Making Deals -- CryptoLogic Inc. is announcing a new client relationship with Bingo Entertainment NV, the Cyprus-based online bingo operator and marketing company. Through CryptoLogic's wholly owned subsidiary, WagerLogic Ltd. , Bingo Entertainment will license Internet poker software. Lewis Rose, CryptoLogic's president and CEO, said online poker is one of the fastest growing game segments on the Internet. "Since its release last fall, our unique, centralized poker offering -- which directs different operators into a single room for enhanced liquidity -- already powers one of the top 10 poker rooms on the Web," he said. CryptoLogic estimates that table poker accounts for about 5 percent of the online gambling market.
Tidbit from the US -- Aside from a recent article that appeared in a Las Vegas newspaper, the world hasn't heard much from imprisoned Internet bookmaker Jay Cohen of World Sports Exchange in the last nine months. Expect that silence to be broken soon. Cohen's attorneys are preparing to file a post-conviction petition in an effort to overturn the March 2000 conviction that ultimately landed him in jail. An appeal was shot down in 2001 and a petition for a Supreme Court trial was denied last year. Expect the next petition to be filed within the next few weeks.
Tidbit from Denmark -- The first-ever conference on gambling addiction was held in Denmark recently, where participants head about the proliferation of gambling addiction that comes with online and mobile gambling. The country's National Center for Gambling Addiction estimates that about 150,000 Danes have a gambling problem and about 40,000 people have severe enough problems that it can be classified as an addiction. The conference hosted 100 Nordic gambling specialists and researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom. The Copenhagen Post reports that the Danish Tips Service along with companies in Norway and Sweden helped fund the event. "We dominate a large segment of the gambling market, and we're ready and willing to listen and learn," said Thomas Rorsig, the information chief for the Danish Tips Service. "We're not prepared to adapt our entire industry to the problem, but we acknowledge the importance of dialogue between ourselves and the treatment community."