Making Deals --
Betandwin has bought all shares of Playit.com Ltd. , a Scandinavian sports operator that generated a betting turnover of 20 million euros with profit after taxes of .7 million Euros. The parties have agreed not to reveal the commercial details of the deal. Betandwin may initiate an upgrade of the Playit gaming platform and offer customers more gaming products by the end of the financial year.
US News -- A new Florida law that took affect at midnight on Tuesday will allow card rooms at race tracks to operate longer and will abolish the $10 pot limit on poker games. The law includes stipulations granting no more than three raises per round and a per-bet limit of $2. The law will also let horse tracks offer both poker and off-track betting at the same time -- a right that was already enjoyed by dog tracks.
Legal Stuff -- Roger Ach’s house, appraised at $1.35 million will be put up for auction this week in a court-ordered foreclosure. For five years Ach has been trying to certify his company, which owns the rights to the website lottery.com, to sell Ohio lottery tickets online. Though Ach has poured over $19 million into his purpose, he has lately fallen into several financial difficulties, including several lawsuits and tax disputes and a felony charge in Texas for bouncing a check for a sum of around $100,000.
Offshore Bit -- Tax-News.com reports that a new international online gaming company may begin operating in Gibraltar this week. The company, whose name is unknown, has been recruiting employees for its representative office in Gibraltar.
Data Hub -- According to the Bangkok Post, Swiss researchers can now hack any password protected Microsoft Windows machine in just 13.6 seconds -- an improvement over their previous record of 101 seconds. This news comes just as Microsoft announced its largest security hole ever, a problem that could leave any network Windows computer vulnerable to hacker control.
Quoteworthy -- " For gambling to be fun, you'd have to remove the losing. It's much easier for the (casinos) to set aside a week and call it education than to acknowledge and account for the cost of the product. Government and the gambling industry has decided that this week obviates the social and economic cost of those who gamble." -- The Rev. Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, reacting to the American Gaming Association's Responsible Gaming Education Week in today's Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Names and Faces -- TheHill.com reports that The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has enlisted the help of the Alpine Group to lobby their interests before Congress. One member of the Alpine Group team is Michael Henry, a former staffer on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.