Makin' Deals --
Go Racing has signed a deal for the broadcasting rights to horse racing at more than 70 percent of Great Britain's 59 racecourses.
Arena Leisure, which owns 33 percent of Go Racing, is reportedly putting up £80 million to fund the deal. On Tuesday the Racecourse Association voted in favor of the deal. The Go Racing consortium is made up of Arena,
BSkyB and
Channel 4. The consortium's bid amounts to the equivalent of £400 million for a 10-year deal.
IG Index has purchased William Hill's spread betting division, William Hill Index, for £1.1 million. The deal means that four major rivals--IG Index, Sporting Index, City Index and Spreadex--remain as serious competitors in the spread betting market. "This latest acquisition will significantly increase our market share," IG Index spokesman Paul Austin said. "We are still interested at looking within the sector, although we are always looking at shareholder value, and another acquisition is a possibility."
RAL Holdings, the operator of the United Kingdom's largest chain of inland gaming centers, has signed a deal with slot machine manufacturer Electrocoin in which RAL will bring Electrocoin's Bar X machine to the Internet. The online version will make its debut at RAL's Cyberslotz website in the near future. "During a long and distinguished history, Bar X has achieved a number of accolades," Electrocoin's John Stergides said. "Without doubt the most significant is the association with Cyberslotz's I-gaming platform which represents the future of our industry." Cyberslotz Managing Director Brian Morgan says the new site fit in nicely with RAL's 130 Quicksilver Gaming Centres, although the company won't move forward with real-money gambling until U.K. gaming laws permit doing so.
Interspace Enterprises, Inc., owner and operator of PlanetLotto.com, recently announced the formation of a partnership with Excusebusters Multimedia, a multimedia Web development firm based in San Diego, in which Excusebusters will develop a comprehensive lottery engine for PlanetLotto. "Our partnership with Excusebusters marks a giant step forward for the company in successfully implementing our business mode," Interspace President and CEO Daniel P. Murphy said. "Excusebusters will develop a turnkey lottery engine solution for PlanetLotto, which keeps us on schedule for a fall 2001 launch and inaugural lottery draw."
Sungold Entertainment Corp., a technology company that has developed a Java-based online game in which bettors wager on computer-generated horses, announced today that it has completed an agreement for the acquisition of the entire worldwide right, title and interest to the Internet payment system technology of SafeSpending Services Inc. The acquisition agreement includes all copyrights trademarks, source codes and SafeSpendings' intellectual property. Under the terms of the deal, Sungold has agreed to pay a 7.5 percent royalty of net revenue relating to the technology and 330,000 common shares in the capital of Sungold Entertainment Corp. upon Sungold or its Horsepower Broadcasting Network Inc. subsidiary receiving $1 million in net revenue from the sale or license of the technology. The SafeSpending Internet payment system is a pre-paid spending system that uses cards with a unique PIN number which can be used to make purchases online from merchants or individuals.
Online bookmaking firm Sportingbet.com (UK) plc, has announced the signing of an exclusive five-year contract with Ozmosa Limited, a network of gaming sales agents in east and southeast Asia, in which Sportingbet.com will provide online sports betting and gaming facilities. Sportingbet will receive 45 percent of the gross margin on all sports bets and 10 percent of the gross margin on all casino bets. Ozmosa currently offers sports betting on televised baseball and baccarat. Sportingbet will put up £1 million pounds, will receive share capital in Ozmosa equal to 1 percent of the issued share capital of the company and will be granted options over a further 18.9 percent.
The Premiership Lotter-eTM, Britain's first official Internet lottery, announced this week that it is celebrating its one-year anniversary by becoming a partner with NTL, the United Kingdom's leading cable company. The partnership means that over a million NTL subscribers (531,000 digital TV subscribers and 530,000 PC-based Internet subscribers--will now have direct access to The Premiership Lotter-eTM. The unique lottery combines football and television with lotteries and the Internet. After registering online through NTL's digital cable or Internet service, players pick five numbers between one and 30. Each entry costs £1 and the draw is held each Thursday at 6 p.m. (with last plays being registered at 5.30 p.m.). The weekly jackpot is £20,000.
