Friday, Dec. 17
For the Greeks -- BetandWin.com has launched Betoto.com, a new Web site targeting the Greek market. The site features poker, casino, sports book and games sections and is available in both the Greek and English languages. Betoto's casino section now serves as the replacement for a former BetandWin online casino, TheCroupier.com. Customers who type in the "thecroupier.com" URL are automatically redirected to Betoto's casino section.
Go Vegas Go -- U.K.-based mobile content provider Mobile Streams has launched its fully licensed mobile gaming and gambling service, Go Vegas Go, which offers poker, blackjack, roulette and several slots games to Java-enabled mobile phone users. Another U.K.-based company, Virtue Fusion, is providing the gaming software for the service. Players can download the games by sending an SMS code to the network where the software is located. Mobile Streams also plans to make Go Vegas Go available to partners on a white-label basis.
Online Fancy -- Interactive media group YooMedia has launched an online version of its Fancy a Flutter number games brand. Featuring new games "Neptune's Keno," "Grand National Keno," "Kenosaurus," "Horror Show" slots and "Monte Carlo Millions" slots, the site boasts animation, a winners area and the ability to adjust volume and picture quality according to the user's connection speed. Fancy a Flutter launched on Sky Active's Betting Zone in February 2003 and was later acquired by Yoomedia in March 2004. The company recently merged with Digital Interactive Television Group (DITG), whose assets include the Avago and William Hill channels on BSkyB.
Franchise Bids -- Trinindad-based Casino Fortune.com, part of the Sunny Group, plans to outbid a Detroit businessman for the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team. The bid is for all intents and purposes probably only a publicity ploy, following in the pattern of other similar stunts attempted by the group. Months ago the company tried to purchase the Phoenix Suns basketball team for $380 million. Other widely publicized moves on behalf of the online casino include hiring one of the contestants from Donald Trump's the reality TV series "The Apprentice," attempting to purchase a portion of Donald Trump's land-based casino empire, attempting to purchase a seat on NASA's space shuttle and hiring one of the stars from TV series "The Sopranos," only to have her quit days later after a company spokesperson made tactless remarks about her weight. . . . Casino Fortune wasn't the only I-gaming company to place a bid for an American sports franchise this week. EmpirePoker.com, the largest affiliate of the PartyPoker network, has offered to provide $500 million toward the financing of the Washington Nationals' new baseball stadium in exchange for naming it "Empire Poker Stadium." The company would also like to place Internet kiosks in the stadium that would enable people to play poker online.
Making Deals -- CES Software, a provider of betting exchange and skill gaming software, has entered into a three-year agreement to become the exclusive provider of skill-gaming products to the Sunny Group of Companies. Under the deal CES will build, host and manage branded skill-gaming platforms for Sunny Group.
New Payment Processor -- First Atlantic Commerce has launched a new e-commerce payment solution from Cyprus. Called "cGateRSecure Verify," the new payment solution is based on 3-D SecureT technology and can process in euros, U.S. dollars, pounds sterling, Cyprus pounds and Swiss francs. It also offers the benefits of Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode and protects against fraud, chargebacks and unauthorized payments. cGateRSecure Verify is available to all European companies.
Thursday, Dec. 16
In the Air -- The United States' five Federal Communications commissioners voted unanimously this week to support a proposal to eliminate a ban on using mobile phones while flying in an airplane. High-speed Internet access would also be permitted while in flight, and the FCC plans to auction off the airwave rights to companies that want to offer wireless Internet access on commercial aircrafts. Could I-gaming be the next great way to pass the time while in the air?
Turnkey Solution -- Software development company UBA Technology has begun selling proprietary betting exchange poker software through its UBetAnything.com subsidiary. The products were developed as turnkey solutions and are supported by the company's wireless solution, which enables users with Java-enabled phones to access the gaming sites. The poker solution is also available as a white-label product.
Lottery Affiliates -- Camelot, operator of the U.K. National Lottery, has chosen TradeDoubler to provide an affiliate marketing program to bring in new players for its new Play by Text service that lets players purchase tickets for the Lotto, EuroMillions and Daily Play by sending a text message to the central server. TradeDoubler says it has over 1,000 publishers participating in the program.
No Party -- The National Football League has reiterated its position from last year that Super Bowl parties in Las Vegas casinos and sports books that charge admission for entry are a violating of the NFL's broadcast copyright. Last month the league sent a letter to the American Gaming Association stating that it would not permit casinos to charge admission to Super Bowl parties, though it would allow the casinos to continue to show the game. In January 2004, less than a month before the big game, the league sent similar letters to Las Vegas casinos and sports books, prompting a mad scramble for the facilities to change their plans.
.MOBI -- ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has approved the creation of two new domains that are accessible over the Internet. The first, ".mobi," will separate sites that are intended to be accessed via mobile devices from the rest of the Web so that companies can develop separate Web pages with simpler and fewer graphics that will be easier for their mobile customers to download. The second domain, ".jobs," would allow a company to post its job openings at a site with the ".job" extension so that potential employees do not have to hunt through the standard Web site to find them.
