Tidbit from Down Under -- A cricket informational Web site by the name of "Baggy Green" is under investigation by the Australian Department of Communications for linking to a site, CricInfo, that carries advertising for the U.K. online betting firm Bet365. Australia's Interactive Gaming Act of 2001 makes it illegal to publish advertisements for Internet gambling services. Gordon Neil, the broadcasting general manager of the communications department, said the issue is being looked at by department lawyers and an initial assessment would be finished this week. CricInfo told The Australian that it has servers all over the world and does not host online gambling ads on Australian servers. The Baggy Green site also carries a ninemsn logo.
Names and Faces -- Fintan Drury is being appointed as the chairman of Paddy Power plc by the company's board of directors. He replaces Stewart Kenny, who is retiring as chairman but will remain on board as the non-executive director. Drury has served as non-executive director since August 2002 and is also chairman of DSMI, a sports management company, as well as several other private companies and the Anglo Irish Bank plc.
US News -- MGM Mirage said last week that it is paying $5 million to make its failure to file money-laundering paperwork with Nevada gambling authorities go away. The agreement between the hotel-casino and the Nevada Gaming Control Board states that with the payment, the state's investigation of the matter, in which up to 15,000 money-laundering reports weren't filed during a year-and-a-half period. The employee who flubbed the reports, Christopher Morishita, is facing four felony counts and was arrested by Las Vegas authorities at his home last Wednesday. Terry Lanni, chairman and CEO of MGM Mirage, is calling the matter a "very serious administrative oversight." "When we first became aware that cash transaction forms had been properly filled out but not mailed, we immediately reported the situation to the board and launched an extensive internal investigation," Lanni said in a statement. "The results of this investigation were turned over in their entirety to the state and we have worked in full cooperation with state officials to resolve this matter. We also initiated a series of new internal auditing procedures to make sure this doesn't happen again."
More US Bits -- Speaking of the Nevada gaming authorities, the state's gaming commission had apparently been entertaining the notion of allowing casinos to hook up slot machines with debit card readers. The Las Vegas Sun, however, reported on Friday that the commission has decided to put a halt to the plan, saying that allowing people to gamble directly from their checking accounts could be bad news, or, as the newspaper put it, "create a new class of problem gamblers." In 1995, the state legislature said it was OK to equip the machines with debit card machinery, but not credit card readers. ... The North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries is holding is spring conference this week in Cleveland, and one of the topics of discussion is the prospect of putting lottery games on the Internet. The group includes lottery directors from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. U.S. lotteries sold a whopping $42.9 billion worth of lottery tickets last year, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.