for the game as it is about the competition and earning a seat to play in the biggest tournaments like the WPT World Championship," said Glenn Cademartori, spokesperson for PokerRoom.com.

"It provides a forum for all types of players to learn from one another as they develop their individual skills needed to enjoy, compete and succeed in the game of poker."

Revenues from casino games jump sevenfold - and look out for online backgammon soon

Anticipation that Party Gaming's run of success would continue (see previous InfoPowa reports) was confirmed this week with another stellar set of results from the Internet's largest and most successful gambling group.

The Gibraltar-based company revealed that first-quarter sales climbed 54 percent as advertisements helped the company sign up more customers.

Revenue rose to $342.6 million from $222.6 million a year earlier, Party Gaming said in a Regulatory News Service statement. The number of new poker players rose 23 percent, and 39 percent of them were located outside the U.S., where Internet gambling's legal status is uncertain.

Marketing campaigns, particularly in Europe, helped to boost the number of poker players, PartyGaming said. The company also started running its first foreign-language Web sites in the quarter and in addition to English now offers PartyPoker in six languages including French and German. The introduction of backgammon is "imminent," according to the statement.

"The first quarter has seen continued strong growth in poker on the back of a record number of poker sign-ups,'' Finance Director Martin Weigold said in the statement.

Weigold revealed that PartyGaming will launch online backgammon within four to six weeks and this is expected to attract new customers to other PartyGaming sites such as online poker.

"The launch of backgammon... is imminent and should provide an additional revenue stream for the group as well as broaden the appeal of our Party-branded platform," said Weigold.

Another game will be launched in the second half but few details were available. "This is going to be a more casino style game, with customers playing against the house rather than each other," he said.

Weingold revealed that active player days rose 28percent to 14 milion although the yield per active player fell slightly to $18.5.

Sales from casino games jumped almost sevenfold to $83.1 million, or about a quarter of total revenue, swelled by the introduction of blackjack in October and the PartyCasino Web site earlier this year.

The number of new poker players climbed to 263 254 from 214 108 a year earlier. The number of new customers for casino games fell 23 percent to 11 024 from 14 304. Average daily revenue (excluding skins) for PartyPoker.com was posted at $2 869 414, up from $2 261 492 in 2005.

Investors will be pleased at the impact of the results. The stock rose 6.75 pence, or 4.7 percent, to 151.75 pence in London. Investors originally paid 116 pence each for the shares when PartyGaming, which has a market value of about 6 billion pounds ($10.6 billion), first sold shares to the public in June 2005.

Big paypackets in the Gibraltar boardroom

Business Telegraph has been doing some digging into the pay deals of online poker executives working for industry leader Party Gaming, it appears. In an article published this week the publication says that making a career out of poker can pay...and goes on to show why.

Quoting rewards paid to the PartyGaming board last year, BT says that the Gibraltar gambling group's 10 directors shared a $36 million (GBP 20 million) salaries jackpot.

Most royally flush was Richard Segal (42) who this week stepped down as chief executive after earning $20.2 million last year, of which only $705 920 was basic pay. Finance director Martin Weigold (40) was also dealt a winning hand, with total pay of $8.59 million.

Chairman Michael Jackson (56) came up trumps with $3.28 million, while Brian Larcombe, the non-executive director who heads the remuneration committee, pocketed $2.02 million.

The pay bonanza - revealed in the gaming group's first annual report since its GBP 4.64 billion float last June - is one of the largest for a FTSE-100 board.

Much of it is explained by nil-cost option packages and signing-on fees granted to directors at the 116 pence-a-share float. These were paid for by the group's four existing owners, not the new shareholders who bought stock at the float.

Segal, who quit in February after deciding he did not want to relocate to the group's Gibraltar headquarters, can continue to exercise some of his remaining options after his departure. At the current share price of 150p, he could make more than GBP 30 million for less than two years' work.

His replacement, Mitch Garber (41) who took the hot seat this week, has been enticed with a $1 million salary, a $6 million signing-on package and free options currently worth more than GBP 10 million.

Mr Garber, former boss of online payment group FireOne, also has nil-cost options over 20 million more shares, exercisable in tranches up to 2016, depending on PartyGaming's performance.

Remuneration at PartyGaming dwarfed that of smaller rival 888 Holdings, where total board pay was $3.18 million. To give a sense of perspective, average daily revenue (excluding skins) for PartyPoker.com alone was posted in its recent accounts at $2 869 414, up from $2 261 492 in 2005.

New Cameo from Playtech

Cameo Casino.com has debuted, powered by an 80 + gambling suite from Playtech. Aesthetically, the site is rather bland and comes in tones of brown and cream. It does, however offer all the usual facilities such as loyalty programs, fully contactable 24/7 Support and the biggest range of financial options we've seen for some time - we counted more than 12 different ways they can take your money in Euros, Sterling or Dollars, working through IFUND INTERPAY! The site has an Antiguan license and is offering up to $500 in signup money - but watch out for the T&Cs, which can be tricky on some of these Playtech operations. We have not yet established which ownership group this casino belongs to.

Has the PurePoker mess finally ended?

After months of uncommunicative procrastination, and several attempts to short-change players on what they were owed the saga of PurePoker.com may at last be coming to an end.

PurePoker.com, a Futurebet-powered licensee abruptly closed without a by-your-leave, allegedly because the original owner had done a bunk. Players were left pretty much in the dark for weeks as behind-the-scenes negotiations between another licensee and Futurbet took place. Eventually a rather hard-ass businessman known only as *Pino* started telephoning players and offering them "settlements" for considerably less than they were owed. Not surprisingly, many turned this not-so-generous offer down and the issue escalated to the watchdog forums and continued to drag on.

This week InfoPowa and others received assurances from *Pino* that in private discussions all owed players had accepted unspecified payments subject to 4 conditions, which were not disclosed. This presumably means that Pino now operates PurePoker and that he has on board a happy and contented roll of players despite the unseemly time this mess has taken to sort out, and the regrettable attempts that were made to knock player demands southward.

Pino says that any player who has not been recompensed is welcome to email him at Pino@Purepoker.com. The following recent post is the only public statement to be issued:

"Notice to PurePoker.com customers.Pino has stepped in to help out all Purepoker customers. If you have an outstanding balance and have not yet been contacted send an email to Pino@purepoker.com. All players that had signed up and deposited funds prior to February 7th, 2006 may withdrawal at anytime. Players that signed up between February 7th and 17th will be paid out over the next 4 months with few conditions. Players that signed up after February 17th can also withdraw anytime.This agreement was only possible with help and co-operation of Futurebet Gaming Systems (the software provider). Futurebet has made a huge effort to get his issue resolved to everyones satisfaction."

Without knowing what the *few conditions* are pertaining to the withdrawals (which presumably cover all monies in player accounts) it is difficult to assess the fairness of this offer, and the 4months of instalments will not appeal to everyone.

If Futurebet and Pino have met all the PurePoker obligations to the legitimately owed players (and time will soon enough tell if this is true) then the matter is clearly resolved, although the delays and attempts to bargain players down from what was owed to them will inevitably have damaged the PurePoker brand, and by association that of Futurebet too in our view.

That is purely the fault of management in not bringing this matter to a fair conclusion in a reasonable amount of time and with efficient and open communication.

Instead, we had players subjected to the stress of ignored emails, telephoned "take it or leave it" offers and attempts to reduce monies owed, all over many weeks without direct communication. That does little for trust, and trust is very important from a player perspective.

If the new ownership of PurePoker is smart, it will look after the remaining players and operate in an efficient and honest manner with timely payouts, solid communications and respect for the players.

If not....we wouldn't bet on PurePoker's chances of surviving too much longer.

Better late than never on five figure sum

A five-figure wrangle over bonuses at 25 Sportingbet brands was resolved at corporate level by the publicly listed British betting group this week after months of wrangling at sportsbook level and botched communications.

The player had accounts with around 25 of Sportingbet's diverse sportsbook brands, most of them for around 10 months. "At first I didn't even realise the different sites were related," he said in enlisting the assistance of a mediator from InfoPowa. "I was just signing up with a bunch of places that had good offers. Eventually I came to understand they were all related to SportingBet in some way, where it was okay to have an account at each book.

"I've been playing there for much of that time. I played their casino games, mostly war and blackjack, generally at $25 a hand. As you would expect, I had large swings. Sometimes I would lose a thousand, sometimes I would win a thousand. Overall, I probably wagered close to a million dollars there over the course of those 10 months or so."

Suddenly, the player found his accounts locked for *bonus abuse* despite playing to the rules, and a unilateral decision was handed to him: the sites would return only the difference between his lifetime deposits and lifetime withdrawals. Essentially this meant that the sites were retroactively voiding all of his bonuses and wagers for the entire year.

"I had just deposited about $40,000 between 15 of these brands and they were all fresh deposits," the player alleges. "I actually had not wagered even a penny on those deposits at the time my accounts were closed. They returned $14,000 and according to my records that leaves them still owing me over $24,000."

There followed a long war of attrition, as the determined player who was convinced he had been stiffed, contacted licensing jurisdictions, e-cash processors and watchdogs. At one stage a casino told Neteller that the player had opened multiple accounts, but providing this is not at one brand, it is not contrary to the T&Cs.

After spending some months on the dispute and with Sportingbet's security refusing to further comment on the case, the player eventually enlisted the help of a mediator, who made contact and argued the case at Sportingbet group level with a senior manager.

Happily, the more experienced executive at this level realised that an injustice had been done and this week the player was paid out all monies owed.

In finalising the issue, Sportingbet's Dave Hobday commented: "SportingBet Plc operates over 30 gaming websites across the world and has over 2.7 million registered customers. We strive to deliver exceptional service to these customers and to be honest and fair in our resolution of customer complaints. We operate and fully comply with our "Customer Charter" which is displayed in full at www.sportingbetplc.com under the "Responsible Gaming" section."

For the player it was a red letter day: "Thanks so much for your help! Trying to get this money back was just an unbelievably trying experience. The months of waiting and waiting on something to happen and total non-communication really wore on me, and this was not a small amount of money for me at all. It's an unbelievable feeling to have it back. Checking my email and seeing that... it was just incredible!"

But how long will it last?

World Poker Exchange.com came up with an innovative strategy to pack the players in last month with a rake free business model that looks sure to serve its purpose of attracting new players to sample the site.

The rake on poker games is still collected, but refunded to players once a week, the intention being that the cross-marketing potential of the offer will draw people to place bets on WPEX's other facilities. The rake free promo will last until at least the end of the year, according to sources.

The strategy is based on the principle of cross-marketing; attracting poker room players who generally have a penchant for sports gambling too and then encouraging cross-over gambling on the casino and sportsbook facilities.

Dublin player takes the Irish Open Poker title

With the Euro 350 000 winner's cheque in his pocket, Dubliner Vincent Melinn was on top of the world this week after being crowned the current Irish Open Poker champion.

Live on Sky Sports television, Melinn (54) beat the 6-player final table at the Royal Dublin Society. The champ is an accountant who had only played one live tournament before, and he fought his way through to the final table against a field of 350 players, including a number of top pros, at the sold out event which was sponsored by Paddy Power Poker (see previous InfoPowa reports).