Wednesday, Dec. 15
For the Little Guys -- ABETA, a U.K.-based provider of betting products and services, has produced a transactional Web site product called NetBetty that gives smaller, independent bookmakers the opportunity to take bets over the Internet. NetBetty provides a Web site that can accept payment deposits through a number of bankcards as well as create risk profiles on the deposits. Bookmakers can also customize NetBetty to accept only the bets they wants to take. For example, a bookmaker can program NetBetty by inputting how much it is prepared to lose on any one event and whether it would like to split that amount up among several customers or allow one single customer to absorb it all. Based on Microsoft Web technology, NetBetty requires minimal IT support and is available for as little as £10,000.
Memorandum of Understanding -- The Rugby Football League is the latest sports organization to sign a memorandum of understanding with betting exchange Betfair. Like similar deals between Betfair and other sports leagues, the MOU states that the RFL can request and receive information that could identify illegal bettors if match fixing or other suspicious activities are believed to have taken place. The RFL's last Super League season was rocked by a match fixing scandal when two players from the St. Helens team admitted to betting against their team on a match in April. Those bets were not placed with Betfair.
Match Fixing? -- World Soccer News.com reports that officials with the German Football Federation are investigating possible match fixing in its second division after discovering suspicious betting patterns. Media reports indicate that betting exchange Betfair received around 500,000 euros worth of bets on Erzgebirge Aue to defeat Rot-Weiss Oberhausen--most of them by a score of 2-0, which was the final score.
Darts and Roulette -- William Hill has launched an exclusive new darts game that was designed in conjunction with online games developer Ashe Luecker. "Quick Bet Darts" combines elements of roulette and darts by allowing players to bet on a number of choices, including the number on which the dart will land, the number of doubles and triples and the total score of three darts combines. The game is available through William Hill's arcade section at williamhillgames.com.
BoS on Land -- BetonSports has finalized an agreement to operate a joint venture casino in Guatemala. The company will operate sports book facilities and a virtual casino at the Hotel Melia under the name Loteriadeportiva. The group is considering other opportunities in the region as well.
Welcome Aboard -- Lonny T. Powell, who is currently president and CEO of the Association of Racing Commissioners International (RCI), will join California-based horse race wagering and content provider Youbet.com Inc. in February to serve as the company's vice president-public affairs and general manager of the central region.
The Sunday Times reports that Camelot CEO Dianne Thompson will likely resign next year to allow a new CEO to prepare the company for competition in the next round of the U.K. National Lottery's licensing competition. Thompson also apparently refused the opportunity to replace Michael Grade as chairman of Camelot after he quit to join the BBC. The Times believes that Phil Smith, Camelot's commercial director, is the obvious successor to Thompson.
Randomness and Fraud -- The Sunday Observer recently revealed the existence of a National Lottery Commission report that was supposed to prove that the U.K. National Lottery's drawings were completely random, but instead found that quite a few anomalies exist in the frequency of which numbers are drawn. Completed in early 2002, "The Randomness of the National Lottery Report" discovered that certain numbers appeared with "unusually high" frequency, and others displayed a "major departure from randomness." In particular, the number 38 ball was drawn so many times that researches wondered whether there was a flaw in its physical composition causing it to be sucked out of the lottery machine so often. At the time of the study, 637 draws had taken place. Across that many draws, each number should be drawn between 70 and 86 times, but the No. 38 ball was drawn 107 times. The Lottery Commission never published the results and stated in an annual report that a Royal Statistical Society "confirmed that results were consistent with the draw being random."
Scotland Yard police arrested nine men this week on suspicion that they had defrauded National Lottery grants of over £1 million. The men allegedly submitted false applications for charity money to the Community Fund, which in June merged with other funds to form the Big Lottery Fund. The Investigators are exploring whether the culprits may have also delivered fraudulent applications to other charities, such as Children in Need and Comic Relief.
eLOT Patent -- eLOT, Inc., a company that provides Internet marketing and e-commerce for state and international lotteries, has received a patent the covers their system for purchasing state and government lottery tickets over the Internet. The patent extends to several different kinds of lottery games that are playable over the Internet, and permits payment on a daily basis or through subscription. eLOT's president, Edwin McGuinn, says he believes that U.S. legislators will eventually exempt state lotteries from any future prohibitory online gambling laws, and his company is therefore focusing on the state lotteries in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California and Connecticut as possible partners. The company has maintained a fairly low profile since October 2001 when it filed for a plan of reorganization for itself and its subsidiary, eLottery, Inc. under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Tuesday, Dec. 14
Merger Deal -- Shareholders of U.K.-based online bookmaker Canbet have voted to approve the merger deal with Australia-based International All Sports that was announced in August. IAS will offer one share for every 25 Canbet shares, and Canbet will become a subsidiary operating under the IAS banner. The deal makes the newly formed company better equipped to offer wagering on sports other than horseracing as well as wagering via betting exchanges. IAS chief executive Robert Edge stated, "By taking Canbet and adding it to our base, we become even more resilient to market influences, and the fact that we have the skills should betting exchange licenses be issued, we're more likely to survive than most." He also said that his company has already applied for a license to operate a betting exchange in the Northern Territory, and that, "We remain the first to lodge with the Northern Territory, and we remain first in line to get one if they're issued."
