Nambling Notes - Oct. 25, 2002

25 October 2002

Legal Stuff -- An Evansville, Ind. man is suing a riverboat casino there to get back the more than $175,000 he lost there between 1996 and 1999. David Williams, 52, is alleging that the operators of Casino Aztar should not have let him gamble there after he had been involuntarily hospitalized for gambling addiction in 1998. After the hospitalization, the casino told him he could come back only with medical documentation that it posed no threat to his safety, yet somehow he was let back in to gamble again. Williams is suing for his gambling losses as well as punitive damages.

Makin' Deals -- Global Entertainment Holdings/Equities Inc. 's subsidiary, Interactive Gaming & Wagering, has signed a deal for a new licensing relationship with www.SpinnerSports.com, an online sports book. Jay Harwood, the operations manager for SpinnerSports, said IGW offered the best combination of features it could find. "The IGW business model we chose was a perfect fit for our company strategy," he said. "By being able to delegate the operations of the site to a service provider, we are able to concentrate on what we do best--marketing and customer service."

UK Bit -- The Times of London reports that bookmaker William Hill saw a massive increase in bets last week when the winner of the Man Booker Prize for fiction was announced prematurely. Yann Martel was named the winner when a press release was mistakenly posted on the official Booker Prize Web site before the prize committee had even voted on a winner. Martel ended up being designated the official winner by the committee for his book, "Life of Pi," when the committee voted on Tuesday.