The final table consisted of Melinn, Ian Woodley, Brendan Ruane of Ireland, Jon Wong from the UK and Conor Smyth and Paul Daly - both Irish players.

For Melinn it was the title more than the money: "It's not about the money for me, it's about the title. I've only ever played one tournament before and went out in that in my first hand, but I knew from the early stages of this game I had a chance and I'm really so proud to have my name on the trophy."

Englishman Ian Woodley, who hails from South London took home the second place prize of Euro 182 000.

With a Euro 1 million guaranteed prize pool, this 25th annual Irish Open poker tournament took place over Easter Weekend at Jurys Ballsbridge Hotel in Dublin. Known as one of the richest events on the international poker circuit, the tournament boasted an additional Euro 50 000 in sponsorship money and a Euro 3 200 buy-in.

Kenna James will represent online poker room and captain its competitive team

SunPoker.com has signed up British poker ace Kenna James to be its public face and spokesman. Kenna's duries will include serving as captain of "Team SunPoker" at select poker tournaments around the world.

Unusually for this type of agreement, a donation to charity is built-in through which a portion of the poker pro's winnings will be matched by SunPoker and donated to charity.

"Kenna is the perfect choice to be our poker ambassador," says Adam Smirnis, poker room manager at SunPoker. "His knowledge and passion for the game, coupled with a personality that has made him a huge fan favorite, will enable Kenna to truly help SunPoker players and all fans of the game understand and play poker like a professional."

"It has always been my desire to find a way to give back to the game that has been so good to me," says James. "I was never one to look for and take advantage of the weaker 'fish' in the game, but rather I always looked to elevate my game by playing against the best. SunPoker's commitment to teaching the game, as well providing one of the best places on the Internet to learn, play and win, makes us an ideal team."

Celeb Poker Invitational raises $150 000

The LA Lakers Youth Foundation received a boost to its coffers this week following the Bodog sponsored Los Angeles Lakers 3rd Annual Casíno Night and Celebrity Poker Invitational.

Bodog CEO Calvin Ayre together with Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss was on hand to welcome guests to the event, held at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. Lakers fan John Horne won the poker game with second place going to Rossi Morreale of Extra.

During the fundraiser, guests learned how to play poker at the "Bodog Poker Boot Camp" where Bodog Girls were on hand to provide free poker lessons.

Bodog and Lakers friends and family who attended the event included: Phil Jackson, Jeanie Buss, Magic Johnson, Paris Hilton, Marcia Cross, Josh Duhamel, Anne Heche, Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon, Jeremy Piven, Regina King, Penny Marshall, Lacey Chabert, Dean Cain, Shannon Elizabeth, Jennifer Tilly, Rick and Kathy Hilton, Annie Duke, Bai Ling, Ricki Lake, Olivia Wilde, Brody Jenner, Phil Laak, Linda Rambis, Michele Merkin, David Anders, Jon Rose, Jon Kelley, Rue and more.

L.A. Lakers past and present in attendance included: Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, Smush Parker, Chris Mihm, Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic, Devean George, Kwame Brown, Andrew Bynum, Brian Cook, Devin Green, Jim Jackson, Aaron McKie, Ronny Turiaf, Von Wafer, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Kurt Rambis.

Ayre donated $150,000 to the L.A. Lakers Youth Foundation in a check presentation made during halftime at a Lakers vs. Clippers game at the Staples Center. One hundred percent of the event proceeds benefited the L.A. Lakers Youth Foundation, which provides financial assistance to more than 30 children's charities in the Los Angeles area. Education, medical care and after-school activities for at-risk youth are among the programs the L.A. Lakers Youth Foundation provides.

Casino Action and Casino Rewards groups ring the changes

Inter-group changes to some major Microgaming-powered brands (see previous InfoPowa reports) got underway this week with email notifications to those players who will be affected by the changes.

Casino Action told players that the change will be on the 24th April, and the two casinos involved, Aztec Riches and Phoenician will close for a few hours at the time. Instant Neteller payments will no longer be avaliable, nor will the Casino Action competitions.

Loyalty points and balances will be transferred to the relevant Casino Rewards programmes.

Withdrawals will be processed by Casino Action up to and including the last day, but all "pending" withdrawals on the last day will be carried over and processed by Casino Rewards.

British Gala Bingo player scores GBP 162 000

One of those life-changing moments occurred for a British mother of three this week when Jo Collins received a cheque for over GBP 162 000 - believed to be the biggest bingo win ever - from Gala Bingo Online.

Jo, a Special Needs School driver, had been playing Gala Bingo Online for only five days when she scooped GBP 162.701.97.

She said: "I’m going to pay off the mortgage, and the car, and go out to Australia to see the long-lost friends who introduced me to my husband. I have three grown up children and ten grandchildren and we are going to have a great party."

Jo (52) is also a Meals on Wheels volunteer. She has been married for 35 years.

Recounting her winning experience, she added: "I was at my daughter Melanie’s house when I realised I’d won a big prize. We just went mad and danced around. When I told my husband Mervyn he thought I’d picked up GBP1 600. You should have heard him when I explained that I had won over GBP160,000!"

"I’m going to carry on with my driving job. The Special Needs kids rely on people like me to get them to school."

The previous highest recorded win was GBP 130,000.

Gala Coral E. Commerce Managing Director Dominic Harrison said: "We are delighted to have a big winner, and with the response to our new-look Gala Bingo website. It has real buzz, and mirrors exactly the exciting atmosphere to be found in our clubs."

Everest Casino's jackpot a fairytale come true!

Everest Casino's progressive slot Faerie Tale 25 lived up to it's name with a massive progressive win for French player MauriceG this month, giving him a cheque for just over $183 000.

Grand Virtual-powered Everest says the lucky player hit the jackpot, winning 100 percent of the progressive worth $177,694.68. Including payouts from other paylines, it brought his total winnings on the spin to $183,082.18.

"Maurice has been with our casino network for over three years," said Eduardo Santos, manager at Everest. "We're delighted that such a loyal and longtime player managed to hit this jackpot."

Maurice has solid plans for the cash. "My wife and I have 2 grandsons, they are 15 and 13 years old, and they will soon discover the USA with their grandparents," he said. On his interaction and correspondence with Everest Casino's Customer Care Team, Maurice noted, "[They are] a serious and professional casino that knows how to make you feel like a valued person, whether you’re in a difficult time or in a very happy one, which is vital in this virtual Internet world."

Everest Casino is available in a wide range of interna tional languages and is a property of Ultra Internet Media ('UIM'), a well-established global operator of online casinos. UIM's brands include Casino Elegance, Casino Fantasy, Casino Glamour, Casino Lux, Casino Treasure, Imperial Casino, Everest Poker and Everest Casino.

Fortuna's mobile poker launched

Poker fans with the ubiquitous Blackberry communicator have a new addition to while away those idle minutes between emails. Fortuna Gaming has launched the next generation of its mobile poker, ‘Mobile Gold,' now available to players everywhere on the Blackberry 8700 series.

Doug Waugh, President of Fortuna said, "We are committed to providing our shareholders and players maximum value and following the success of the Motorola Razr we felt it was time to broaden our player base."

Waugh is confident that Mobile Gold will attract a wider 'play for free' player base because of its use of the BlackBerry technology in North America.

Dallas Robinson, VP Marketing at Fortuna agrees: "We believe, based on Mobile Gaming Now's ('MGN'), research, that this will prove to be a lucrative move for the company, and consistent with our strategic plan, will enhance the player's experience and game satisfaction wherever their location."

Mark Jensen, CEO of Mobile Gaming Now was also enthusiastic: "We're very impressed with the new BlackBerry 8700 series. With its speed, new screen size and clear graphics, we felt it would be a perfect device to launch the new game. We have a 6-hand and 10-hand game that integrates simultaneously with the PC. A player at a table can't tell if someone's playing on a PC or a mobile phone. The new Gold Mobile is a 10-hand mobile game with high quality graphics. It's our top-of-the-line mobile game. Players can also use the other BlackBerry devices to play our games."

Online gaming group builds international branding through deal with Italian soccer club

Austrian public company and major European gambling group, Betandwin.com has inked a sponsorship deal with the top Italian football club AC Milan which will see the Bet and Win logo on team shirts for the next four seasons, covering all national and international matches.

"We have set ourselves the goal of establishing BetandWin as the leading international online gaming brand," said betandwin Co-CEO, Manfred Bodner. "Soccer is easily the most important and most attractive betting sport, [so] it obviously makes sense to seek a partnership with an internationally known, successful top club,”

Over the course of the last four seasons, AC Milan's jersey sponsor has been seen by over 50 billion people in some 3,000 hours of television broadcasting in Italy and abroad. According to a recent market survey, AC Milan and the club's new jerseys sponsor are amongst the best known brands in this sector.

Bet and Win's soccer sponsorship follows similar agreements in the UK by 888.com and 32 Red.com.

Betandwin's sports betting odds will be streamed live on the displays in the San Siro Stadium as part of the deal.

"...a great opportunity to network with our peers and take the online gaming industry to a new level of quality and entertainment value for the players," says Bodog's Ayre.

Bodog.com, a top US facing online gamblíng group has announced its sponsorship of the upcoming eGaming Review Power 50 Summit. The summit will be attended by the top 50 movers and shakers in the online gamblíng world and is set to take place April 23-25 at the Brocket Hall estate, outside of London.

Bodog.com spokesmen said that the sponsorship of this year's Power 50 Summit is part of a group strategy to maintain arguably the most recognisable brand in the online gamblíng and entertainment markets.

"We are looking forward to the summit," says Calvin Ayre, Bodog.com's founder and CEO. "It's a great opportunity to network with our peers and take the online gaming industry to a new level of quality and entertainment value for the players."

Later this summer, Bodog.com will bring industry leaders together again at the 2006 Bodog.com Marketing Conference. Scheduled for July 23-25 at the Wynn Las Vegas, the conference attracts the top names in online sports betting and poker including the major online gamblíng operators, handicappers, affiliates, advertisers and suppliers.

The 2006 Bodog.com Marketing Conference features the theme Seduce, Induce, Ignite. Seduce = Get new customers - always a goal of any successful business. Induce = keeping customers loyal. Ignite = how to grow a business venture to its fullest.

In addition to keynote speaker Magic Johnson, the 2006 Bodog.com Marketing Conference will include industry leaders from the worlds of online gaming, online marketing, public relations, technology and the mainstream corporate sector.

Civil Court case in Rome has a positive outcome for Astrabet

Maltese online gaming company, Astrabet has successfully campaigned to re-establish their service connection in Italy after a decree banning online gambling sites from Italian ISPs was made in February by the Italian authorities.

Astrabet's success sets a useful legal precedent because the company fought their case in the Civil Court in Rome and received a ruling in their favour, with the Court ordering that their connection be reinstated with immediate effect.

At present, the decision applies solely to Astrabet as they were the only company to challenge the ruling, but with many online gaming companies licensed in Malta, this ruling could result in group or class actions being assembled with a view to securing a total re-establishment of all Malta-Italy gaming services.

