Thursday, July 5
Monopoly Study -- Research and consulting firm Media & Entertainment Consulting Network (MECN) has published a report called The European Union and its Impact on State-Licensed Gambling Monopolies which is based on the results of a survey of major gambling market players as well as on analysis of state monopoly activities. Among some of the topics addressed in MECN's report are monopoly efforts to balance profit and social responsibility, cross border offerings, analyses of specific state-licensed monopolies, the Gambelli case, and advertising. The premise of the report seems to be that most signs indicate that state-monopolies will eventually be abolished. MECN says that 59 percent of survey respondents believe that the European gambling market will be liberalized by 2009.
PokerStars Championship -- PokerStars.com, the online poker network that sent the champions of both this year and last year's World Series of Poker to the tournament, has kicked off the PokerStars' World Championship of Online Poker with a record $4 million in prize money gathered for the taking. Running until August 8th, the championship features twelve events. PokerStars is currently setting up $3 satellite tournaments and awarding over half a million dollars in free entries. Otherwise, buy-in costs between $200 for the early events and $2,500 for the No Limit Texas Hold'em finale.
Relaunch of the King -- Kanawake-licensed King Solomon's Online Casino will relaunch later this month with the newest casino software from Real Time Gaming. The new casino suite will offer King Solomon's players multi bet spots on multi-hand blackjack games, double up options on video poker, and mini slot machines that can be played simultaneously with any other game.
Into Space -- GoldenPalace.com's latest marketing ploy is perhaps the most ambitious yet: It aims to be the first casino in space and may very well have the opportunity to do it in October. The online casino is now a featured sponsor of the da Vinci Project, a Canadian team that has entered its rocket Wild Fire in the Ansari X Prize competition to be the first team to privately finance, build, and launch a spaceship carrying three people to a 100 kilometer altitude, return safely to Earth, and then repeat the launch with the ship within 2 weeks. The GoldenPalace logo will appear on the Wild Fire, and if the ship wins the competition its name could go down in the history books. Accompanying the crew on its first trip to space in October will be a laptop equipped with GoldenPalace games and the recently purchased ball from Beckham's missed shoot-out kick during the Euro 2004. GoldenPalace CEO Richard Rowe said, "This is one of the ball's stops on a world tour to raise money for charity. We will be setting up promotional events so that people will get to participate in penalty shoot-out style competitions using the ball. Now they will also be using the first football to have been in space."
CasinoRaven -- New York-based Hudson Global Media Inc, the owner and operator of both online portals Search-Raven.com and CasinoRaven.com, reports that both of its sites are experiencing an increase in visitors and revenues as their names are gaining more recognition in the market. The company now says that it is planning to expand with joint ventures in wireless and broadband markets. By the second quarter of 2005 Hudson expects to add private label dial-up and pre-paid wireless products to its offerings. It is also discussing with broadband providers the possibility of acting as a reseller for high-speed Internet access.
Wednesday, August 4
Chariotlottery -- Chariotlottery, an Internet-based lottery, plans to launch in the UK in October. Like its juggernaut rival, the National Lottery, Chariotlottery's main game costs £1 and involves trying to correctly choose six correct numbers out of a possible 49. But Chariotlottery differs in that it will operate as a society lottery that can allow only a maximum of £2 million ticket sales for each of five lotteries per week, which translates into a jackpot of £1 million per week for each of the five games. Rollovers are not permitted, so if no player correctly guesses all numbers a computer will declare the player who came closest the winner. A key area in which Chariotlottery is hoping to separate itself from the National Lottery is in its donations to charity. Chariotlottery claims that its customers will be able to choose which charity receives the proceeds from each of their purchases. Each charity will receive 30 pence for each £1 ticket purchase, meaning each of the five charities per week will receive £600,000. Chariotlottery will keep 11 pence per each £1 sale as profit, while Camelot, the operator of the National Lottery, only takes .5 pence of each £1 as profit. Upon being asked for Camelot's thoughts regarding a new competitor, a spokesperson for the company said, "We are not afraid of competition. The UK lottery has raised over £15.8 billion for good causes since 1994. Indeed, we would be happy to compare sales figures and returns to charity after one full operating period.”
Quoteworthy -- "…like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon."
--How Professor Joseph Kelly, an Internet gambling law expert at the State University of New York in Buffalo, describes U.S. efforts to prohibit online gambling.
NZ TAB -- BikeNZ, the governing body for all cycling sports in New Zealand, has formed a partnership with New Zealand TAB allowing the company to offer wagers on cycling sports during the Athens Olympics. The governing bodies for New Zealand soccer, basketball, baseball, tennis, and triathlon have already formed similar agreements with the TAB and more are expected to follow, despite the New Zealand Olympic Committee's disapproval…. The New Zealand Racing Board announced today that this year's racing season set new records for racing and sports betting. The Racing Board said that $1.232 billion was bet on sports, horse and greyhound racing, a total that is $25 million greater than last year's record breaking year. Turnover on horse and greyhound racing for TAB also set a record, rising $34 million to $1.045 billion.
