eCOGRA Meets Regulators -- Senior executives from eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance (eCOGRA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) recently met with officials from the International Association of Gaming Regulators, including representatives from the Isle of Man, Alderney, the United Kingdom and Kahnawake, to brief them on eCOGRA's Generally Accepted Practices (eGAP) during online gaming software supplier and operator reviews and on the outsourced software verification methodology used by PWC. According to Andrew Beveridge, CEO of eCOGRA, serious regulators must cooperate to insure meaningful and consistent regulation of the online gambling industry to bring about a safe and reputable environment.
P2P in Australia -- While P2P exchange Betfair continues to lobby Australian state and territory governments for a gambling license, three major welfare organizations in Australia have asked the federal government to ban Australians' access to foreign betting exchanges for fear that exchanges would create more problem gamblers. Odyssey House, the Salvation Army and Wesley Mission have all pleaded to the Howard government to institute a prohibition on foreign betting exchanges. John Dalziel, a spokesperson for the Salvation Army, said, "It is bad because it takes gambling into the home and in the home any number of people can use it. This is going to be much, much bigger than anything that's occurred in Internet betting in the past if we are to judge by what's occurred in England."
From Thailand -- The Metropolitan Police Bureau in Thailand reported that it arrested 445 people (41 of them bookmakers) for illegal football gambling and seized $4,500 during the first week of the Euro 2004. . . . After disabling cable television access in prisons to prevent prisoners from gambling on the Euro 2004, Thai officials on Sunday organized a game of soccer between a team of elephants and a team of prisoners. Nathee Chitsawang, director-general of the Thai Corrections Department, explained, "We expect that people will support the idea that we can get fun from playing football, not gambling on football." The game eventually ended in a 5-5 tie.
Replacement -- TradingSports Exchange Plc, an AIM-listed company that supplies white-label betting exchange platforms, has appointed Roger Mitchell as interim chief executive officer. Mitchell, who is replacing Joe Tighe, was CEO of the Scottish Premier League from 1998 to 2003. Tighe will remain a consultant to TradingSports, but is resigning as CEO so that he may spend more time on his other company and personal interests.
GoldenPalace Racecar -- After its successful introduction at the Canadian Grand Prix last weekend, GoldenPalace.com has signed a deal to become a commercial partner of the Faenza team for the rest of the Formula One World Championship season. The GoldenPalace.com logo will prominently appear on the cars of Gianmaria Bruni and Zsolt Baumgartner of Wilux Minardi Cosworth as well as on the car of official test driver Bas Leinders.
Camelot Upgrade -- Camelot Group, operator of Britain's National Lottery, has installed a new storage networking solution from McDATA Corporation. Camelot's interactive department incorporated the new system to meet the new availability, disaster recovery and data protection objectives associated with its increasing Internet presence. The company should now be better equipped to manage, store and retrieve large volumes of data generated from the online transactions for marketing purposes.
Operation Dribble -- The Johannesburg Sunday Times reported that a South African police investigation into soccer match-fixing called Operation Dribble has resulted in the arrest of nine referees and the breaking of a sophisticated cartel that had been able to systematically and efficiently rig Premier Soccer League and First Division matches.