New online poker room standards now in force across a range of top tier sites

Poker players across the world will now find the familiar eCOGRA "Play It Safe" seal on 7 more Internet poker sites belonging to some of the most successful and reliable online gaming groups in the business.

Bringing to 76 the number of online casinos and poker rooms committed to the international standards of eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance (eCOGRA), the new seal-holders have successfully passed stiff probity, game fairness and operational efficiency tests and will undergo continuous monitoring to safeguard the players' interests.

eCOGRA’s independent directors awarded the ‘Play It Safe’ seal this week to the following poker rooms from the Ongame and Prima Poker networks:

Europoker.com (Ongame network) www.europoker.com

Trident Poker (Prima Poker network) www.tridentpoker.com

3 Piggs Poker (Prima Poker network) www.3piggspoker.co.sz

Gaming Club Poker (Prima Poker network) www.gamingclubpoker.com

River Belle Poker (Prima Poker network) www.riverbellepoker.com

7 Sultans Poker (Prima Poker network) www.7sultanspoker.com

Royal Vegas Poker (Prima Poker network) www.royalvegaspoker.com

eCOGRA CEO Andrew Beveridge says that each operation underwent extensive independent testing and inspection by professional teams from an international business services and auditing group: "This is to ensure compliance with the standards and requirements of eCOGRA concerning operational efficiency, fair and responsible gaming and player protection," he said.

Beveridge revealed that further top tier sites are currently under consideration, and that the eCOGRA initiative to present the online gambling community with a wide range of safe, honest and efficient online casino and poker room venues is now well established and handling a substantial share of the available online gaming business in a global sense.

In terms of its specifically constructed poker standards, eCOGRA requires that poker seal holders are financially stable and have adequate reserves. The probity of poker room management is scrutinised, together with player protection measures, payout times and financial facilities, games fairness, responsive Support and general operational efficiency.

Policies have to be in place for communicating with clients and dealing with any player complaints, together with satisfactory technical capabilities and anti money-laundering systems.

"We expect to make further announcements in the near future as our "100 'Play It Safe' Seals by 2006" campaign unfolds," he said. "Interest in the eCOGRA standards is growing from players, casinos, leading poker rooms and software providers alike, and our membership is open to any software provider that is prepared to commit to our goals and principles."

eCOGRA is the independent standards authority for the online gaming industry, committed to protecting online casino and poker players around the world. The non-profit organisation addresses the most important issues to players: fast payouts, fair gaming, responsive and efficient service and responsible operator conduct.

Industry exec says it's not going to happen as opposition to US banning attempts grows

The CEO of BetonSports, David Carruthers has added his opinion to that of 888.com boss John Anderson, saying that attempts to ban online gambling in the United States will again fail this year.

Carruthers, who recently jousted in the Wall Street Journal on the subject with banning politician James Leach, told Reuters this week he expects recent attempts by U.S. lawmakers to stamp out Internet gambling to fail and instead sees Web wagering legalised in a few years.

"I would be very, very, very surprised if any of these bills get any longer lifeline than the month of July," Carruthers told Reuters in a phone interview, noting that previous efforts by lawmakers to ban Internet gambling had failed.

However, Carruthers admitted that if the bills were to pass, "...they will inhibit growth, and it will be a shock to the system."

U.S. gamblers represent about 45 percent of the total online gaming market, which is projected to grow to about $22 billion in the next four years from about $12 billion now, Carruthers said.

Carruthers said he expected to see online betting ultimately regulated in the United States in about 3 years. He said provisions in the bills to stop credit cards and other companies from allowing payments for gambling would not have much effect, as some North American banks had been doing that for three years already.

Goodlatte does "not have an opinion" on horse racing carve-out legislation, and the banks don't want enforcement responsibility

U.S. politicians haggled over the scope and objective of the proposed Internet Gambling Prohibition Act this week, with the controversial horse racing carve-outs a prominent feature.

During this week's hearings before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security questions often turned to the racing industry and whether it has a carve-out in the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act. Some lawmakers said they are confused by the legislation, in part because pari-mutuel wagering is governed by other laws.

Lawmakers cited figures that claim $14 billion - half of it from residents of the United States - was bet through the Internet last year, up from $8 billion the previous year. Some of them believe a commission should be formed to study Internet gambling before any bill is passed.

Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, chief sponsor of the legislation, said during the hearing the bill would eliminate Internet gambling but at the same time protect states' rights. The regulation of intrastate gambling is within the jurisdiction of each state, he said.

"While my legislation prohibits online, interstate gambling, it does not overturn previous acts of Congress that address gambling," Goodlatte said. "This is a strong anti-gambling bill that also protects the rights of states to determine what is - and is not - prohibited within their borders."

The pari-mutuel industry now derives about 85 percent of its revenue from interstate simulcasts - the transmission of signals across state lines and to other countries - but Goodlatte insisted there is no carve-out, or exemption, for racing in the legislation.

One of the more sensible voices in the debate, Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan called dealing with horse racing a "conundrum", given the Justice Department's position that interstate betting on racing is illegal, and the prohibition in the Goodlatte bill. Conyers pressed Goodlatte to comment on this carve-out.

"I don't have an opinion on that piece of legislation," Goodlatte said. "We're not overturning that act or taking a position on what that act allows."

Bruce Ohr, chief of the Organised Crime and Racketeering Section in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, said the department views existing criminal statutes as "prohibiting the interstate transmission of bets or wagers, including wagers on horse races." He said the department is "currently undertaking a civil investigation relating to a potential violation of law regarding this activity," but offered no details.

U.S. Rep. Robert "Bobby" Scott of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, questioned the potential effectiveness of the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act. He said it wouldn't prohibit Internet gambling and suggested prosecution of individual gamblers may send a message. Scott likened it to prohibiting the sale of illegal drugs; the demand for drugs remains.

"A more effective regulatory approach must be developed," said Scott, who joined Conyers in calling for the formation of a study commission to tackle the issue.

"Let's be real, my friends," Conyers said. "If we are to gain control of the online gambling industry, we must regulate it."

Democratic U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas had several questions to ask Goodlatte, including how the bill would impact online wagering on racing. She said she's concerned about "discriminatory aspects that may occur if we don't get it right, and I'm sensing we're not getting it right. Since we have a state of confusion, I'd be concerned about legislation that causes more confusion."

One academic expressed an extreme view. John Warren Kindt, a professor at the University of Illinois, told lawmakers of the socioeconomic problems associated with all forms of gambling. He said a strategic solution would be to ban Internet gambling and convert existing gambling facilities into educational and practical technology facilities.

Kindt included in his testimony a chart on the business economics of licensed organized gambling. The document called casinos, video gaming machines, and Internet betting the "crack cocaine of gambling," and horse and dog tracks, bingo, and lotteries the "marijuana of gambling."

Kindt claimed there is $3 in costs for every $1 in benefits when it comes to gambling and its impact on society.

Sam Vallandingham, vice president in the chief information office of the First State Bank of Barboursville, W.Va., said the Goodlatte bill would create problems for the banking industry by necessitating a massive overhaul of check-clearing and automated clearing house networks.

"As a representative of the (Independent Community Bankers of America), I urge you to reject proposals to use the banking system to restrict Internet gambling unless there is a reasonable chance the measures will be effective and will not add to the tremendous regulatory burden of our nation's financial institutions," Vallandingham told subcommittee members.

Goodlatte emphasised that gambling institutions, not banks, would be subject to criminal penalties under his bill.

European gaming stocks reacted favourably to this news of objections to the Goodlatte proposals and legislative confusion.

Analyst Greg Feehely at Altium Securities said the bill was likely to be hindered by the fact it targeted some types of online gaming while omitting others such as remote horse race wagering. "This will hinder progress," he said. "We also note that no date has been scheduled for a second hearing. This is potentially very significant and positive news for the quoted online gaming sentiment in a shorter than usual legislative session."

Criticism of Goodlatte Bill from an unexpected source

The last organisation one would expect to find criticising a Bill aimed at killing off U.S. online gambling would be the conservative Traditional Values Coalition but in the strange and confused world of U.S. anti-Internet gambling that happened this week.

The Goodlatte Bill, which came under fire before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday (see other InfoPowa reports in this edition) motivated the Coalition to send in its views, although it had not been asked to testify at the hearing.

In it's submission, the Coalition claimed that the Goodlatte's bill would actually expand Internet gambling.

"While the [coalition] supports the stated goals of H.R. 4777, that is, to keep gambling off the Internet, we remain deeply concerned about the legislation's real effect," the letter states. "The Goodlatte bill could more accurately be called the Internet Gambling Growth and Opportunity Expansion Act."

The coalition contends that Goodlatte's bill falls short by not banning all gambling in the United States - in other words condoning carve-outs for other forms of Internet gambling.

As currently written, the legislation allows intrastate Internet lotteries, interstate horse racing and online wagering on sports fantasy teams.

"If the bill's intent is to prohibit people from buying lottery tickets from their living rooms, the bill could and should make such a prohibition explicit," the letter states.

"In fact, with respect to lotteries and every other form of non-sports gambling -- dog racing, jai alai, commercial casinos, bingo -- the Goodlatte bill allows states to license anything they choose."

Tournaments the focus of latest version

Online poker players, especially those with a penchant for tournaments will be evaluating the latest version of Wagerlogic / Cryptologic's poker software this weekend following its release at the end of March.

The new upgrade mainly addresses the tournament side of poker, with perhaps one of the most exciting new features being the Super-Satellite genre that is designed to filter winners into the big bricks and mortar poker room finals where the really rich pickings reside.

Crypto's new software also introduces new high-speed Thunder Tournaments, which shortens the blinds, reduces player timers and promises fast-paced poker excitement. This 'turbo-charged' version restricts player decision-making time to just 12 seconds.

Lewis Rose, president and chief executive, said: “Players are demanding speed, the thrill of ‘land-based’ tournaments and rewards for their loyalty.”

In an effort to reward players for their business, points can be accumulated in the My Poker Points (MPP) program by playing in regular games. Players can then use the My Poker Points for buy-ins into online poker tournaments.

Andy Goetsch, CryptoLogic’s Vice President of Poker Software Development said considerable thought and research has gone into the new iteration: “By understanding and anticipating the wants, needs and wishes of the online player, our software is offering something for every type of Internet poker player,” he said.

"As more and more online poker rooms come online, the industry will get more competitive. There are many online poker room software makers and CryptoLogic is among the finest of the lot. In the long run, the average poker player stands to benefit from the increased competition."

The roll-out of the new poker is almost complete, and it can currently be found at : Interpoker.com, Totalbetpoker.co.uk, Williamhillpoker.com, Sunpoker.com and Pokerplex.com.

3rd April has come and gone, and still no apparent U.S. action

Antiguan WTO delegates and pro online gambling observers alike watched the April 3 deadline for a U.S. response to a World Trade Organisation ruling come and go this week....but it seems that nothing was happening.

The deadline the United States faced was to bring into compliance U.S. laws relating to the ban on Internet gambling that a World Trade Organisation (WTO) tribunal ruled against last year. The U.S. government has taken no action to change the U.S. law that the WTO panel identified as violating U.S. WTO obligations. Theoretically at least, the United States could now be the subject to trade sanctions.

