Making Deals -- Bingo Entertainment NV's new online poker site, www.pokerplex.com, launched recently with poker software from CryptoLogic's wholly owned subsidiary, Wager Logic Ltd. The site has 120,000 players, offers a variety of styles of poker and accepts payment in U.S. dollars, British pounds sterling or Euros. Richard Chambers, CEO of Bingo Entertainment, said his company's sites now offer a large range of Web entertainment. "As part of a larger online poker community, our players can easily find a game at any time, with real people from around the world," he said. "WagerLogic's centralized poker solution gives our players instant access to a live, action-filled online poker experience and allows us to enter this growth area with a market advantage for increased profitability."
New Stuff -- Littlewoods Game On, the interactive section of Littlewoods Gaming, is now offering a new slate of instant-win games on its Web site, www.littlewoodsgameon.com. The company is planning to offer the games as white-label software to other online gaming companies. The eight new instant games include slots, keno and scratch-cards.
News from Hong Kong -- The director of racing for the Hong Kong Jockey Club recently told the South China Morning Post that the club is going to offer bets on its races to overseas gamers for the first time. Winifried Engelbrecht-Bresges, the racing director, said a bet like the group's Triple Trio would be "unmatchable." Plus, the club could offer a monetary incentive to the countries where the overseas bettors live because the product would qualify for tax relief in Hong Kong. "We would then be able to use part of the money that we would not be required to pay in local tax to offer a kind of agent's commission in the country where the bet originates," Engelbrecht-Bresges said.
US Tidbit -- The annual World Series of Poker started Monday at Binion's Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas. About 630 people took part in the event last year. This year, the tournament includes 37 events and will end with a championship game on May 23.
From Down Under -- Tabcorp said this week that 12 people in Victoria have added themselves to the company's gambling-exclusion program since September of last year. The program allows people to exclude themselves from being able to bet on horse races if they believe they are unable to control their gambling. Tricia Wunsch, spokeswoman for Tabcorp, said the program has not been promoted yet and that Tabcorp expects more signups to come.