WPT Boot Camp -- The World Poker Tour has announced the creation of the WPT Boot Camp, an intensive two-day poker training experience that will begin touring U.S. cities at the end of January. The Boot Camp is designed to compress the poker learning curve into two days, and it has enlisted the World Poker Tour television series' commentators, Mike Sexton and Vincent Van Patten, as well as associate producer Alex "The Insider" Outhred, as instructors. The curriculum includes live lectures, archived WPT videos, hands-on game play and personal tips from professional poker players. Only 50 students are accepted per each camp, and enrollment is $1,495.
Lingerie League -- Horizon Productions, the company that produced last year's "Lingerie Bowl" on pay-per-view television during the Super Bowl, will bring another presentation of supermodels displaying their gridiron talent during halftime of this year's NFL championship game. The company recently partnered with a cable broadcast network to air Lingerie Football League games in summer 2007. However, an element of its broadcast agreement does not allow the airing of a Lingerie Bowl broadcast on pay-per-view this year. Instead the company's pay-per-view Super Bowl halftime offering this year will be an ancillary brand offering called "The Girls of Lingerie Bowl: Halftime Challenge." The event promises two hours of sports and entertainment, a lingerie fashion show, celebrities and "a shocking moment that will be the absolute talk of the water cooler on Monday morning." Due to this recent development, the company says it has "four heavily discounted sponsorship tiers" and will begin finalizing the 2005 sponsors within the next two weeks. Last year's event was sponsored by PartyPoker.com, which now dominates the online poker market. Forty million viewers (80 percent of whom were males aged 18-34) tuned into last year's presentation, and 58 million visitors logged onto LingerieBowl.com between Dec. 3, 2003 and Feb. 4, 2004.
ARGO Member -- The Association of Remote Gambling Operators, a trade body of European online gambling operators founded in August 2004, has welcomed Gibraltar-based iGlobalMedia, owner of PartyPoker.com, as its latest member. Clive Hawkswood, general secretary of ARGO, said of iGlobalMedia, "Their membership underlines the fact that ARGO represents all types of remote gambling operators and their involvement will be extremely valuable as we move ahead on a range of issues.”
Conference in Sweden -- The European Association for the Study of Gambling will present the sixth annual European Conference on Gambling Studies and Policy Issues in Malmo, Sweden June 29 - July 2. The conference will bring together experts from a variety of disciplines with the aim of increasing dialogue between all who are professionally involved in commercial gaming.
Hong Kong Considerations -- Hong Kong's government and Jockey Club are considering lowering betting taxes as a result of steadily declining horse racing and lottery revenues. Jockey Club Chairman Ronald Arulli recently stated that this season's turnover may fall 8 percent to $7.7 billion, thereby cutting government revenue by about $77 million. The government currently takes 12 percent of standard win, place and quinella bets and 20 percent of longer-shot bets. It also takes 25 percent of proceeds from the lottery, which is called the Mark Six. The Jockey Club hopes that lower tax rates will allow it to pay higher dividends to punters. The club is also waiting on approval of a plan that would allow Macau's Jockey Club to take bets on racing in Hong Kong.
Quoteworthy -- "Gambling at bookmakers is a simple and relatively risk-free option for laundering money. Typically, the money launderer makes frequent high-stake bets at very low odds, resulting in a minimal profit or, more usually, an overall loss. However, all winnings are effectively 'clean,' since they are received in the form of cheques, payable either to the individual or to third parties. Betting exchanges also provide an opportunity to launder money. The customer can set up two accounts, bet against him or herself and receive a bona fide cheque from the betting exchange provider for the payout of the winnings."
- Passage taken from the British National Audit Office's recent report, "HM Customs and Excise: Gambling Duties."
Problem Gambling -- The Guardian reports that gambling charity GamCare will next month release its annual "Care Services Report," which this year links a rising number of calls to its helpline to the spread of fixed-odds betting terminals in British betting shops. Gamcare's report also supposedly contradicts a recent report by the Association of British Bookmakers which concluded that there was "no evidence that [roulette machines] are closely associated with problem gambling."