Quoteworthy -- "I encourage you to listen to the American public and draft responsible legislation and regulation that will allow me to exercise my freedom of choice. I believe that if you listen to your constituency, you'll hear, 'Don't Tread on Me . . . and my Right to Wager Online. Wagering is Entertainment."
- The final paragraph of a letter that Americans can sign at BetonSports.com and send to their congressmen. BetonSports kicked off a televised ad campaign last night that encourages viewers to visit the BetonSports Web site and sign their petition.
Turf Club Stance -- The Irish Turf Club, which for several months has been considering signing a memorandum of understanding with Betfair and other betting exchange operators, is in the final stages of preparing its policy on betting exchanges. Following Wednesday's race-fixing arrests by London Police, the club's CEO, Denis Egan, said, "We have no doubt that all this has been brought on by the advent of betting exchanges and the opportunities they provide for people to profit by laying horses to lose, and we are very concerned about what has happened. We have no evidence of any races being fixed in Ireland but we are aware of the potential threat. Racing is a sport that can be easily manipulated." The club's stewards will meet again Monday to discuss their betting exchange policy, which will likely include appointing a full-time betting analyst to monitor exchange movements. Egan is likely to announce the Turf Club's new policy within two weeks. The club has received regular assistance from the British Jockey Club in drafting its policy on exchanges.
Personnel Changes -- Antonia Sharpe has left her job as corporate PR manager for Ladbrokes to join Betfair as its senior communications executive. With Ladbrokes, Sharpe was responsible for corporate communications and was the company's spokesperson for deregulation, responsible gambling and all other issues not related to betting prices. With Betfair, she will work beside Mark Davies and take over management responsibility for the communications team while he is in Australia.
Tradingsports Exchange Systems, the AIM-listed provider of betting exchange systems that recently relocated its headquarters from London to Glasgow, has appointed Paul Burgess as chief financial officer and accepted the resignation of Andrew Tottenham as chairman. Tottenham said his other commitments no longer allow him to donate enough time to his position as Chairman.
Betbull -- Austria-based sports book BetandWin has soft-launched a betting exchange called Betbull in a joint partnership with CES Software, a Canadian firm whose chairman, Andrew Rivkin, co-founded CyrptoLogic. Betbull is planning an IPO in Vienna in October. Meanwhile, CES just signed a deal with America Online to exclusively provide online games in various areas of the AOL service. Just over a month ago, CES stated that its financial results for the first half of the year had been lower than expected because of technology investments and the delayed launch of BetBull, which it now plans to hard launch in late 2004.
Canadian Online Lottery -- In August Canada's Atlantic Lottery Corporation officially launched PlaySphere, an Internet-based service that allows Atlantic Canadians of legal age to purchase tickets for lottery games. So far everything seems to be going as planned.
Mobile Stanley -- Stanleybet, the sports betting arm of U.K.-based Stanley Leisure, will launch Stanleybet Mobile in time for the Stanleybet Sprint Cup on Saturday. Developed by mobile software firm m-connected, the new service uses Java technology and delivers real-time betting information via dynamic GPRS connections.