LAW AND ORDER Reuters reports that OPAP S.A., the Athens-based lottery monopoly, wants to use the law to keep Stanlybet, a fixed-odds betting firm, from encroaching on its territory.
"We will take legal action," Christos D. Hatziemmanuel, OPAP's chief executive, told Reuters. "Until now, nobody has challenged OPAP's monopoly in Greece through stores."
Stanelybet International announced earlier today that it had expanded to Greece by opening two stores despite OPAP’s exclusive rights on betting and lotteries in the country until 2020.
IN-RUN BETTING ON THE RISE Global Interactive Gaming Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Interactive Systems Worldwide Inc., has begun offering limited in-run live wagering to Italian betting shops.
The company will supply its sports wagering product SportXction to SOL Ltd., a sister company of Sunderlands Online Ltd. Under the terms of an agreement signed in late May 2008, the play-by-play sports betting system will also be incorporated into Sunderlands' Web site later this year.
According to a prepared statement, affiliated betting shops in Italy have begun using SportXction, and it is expected to arrive soon in betting shops in Greece and Cyprus.
U.S. VOTER INFLUENCE The latest data from Poker Players Research show that over 3 million American poker players say the candidates' stances on Internet gambling legislation could affect how they vote.
The most recent of the firm's regular surveys of poker players shows an increasing importance of the online gaming debate to voters in the United States.
Among 23 million regular poker players, 28 percent said they had strong feelings about the United States' current I-gaming legislation, and 14 percent said they felt so strongly about it that it may even effect how they vote.
The next wave of research, scheduled for just after the election, will indicate how important this issue was in the way poker players actually voted.
The United States portion of the survey was based on a representative sample of 5,000 regular poker players.
KING OF SLOTS Adding to its star-studded branded slots, CryptoLogic Ltd. has announced that "King Kong" will be featured in a suite of new games.
Along with Kong, European blackjack, upgraded European roulette and a Casinomeister-branded slot game are part of the new game lineup, which was unveiled today.
"CryptoLogic's other branded games based on well-known characters have been both highly popular and highly profitable, and we have high hopes that King Kong and our other new games can scale similar heights," said Brian H. Hadfield, CryptoLogic's president and chief executive, in a prepared statement.
The company said the new games are now available to Intercasino and William Hill players and will be available on other licensee sites in the near future.
THE NEW BLACKJACK International Game Technology's online subsidiary, WagerWorks, has launched a new blackjack game called Vegas Blackjack with 20+ Bonus.
Offering features previously unavailable, this variation of blackjack gives players a chance to check whether or not the dealer has a hidden blackjack immediately.
MONEYMAKER Yesterday CasinoRip, a skill-based game Web site, reported that it has made about £50,000 a week on its new game "Domino Duel."
In a prepared statement, the company said it has made £500,000 since the classic dominoes game launched two months ago.
"It's great to see a traditional game like dominoes making such a comeback," said Kevin Dale, chief executive of CasinoRip, in the statement. "We know that dominoes is a hugely popular game throughout the world, but the speed at which people have taken to it is remarkable."
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