Crackdown in Vietnam -- Vietnam Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has ordered a quick investigation into the origin of the money used in a multimillion-dollar football betting scandal. The Ministry of Transport's director general, Bui Tien Dung, has been accused of spending several million dollars in bets on English Premier League and Spanish Liga matches, including roughly $1.8 million in December alone. Additionally,22 police officers were detained in December in connection with the same betting network. Football betting is illegal in Vietnam, but widely practiced.
Olympic Caution -- Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, has issued a warning that gambling on the Olympics may compromise the integrity of the event, though for the first time bets are available on the downhill ski races at this year's winter games, opening in Turin, Italy this Friday. Italian bookmaker Big Race Sci is offering odds and bets may be placed at any of its 22,000 licensed parlors in Italy. U.K. bookmaker Sportingbet is also offering odds and has Britain's ski team at 1,000-1 to walk away with a gold medal.
Gold Medal Sentence -- Duane Pede and Jeff D'Ambrosia, former owners of Curacao-based betting operation Gold Medal Sports who also ran a publishing house in Nelsonville, Wis. that promoted the gambling service, were sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay more than $5.1 million in fines and back taxes. Pede and D'Ambrosia were convicted of violating federal laws against an offshore bookmaking operation in 2002 and of filing false income tax returns.
Talkin' About Poker -- A concerned New Jersey mother and her 24 year-old son have written a book for other concerned parents of children with an affinity for poker. Loren Ackerman and her son Christopher Ackerman, now a professional poker player, co-authored Talkin' About Poker: Straight Talk for Parents and Their Players after learning Christopher, who began playing poker for baseball cards at age 11, was behind on his credit card payments at age 18 because of an Internet poker habit. The book, which took five years to complete, provides parents a quick, simple guide to determining if their kids' poker playing is healthy and provides tools for communication and decision-making.