ATE For Sale -- Britain's Amusement Catering Trade Association (BACTA) has revealed that it plans to sell its ATE Ltd. subsidiary for a sum of about £20 million. BACTA approved the sale of ATE at a national council meeting last week, where the group also decided that the sale would not be put to an EGM. BACTA has already spent three days delivering presentations to possible buyers, which may include EMAP, Reed International, three other exposition companies and at least one venture capital company. "At this critical time for the industry, it is considered that the time is now right to very seriously consider the sale of the group in order to safeguard BACTA's financial future and its ability to best represent the interests of its members," BACTA President Tim Batstone said. ATE puts together the ATEI trade show and the London International Casino Exposition. Any deal with potential buyers is subject to approval by BACTA's Trustees and Management Committee.
Slovak Lottery -- TIPOS, the Slovakian national lottery company, has added Internet betting to its list of products. The company has already logged 1,500 registered players, and it attributes a great deal of the growing interest in its online products to its new marketing campaign, "KLIKY KLAKY." TIPOS is offering four lottery games online, and it plans to release more games in 2005.
Busted -- Two Israeli soccer officials have received six-month jail terms after being found guilty of receiving bribes to fix matches to benefit illegal betting rings. Prosecutors charged that the referees staged a number of incidents between 1997 and 2000, including awarding penalties and giving yellow and red cards. . . . Last week Israel's Council for the Regularization of Gambling in Sport sent letters to law enforcement authorities asking them to make the investigation of illegal online gambling one of its top priorities.
Making Deals -- Interactive TV and mobile services solutions provider Two Way TV has partnered with Zone4Play to launch two fixed-odds interactive TV services across the United Kingdom on the ntl and Telewest Broadband digital cable platforms at the beginning of next year. One interactive channel, called the Winner Channel, will provide fixed-odds classics such as slots, hi-lo, keno and dice, while the second channel, called the Roulette Channel, will feature a range of roulette-style games.
Monday, Dec. 13
Protecting Racing -- In a poll of British sports fans conducted by talkSPORT radio and You Guv, 70 percent of the more than 1,000 respondents answered "Yes" to the question, "Do you believe horse racing is a corrupt sport?" Fourteen percent said "No," and the remaining 16 percent said they did not know. . . . The U.K. Jockey Club recently supplemented its mobile phone policy with another measure that closes what it feels was a loophole in the original policy. For the last year, the club's policy has been to prohibit mobile phone use for the time period beginning one half hour before the first race and ending with the start of the last race unless a call is made from a designated area in the weighing room where it can be logged. However, there was previously nothing in the policy to prevent jockeys from leaving the racecourse to make a mobile call. The policy's new supplement--rule 248 in the latest edition of the Racing Calendar--states that over the same time period, jockeys and other personnel "may not leave and return to racecourse property without first obtaining the permission of the weighing room security officer, or in his absence a stewards' secretary." The policy is in place to prevent jockeys from communicating inside information with outsiders who could place wagers.
Delay -- The Isle of Man's Council of Ministers was supposed to review a Department of Trade & Industry report that recommends the isle change its I-gaming policy to allow operators to accept bets from the United States, but the review of the report had to be postponed for a week after a new chief minister joined the council. The former chief minister, Richard Corkill, resigned on Dec. 2, one day after he and his wife were arrested and questioned about grants paid to them by the isle's department of tourism for a holiday home they run. They were released without charges.
Quoteworthy -- "We frankly find attempts at prohibition to be very shortsighted. It's clear the public is [gambling online] in ever-greater numbers. The logical thing to do is legalize it, regulate it and tax it."
- Alan Feldman, senior vice-president of MGM Mirage, as quoted in a Business Week Online article that addresses the U.S. government's attempts to prohibit I-gaming despite a potential global backlash.
TRA Committee -- The board of directors for the Thoroughbred Racing Associations, an organization of North American racing associations and tracks, voted unanimously on Thursday to form a committee to examine the possibility of creating an industry-owned betting exchange in the United States. The TRA board met during last week's RTIP Symposium on Racing, following a day filled with much debate over betting exchanges. TRA Executive Vice President Chris Scherf, who has been primarily responsible for bringing betting exchanges into the organization's focus, has alerted the TRA that perhaps as little as one year remains until exchange betting becomes prominent in the States. He fears that if tracks are unable to operate exchanges themselves, they could end up losing a huge chunk of turnover to offshore operators who are not obligated to return any revenue to the industry. Legal changes would be required in many North American jurisdictions before exchange betting could be operated in the United States.
eCOGRA Approved -- eCOGRA (eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance) has awarded two more seals of approval to Internet casinos that have gone through independent testing and inspection by PriceWaterhouseCoopers to ensure they comply with the organization's requirements of operational efficiency, fair gaming and player protection. The additions of Kasino Grand Bay.com and Lake Palace Casino.com bring the total number of eCOGRA-approved casinos to 51.