Warning from Germany -- Officials from the interior ministries of German states Hesse and Bavaria are saying that executives of foreign companies who let German residents place sports bets online are committing criminal acts that could lead to prosecution. Attempting to enforce their monopoly on sports gambling, Hesse, Bavaria and Saxony banned Austrian online betting company Bwin in August from advertising and offering betting services in their states. A spokesman for the Hesse interior ministry said the ban "goes for everyone else too." Germany's gambling market is estimated at 29 billion euros, well below the 78 billion euros in betting turnover in the United Kingdom in 2005. German state-run betting companies took wagers of 8.1 billion euros in 2005, and just over 500 million euros financed sports wagers. German state governments have felt the effects of foreign betting operators. Turnover at Oddset, Germany's state-run sports betting office, has fallen 20 percent since 2002.
Taking off the Ritz --The Ritz Club, a gaming club located in London's swanky Ritz Hotel, said it has closed its online gaming site, ritzclublondon.com, amid legal actions against the sector in Europe and the United States. A spokeswoman for Ritz Club in London said the site was taken down Friday and there were no longer any links from the club's main Web site to the online gaming site. A statement posted on the site today read: "In light of the current confusion and inconsistency in online gaming legislation worldwide, the owners of The Ritz Club London Online have regretfully decided to close the site to new customers with immediate effect."
Greatly Exaggerated -- Recently published claims that the U.S. Senate anti-Internet gambling bill is at a standstill and will remain that way until after the November elections are not accurate, a Washington, D.C., insider told IGN today. "Sen. (Bill) Frist and Sen. (Jon) Kyl are trying to attach an Internet gambling prohibition to any bill they can find," the source said. "They face substantial obstacles, but the issue is a long way from dead. Congress will recess for the elections sometime late Friday night or Saturday. Until then, our situation is very fluid." The source added that while Frist's attempts to get an anti-Internet gambling measure attached to the Department of Defense Authorization (DOD) bill have not succeeded to date, his and Kyl's primary strategy continues to be attaching a provision to a DOD bill.
Very Rich -- PartyPoker.com founders (and husband and wife) J. Russell DeLeon and Ruth Parasol have tied for 197th on Forbes Magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion each. The couple launched the company in 2001 with Anurag Dikshit and became billionaires in 2005 when PartyGaming went public on the London Stock Exchange. The IPO was the largest in London since 2001 and valued the company at about $9 billion. DeLeon and Parasol now serve as advisors to PartyGaming.
Appointment --Online betting exchange Betfair has appointed Stephen Morana as the company's Chief Financial Officer. Morana joined Betfair in 2002, and became Finance Director in July 2005. For the last 12 months he has been acting CFO.
Mobile Happenings --Mobile gaming systems manufacturer FortuNet Inc. has become the fourth company granted a license by the Nevada Gaming Commission to operate mobile gaming systems in Nevada casinos. FortuNet plans to adapt its mobile bingo gaming systems, BingoStar90, which have been installed in Nevada casinos for many years, to play traditional casino games. The company still must obtain approval from the Nevada Gaming Commission for the adapted systems before utilizing the license, but does not expect such approval before the end of the year. . . . Microgaming-powered wireless casino developer Spin3 today introduced a mobile keno game. Bets start as low as 0.5 coins, and players must predict which of the twenty balls numbered one through 80 will be drawn from a virtual "basket." The jackpot for Keno is based on the amount of numbers matched, compared to those selected by the player. This is then multiplied by the player's original wager. The more numbers a player chooses, and the more numbers hit, the greater the payout. The game offers a maximum jackpot of £500,000, but a play-for-fun version is also available as part of the SpinFone mobile system.