German I-gaming company fluxx.com AG announced that it had signed a multi-million mark deal with WEB.DE AG, Karlsruhe, to provide an extensive package of gambling licenses and service that will be accessible online from the WEB.DE website, which boasts 4.5 million registered users and attracts new users at a rate of 40,000 per month. fluxx.com's jaxx.de gambling platform will be offered to WEB.DE users as a premium service. The lottery service will be branded for WEB.DE, while horse betting is expected to be a later add-on service. fluxx.com will customize the horse betting platform specially for WEB.DE's site. In addition, fluxx.com will handle all services, including operations and hosting of the system, as well as handling payment service, in return for a portion of the sales revenues.
Tidbits from Down Under -- Australia's federal government clearly isn't interested in leaving gambling matters in the hands of the states. With Federal Justice Minister Amanda Vanstone leading the way, the federal government has assembled the National Advisory Body on Gambling, a seven-member advisory council to oversee the development of gambling policy. Despite strong sentiment on the part of state governments against the formation of the board, Vanstone moved forward due to what she perceives as the state governments dropping the ball. "My advice is the commonwealth suggested an advisory council some time ago," Vanstone said. "The states were generally not happy with that suggestion; they were comfortable they had their own advisory mechanisms." Amid concerns over the high rate of problem gambling Down Under, the movement was sparked by figures released by the Tasmania Gaming Commission showing that $4.4 billion was collected nationwide through gambling taxes in 1999/00. "I'm not satisfied the system is working at the moment," Vanstone continued. "Ask anybody who's had to deal with problem gambling and they'll tell you it's not working well enough at the moment. . . That's why the commonwealth government decided we'll have our own advisory body. We will get the information; we'll publicize it and pressure the states into taking action."
AusVegas.com, forced to close in December under the terms of Australia's online gambling moratorium, will be re-launched as a property of Lasseters Online. Lasseters is in the process of taking over Gocorp Limited, the company that originally launched AusVegas.
A Tidbit from Way Down Under -- New Zealand Minister of Internal Affairs George Hawkins said this week that he's pleased that over 1,000 submissions have been received in response to the discussion document which was released as part of the government's gaming review. The deadline for submissions was April 30. The submissions focused on several regulatory issues, including cross-border regulation and the effect of Internet gambling on New Zealand. Gaming Review will analyze the submissions, and the government, says Hawkins, will make policy decisions on gambling in July through the introduction of a bill. The goal is to enact legislation by March 2002.
Tidbits from the Far East -- According to a LineOne article, U.K. sports betting websites have been extremely popular among soccer bettors in Singapore, where you can only wager on local games. Ladbrokes and William Hill estimate that Singaporeans place more than £387,000 worth of bets online every weekend. Singapore police point out, however, that gambling with U.K. bookmakers is illegal.
Korean Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Han Kap-soo this week said that his ministry is considering the establishment of a satellite broadcasting station geared to farmers and horse racing. The station, says Han, would closely resemble Japan's "Green Channel." Han stressed, however, that the station would not handle any betting.
New Stuff -- CryptoLogic Inc., a Toronto-based supplier of online gambling software, this week launched a cross-casino portal that connects 12 online casinos to worldwide progressive jackpots. The network, JackpotMania.com, offers a single online destination featuring six new progressive slots, video poker and Caribbean poker games. The site brings together some of the best-known gaming brands, including InterCasino.com, WilliamHillCasino.com, TheSands.com, KiwiCasino.com, Casino8Online.com, CasinoeBet.com, OmniCasino.com, VIPCasino.com and both the English and Spanish versions of CasinoSur.com and FiestaCasinos.com. "With Internet gaming expanding so quickly, the competitive edge will belong to operators with big names, big jackpots and trusted technology," said Jean Noelting, president and CEO of CryptoLogic. "At JackpotMania.com, CryptoLogic is opening the door to the biggest potential jackpots in online gaming."
