Victoria Collects Most Gambling Revenue of any Australian State
Figures released by the Victoria Local Governance Association (VLGA) indicate the state has surpassed New South Wales as the state that's most reliant on gambling tax revenues.
The figures included in the government report show Victoria will collect gambling taxes this year to the tune of $1.4 billion--roughly $300 for every person in the state. This compares to around $240 per person in New South Wales.
The gambling tax revenue also saw its portion of the total tax revenue increase from 15.2 percent last year, to 15.9 percent in 2002. Again, the state nearest these numbers is New South Wales, but it is a distant second at only 10.2 percent for 2002.
Political factors are cited as the main reason for the increase in the report, with the incumbent Labor Party being blamed for the increase in gambling taxes.
M-Gambling Projected Revenues Look Rosy
Mobile phone operators and gambling service providers are welcoming a recent report from Alatto Technologies indicating a healthy source of revenue will be coming from mobile gambling, or m-gambling, in the not-so-distant future.
According to Alatto's research, the m-gambling sector will be generating around EUR$700 million by 2006, with projected revenues per user hovering at the EUR$78 for service providers and operators.
The report noted the relatively small portion of the total of mobile users that would utilize such a service, but that niche of m-gambling is one that would be extremely lucrative compared to other data services offered, such as e-mail.
South Africa's Gambling Revenues Decline Significantly
In a submission to Parliament last week, the South African Financial and Fiscal Commission reported that gambling, horse racing and betting revenues have declined sharply over the past five years in most South African states.
Gauteng is the South African state with the largest remaining income from gambling, according to the commission's report, with revenue generated at R71 million in 2001/2002. This amount is a significant drop from the revenues reported in 1998/1997 of R190.9 million.
Other states that reported gambling and betting revenue declines were Eastern Cape--down from R13 million five years ago to zero funds generated from these sources last year--and Western Cape--down from R31.8 million in 1997/98 to R19.5 million forecasted for this year.
The report stated, "The advent of different lotteries that compete directly with gaming
activities has resulted in a decline in activities such as horse racing and betting. Consequently, a number of racecourses have been closed, and hence the declining trend in revenues from this source."
Americans Wasting Less Time on Junk E-mail
A study conducted by Quris aimed to get a handle on Americans' feelings on permission e-mail marketing and the administration of their e-mail inboxes and found that they're spending less time with emails from sources they don't recognize.
One of the key findings of the study was that 52 percent of the survey's respondents indicated they would delete immediately any e-mails from senders they didn't recognize, without reading them. Another key finding was that even though 40 percent of e-mail users thought permission e-mail marketing was valuable to them, another 40 percent said they would simply delete, without reading, e-mail from marketing companies.
Permission e-mail marketing didn't win any friends amongst the respondents when asked whether they believed the e-mail marketing companies were selling or sharing their email addresses, as fully 74 percent suspected this practice and 69 percent complained that un-subscribing from an e-mail list was useless.
Additionally eMarketer reported that 59 percent said that of the permission-based emails they receive, nothing of relevance or importance was sent to them and 65 percent said the e-mails from marketing companies were too frequent in their distribution.
New Zealand Businesses Flock to Internet
According to a survey commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Development and reported on by IDG.net, New Zealand businesses are warming up to the Internet.
The report reveals that nearly 56 percent of organizations in New Zealand have an active website and 37 percent of those have online ordering capabilities. But e-commerce uptake can be slow, as indicated by only 11 percent of those organizations being able to complete online payment transactions.
Nearly all of New Zealand businesses have a domain name and a third say they conduct e-business with other companies, while another third indicate their e-commerce applications are linked to internal business systems.