Makin' Deals -- Littlewoods, the land-based gaming operator that recently launched an online casino in the Isle of Man, has been sold to Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay for a reported £750 million ($1.1 billion). The betting group joins a number of assets held by the Barclay brothers, among them the Ritz Hotel. Littlewoods announced in June that it was in talks over a possible sale of its stores, which it said had a market value of about £250 million. The Ritz already has a presence in the online gambling world through the Ritz Club online casino recently launched in Curacao. The Ritz Club additionally has an online casino license in the British isle of Alderney.
Tidbit from the US -- With the fate of online gambling in the United States now in the hands of the Senate, the industry's trade association, the Interactive Gaming Council, is asking gaming Web site operators to encourage U.S.-based players to write their Senators and tell them that "you will remember how they voted on Election Day!" For convenience, the IGC has distributed the URL for the Senate's contact page: www.senate.gov/contacting/index_by_state.cfm.
On the E-commerce Front -- National City Bank will officially bar customers from using its Visa debit cards for online gambling, the Indianapolis Star reported today. A spokesman for the Cleveland-based group said the policy does not apply to use at legally operated gambling facilities. The Indianapolis Star noted, however, that a few other banks with a major presence in Indianapolis, Union Planters Bank and Bank One, don't plan to implement restrictions unless a prohibition bill is passed. . . . Visa will implement new international regulations for Internet transaction processors starting in November. Processors will be classified as "Internet Payment Service Providers" (IPSPs), and will have to adhere to several new operating guidelines, including:
- Sponsored merchants will have to register for approval by Visa to process Visa transactions.
- Visa and MasterCard will jointly administrate a terminated merchant file.
- IPSPs will only be able to register sponsored merchants in the country where the sponsored merchant has a presence.
- IPSPs will be required to provide Visa with monthly sales, chargeback and credit data for Visa's review, by sponsored merchant and down to the URL of each sponsored merchant site.
- Visa will require that the credit card descriptor on a cardholder's statement must be the IPSP's name, as well as the sponsored merchant's identifier.
- IPSPs will be required to disclose in their join forms their names and the fact that the billing descriptor will be the name of the IPSP and the sponsored merchant's identifier.
- IPSPs will be required to display, on the join form, their privacy policies along with terms and conditions.
Names and Faces -- Scientific Games Corporation today introduced Sally Conkright, Ph.D., as the company's new vice president, organizational development. Conkright most recently served as chief administrative officer for Converge, Inc., and has served as vice president, human resources and public relations for Xerox New Enterprises as well as director of worldwide compensation for Xerox Corporation.