Thai Soccer Bet -- Somchainuk Engtrakul, Thailand's permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance and the chairman of the Government Lottery Office's board of directors, has said that the Government Lottery Office is hoping to legalize and regulate soccer betting. A special working committee has already been established to study the feasibility of a betting program, and it will study soccer betting business models in England, China and Hong Kong and will receive input from experts. Engtrakul would like to bring the estimated $3.76 billion that is illegally wagered each year to the formal economy. Engtrakul also says that it will be at least a year before a legal soccer betting agency could begin operation, due to a number of regulations and processes that would need to be followed.
More Skills -- CYOP Systems International has added 11 more games to its www.skillarcade.com suite of pay-to-play games of skill. Polish gaming software company Ganymede Technologies is licensing the new games package, which include six versions of pool and snooker and is scheduled to be integrated into CYOP's network in the near future.
More Murdoch -- James Murdoch has been appointed CEO of BSkyB. James is the son of Rupert Murdoch, the TV mogul whose News Corp. happens to own the largest stake (35.4 percent) in BSkyB. Several investors and board members have vocally expressed anger and disappointment to the media about the decision that gives a father and son large control over a public company. But there are also defenders who point to the fact that James Murdoch brought Star TV in Asia to profit as evidence of his competence. In any case, there will no doubt be much discussion at the company's annual meeting on Nov. 14.
TAB Ltd. News -- The Age reports that NSW TAB representatives offered bettors hand-held betting devices today at Melbourne Cup functions at Randwick. The wi-fi-enabled hand-held terminals are able to communicate with the main betting engine in Ultimo, Sydney. They use a basic DOS 6.22 operating system powered by a 386SX central processing unit and 4 MB of RAM. TAB plans to eventually move the application to the Palm platform…. Tab will also soon deploy TRADOS GXT to manage the globalization of its racing and sports betting websites. Developed by TRADOS, a language technology company located in Sunnyvale, California, TRADOS GXT provides a framework for sharing and storing multilingual content and automating business processes of updating and adapting it for customers all over the world.
Digital Privacy in EU -- The European Union's digital privacy rules took effect Friday, placing restrictions on commercial e-mail, cookies, spyware and more. Each of the 15-member state of the European Union has its own responsibility for enforcing the laws.
Legal Action -- In its efforts to regain the poker.com domain, LegalPlay Entertainment Inc., the operator of SkillPoker.com, has succeeded in getting a court motion filed in May by Communication Services Inc. dismissed with costs. The British Columbia Supreme Court determined that LegalPlay had established a substantial connection between the claims it is making and the jurisdiction. LegalPlay Entertainment Inc. will now pursue its case against Communication Services in the Supreme Court of British Columbia as parallel arbitration proceedings against Ala Corp. continue.