Friday, May 28
Quoteworthy -- "I am personally convinced (by what I have read and listened to) that at least a race a day, if not more, are now being corrupted by the availability of laying horses to lose on betting exchanges."
-- Chris Bell, CEO of Ladbrokes, in an interview with BBC 2's The Money Program, for an episode that will air on BBC2 June 2 at 7:30 p.m.
The executive director of the Jockey Club, Christopher Foster, contests Bell's bold assertion and told the Racing Post, "Without seeing the program, we do not know the context in which the reported remarks were made. It could be that it was a throw-away comment, because we know of no basis on which he could make such a claim. . . . Since January this year, the Jockey Club has had a memorandum of understanding with Ladbrokes and other bookmakers under which bookmakers report to our security department unusual betting patterns or any event which infers suspicious behavior. Consequently, if Ladbrokes had any evidence of a pattern of so-called 'fixed races', they should have shared it with the Jockey Club. They have not done so."
Still, spokespersons for Ladbrokes defend Bell's statements by referring to evidence given by Clive Reams (boss of Racefax, a company that monitors betting exchanges) to the Jockey Club, alleging that there were 171 suspicious races in a one-year period.
Paul Scotney, director of security for the Jockey Club, is also reported to have told the Money Program, "If you’re an owner of a horse and you know that your horse is not working very well, it is therefore not right that you can bet on that horse to lose because what you're doing is you're taking money from other people knowing in fact that that horse is not going to win - which is cheating."
Summer Upgrade -- Anticipating growing traffic due to new customers and more wagers during a summer that will feature both the Euro 2004 soccer championships and the Summer Olympics in Athens, Ladbrokes has contracted Sun Microsystems to install new server systems to manage the impending influx. Ladbrokes is also receiving 24 servers to support its Web site application layer, 10 servers to support is Web layer and a more sophisticated disaster recovery facility.
Spammer Sentenced -- Howard McCarmack, a U.S. resident who used 343 false e-mail accounts to send 850 million spam e-mail messages, today received a sentence of three-and-a-half to seven years for being convicted of forgery, identity theft and falsifying business records. Last May, Internet service provider Earthlink was successful in winning a $16.4 million civil judgment against McCarmack, who had stolen identities to set up e-mail accounts under false names from which he would send e-mail ads for get-rich-quick schemes and sexual enhancement products.
US Casino Stats -- The 2004 "State of the States" survey of casino entertainment in the United States, released today by the American Gaming Association, reveals that 2 million more Americans visited a casino in 2003 than in 2002. According to data compiled by Harrah's Entertainment, Inc./NFO WorldGroup, 53.4 million adult Americans went to casinos last year, accounting got 310 million trips to casinos, or 5.8 trips per person. The stats show that the 443 commercial casinos in 11 states nationwide generated more than $27 billion in gross gaming revenue, an increase of nearly 2 percent, last year. $4.32 billion from that revenue was given to state and local governments in direct gaming taxes. The report also includes statistics on public opinion polling.
Fraud in Australia -- A recent Ernst & Young survey estimates that fraud, motivated primarily by gambling, revenge and personal debt, costs Australian companies $5.8 billion per year. Nearly three-quarters of the companies to respond reported experiencing fraud in the last year, with over half of it being committed by management and employees.
Thursday, May 27
Racing UK -- The Horse Racing Channel, now branded Racing UK, will begin broadcasting live and free on Saturday at 1 p.m., piggybacking on the already existing iSports TV Sky Channel 425. Depending upon the daily action, the channel will air for about five to eight hours per day. Highflyer has been confirmed as Racing UK's production company, and although the complete team of presenters is still being assembled, Rishi Persad, formerly of AttheRaces, is slated to present the channel's first program from Kempton on Saturday. On Wednesday, Cartmel became the 29th racecourse to align itself with Racing UK, which already has agreements with the majority of Britain's tracks. Rival channel AttheRaces is likely to begin airing 13 days after Racing UK's debut.
Sealing the Deal -- Victoria's gambling group, Tabcorp, has raised its bid for New South Wales-based Tab Ltd. to A$2.15 billion, valuing Tab's shares at $4.77 each. Tab's board responded by recommending that its shareholders accept the offer, making the unification of Australia's two largest wagering groups inevitable. The deal remains conditional on Tabcorp being able to obtain 90 percent of Tab. Tab shares closed 2.1 percent higher at $4.79 on the day, and Tabcorp close 1.7 percent higher at $13.56.