Shortly after last year's ruling, a bipartisan group of 29 state attorneys general sent a letter asking United States Trade Representative (USTR) Rob Portman to remove gambling from the list of U.S. service sectors bound to meet WTO rules, writing, “USTR assured state officials that if the Appellate Body upheld the lower panel’s ruling on this point, the United States could act to withdraw the gambling sector from the United States’ specific GATS [General Agreement on Trade in Services] commitments. We urge you to do so … We believe that under our constitutional system of federalism, states should continue to have the flexibility and sovereign authority to determine whether and under what conditions gambling occurs within their borders.”

However, this demand has apparently been ignored by the Administration, thus exposing many more U.S. gambling laws, including state laws, to challenges by other countries at the WTO.

Following a complaint by Antigua, the WTO’s disputes panel first ruled in November 2004 that United States laws banning Internet gambling violated GATS commitments. In April 2005, the WTO’s Appellate Body struck down certain aspects of the lower panel ruling and upheld others, mainly related to horse racing bets.

The United States was ordered to change the federal Interstate Horseracing Act (IHA). The Appellate Body ruled that the U.S. ban on remote gambling was not applied in a non-discriminatory manner because the IHA allowed U.S. gamblers to place bets across state lines while forbidding similar activity via foreign Internet gambling services.

The WTO tribunal ordered the United States to address the situation or face trade sanctions. The USTR had two options: to unilaterally withdraw the gambling sector from GATS coverage, which it could do without congressional approval, or work with Congress to make its federal laws consistently prohibit remote Internet gambling.

Because no action has been taken, the United States may face trade sanctions from Antigua. Antigua is not a major trading partner, yet the long-term implications of this ruling outweigh the short-term ones, as U.S. gambling commitments under GATS expose state and local government gambling regulations to further WTO challenge.

The USA was given until April 3 2006 to comply.

Over the strenuous objections of the U.S. government, the WTO declared that the United States had committed the entire gambling sector to the GATS, because the United States had made commitments under a category called “other recreational services.” Under a United Nations (U.N.) service sector classification system used by some WTO nations, gambling is a sub-sector of “other recreational services.” The United States argued unsuccessfully that it was not using this U.N. system when it signed up recreational services in 1995.

This aspect of the 2005 WTO ruling means that all U.S. federal, state and local laws governing gambling are now subject to future WTO challenge if they don’t comply with GATS rules. GATS rules forbid limits on the number of service suppliers (i.e. on the number of casinos), prohibit monopolies (i.e. monopolistic state lotteries) and prohibit exclusive service provider arrangements (i.e. Indian gaming compacts).

The WTO Appellate Body also ruled that a regulatory ban – in this case the U.S. ban on Internet gambling – in a covered service sector constituted a GATS-forbidden limit.

24 hours past the dealine, and no comment from American trade representative

The finance minister for the Caribbean island government of Antigua and Barbuda has spoken out on the continued silence of U.S. trade representatives at the World Trade Organisation fully 24 hours after the deadline for compliance with a WTO disputes panel ruling expired yesterday.

Finance Minister Errol Cort said pending U.S. legislation on online betting would make it harder for Antigua gambling companies to do business with U.S. citizens.

Antigua took the dispute to a WTO panel, which ruled that the U.S. prohibition legislation would violate global trade rules unless it took action to amend its policy on Internet gambling through horse-racing bodies. The deadline for the U.S. government's compliance passed earlier this week.

"The deadline has come and passed and the United States has made no effort toward compliance," Cort said, adding that the U.S. legislation would "further entrench the discriminatory nature of the United States' approach to cross-border gambling."

Cort said U.S. trade officials have "rebuffed every offer Antigua and Barbuda has made to engage the United States in an attempt to work out a reasonable resolution of this dispute." The minister said Antigua was "exploring all available options" to make the U.S. comply with the WTO ruling but conceded that settling the dispute would be "extremely challenging" given Antigua's lack of economic and political clout.

"While the United States flaunts the decision of the WTO in our case and attempts to shore up its own domestic monopoly on gambling and betting services, Antigua and Barbuda wants to point out that we have a highly regulated gaming industry in our country," Cort said.

Proposed banning legislation could effect the online poker industry, says magazine's chairman.

Card Player Magazine in the USA has come out strongly against attempts by American politicians to prohibit online poker, and this week the publication launched an initiative to assist US players to have their say with their political representatives.

Card Player chairman Barry Shulman says that the re-introduction of the "Internet Gambling Prohibition Act" by US Congressmen Rick Boucher (R-VA) and Bob Goodlatte (D-VA) once again puts online poker under attack from legislators who don't believe the game should be considered legal.

"We believe it is crucial that players and fans have a voice that can be heard," says Shulman. "To facilitate that, Card Player is providing an online system where users can send letters to their appropriate Congresspersons to speak out against this legislation."

Contact is made easy for players, who have only to enter name, address, and zip code on an appropriate letter that the magazine will ensure is delivered.

EC wants to know why states are restricting access

There was plenty of action on the European "sovereignty" front this week as the Italians and the Maltese bumped heads over the ISP blockade on Internet gambling sites imposed by Italian decree; the French went global with their FDJeux lottery whilst continuing to ban access to their own citizens by other states and the German constitutional court required state gambling bodies to smarten up.

But what really had everyone talking was a quiet announcement by the European Commission (EC) that it is making official requests for information to Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden as to why they are restricting access to internet sportsbetting services.

Talked about, because this is the first step on a road to a full investigation or "infringement procedure".

All the named countries restrict internet betting access by other EU states in protecting their state gambling monopolies, and the EC is concerned that the measures may break EC law on the free movement of services.

The seven countries have two months to respond.

The inquiry follows complaints from a number of operators and an initial EC fact finding mission. Meanwhile, well heeled EU gambling groups continue with expensive legal challenges against the offending countries restricting their business ambitions.

The EC statement says that any restriction on services which seeks to protect consumers on moral grounds must be "consistent and systematic" in how it limits betting. So a member state may not ban online betting with one hand while promoting a national lottery or state-backed bookies with the other.

Svenska Spel monopoly the impetus for new application

The Swedish government's launch through Svenska Spel of the first government owned online poker site has been followed by an application from the UK betting group Ladbrokes for a licence to operate its online poker service in Sweden as it looks to challenge a government monopoly on betting.

Ladbrokes said its application follows the Swedish government's January decision, without reference to any competitive process, to issue an online poker licence to state-run betting monopoly Svenska Spel.

The company said it has given an undertaking to abide by all social commitments as required under Svenska Spel's licence.

Under EU law, countries may use social reasons to prevent competition, but otherwise have to uphold free and fair competition.

"We hope the Swedish government refer to European law when considering our application... If our application is rejected, we will consider legal action," Ladbrokes eGaming managing director John O'Reilly said.

The tide seemed to be turning in favour of trans-border betting services last (March) month. A similar application in Norway has seen that country's betting laws referred to the European Free Trade Area court in Luxembourg, and according to a judgement on March 30 German states must introduce new laws by the end of 2007 - a move welcomed by Ladbrokes as an opportunity to see regulated competition introduced into the German market.

Weak problem gambling measures at Oddset the chink in the monopoly's armour

Private betting groups were toasting an important ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany as March ended. The ruling declared that the state monopoly on sports betting is unconstitutional.

Operating the monopolistic "Oddset" without even minimal checks and balances to prevent addictive gaming was declared a violation of the constitutional right of freedom of occupation for aspiring sport betting bookmakers. The monopoly could therefore be upheld only if measures to combat addictive gaming were introduced and enforced immediately.

Legal observers said that the ruling was very specific about appropriate measures. In essence, in the view of the Deutsche Buchmacher Verband (DBuV; German Bookmaking Association), Oddset's full compliance with these measures is only theoretically feasible but practically impossible.

Two broad scenarios for the future were outlined: One, German legislators come up with new regulation to liberalize sports betting. Two, the monopoly will be upheld and Oddset has to align its offering completely with the goal to prevent addictive gaming and abandon all fiscal interests.

Several operators, including Betbull said that overwhelming public demand for regulated and professionally run sports betting would probably be a critical factor that would hopefully persuade German legislators to liberalise the market.

The legislators were given until December 31st 2007 to provide the regulatory framework for sports betting in Germany. Until new regulation becomes effective current German law and rulings remain in force, but some experts have suggested that should the authorities shut down betting shops on the basis of German law the operators could go against this action on the basis of the laws of the European Union.

Both German and international bookmaking bodies say they will rally support to convince German legislators of the need to free the sports betting market following the court's decision.

Gunter Schmid, CEO of the German betting group Betbull remarked: "After seven years of betting with Oddset, lacking even basic means of protection against addictive gaming, it is the bettors who deserve a fresh start, in olther words a liberalised and professionally operated sports betting offering. Bettors will be the winners of this landmark ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court."

Apparently French restrictions apply only in one direction

French resistance to other EU nations offering gambling services to its citizens via the Internet does not appear to diminish French ambitions to do the same thing to other states - a February 17 decree by the French government allows the lottery FDJeux to offer foreign clients online lottery betting via Internet.

The decree illustrates once again how far removed EU states are from a consistent and unanimous approach to issues where state monopolies are in force.

European legal experts were quick to comment on the decree. Thibault Verbiest, a lawyer in both Paris and Brussels specialising in NTIC, Media & Gambling for the ULYS Law Firm said: "The French Decree is just a catalog of good willingness, without any real obligations & duties. On top of that we can note that the FDJeux is now allowed to offer games abroad. How can the FDJeux not allow foreign operators to act on the French Market?"

The chairman of the European Betting Association (EBA) Didier Dewyn said: “Given the global nature of gambling, a monopoly cannot with certainty achieve efficient consumer protection. Rapid technological developments have brought down borders and globalised in an unprecedented way the provision of gambling services, creating common threats to consumers in all Member States. Only EU regulation of the gambling sector applying throughout the 25 Member States could ensure real and efficient consumer protection”.

But it didn't last long!

The Italian online gambling blockade seemed to enter a new phase this week amid reports of discussions with the Maltese regulator Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA) and opinions on the legality of this unilateral decree in terms of European Union policies.

Reports in the Maltese press suggest that three weeks on from the launch of its blockade of online gambling sites through Italian ISPs, the Italian regulatory body has yet to sit around the table and discuss the issue with the Maltese, who are disturbed that up to 80 of the sites which the LGA regulates are subject to the block.

Last week, the LGA's website, which now serves as the only form of access for Italian gamers to link up with the blocked Maltese gaming sites, was also blocked by Italian ISPs. The matter was reversed within hours, presumably after protests to the Italian authorities.

LGA CEO Mario Galea said he hoped the Italians would keep their word to start discussions: “The Italians understand they have no problems with us and said they are ready to meet us. If they don’t, we would have to take diplomatic action, and that means the issue will be dealt with at government level," he said.

Over 80 sites licensed in Malta were blocked by Italy, part of a law enacted following its 2006 budget to block 684 online gaming sites not licensed in Italy on the grounds it was protecting Italian gamers from “phishing” – the fraudulent acquisition of passwords and credit card details.

AAMS, the Italian regulatory board has threatened Italian ISPs which do not block the websites with a daily fine of Euro 180 000 each time they allow someone to bet with a “blacklisted” company.

