Less than Inspirational Performance -- Following Thursday's news regarding Inspired Gaming's potential tie-up with FL Group, shares in London-listed Inspired shed a further 17p, or 6.07 percent, to 263.00. Inspired said it "remains in discussions with FL Group concerning a possible offer," adding that "in the current market conditions, there can be no certainty that any offer will be forthcoming."
Betfair Launches Tradefair -- Betfair has launched its Tradefair financial betting service, which is comprised of Tradefair Binaries and Tradefair Spreads. Binaries allows customers to speculate on markets like hourly indices and interest rate movements, while Spreads -- designed by London Capital Group -- offers "some of the tightest spreads and lowest funding charges available."
Look Out, France -- Income Access and Gold Mobile Casino have announced that their WAP affiliate program will be targeting the French market with a new Web site, new banners and French gaming software. "With Gold Mobile Casino's GEO-Banners tool . . . affiliates can place a single banner on their site that will display in various languages, based on the users IP address," said Income Access Chief Executive Nicky Seynard. "This is a very powerful marketing tool for affiliates with international traffic."
Luck of the Irish? -- Wednesday's Irish Independent profiles spread betting group WorldSpreads and says that its shares -- available on the Alternative Investment Market of the LSE since Aug. 1 -- are trading at an 80 percent premium to the flotation price, "marking it out as one of the top performing Irish shares in 2007." In late November, WorldSpreads reported a fivefold increase in profits to 1.3 million euros for the six months ended Sept. 30, 2007. "From a pure trading perspective, there is no better 'cost or tax-effective' way to trade the markets than financial spread betting and Irish investors have not been slow to pick up on this," WorldSpreads Chief Executive Conor Foley told the paper.
Quoteworthy -- "I am of course relieved and delighted, but also outraged. There was never any evidence against me."
- From Kieren Fallon, as quoted by this morning's London Times, after he was acquitted of charges connected to a £2.2 million race-fixing plot.
Stock Watch -- On the LSE, 888 was up 2p to 137.00, Ladbrokes was up 9.50p to 318.25 and William Hill was up 13p to 515.00.