PokerStars -- By the end of Wednesday evening, only 32 of 2,576 players remained in the World Series of Poker. Astonishingly, seven of the remaining players qualified for the tournament by winning satellite tournaments at PokerStars.com, the company that qualified last year's World Series champion, Chris Moneymaker. The field will narrow today from 32 players to nine, and the tournament champion will be crowned Friday.
Seeking a CFO -- Jenifer Cua will serve as interim chief financial officer and treasurer for software provider CryptoLogic Inc. following the departure of incumbent CFO Jim Ryan, who has left the company and has entered into employment discussions with competing company. Cua, who will report directly to CEO Lewis Rose, joined CryptoLogic in 1998 and was most recently director of treasury. The company is currently searching for a CFO.
eCOGRA Seals -- Two of Cassava Casinos' most popular online casinos have been awarded eCOGRA (eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance) seals of approval. Casino On Net (www.888.com) and Reef Club Casino (www.reefclubcasino.com) have passed PricewaterhouseCoopers' inspection process for fair gaming, players protection and efficiency. Casino On Net and Reef Club Casino join 41 other casinos that have received eCOGRA's seal.
P2P Tournament -- Betting exchange iBetX is inviting punters across Europe to compete in its European Handicapping Championship, which will take place entirely online and will begin with qualifying rounds on June 25 and 26. Participants will have a 10,000-point fund with which to back, lay and trade horses to increase their purse. The top 25 percent will advance to the semi-finals on July 3 and 4. The prize payout will depend on the number of entrants, but s first prize of at least £10,000 is guaranteed to the winner.
Quoteworthy "It's essential that we end up with good law. The draft bill is much too short on detail and doesn't afford the industry a solid base on which to build. We don't want legislation that is so flexible that we end up not with the rule of law but rule by quango."
-- Tom Kelly, chief executive of the Association of British Bookmakers, commenting to the racing post about the necessity of passing a precise gambling bill.
Kelly continued, "In the betting sector, we need clear definitions of what constitutes betting, gaming and bookmaking. Bookmakers have a reputation for being innovative, but how can an industry, or company, be expected to invest when a new betting product, complying with the current definition, could be redefined as gaming on the whim of the Gambling Commission or the Secretary of State? My fear is that we could end up with a straightjacket on development and a stifling of entrepreneurial flair, effectively killing all but the most cautious product development."
Wednesday, May 26
p align="justify">Exchange -- CES Software, an AIM-listed supplier of person-to-person betting exchange software developer has signed an agreement to provide a betting exchange platform to U.K.-based operator Matchedbets.
Retiring -- Australian Communications Minister Daryl Williams, who took the position last fall upon the retirement of Richard Alston, announced last month that he too would retire after the upcoming election. Nick Minchin, Australia's finance minister, is Williams' likely successor.
Acquisition -- British bookmaker ukbetting.com has acquired European online sports book GoldBet.com for £3 million. The acquisition will take place in two parts, with 51 percent of GoldBet.com being acquired by ukbetting.com now for £332,600 and the remaining 49 percent being acquired in March 2006.
Banned -- Ed Giddens, a former British cricketer has been found guilty by an England and Wales Cricket Board disciplinary panel and was subsequently fined £5,000 and banned from the sport for five years. Giddens was found to have bet £7,000 against his own team, Surrey, to lose to Northamptonshire in the National League match in August 2002. Surrey, who retired due to injuries last August, had a career that was surrounded by controversy, being at one time banned for 18 months for drug use and another time no-balled for throwing.
Poker TV -- I-gaming content provider Zone4Play has released Texas Hold'em Poker as a new multi-player interactive TV game channel. The system will launch as a play for fun channel, compatible with all existing iTV platform. Features include tournament management systems, and community enhancement elements.
Tuesday, May 25
WSOP -- The World Series of Poker commenced Saturday at Harrah's Binion's Horseshoe Casino with 2,576 players competing for nearly $42 million in prize money. With such an enormous field of players pledging an entrance fee of $10,000, the tournament champion will walk away with cool $5 million in cash, while second place will clear $2.5 million, and third and fourth place will win prizes of over $1 million. In fact, even the top 180 finishers will take away over $10,000. Chris Moneymaker, last year's champion who qualified for the World Series by winning a satellite tournament on PokerStars.com, has already been eliminated from the competition. A large portion of this year's players have qualified through online tournaments, including 315 from PokerStars.com, 100 from ParadisePoker.com and many more from various other sites. The tournament champion should claim the final massive pot of chips sometime late Friday night.