With feelings starting to run high, the Malta Remote Gaming Council said there is no reason why Maltese gambling websites should be included in the blockade, “...other than to protect the Italian government’s monopoly which runs betting in Italy.” The Italian state, together with a small number of state-authorised private partners, generated Euro 1.8 billion in revenues last year.

The Malta Remote Gaming Council (MRGC) has now directed its members to lodge a formal complaint with the European Commission against Italy and the AAMS, which will be sent in the name of all MRGC members.

Pressure on the Italians is mounting, with several major British online betting companies urging the European Commission to stop the blockade of offshore internet gambling businesses. The case is currently under review at the Director General (Competition.) Some UK gambling companies, under the aegis of the UK's Remote Gambling Association have sought legal advice.

Meanwhile, the LGA has not been sitting on its hands. The regulator carried out a publicity campaign on Italian media and online gambling forums to encourage players to visit its website as a work-around to access Maltese gambling sites.

Critics say Italy has blocked cross-gambling services in contravention of the ruling in the Gambelli case, where 3 years back Italian agents acting for the UK's Stanley International Betting Limited were prosecuted for contravening Italian law which forbade non-Italian concerns from accepting Italian bets.

The Gambelli precedent stated that EU member states could not block cross-gambling services, other than on grounds of moral objections.

Several other so-called "sovereignty" cases are currently in dispute, with European Union regulators about to issue legal challenges to France, Spain and other governments for hindering takeovers or competition in industries from energy to gambling, and a number of legal cases laid against EU national governments.

The commission has no real enforcement agency to back up the EU's market-opening laws, and must instead bring countries to the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice, which can order governments to bring their laws into compliance. Governments that ignore those decisions can face the sanction, rarely used, of a second lawsuit to seek monetary penalties.

The process typically takes years to get from warning to judgment.

Red letter day for Internet's second largest online poker site

March 29 was a red letter day for leading online poker site Poker Stars.com - the popular venue signed up its 5 millionth player.

It was a lucky occasion for the player, too - 35 year old chef George Draper of Las Vegas is new to online poker but chance has awarded him the sort of prizes that pokerheads dream about. Draper gets a generous sponsorship to play in two of the richest and most prestigious tournament in world poker.

Company spokesmen said that reaching the five-million player landmark illustrates the phenomenal rate of growth for PokerStars, and the online poker industry overall, in recent years. The company was launched in September 2001, and less than a year ago, had 2.5 million registered players. Since then, that number has doubled. PokerStars has found popularity amongst online poker players due to its wide diversity of games and limits, efficient customer support, sponsorship of major tournaments and events worldwide, and a close affiliation with the last three World Series of Poker champions.

Putting the numbers in perspective, a spokesman said that if the PokerStars community were a country, it would be the 112th largest in the world, ranking higher than half of the planet's nations. The PokerStars population is larger than the populations of Los Angeles and Dallas combined, he said.

Chris Welch, the Poker Stars group marketing director says, “Many people who might be intimidated at the thought of playing inside a [land] casino find that playing at PokerStars is a comfortable and convenient alternative. Millions of players from all walks of life who are living in many different countries have signed up at PokerStars because we make playing poker fun, exciting, and easy.”

What will the five millionth player get? He will receive a poker player’s dream prize: a World Series of Poker main event prize package, with an opportunity to win a record $10 million first prize. The winner will also receive an entry into the main event of the fourth annual World Championship of Online Poker, the world’s largest online poker tournament, with an estimated prize pool of $5 million.

On days when it is running at full throttle, PokerStars.com has over 100 000 players simultaneously on-site. That translates into tens of thousands of games and tournaments from which players can choose. By comparison, PokerStars has nearly 50 times more players and games than the world’s largest land-based poker room which has only 243 tables.

Relatively unknown player beats out hundreds of contestants to take home over a million dollars

A relatively unknown poker tournament player took the title and the money at this week's Reno Hilton World Poker Tour (WPT) World Poker Challenge Championship.

Mike Simon, outplayed 592 players, including a number of top pros, to take first place and its prize of over $1 million in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em Championship.

Prior to his current win, Simon's top tournament finish was at the 2003 New England Poker Classic at Foxwoods, where he collected $639 for placing 22nd in the $200 Limit Hold'em event.

Final table play began in mid-afternoon at the Hilton Reno Resort & Casino in Reno, Nevada. Top pros who finished in the money in the Championship tournament include Barry Greenstein, Liz Lieu, Carlos Mortensen, Chau Giang, Gavin Smith, and David Plastik. But it was Simon who prevailed at a final table and winnings that looked like this at the close:

1st Mike Simon $1,052,890

2nd Jason Stern $529,300

3rd Tom Schneider $256,115

4th Greg Mueller $142,285

5th Jonas Norman $113,830

6th Barry Greenstein $85,370

In addition to his $1,052,890 cash prize, Simon gets a $25,000 seat to the WPT World Championship at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas next month.

Clothing and chips alike fly at freezing final table

First we had an underwater poker final table beneath the Caribbean Sea; we have just seen the current competition in the Arctic where finalists faced each other across a table on the ice shelf, and the next event will be held in a sunken ship off the coast of St. Kitts.

Watch out, too for the July event “Loser’s Leap,” which will be held at 10,000 feet above the Las Vegas Desert. The final table will be airborne, and as players run out of chips they will have to parachute back to earth!

We're talking Extreme Poker, (see previous InfoPowa reports) pioneered by InterPoker.com and designed to put players under environmental as well as poker pressure in the finals of big win tournaments fed by online satellites.

Freezing out the competition in the latest Arctic Freeze Out Tournament clash was Robert Varkonyi, the 2002 World Series of Poker Champion, who staged a dramatic come-from-behind victory against hostile players and a less than friendly environment.

Varkonyi sent chills through his competitors Peter Larsson of Sweden, Ulrik Jensen of Denmark, Rene Christensen of Denmark, Daniel Stein of England and reigning Extreme Poker Champion and local favorite Juha Helppi of Finland at a fiercely contested final table that left them all out in the cold.

Battling temperatures that reached minus 10° F, the Extreme Competitors were given the option of repurchasing lost chips in exchange for garments, forcing them to play in only a T-Shirt. Within the first three hands, Internet qualifier Daniel Stein had not only stripped Varkonyi of his chip stack, but also forced him to peel off his protective layer of winter clothing in order to stay in the tournament. Varkonyi later resorted to running laps in between hands to maintain circulation and stave off frostbite.

Ultimately, only Varkonyi and Helppi remained in the tournament, with Varkonyi playing in just a T-Shirt, and Helppi securely wrapped in his Parka. Varkonyi drew 9/10 off suit, and Helppi held suited K/9 of clubs. The flop uncovered off suit 10/7 and a 3 of clubs, giving Varkonyi a pair of 10s and Helppi a flush Draw. Helppi pushed all of his chips in, and Varkonyi called his bet, his lips turning blue, and his body shaking around the frost-covered table. The turn gave a 7, and the river another 10, leaving Varkonyi with a Frozen Full House to claim the Extreme Poker Title.

“Winning this title makes my suffering through the most excruciating cold I’ve ever experienced worth it, and I know this tournament will prepare me well for the 2006 World Series of Poker,” said Varkonyi. “Juha really gave me a run for the title, and my hat... and my coat... are off to him!”

Varkonyi will rejoin Juha at the 2006 Extreme Poker Championship, to be held in a sunken ship off the coast of St. Kitts, together with top-placed InterPoker.com Internet qualifier Ulrik Jensen from Denmark.

“The tournament was absolutely stunning – the players sat atop a seemingly endless ice shelf on the Arctic sea and played a frostbitten game of poker, as frigid winds whipped across the table,” said InterPoker.com spokesperson Peter Marcus. “All of the players showed an amazing amount of concentration, skill and pure grit during this tournament – especially our Internet qualifiers, who I anticipate will have very promising poker careers.”

Internet qualifier Ulrik Jensen was excited to play against the pros at InterPoker.com’s Arctic Freeze Out Tournament, but seemed to be more interested in the prospect of facing Varkonyi and Juha once more in St. Kitts. “My face, fingers and toes are all numb after sitting for 90 minutes in the frozen tundra – and nothing sounds better than visiting a tropical paradise for a week of sun and poker,” he remarked.

At the close of the Finland event, InterPoker.com announced that every player who qualifies for the World Series of Poker through InterPoker.com WSOP satellite tournaments will be offered a place in the qualifying round for the upcoming July Extreme Poker event titled “Loser’s Leap,” to be held at 10,000 feet above the Las Vegas Desert. Players will compete in a plane, and will have to bale out and hit the silk when their chips run out.

Strong customer growth reported

It seems that its divorce from Party Gaming has done little to slow Internet gaming firm Empire Online Ltd down. The company has posted a 57 percent rise in 2005 net profit and reports strong customer growth that will enable it to meet ambitious targets this year.

Empire Online owns Club Dice and other online casino brands together with the busy Noble Poker website, and posted a net profit of $41.2 million on net gaming revenues: up 61 percent to $105.2 million. The company has advised that it is on the lookout for new acquisitions to grow its online casino and poker stable.

"We are extremely pleased with the performance of the company during the period, and are very encouraged with the growth in both our poker and casino offerings globally and in particular in geographical territories outside of the USA," chief executive Noam Lanir said in his report.

An average of 450 punters a day signed up in March, an increase of around 50 percent after pulling out the impact of the Empire Poker business that was recently sold to PartyGaming plc.

The stock, which was listed in London last June, has lost nearly half its value in the space of little more than six months after first Sportingbet plc, and then PartyGaming reportedly abandoned buying moves following the Party Gaming falling-out.

New York's AG goes after Direct Revenue for installing malware on users' computers

Internet users plagued by unwanted and difficult to remove pop-ups and spyware were a little safer this week. Another pop-up advertising company is on the rack following notice of litigation from New York's attorney general Eliot Spitzer.

Accusing Direct Revenue LLC of secretly installing malicious programs on personal computers and sending ads through "spyware" that is already installed, the New York authorities claimed that Direct Revenue installed millions of pop-up ad programs that also monitor the Internet activity of users. Spitzer asked a state court to stop the practice.

"These applications are deceptive and unfair to consumers, bad for businesses that rely on efficient networks to do their jobs, and bad for online retailers that need consumers to trust and enjoy their online experience," Spitzer said. "We will continue to side with consumers in their fight for control of their desktops."

Spitzer had earlier sued another company on allegations of installing unwanted spyware and adware, a case which was ultimately settled with Los Angeles-based Intermix Media Inc., (see previous InfoPowa reports) which also developed the popular social-networking site MySpace and is now part of News Corp.

Last year, the former chief executive of Intermix Media, Brad Greenspan, agreed to pay $750,000 in penalties after Spitzer accused the company of secretly installing adware and spyware on millions of home computers. Spitzer had accused Greenspan of directing employees to bundle adware with other free programs and to make the software difficult to remove.

Intermix also agreed to pay $7.5 million in penalties over three years.

In the latest civil lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in New York, Spitzer claims Direct Revenue or its distributors offered free games, browsers or software without mentioning that they would come with VX2, Aurora, OfferOptimizer and other adware downloads.

