Changing Names -- SINA.com said today that it's changing its name to SINA Corp. The Beijing and San Mateo, Calif.-based company said the new name reflects its transformation from an Internet portal to a full-fledged corporation with three businesses, SINA.com, SINA.net and SINA Online. The suite of sites offers services including e-mail, wireless short messaging and online games.
New Stuff -- Today Camelot, the company that operates the U.K. National Lottery, announced plans for a European lottery. The lottery, which will be called Euromillions, will have a jackpot of around EUR 15 million. The game will be launched first in France and Spain in 2004; other countries will be added later. Players will need to shell out two euros to play.
Tidbit from Japan -- The Japanese Racing Association warned recently that it is losing betting business due to competition from online gambling sites. According to a report on Asahi.com, an official with the JRA has expressed surprise at the number of Internet gambling sites that court Japanese bettors. The JRA is the world's wealthiest racing organization, taking in about 3.2 trillion yen per year in sales; it estimates that it loses about 14 billion yen annually to online betting. "We bear the huge cost of raising horses, offering prize money and maintaining racecourses," the official said. "We even pay the state 10 percent of our revenue. The Net bookmakers are raking in all they can without bearing any of the cost." The organization said it wants to "tackle the freeloaders by all means possible."
Legal Stuff -- EasyGroup, the company that brought the world easyJet, a budget-friendly airline, is suing an Edinburgh-based bookmaker because of the name he has chosen for his new online casino. Henry Spurway, who has sold his Larkspur chain of betting shops, is planning to launch an online betting site called easibet.net. EasyGroup lawyers, however, are saying the name is confusingly similar to EasyGroup's subsidiaries, which include Internet cafes, the airline and a credit card company, all of which have the word "easy" in their names. Spurway said he is prepared to go to court to keep the name... but it won't be easy.