IGamingNews is investigating an alleged Reuters report suggesting Charlie McCreevy, internal market commissioner for the European Union, has decided to take legal action against Germany, Holland and Denmark over each country's non-compliant I-gaming legislation.
While a spokesperson for Mr. McCreevy's office this morning was unaware of the report, Wulf Hambach, a gaming lawyer with the German firm Hambach & Hambach, confirmed that Germany was in the final stages of infringement proceedings before being taken to the European Court of Justice.
IGN will continue with its investigation and report this week if necessary.
Roth Capital Partners, a brokerage in Newport Beach, Calif., has a research note out on Chinese and China facing I-gaming companies -- among them GigaMedia Ltd. of Taiwan.
While a recent sell-off has hurt the Chinese online gaming sector -- to the tune of 11 percent -- Roth is still up on GigaMedia, which it believes will benefit from a number of near-term catalysts including the acquisition of sports betting technology as well as the launch of "NBA Street Online" in China during the first of half of next year.
A reminder that the markup for Barney Frank's Payment Systems Protection Act, reintroduced last week, is scheduled for tomorrow.
IGN's Take: It should be interesting to see whether the bill's sports-betting-related provisions will help get it out of committee.
Stay tuned.
Chris Krafcik is the editor of IGamingNews. He lives in St. Louis, Mo.