After such "drive-by downloads," which he said his investigators got when visiting at least 21 Web sites, the company can track consumers' Web activity and deliver pop-up ads, Spitzer said.

Spitzer said the software thwarted consumers' removal attempts and sometimes reinstalled itself. The latest lawsuit also names Direct Revenue's former chief executive, Josh Abram. Spitzer said Abram told a distributor in an e-mail that "we have a very stealthy version of our adware product," adding that "these will not be caught."

Email face-off arranged by Wall Street Journal

At last an industry personality with some facts and figures has been able to conduct a public debate with the would-be scourge of Internet gambling, Rep. James Leach. And judging by early reports, online gambling came off best.

David Carruthers, CEO of online gaming firm BETonSPORTS plc engaged in an interactive debate this week with U.S. Congressman Jim Leach on the latter's anti-online gambling allegations made in support of his latest proposal. The debate was hosted, and mediated, by the Wall Street Journal Online and was conducted over an e-mail exchange.

The Wall Street Journal subsequently carried the exchange in detail, pointing to its earlier online poll in which 85 percent of the more than 10 000 respondents voted against an online gambling ban in the USA.

Leach (R-Iowa) is a sponsor of a bill aimed at crippling the online gambling industry through the banking sector, the bill was marked up in a sub-committee earlier this month and referred to the full House Judiciary Committee for another hearing.

Carruthers and Leach debated the merits of the bill, which would use the banking industry to police online gambling sties by banning the use of credit cards, checks, and money transfers for Internet wagering transactions.

Leach got the debate started by arguing that Internet gambling sites "sweep dollars out of the U.S. into largely unknown, often criminal hands."

Carruthers responded by informing Leach that many of the same reasons he, and others, wish to prohibit the industry, are the exact same reasons that he is for regulation.

"Prohibiting online gambling would be catastrophic," he said. "Prohibiting the industry would have the exact opposite effect to what the congressman seeks. Prohibition would not stop online gambling, it would send it underground and leave the vulnerable unprotected."

The debate continued with Leach and Carruthers exchanging e-mails back and forth. Among some of the highlights of the debate was an open invitation from Carruthers for Leach to visit the BETonSPORTS corporate facility in San Jose, Costa Rica, or even sit down in Washington face-to-face to discuss the issue more, Leach declined the offer to visit Costa Rica saying that it would be "ethically dubious, if not illegal" for him to visit the company's operations.

The transcript of the entire debate is recommended reading, and can be found on a free section of the Wall Street Journal Online on the following link:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114375000762012631-14PeRy_IGy_Ax75SChM_gejdynE_20070403.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Early consensus from several industry observers reading the report was that Carruthers put over some very positive perspectives and exposed flaws in the politician's motivation and reasoning for the proposed legislation.

Ted speaks up

In an interesting sequel to the Carruthers-Leach debate, online gambling player Ted Loh wrote the WSJ editor with a few facts and figures of his own regarding allegations made against the industry by Rep. Leach.

Loh drew the editor's attention to one of the key points of Mr. Leach's campaign: the allegation that online gambling serves as a haven for money launderers, based on the testimony of a fomer chief of the FBI's Financial Crimes Section, Dennis Lormel.

Loh wrote that Mr Lormel, in his testimony to Congress, did not at any point provide any proof whatsoever of his claims, despite the normal practice of those testifying before Congress typically providing all manner of photographs, slides, charts, handouts, and other collateral. He essentially asked Congress to take him on his word alone.

"Also relevant may be the fact that Mr. Lormel delivered this testimony shortly after 9/11 under what was obviously a highly-charged situation with reason to be overprotective without properly researching the facts," Loh says. "In his current bio, posted at http://corprisk.timberlakepublishing.com/content.asp?contentid=140 - you will note that there is no mention whatsoever of his testimony regarding online gambling, which Mr Leach so highly depends upon."

Loh says that Mr Leach also points to the Department of State report about a "concern" which states that "For these reasons, Internet gambling operations are vulnerable to be used, not only for money laundering, but also criminal activities ranging from terrorist financing to tax evasion." However, he asks the editor to note that the Department of State did not make any such claim that the online gambling industry was a haven for money launderers - it only alluded to the possibility of such a situation.

"Since no one has provided any proof of money laundering through the online gambling industry, it must be assumed that the industry is innocent of any such allegations until otherwise proven, or strong credible sources established," writes Loh. "This renders Mr Leach's primary argument useless without any further substantiation."

"Mr Leach further refers to breaches in law of the Wire Act and the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act - but in stating so, says that "When a site solicits and accepts wagers on sporting events and games of chance, these online casinos violate the Wire Act and the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act". What he does not appear to realize is that the Wire Act and the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act relate only to the act of placing sports wagers. Games of chance and online casinos are not covered by these Acts. Furthermore, a Federal Court from the Eastern District of Louisiana pronounced that "internet gambling on a game of chance is not prohibited conduct under the Wire Act".

Loh points out that the regulation of gambling has traditionally been held by each individual state government. Mr Leach, in fact, stated that "He (Carruthers) is also suggesting not only that the law of the U.S. (the above two referenced statutes) but similar laws that currently exist in all 50 states be overturned." Mr Leach is obviously oblivious to the fact that he too is suggesting that he be allowed to usurp the rights of each state by introducing a federal Act. He cannot have it both ways. Nevada has already introduced its own state legislation barring Internet gambling, as have some other states. So why does he think he needs to introduce federal legislation which will overlap with currently existing legislation in various states?

"Mr Carruthers is in favor of regulation, as are many operators in the online gambling industry to the best of my knowledge," Loh says. "Mr Leach says it cannot be regulated. But interstate commerce is regulated by federal law. Telecommunications are regulated by the FCC. US companies with locations outside the US still pay federal taxes. What makes the online gambling industry any different? Why should it not be allowed to pay taxes? Why should it not be allowed to subject itself to proper regulatory methods which are already in use in other industries?"

French poker to be expertly publicised

One of the international scene's top PR companies, Ketchum's Paris office has taken on the role of publicist for a new French online poker website branded Everest Poker.net.

Everest is a beginner-friendly poker site entirely in French, which allows all types of players to increase their skill level through game simulations. The agency will also manage the PR activities around Everest Poker involvement with local, European, and worldwide tournaments.

“We are very happy to contribute to the visibility and positioning of a qualitative online gaming platform with growing popularity. Winning this new client has strengthened the .com expertise of the agency following the recent signings with Maxicours.com and LeGuide.com," said a Ketchum spokesperson. "Everest Poker has built the only poker software fully localised in 11 different languages."

Marty's $100 brought the best ROI on the internet!

Details are still hard to come by, but a brief press release from Playtech-powered Carnival Casino this week claims that a world record Internet progressive win of $1 966 000 was hit on the site.

A player identified only as Marty is the lucky recipient of this massive bonanza, which was apparently achieved on a $100 deposit - the best return on investment seen for some time!

Shortly after making his deposit, and after just a few spins of the reel, Marty hit the big one - a progressive valued at $1 966 000. Carnival claims that Marty’s jackpot win represents the largest payout from an online progressive jackpot ever awarded to a single player.

Online casino turnkey scam under investigation

Gambling 911 reports that following collaboration with television channel CBS4 Denver, a "supplier" of turnkey online casinos has been exposed. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Arizona Department of Gaming are currently looking into a case where it is believed that scores of people were sold rudimentary online casinos for as little as $999 - but did not receive the riches expected.

Buyers were typically attracted by the prospect of working from home and the opportunity, backed by hype on the industry to generate tempting revenues.

Venture Concepts of Denver, believed to be operated by one David Howe offered complete online betting Web sites for $999. The sites featured poker, roulette, video slot machines and betting on sports and buyers were told they could make $25 000 in 3 months. But most of those who took the bait discovered that there was little if any business.

That was the cue for Venture Concepts to ask for additional thousands of dollars to advertise the Web site, and further thousands to secure a better listing on the Internet.

CBS4 found that Venture Concepts kept an office in Phoenix but it was empty, although a nearby dumpster contained documents for dozens of Web sites....and unanswered complaints asking for refunds.

"If a company, knowing full well that online gaming was illegal, was producing Web sites for the purpose of promoting that online gaming, that would be illegal," John Suthers, Colorado's Attorney General said. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation subsequently searched the Denver office of Venture Concepts and seized computers and records.

Unfortunately David Howe, the man suspected of running Venture Prospects was not available, and several attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. Investigations continue.

Poker Players Alliance points to new research

The Poker Players Alliance, a non-profit, grassroots organisation of more than 20,000 American poker players, renewed its objection to online gambling prohibition this week, highlighting a new survey by ICR market research that finds nearly 75 percent of Americans oppose moves by Congress to ban Internet poker.

"The new poll results are a clear illustration of the public's feelings on this issue. Simply put, people don't want their member of Congress telling them what they can and cannot do in their own home -- especially when it comes to a game that's as all-American as jazz or basketball," said Michael Bolcerek, president of the Poker Players Alliance.

Three of the biggest names in poker -- Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Greg Raymer -- and Radley Balko of the Cato Institute joined Bolcerek on a discussion panel, each explaining why efforts to ban online gambling are misguided.

"We are here today to speak about the growing threat to poker as it relates to the online game," said Bolcerek. "We are here to defend the game and express our opposition to Congress' efforts to kill the sport and restrict our civil liberties."

The panel noted the research findings presented on March 29, 2006 by ICR, an independent market research supplier located in Media, PA.

The results reflect a randomly selected group of 964 adults. Those selected were read a series of questions and asked to respond with "yes," "no," or "I don't know." The results of the survey are listed below.

Question #1: "Should the federal government prevent Americans from playing poker?" 90 percent voted "No"

Question #2: "Should the federal government prevent Americans from playing poker in Las Vegas?" 90.7 percent voted "No"

Question #3: "Should the federal government prevent Americans from playing poker in Casinos on Indian Reservations?" 86.6 percent voted "No"

Question #4: "Should the federal government prevent Americans from playing poker for charitable fundraisers?" 86.9 percent voted "No"

Question #5: "Should the federal government prevent Americans from playing poker on the Internet?" 74.2 percent voted "No"

Question #6: "Should the federal government prevent Americans from playing poker in the privacy of your own home?" 94.7 percent voted "No"

Question #7: "Do you believe the federal government should be managing Americans gambling behaviors on the Internet?" 66.1 percent voted "No" and 26.9 percent voted "Yes"

High Roller Radio moves in on the poker media sector

High Roller Radio and Catch the River.com announced the debut of a new radio poker show this week entitled, "Catch The River with Eric & Michele."

Claimed as the first online reality radio show created specifically for poker players, the show is available on demand exclusively from the HighRollerRadio.com site.

With a sports talk radio format, ‘Catch the River’ is hosted by Eric Burghardt, an avid poker player and online radio personality who leads fast-paced, lively discussions and short features on topics of interest to today’s poker player. His co-host & wife, Michele is a Certified Sports Hypnotherapist who developed the companys "NoTilt" Audio CD series to help players master the mind game of poker.

"Catch the River” interviews will take place with the biggest names in poker, tips to improve poker skills, current poker news and tournament standings.

