I-Lotto -- Ireland's National Lottery stated in its financial results for 2004 that it is preparing to launch lottery games via Internet, mobile phone and interactive TV. Chairman Donal Curtin says the company will make a decision on tenders for making the lottery compatible with new distribution channels at the end of the year. The lottery's sales rose 3.4 percent in 2004 to a record €578.3 million.
Quoteworthy -- "Our No. 1 priority is to get into the U.S. market right now. Betfair wants to compensate U.S. tracks based on money bet by U.S. customers. The question isn't about technology. The technology is there. The question is how much longer can the U.S. wait to capture dollars lost to off-shore companies?"
- Christian Hellmers, director of U.S. business development for The Sporting Exchange, the parent company of Betfair.
Hellmer and Lee Amaitis of Cantor Fitzgerald appeared at a joint meeting of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America Inc. and Harness Tracks of America on Thursday to speak at a 50-minute presentation called "Horse Race Betting in the 21st Century: Some Out-of-the-box Thinking."
SMS-TV -- Zone4Play, Inc., a company that provides multi-platform gaming solutions, has acquired the minority interest in SMS-TV gaming company MiXTV. The deal gives Z4P sole ownership of MiXTV's patented broadcast TV technology, including all of its intellectual property rights. In mid April MiXTV will launch a broadcast SMS-TV interactive fixed-odds betting platform in conjunction with The Poker Channel, a new television channel dedicated to poker that will air on the Sky network in the United Kingdom. Z4P acquired the remaining shares of MiXTV from NetFun Ltd, an Israeli company with which Z4P founded MiXTV in June 2004.
SMS Lotto -- Hungarian gambling company Szerencsejatik Rt. has teamed up with T-Mobile Hungary to create a mobile SMS lottery that will be available to more than 4 million T-Mobile subscribers, who will be able to pay for lottery games with their monthly bill.