Virgin Exchange -- New Media Age reports that Virgin Games, which has held meetings with several potential partners to discuss entering the sports betting market, seems most likely to integrate a betting exchange rather than a traditional sports book into its new online gaming site. The company is expected to make a decision about sports betting within one month.
Tuesday, August 3
Quoteworthy -- "To me it is an electronic bookmaker and to pretend it should not exist is fine in a country where bookmakers don't exist and there is a pool monopoly. But if you are in a country where you have bookmakers running alongside the Tote, to me it is a smart new modern form of bookmaking. I don't think it is a question of banning it, but of regulating and managing it, and making sure it pays a fair share to racing."
--Martin Broughton, the British Horseracing Board's new chair, giving his opinion of Internet betting exchanges to the London Telegraph.
Warning -- Nausicaa Delfas, the head of the British Financial Services Authority's financial promotions department, has written a letter to spread betting companies warning them to quit targeting uninformed punters who do not understand the risk of spread betting. The FSA is apparently concerned about the growing number of people using services that were once almost exclusive to Londoners who were experienced at betting on market movements. Delfas' letter accuses spread betting firms of disguising the fact that bettors could lose more than their original stake if the market does not perform well. City Index, one of the largest spread betting companies, welcomes the letter. Tom Hougaard, chief market strategist for City Index, said "It's about time, we feel that some companies are getting away with murder."
Sports Betting in Spain -- Spain's Professional Football League (LFP) and Indra Sistemas have teamed up to create a sports betting platform that could be deployed via Internet, mobile device, and interactive TV. Called the Technological Platform for Sports Betting (TPSP), the system could be used for a number of sports and could potentially be in use by next soccer season in Spain. Representatives from the LFP, the State Lottery, and the Government's Sport Board have already met with officers of the Treasury Department to discuss creating an agency to manage TPSP.
Medal Betting -- Northern Territory, Australia-licensed bookmaker Centrebet is taking bets on gold medal finishes for every single sporting event in the Athens Olympics. It is also offering 25-1 odds that New Zealand will not win a medal of any color.
Mobile Filter -- At the beginning of July, Vodafone introduced Britain's first filtering system for adult content on mobile devices, but the system ended up wrongly blocking several sites that did not contain adult material. The problem was fixed in a little over one week, but many content providers and mobile aggregators were left angry. Several sites lost money due to being blocked, and others felt that Vodaphone seemed more concerned about minimizing public relations damage rather than with correcting the problem, according to New Media Age. A Vodaphone spokesperson now says, "We did experience some teething problems with the launch of Vodafone Content Control, which lasted for a couple of days while we identified and resolved all of the instances. The process by which the incorrectly blocked sites are reviewed has now been streamlined and we have received no further complaints. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused." With more mobile operators expected to implement similar adult content blocking policies in the UK, content providers are wary that the same thing could happen again.
Research Coverage -- Gaming & Entertainment Group, Inc, a company that provides server-based gaming systems and downloadable games, announced that The Research Works, Inc, has initiated research coverage of the company by publishing a report that is available at ww.stocksontheweb.com/gmei.pdf. Research Works is an equity research firm that attempts to help undervalued small companies achieve fair value by producing paid research reports grounded in fundamental analysis and equity valuation models.
Monday, August 2
I-Race on the Net -- VIS iTV Lt, the Scottish company that developed the I-Race virtual horse racing and management game, has reached an agreement with a still unnamed global bookmaker to distribute I-Race on a network of online gambling sites. I-Race is already available on Sky Digital in the UK, but the newly announced agreement will make it accessible as Internet game in January before it becomes available in betting shops in the UK. Vis ITV said it believes the agreement will yield several million pounds in net revenue in just the first year of the venture. In June the company announced it had signed a multi-year contract to launch a non-wagering version of I-Race on Youbet.com.
Tabcorp News -- Although Victoria-based Tabcorp Holdings' takeover of New South Wales-based TAB Ltd. has already gained acceptance from over 90 percent of TAB's shareholders, prompting compulsory acquisition of the remaining shares in TAB, Tabcorp's managing director Matthew Slatter has extended the offer period another nine days so that the remaining Tab shareholders could accept the proposal… Telecommunications giant Telstra has signed a $62 million contract with Victoria's gambling company Tabcorp to provide voice, data, mobile and Internet services to Tabcorp's 2,660 sites for four years. The deal does not apply to properties of Tab Ltd.
Progressive -- Online casino Slotland.com has integrated a new progressive jackpot system. Rather than linking each game to its own jackpot, Slotland.com has linked every single game in its casino to the same massive jackpot that can be won by any player playing any game-- not just slots. Slotland.com says a progressive jackpot worth over $100,000 is won on average every six weeks.
Buy The Team -- AllSportMarket.com, a sports betting site where players can buy and sell shares in U.S. sports teams, is scheduled to launch on August 9th. Still in its beta testing phase, the site claims to already have 1,176 users. The trading market is similar to a financial stock exchange-users are able to buy shares in a team and the price rises or falls depending on the performance of the team. Cash dividends are paid out to players who hold shares in winning teams.
CasinoMan -- Online gaming portal CasinoMan.Net is on pace to record its one millionth visitor in August. Established in January 2002, CasinoMan.Net provides content for online gamblers while keeping its site free of pop-ups.