“We’re excited about this show, there is nothing like it on web.” said Miguel Dotres, CEO of IEP Network Inc which owns HighRollerRadio.com.

“Players can listen while they play online and have fun while they do”, commented Michele Burghardt, “With the tremendous growth of online poker, it only makes sense for us to use the Internet to deliver our radio show.” ‘Catch the River’ enhances the online experience by including online poker in many of their feature stories. “

"Catch the River" is interactive, listeners are encouraged to email or call-in to give their opinions, ask questions and request topics for discussion.

Big Frank is coming....

Ladbrokes has awarded a contract to DA Group, a Glasgow-based animation company, to breathe life into an innovative concept for presenting match reports on the betting group's high profile website.

Using its "alert.me" technology the deal will see "Big Frank", DA's virtual sports pundit, delivering web-based match reports on English football on Ladrokes' website to add interest and variety to the site.

The initial agreement is for a pilot scheme, with DA hoping that a successful presentation will bring a string of further contracts with Ladbrokes, including an expansion into a mobile-phone service or into other sports.

CEO Mike Antliff said the deal was relatively small but was significant in the company's strategy to get the technology in place and bring media and advertising companies on board.

New look, better facilities

Bluesq.com staged its comeback at the end of March following an extensive revamp. The re-branding exercise coincided with a complete overhaul of functionality that was based on customer feedback and future gaming requirements of the brand.

A spokesman said that the new-look modern site has evolved over time and now firmly places the customer and his or her requirements at its heart.

Clients are presented with clean and simple graphics that allow for faster bet placement and gneral site navigation. The new promotions page also allows the customer to see what the best promotions are depending on which sport or game holds their interest.

Blue Square was acquired by the Rank Organisation in January 2003 and is British group's primary interactive betting company. The online casino Hard Rock Casino.com is a stablemate. Traditionally a bookmaking business, Blue Square has changed and become more diverse over time. Whilst the Blue Square Sports book will always remain at the core of the brand, other elements have seen significant growth in recent years such as a soft games section through Mecca Games and a poker and casino section.

Customers can now use one account to gamble on anything from Blue Square TV to football matches. Advances in technology has made possible several ways in which to access the site, including internet, interactive TV, WAP and telephone

CEO Martin Belsham commented: "We have made noticeable and significant changes that customers will appreciate and have requested. Blue Square will continue to be at the forefront of technological advancements in web design and innovation so that customers can feel comfortable that they are experiencing the best online gaming experience possible."

Dynamite games for Swedish gamblers

UK games provider Dynamite Idea was in the news again this week with another lucrative contract, this time in partnership with system provider GTS to supply a suite of innovative online games for Swedish gambling site Unibet.

The Premier Suite of games includes some of Dynamite Idea’s most popular and innovative offerings from a 100-strong portfolio.

Petter Nylander, chief executive at Unibet, said: “Dynamite Idea has a great selection of new and proven game content, so it was an obvious choice to launch a suite of its games. The games have proved to be popular with our clients, attracting more players to our site.”

Poker provider increases European exposure

The U.S. based poker software developer Las Vegas From Home Entertainment (LVFH) made a bold move onto Germany's Frankfurt Stock exchange this week.

The company commenced trading with a statement that it intends to increase it's exposure to the European investment community as well as increasing the visibility of its products.

LVFM owns the Antigua-based company Action Poker Gaming and also licenses its products through third parties.

Gibraltar white label provider launches a new online casino

Gibraltar-based St. Minver, supplier of fully managed ‘white-label’ online casinos and poker rooms was active this week with the launch of a new venue for MoneyAM that will help the site generate customer acquisitions and new revenue streams.

St. Minver is providing MoneyAM with its full range of poker and casino games including Black Jack, Roulette, Stud Poker, Baccarat, Video Poker, five-line and one-line slots. Each of these games has been fully branded and customised for MoneyAM.

Mike Boydell, managing director of MoneyAM, said: “Launching online casino and poker is an integral part of our online strategy to increase revenues and we wanted to partner a company that would give us the best solution for both. Since its recent launch, we have seen a substantial sign-up rate and usage of both the MoneyAM casino and poker room.”

Another takeover target for FUNTech?

Big names on the UK Internet gambling scene are reportedly set to take on games from a little known Welsh supplier later this (April) month.

Welsh skill games developer Skill4prizes intends to launch a range of gaming products on a worldwide platform. The skill-based games will be translated into 21 languages and will be carried by successful operators such as Sportingbet, BetandWin, Unibet and Victor Chandler.

Jim Preedy, director of Skill4Prizes, said: “From a simple idea and with help from Cardiff Council, we have gone from being a start-up to being involved with listed companies. The future looks extremely exciting for everybody involved.”

Profits and client acquisitions increase as WG grows

The latest results from software and gaming provider World Gaming plc show an increase in profits and customer acquisitions over the last quarter following the acquisition of Sportsbetting.com late last year.

Pre-tax profits rose to US$4.4 million (GBP 2.5 million) for the fourth quarter of 2005 compared to the same period the previous year. 21 414 customers were added during the same period, representing a 35 percent rise in growth over the same period the year before.

World Gaming paid US$81.8 million in cash and shares for Sportsbetting.com last October. Daniel Moran, CEO of World Gaming, said the latest results proved the value of the group’s strategy: “In addition to leveraging the group’s exceptional software and infrastructure resources, the acquisition of the sportsbetting.com business has increased the scale of the group significantly and forms a solid base for continued organic and acquisitive growth,” he said.

New features and better functionality in version 2

Microgaming's mobile gaming partner, Spin3.com, released SpinFone V2, its brand new play-for-fun mobile casino system this week. The system allows users to play casino games anytime, anywhere on their mobile phone but without gambling money.

Spin3’s UK customers already include Ladbrokes and Wild Jack casino.

For operators, SpinFone V2 brings a wealth of new features including:

Customer loyalty opportunities
Support for a wider range of handsets
The ability to add branding
Extra revenue opportunities for game play renewals

For the gamer, SpinFone V2 offers:

Clear graphics, and an enhanced easy to use interface
Live scoreboard, allowing users to compete with each other
A selection of games already featured in GameWire V2, including Blackjack and roulette

“SpinFone V1 was immensely popular and it’s only natural that we wanted to further enhance such a successful product,” said Matti Zinder, CEO, Spin3. “We work hard to ensure we are at the forefront of mobile entertainment. SpinFone V2 is no exception. We think it is a truly versatile product: graphic and feature rich with a competitive live scoreboard that delivers a play-for-fun experience that is second to none.”

Poker Academy and Party Poker in training agreement

Party Poker.com players will get to improve their game following an agreement signed this week between Poker Academy, the Texas Holdem poker software developer and Party Poker.com. The deal is that Poker Academy will help train players to improve their game at all levels.

As part of the agreement, Party Poker.com has launched a brand new "Poker Trainer," powered by Poker Academy's software. A free poker training tool for PartyPoker.com players, users can play and hone their skills against computer opponents in real-time on a dedicated play money trainer table. The software was based on work done by a team of researchers at the University of Alberta.

Kurt Lange, president and chief executive of Poker Academy Software says that players can learn the ropes in real-time and improve their game play. "It's like studying a foreign language by living in the country of origin; this approach is truly the best and fastest way to improve your Texas Hold'em game without taking any risk," he says.

"If you're new to poker, the ins and outs of the game can sometimes seem overwhelming," said Warren Lush of PartyPoker.com. "What's more, trying to psyche out your opponents while calculating the odds in a split second is a tall order – even for seasoned pros. That's why a new Poker Trainer was added to PartyPoker.com's free software package. Using our Poker Trainer, players will soon have the skills and confidence to stay on top of Texas Hold'em, the most popular version of poker played online."

Additional Poker Trainer features include:

-Three levels – beginner, intermediate and experienced

-The 'Hand Evaluator' advises you as you play a hand, telling you its value, your chance of winning (percentage), and the pot odds

-An 'Advisor' function complements the Hand Evaluator and guides you on the best moves for each hand (fold, bet, call, or raise)

- 'Session Stats' show you how you performed on the trainer (hands, hands played, hands won, and win rate are all available)

-Part of the free PartyPoker.com software downloadThe Poker Trainer isn't just for beginners. Even if you already know how to play, the program is a great way to hone skills ahead of a big game or tournament.

A call to action for Irish nudies

Paddy Power Poker.com plans on having a little fun later this year by going after the record for the world's largest naked poker game.

The Ireland-based site wants to break the record, which is currently held by the Naturist Society of Estonia where 104 poker players bared all last year. Adding to the entertainment, the Estonian nudists started nude and put on clothing if they lost a hand, and the Paddys have decided to run their “strip” poker tournament the same way. Players will be eliminated after they don 10 items of clothing.

Details are not yet to hand, but the record breaking attempt will probably take place at a location in Dublin sometime in August.

The winner of the PaddyPowerPoker.com event will receive the Paddy Power Poker golden fig leaves and a holiday for two in one of Europe's premier nudist spots, Cayton Beach in Scarborough, hopefully in the summer!

Paddy Power Poker management is looking for players, so contact Brendan Murray at bmurray@paddypower.com if you fancy a little fresh air with your game.

Zero gravity craps - see all the action at Bodog.net!

First out of the gate with the April 1st merriment last weekend was Calvin Ayre's gambling group, Bodog with the announcement of space station gambling by 2007.

In a splashy and graphics supported announcement, Ayre said his company was "....well into development of an off-planet casíno to be located in a small space station and set in orbit around the Earth."

This would be achieved acting in concert with its sister aeronautics company, BoBird (www.bobird.net), Bodog hopes to change the way people play casíno games with the introduction of such unprecedented experiences as "Zero Gravity Craps."

Always setting the standard for online gamblíng and pushing the limits of modern technology, Bodog has invested itself into this operation 100 percent. "We are pioneering seriously advanced systems here," Ayre is quoted as saying. "We also consider this a strong business plan since the type of people who will want to make this trip will be gamblers by nature anyway!"

Gaming laws in space are also considered in Bodog's new out of this world venture: "As the pioneer of orbital gamblíng, Mr. Ayre has accepted the responsibility of establishing his own gaming laws. 'We intend to be more than fair. I don't think you'll find odds this good on Earth. This venture is less about making money off the tables than it is about providing a new avenue of entertainment for those daring enough to join us in space,' he said.

Giving the fun release the credibility of serious events, the announcement points to the company Space Adventures, which is set to build a $265-million station in the United Arab Emirates with the goal of soon offering regular sub-orbital sightseeing tours. Virgin's Richard Branson is already planning to build a $225-million commercial spaceport in New Mexico for the same purpose.

"BoBird (www.bobird.net) will be building the Bodog Space Casíno in a series of orbital trips, starting September 16, 2006. The final launch is scheduled for the middle of 2007 with the Bodog Space Casíno opening at the end of 2007. Celebrities and models will frequent the Bodog Space Casíno. McCauley Culkin has signed on as the casíno host and Bruce Willis has agreed to give a speech for the Bodog Liftoff Party."

Oh, say it isn't so!!!

Players trying to access the popular Casinomeister portal on April 1st found a large and very serious looking government seal and a block of typically gobbledegook officialese advising that the site ISP had been blocked by government.

