Date, Partners -- The Racing Post and Racing UK have announced that their anticipated broadband horseracing content service will go live in mid October. The service will provide live video from Racing UK's 31 tracks as well as racing forms and analysis from the Racing Post. The two companies have also announced their that the service's five bookmaking partners will be Bet365, Blue Square, Ladbrokes, the Tote and VCbet. These five partners, who were selected from a pool of 20 bidders, will be able to provide wagering on the service in addition to receiving prominent branding and being able to post video content on their Web sites. The service will target a new community of younger punters who typically wouldn't subscribe to the Racing UK service but still enjoy watching races online and having a punt. A pilot of the site logged over 157,000 unique users in the nine days leading up to the Grand National in April. A similar 3G mobile service is scheduled for launch in the next few months.
VIP.com -- I-gaming operator Leisure & Gaming, an AIM listed company that two months ago acquired Curacao-based VIP Management Services through a reverse takeover, has purchased the domain name VIP.com for $1.4 million, which it claims is the highest publicly reported domain resale of 2005, nearly doubling the previous top sales of $750,000 for property.com and website.com.
Deals in L.A. -- Las Vegas From Home.com Entertainment's subsidiary Action Poker Gaming has licensed its software to the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, California. Under the agreement, Action Poker will provide software and technology that will allow patrons at the Bicycle to participate in "play for fun" tables on the online Action Poker Network. Players can earn bonus points that can be exchanged for entry into free roll tournaments and other promotions. Action Poker is discussing similar deals with other casinos. This marks the second large marketing deal Action Poker has completed in Los Angeles this month. Two weeks ago the company announced it had signed an in-arena marketing deal with the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers that will allow it to promote itself through courtside signage, promotional giveaways, print media and the presenting sponsorship of the Clippers' Spirit Dance Team. The deal also gives the company airtime for commercials during each of the team's KTLA television network broadcasts during the 2005/2006 season as well as radio ad time during each of the Clippers' pre-season and regular season radio broadcasts. Las Vegas From Home.com's president and CEO Jake Kalpakian says that in addition to the deal with the Clippers, his company will aggressively market the Action Poker brands over the next few months across the U.S. through traditional means and will also introduce unique marketing initiatives. The Action Poker brands send their player traffic to the Action Poker Network, which also hosts Las Vegas From Home.com's third party licensees as well as its own flagship site, TigerGaming.com.
Quoteworthy -- “If you assume everything in the article is true I wouldn’t have to announce anything unless the lawsuit was likely to be worth over US$8 million. A licence to buy the Rotoplay product is $60,000 a year over a three-year period so you can draw you own conclusions. We haven’t copied its software and we haven’t done anything wrong, however, even if we had then any damages would not be material to our profits.”
--Sportingbet CEO Nigel Payne, informing eGaming Review of his reaction to an article in The Daily Mail that alleged that the company may have withheld information about a potential "multi-million dollar" lawsuit in the U.S. from investors.
Findings Delayed -- Tony Murray, director of racing in Tasmania, has delayed releasing the findings of an inquiry into whether an on-course bookmaker illegally used betting exchange Betfair to hedge bets. The report was supposed to have been released today, but Greens' racing spokesperson Kim Booth—the man who sparked the controversy by claiming to have caught an on-course bookmaker at Glenorchy with a computer logged on to Betfair last month—is still giving evidence. Murray says that after today the inquiry will be expanded to determine if other on-course bookmakers in Tasmania have used Betfair, and some findings might be released next week. Any licensed on-course bookmaker who places bets on Tasmanian races via an off-course operator such as Betfair may be in breach of its license. Murray says that such action is clearly a violation of the Racing Regulation Act when the bets are on thoroughbred horse races, although there may bit a bit of gray area concerning the application of the law to wagering on pacers and harness racing. Betfair spokesperson Andrew Twaits has stated that his company is happy to cooperate with the investigation.