Goodbye -- By a vote of 97-1, the U.S. Senate has approved President George Bush's appointment of Ray Gruender as federal judge on the St. Louis, Missouri-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, meaning he will step down from his position as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. While serving as U.S. attorney, Gruendner orchestrated a flood of letters to media and broadcast agencies, warning that I-gaming is illegal and the advertisement of I-gaming services is tantamount to aiding and abetting. The warnings were then followed by subpoenas to portals and media outlets for business and financial information. In the aftermath many major TV, radio, and web-based media companies ceased running advertisements I-gaming companies. Gruendner was confirmed in part of a deal whereby Senate Democrats would allow 25 "noncontroversial" (according to the Associated Press) appointments to district and appeals courts in exchange for President Bush refraining from making judicial appointments while Congress is in recess, as he has already done twice in recent months.
Idle Voting -- Broadcasting & Cable (www.broadcastcable.com) ran an article last week exposing some inherent flaws in the voting system of the popular TV program American Idol. Although the show's producers encourage users to vote via telephone and text messaging, American Idol's telephone network is not properly equipped to handle the vast influx of incoming calls during the brief two hour period of open-voting. As a result, a majority of callers hear busy signals when trying to cast votes. Raising further questions about the integrity of the voting process is the fact that certain techno-savvy viewers with fast Internet connections and powerful computer autodialing software can flood the system with thousands of votes while at the same time jamming the lines and preventing others from voting. Adding to the situation the fact that several online sports books provide wagering on who will win the competition, there is certainly a pretty incentive for individuals to skew the votes.
BINGO! -- CasinoFortune.com says it plans to leverage their existing casino infrastructure to the Internet bingo market with the release of its virtual bingo hall at www.CasinoFortuneBingo.com.
Sophisticated Fixed Odds -- Spread betting company Cantor Index has launched a fixed-odds betting service for major sporting events, due to customer requests for a one-stop shop. Cantor, which calls its clients "sophisticated," says its new service "will allow for very large stakes-- larger than many competitors." The company already offers spread betting via the Internet and mobile devices.
Ready for Euro 2004 -- Online operator VIP Management Services will launch a new sports book and casino, BetEuro.com, on June 1, coinciding with the start of Euro 2004. The first of many of its promotions coinciding with major sporting events will be a 50,000 euro prediction game for Euro 2004. The site will be based at the company's headquarters in the Netherlands Antilles and will at first focus on sports betting but will gradually increase its scope to include gaming services.
Monday, May 24
Fixing? -- Officials with the Scottish Football League have launched an investigative probe into match fixing after £250,000 was wagered on Ayr United to defeat the Raith Rovers in the seemingly unimportant final match of the season. The SFL's chief Peter Donald has also asked the Association of British Bookmakers to join in the investigation. William Hill, who along with Paddy Power reduced odd on the match after receiving an abnormal amount of bets, lost a five-figure sum on the event. Bookmaker Willie King eventually stopped taking bets on the game.
Speaking -- David Carruthers, CEO of Costa Rica-based BetonSports.com will speak at the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States assembly in New Mexico this week on how to maintain integrity while providing sports betting to the states.
Aland Gaming -- PAF, the master licensee for I-gaming in the Åland islands (a Finnish territory in the Baltic Sea) has been granted permission to begin issuing sublicenses. "PAF has invited companies to partner with them under a sublicense, thereby allowing them to operate their Internet gaming activities from the Åland islands under PAF's supervision," said Lars Porko, CEO of PAF Finland.
Scandal in the NJ Assembly -- The home and office of Anthony Impreveduto, a deputy speaker of the New Jersey Assembly's ethics committee, were last week raided by state authorities investigating violations of his election law enforcement filings. Apparently thousands of dollars in expenses to one of his credit cards may have been reimbursed later by his campaign fund. The credit card charges included expenses from trips to Curacao, Toronto and London. Impreveduto, who sponsored a bill that would permit Internet gambling at Atlantic City casino, was a featured speaker at I-gaming conferences in Toronto and Curacao in 2001. By bringing his wife along on all three trips Impreveduto may have violated campaign spending rules and could lose his seat.