Included in this *notification* was: "If you are viewing this file the blockage was SUCCESSFUL. Any further attempts to access this site will initiate our IP tracking device and these IPs will be submitted to the FBI, IRS, and Interpol for review."

Before protesting this invasion of the freedom of speech, the Internet and everyone's Constitutional rights, however, readers are advised to pause and consider the date.

Seems that webmaster Bryan Bailey, who is well known for his April 1st tricks, has capitalised on the clearly strong feelings of his forum members who have recently been involved in a heated discussion on the consequences of US banning legislation passing, and how it might be enforced!

Ed. Note: to see what visitors saw, click here.

Solid cash reserves in company rumoured to be associated with Microgaming

Fairground Gaming, the newly-established investment company in the online gaming sector rumoured to have a business association with top provider Microgaming, announced its maiden set of results since admission to AIM on 4 October 2005, for the period ended 31 December 2005.

Highlights include:

Successful admission to AIM on 4 October 2005, raising gross proceeds of GBP 3.8 million from the placing

Year end cash balance of $13.9 million

Discussions at advanced stage with a number of acquisition opportunities

CEO Evan Hoff said, “It has been an exciting period for Fairground Gaming. Our admission to AIM and our successful fund raising has left us strongly placed to execute our stated strategy for growth.

“Developments in the market all indicate the strong potential of building a portfolio of online gaming businesses. I am very hopeful that we will soon be able to report the successful conclusion to negotiations we are conducting with a number of owners of online gaming sites which fit our criteria for synergistic, cash-generative growth.”

Online gambling group clinches multi million pound deal

The deal that has been in negotiation for some months (see previous InfoPowa reports) whereby online gambling group Mansion will secure the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in world football will be finalised and sealed early next week.

Online poker and casino firm Mansion will replace Vodafone on the Manchester United football club shirts, and in thousands of retail shops in a GBP 60 million, four-year deal.

Sources at the club told English newspapers: "Lawyers are going over the contract this weekend. We hope to have the deal signed by Monday or Tuesday."

Mansion's GBP 15 million-a-year deal, which starts next season beats Chelsea FC's GBP 50 million, five-year deal with electronic company Samsung.

Gibralter-based and licensed Mansion is sais to have overcome heavyweight competition from Etihad Airways, mobile phone giants O2, and electronics company LG.

The owner and major shareholder in Mansion, Indonesian billionaire Putera Sampoerna is reported to have sent his son to England late last week to tie up the deal with Man United.

One of the world's richest men, Sampoerna (58) sold his cigarette business to Philip Morris last year for GBP 3 billion. He is also believed to be counting out GBP 120 million to buy the Les Ambassadeurs Casino in London's Mayfair. Mansion also recently signed a GBP 40 million poker tournament deal with American giants television comapny Fox Sports Network.

Sampoerna hopes having his company emblazoned on United's shirts will push Mansion's growth, especially in the Far East, where the Manchester United and soccer following is huge.

STOP PRESS: As we went to press this week the news was coming that this Mansion - Manchester United deal was off. Readers can get the latest position by reading the following:

$70 million deal ends in acrimony

Reports reaching InfoPowa last week that a GBP 70 million shirt sponsorship deal between Mansion gambling group and Manchester United football club was close to fruition were dramatically reversed this week with the news that the final agreement had been dumped by the football club management.

A clearly disappointed Mansion group accused Manchester United of unspecified "double dealing" after sponsorship talks between the two companies broke down suddenly over the weekend.

Mansion chief negotiator David Kinsman said the two had verbally agreed a deal, but then United pulled out after talks with other firms.

United denied the claims, saying it never holds exclusive talks.

"We would understand why anybody would be disappointed at not securing the shirt sponsorship deal for Manchester United," the club said in a statement to the Press Association. "We have not and do not enter into periods of exclusive negotiation and every party we have discussed the shirt sponsorship with is aware of that.

"All the parties were aware that several discussions were going on at the same time and our priority is to look for the most appropriate deal for Manchester United," it added.

The club is looking for a new sponsor to replace Vodafone, whose GBP 9 million-a-year deal ends at the end of the season.

Kinsman said he and other Mansion executives had been "flabbergasted" by United's decision to pull out of negotiations on Sunday.

He added he had cut short a business trip in China to meet the club's commercial director Andy Anson after being led to believe the two had "done a deal". "It was something of a surprise therefore to be told that United had been negotiating with someone else," he added.

"During the negotiating process we had no idea this kind of double dealing was going on. Manchester United have not acted as we expected them to."

The all-cash deal with Mansion is believed to have involved a substantial up-front payment and further ongoing payments over the next four years.

According to Mansion, the two parties had also discussed a joint gaming venture which could have potentially helped to raise income for the club in overseas markets. The gambling group also said that United had wanted the option of buying a 20 percent stake in Mansion should the company ever float its business.

Final confirmation that the shirt sponsorship deal had been signed with another company was coming in as we went to press. The surprise sponsor is the insurance company American International Group (AIG) and according to reports from Manchester United the deal is valued at GBP 56.5 million over four years. This would appear to be considerably short of the GBP 70 million reportedly offered by Mansion.

New game integrated with Openbet games architecture on bookie site

The flexibility of the Orbis Openbet online gambling platform was demonstrated this week when client Victor Chandler added a new no-download Roulette game from Electracade Limited, and integrated it seamlessly with other website facilities.

Independent bookmaker Victor Chandler successfully launched the new game on the VC Bet.com site, offering players what they claimed was "...the closest experience on the net to playing Roulette in a real casino environment."

Built by gaming specialists Electracade Ltd. and utilising Orbis’ OpenBet Games application, the instant play Roulette game offers:

* 3D, realistic roulette wheel rotation

* real sampled ball movement including over 15 000 different ball result animations

Andy Harris, of Victor Chandler Business Services, commented “We are delighted to be working with Electracade and to be launching this outstanding product. Player reaction to the product has been excellent. We are looking forward to working with Electracade in the future to continue to enhance our product offering.”

Back-end functionality is being handled by the Orbis OpenBet System, giving Victor Chandler total control over their gaming content and providing them with access to all of Orbis’ gaming content partners.

The Tote and Centrebe take up the Orbis integrated platform

The boast made by Openbet officials at January's ICE show in London was that the industry would be frequently hearing about their one-wallet online casino and sportsbook product in coming months, and that has proved to be the case.

This week a company announcement revealed that significant sportsbook sites in the UK and Australia have signed agreements for the Openbet system. Openbet is owned by Orbis, which is a subsidiary of the UK public company NDS group.

The first sign-up was with British bookmaker Totesport with its OpenBet interactive gambling platform for the re-launch of its Totesport.com site. OpenBet is to provide a complete gambling solution that enables customers to bet on all channels and all products from a single account, all controlled through a single back-office. Customers can place bets on a variety of products - a sportsbook, on-demand, scheduled and virtual games, P2P exchanges, lotteries or pari-mutuel pools - over almost any channel, including the web, mobile devices, retail outlets, call centers and interactive digital television, all from a single log-in.

Under the agreement, Orbis will deploy a new sports betting site, call center application and fixed odds games, using its single account back- office solution.

Australian bookmaker Centrebe has chosen the Openbet product as well, and it will be deployed on Centrebe's new sportsbook system and associated website. The new site will replace Centrebe's existing sports betting systems that were developed in-house.

"Save My Finger" was a lie, plain and simple

A player supposedly called Carl Valentine who sought website support visits in order to save his finger from being amputated in a bizarre bet (see previous InfoPowa reports) has turned out to be a scam to attract traffic.

SaveMyFinger.com made an appearance last year as an appeal for visitors to help "Valentine" attract 2 million visitors to a website by April 18 2006 to save him having to comply with a wager in which his right index finger was the stake.

This week it transpired, as many had suspected, that the whole thing was a scam. The unidentified webmaster shrugged off the deliberate deception as a "viral marketing experiment" aimed at exploiting the sympathy of players in order to generate significant traffic for the site, and presumably the rewards that flow from that in terms of exposure and advertising.

Dismissing the "Carl Valentine deception as "...just a funny story," this less than honest webmaster revealed that: "The intention of this website was to literally do an experiment with Viral Marketing. And I'm happy to announce that the experiment worked...My point in this experiment was to prove that it is possible to open up a website and within days, if not hours, be receiving massive traffic.

He goes on to boast that a total of 1,601,255 unique visitors have landed on SaveMyFinger.com since it launched on December 12, 2005.

ex-Betdirect exec gets the nod

UK skill games group GameAccount has appointed Kevin Dale as CEO with immediate effect. He replaces John Jones.

Dale brings to the company over 6 years of experience in the gaming industry. He has been involved at GameAccount as a non-executive director to date, having previously been interim managing director at Betdirect. He was also marketing director at two of the industry’s biggest success stories, Sportingbet plc and Betfair.com.

Having witnessed the poker phenomenon and, first hand, the rise of person to person betting exchanges, Dale says he is keen to develop GameAccount as the next P2P major. His strategy for GameAccount is to integrate high revenue generating P2P gaming products which are distributed via its many bookie partners and white label sites.

The GameAccount integrated network brings together players from dozens of sportsbook, casino & poker sites worldwide, and recently acquired partner licensees include Victor Chandler and SkyBet, with more exciting partnerships to be announced in the first half of 2006.

Commenting on the company’s present and future, Dale said: “Each week, millions of dollars are won by high-staking players wagering within the network. Integrating our suite of Sit ‘n’ Go & knockout tournament games makes sense for operators searching for proven incremental rake-based revenues.”

"Booting up" takes on a whole new meaning in a fun GIGSE grudge match!

The new CEO at Party Gaming, Mitch Garber hits the ground running in the industry at the Global Interactive Gaming Summit and Expo (GIGSE) in mid-May when he faces off with Empire Online boss man Noam Lanir in a race for charity.

The two top execs have agreed to clip on some Velcro ski boots and race each other over a 24 foot track, with play bets on the winner and contributions raised for charity. It's a fun event for a good cause, and it's likely to be very entertaining to boot!

Organisers River City Group tell us that this innovative form of racing involves "....a 24 foot course set-up to resemble a traffic highway. Two players at a time are on "Velcro" skiboots and race against each other across the highway. In teams or individuals, it's a BLAST!!!"

The Lanir - Garber *grudge* match is the main event, but there will be other amusing and interesting pairings in a series of clashes designed to raise cash for Gordon House Association, which does great things to help problem gamblers. You'll find more information about Gordon House and the charity event itself at http://www.gigse.com/2006/index.cfm/page/charity.

This is the third year running that Sue Schneider and her GIGSE organising team have included in this major industry conference an event to assist gambling problem bodies: "We need I-gaming companies to rise to the challenge and show doubters that this industry is responsible and supportive of such efforts," says Sue.

Donations and pledges for this worthwhile cause are always welcome, and readers with a heart can arrange to make a contribution by emailing sue@rivercitygroup so that the team can track and post them on the website.

And you can use the same address if you have suggestions for other great grudge matches.

GIGSE is running from May 16 through 18 in Montreal, a great city to visit and a very efficient conference venue.

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa