Tidbits from the US -- Jay Cohen, the first person in the United States to be given prison time for violations related to Internet gambling, is speaking out on HR 556, the Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition Act. The bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives last week and now awaits attention in the Senate. It would outlaw all payment mechanisms for Internet gambling and update the Wire Act to include a ban on gambling via the Internet. "This bill is one more example of certain congressmen trying to advance their right wing social agenda in the name of fighting terrorism," Cohen said. "It is an insult to all those who lost their lives last year and all Americans to have their tragedy invoked in the name of stopping online gambling."
Data Hub -- A speaker at a recent conference of the
National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling is claiming that the social costs of gambling outweigh its benefits. The group was recently addressed by Earl Grinols, an economics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Grinols said for every adult in the United States, gambling accounts for $190 in social costs and $35 in benefits. He said
he came to the figures after studying research on crime, bankruptcies, sickness and other costly things that can result from gambling.
Funny -- The satiric Web site The Onion gets a laugh out of gambling this week, with a (fictitious) story titled "Gambling-Addiction Study Gets Out of Hand." Here's a quote: "'Just one more sample group,' said study director Robert Layton, nervously snapping the clasp of his lucky clipboard. 'I have a hunch about this batch, a real hunch. I think it's gonna be a honey.'"
Names and Faces -- Gtech Holdings Corp. is appointing Emmett Paige Jr. as chairman. He replaces W. Bruce
Turner, who will be the company's new president and CEO.
Going Public -- Company officials couldn't be reached for comment today, but media reports out of London indicate that BetOnSports.com,
one of the leading offshore sports books based in Costa Rica, will float its stock on London's AIM index
and become a publicly traded company within the next year. The site has a large U.S. player base that accounts for about 90 percent of its business and actively targets U.S. players. It is unclear how the
company's plans to go public would affect its current business structure. According to reports, the plan
would raise about £25 million and would come on the heels of a previous venture that the company abandoned after business slowed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks last year.