PlayandWin Inc. 's Racingo--a race betting system based on a bingo format--was approved both by the Model Rules committee and the full membership of the Association of Racing Commissioners at ARC's meeting in Lexington. PlayandWin President Stewart Garner said the company "looks forward to a very exciting and promising launch." Brooks Pierce, president of Autotote Systems, echoed that view and said Autotote expects to launch the bet with its pari-mutuel customers "with great success." Tony Chamblin, ARC's outgoing president and CEO, said, "Generally speaking, the types of wagers offered to North American racing fans have not kept pace with improvement in technology. Racingo is a new approach to pari-mutuel wagering that will likely appeal to many bettors." The hopes are that the betting game, which is pari-mutuel with the outcome based on a series of races, might produce lottery-sized jackpots. Players bet to form a winning pattern on a bingo-like grid, using numbers determined by the outcome of races. Playandwin and Scientific Games, the new name of Autotote corporation, will cross-license the software and intellectual property rights for marketing Racingo at on-track and off-track betting facilities, with an expected launch date in the fall.
Tidbits from the US -- The Associated Press reports that the U.S. Army is installing Internet software at more than 100 military posts worldwide to prevent the viewing of what it considers to be inappropriate material, such as pornography and gambling. The Web-filtering software, developed by San Diego-based Websense Inc., is costing the Army $1.8 million.
eLOT Inc. subsidiary eLottery, Inc. and MDI Entertainment, Inc. this week announced the co-launching of an Internet-based promotion for the Kentucky Lottery linked directly to MDI's Fast Cash, instant scratch game. eLottery's IMARCS (Internet Marketing, Analysis, Research and Communications System) technology will enable lottery players to submit non-winning scratch tickets for a second-chance drawing on the Kentucky Lottery website at www.kylottery.com.
Offshore Tidbits -- Recent press reports in Jersey indicate that the island's Gambling Control Committee is looking to revisit the debate over whether to legalize online gambling. Jersey currently is home to 29 licensed betting offices. Committee President Lyndon Farnham says that bringing Net betting to Jersey would likely give operators in Isle of Man a run for their money. "I think there are some good opportunities for Jersey if we were to have a well regulated Internet betting industry," Farnham said. "We are considering taking draft legislation to the States." Farnham and the committee would have to do battle, however, with the Financial Services Commission, which opposes online gaming because it would open the door, the commission says, to money laundering.
Antigua's Money-Laundering (Prevention) (Amendment) Bill 2001 was passed last week by the Senate and is ready to go before the Governor-General, Sir James Carlisle, for his assent. The amended law would levy a 3 percent tax on gross income and gross handle of businesses regarded as financial institutions such as land-based casinos and Internet gambling operations. Antigua has been stepping up its money laundering over the past year in an effort to get itself in good standing with the United Kingdom and the United States, both of which have advised against doing business in Antigua because of Antigua's unsatisfactory money laundering policy.
Names and Faces Changing Places -- Scientific Games Corporation (formerly Autotote Corporation) has announced that Gerald Lawrence, executive vice president, has assumed a new role as a senior executive advisor for the company. "We appreciate the contributions that Jerry has made to the company over the years and are pleased that he will continue to work with us, Scientific Games CEO and Chairman Lorne Weil said. "Jerry is widely recognized as an expert on many matters concerning the racing industry, especially racetrack management."
Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa this week introduced Keith Kizer as the state's next chief deputy attorney general of the gaming division. Kizer, who has been with the Nevada Attorney General's office for more than three years, currently serves as a senior deputy for the gaming division in Las Vegas. His promotion is effective May 14.
Quote Worthy -- "It's not up to us to make moral judgments about (what) people in other countries can do."
-- Australian Senator Richard Alston, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, as quoted by iTnews, in response to the criticism of a provision in Australia's Internet gambling prohibition bill that makes it legal to operate online gambling services out of Australia as long as bets from people in Australia aren't accepted.