Happy Birthday -- To celebrate its 10th birthday, the U.K. National Lottery is giving customers who purchase tickets to this Saturday's draw a chance to win a special £10 million jackpot-only birthday draw. Camelot, the lottery's operator, commissioned London-based interactive design agency NowWashYourHands to develop a special page on the lottery Web site to promote the jackpot.
The Real Reason -- Professor Ian Walker, an economist at the University of Warwick, recently published an article in The Scotsman refuting what he considers a misguided belief that players care about what happens to the profit from lottery sales. Walker argues that players are driven almost purely by dreams of cashing in on massive jackpots and he cites the fact that neither positive nor negative publicity over lottery-funded projects ever has much of an effect on ticket sales.
Quoteworthy -- "It's wrong that the Americans should have the right to refuse a business operation based in London, Gibraltar or elsewhere, and we should push them hard on that. If they're to have access to our gambling industry, we should insist that they bring their laws in line with ours."
--Tony Banks, a prominent Labour Member of Parliament, speaking on Monday during a debate on the Gambling Bill in the House of Commons. Banks, who served on the draft Gambling Bill's scrutiny committee this month, is a proponent of regulating remote gambling in the United Kingdom.
Access Forbidden -- Pol. Col. Yannaphol Yangyuen, a senior police officer with Thailand's Office of Technology and Information Technology, stated that Thai authorities will soon block access to 10 foreign online gambling Web sites. The block will require the cooperation of Thailand's 18 Internet service providers. Yangyuen did concede, however, that savvy Internet users would be able to circumvent the block.
New Site -- A new online gaming site, Golden Cairo Casino, has officially opened, offering 30 non-download games using a software platform by iGamingNetworks. Owned by Infolot Holdings S.A., Golden Cairo is licensed and regulated by the government of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Space Cadets -- One-of-a-kind George Bush and John Kerry look-alike Cabbage Patch Kids are the latest objects named to the passenger list of the GoldenPalace.com-sponsored Wild Fire spacecraft. Golden Palace purchased the two dolls for $1,030 (Bush) and $1,225 (Kerry), with all proceeds benefiting the Red Cross.
Election Betting -- British bookmakers reportedly took around £8 million in betting turnover for the U.S. presidential election, making it the largest political betting market ever. Incumbent George Bush was a comfortable favorite for several months leading up to the election, but John Kerry's odds slowly improved as the election grew closer. Many books actually shifted odds to make Kerry the favorite in the final hours of the campaign as Americans papers reported record numbers of voters at the polls. William Hill reported close to £2 million in turnover on the election and is already taking bets on the 2008 campaign. Hilary Clinton, the wife of former president Bill Clinton is the current favorite with odds at 5-1, followed by former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards at 7-1 and California Governor and action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger at 66-1.
Chicken Fight -- Intertops is taking bets on Burger King's first ever Chicken Sandwich World Championship, which pits two actors in chicken costumes face-to-face in a boxing ring. The fight will be broadcast live on DirecTV Friday night.