Friday, March 25
New Rules -- German bookmaker Oddset has announced that it will no longer accept bets from players, trainers, referees, coaches, or anyone else who might be able to influence the result of football matches. The decision comes weeks after German referee Robert Hoyzer admitted to accepting bribes to fix matches. Hoyzer has also begun implicating other players and referees, indicating that the scandal could run quite deep. Oddset, which lost around one million euros on two of the matches Hoyzer fixed, reportedly warned the Deutschen Fussball-Bundes (German Football Federation-DFB) on August 23rd about unusually heavy betting from Berlin on two matches that were officiated by Hoyzer. Both the DFB and the Bundesliga (German Football League-DFL) are now including prohibitions on betting in their rules and regulations. The DFB and DFL also announced this week that they have enlisted the help of betting security company Betradar to assist in monitoring wagering on German football.
Quoteworthy -- "The main problem with what's out there at the moment is that it's very samey, not made for the UK market and there's not enough live programming. We think we can do as well, if not better than the World Poker Tour. Live is the next big thing to happen in poker."
--Crispin Nieboer, CEO of The Poker Channel, which went live on the Sky digital satellite network on March 23. Nieboer, a former commercial manager for Sky Ventures, has joined forces with Sky producer James Hopkins and former head of Sky Music Chiara Cipriani to launch the new channel, which will originally air between 14.00 and 01.00, but eventually reach a full 24-hour broadcast by May. The channel plans to rely on its own original programming rather that licensing rights to World Poker Tour or Celebrity Poker Club tournaments.
GIGSE -- River City Group has announced that the exposition floor for the seventh annual Global Interactive Gaming Summit and Expo (GIGSE) on June 13-15 in Montreal has already sold out and is being expanded to accommodate the growing demand for access to the 1,000-1,200 interactive gambling executives from 45 countries who will attend the event. The company says early bird registration rates are still available via the event's secure online registration page, www.gigse.com.
Monopoly -- The Victorian government has announced that it is seeking a new competitive application process through which it could allow up to three lottery licenses after July 2007, thus ending Tattersall's 50-year lottery monopoly. The government will call for registrations of interest in lottery licenses before preparing a short list of serious bidders later this year and will also remove barriers that prevent Tabcorp and Crown from bidding on one of the licenses. It is also rumored that Racing Victoria and Cricket Australia could be interested in forming a consortium to bid for a license.
Thursday, March 24
Antiguan Tax -- Antigua and Barbuda's parliament was scheduled to begin debating a new tax measure for online betting companies today. The Antiguan Sun recently reported that an unnamed betting company was preparing to leave the country en route for Kahnawake due to fears of a new tax structure, but Kay McDonald, director of off-shore gaming for the islands, stated today in the Sun that no company is leaving. "We still have an advantage in this country for gaming companies because there is no corporate tax," McDonald stated. "Also, gaming companies pay out dividends and these dividends are not going to be taxed. Under the income tax act, dividends are among revenue areas that are exempt from the new measure." She added, "One jurisdiction with which we share a lot of the same license fees is Kahnawake, so we already have persons licensed in Antigua that also have a license out of Kahnawake, so that is not new or strange." However, the Sun also quoted McDonald's predecessor, and current spokesperson for the Antiguan Off-shore Gaming Association, Ron Maginley as saying that many members of the industry felt "the tax rate proposed by the government may remove the cost benefit of conducting some portions of operations within Antigua."
Orange Casino -- British cellular network operator Orange will make a casino.co.uk-branded mobile casino available through its Orange World portal in April. Casino.co.uk's owner, Gaming Corporation, will share a portion of the revenue from the mobile poker operation with Orange, and users will be able to play for fun or real money.
Betradar -- The Deutschen Fussball-Bundes (German Football Federation-DFB) and Bundesliga (German Football League-DFL) have signed a rolling contract with betting security company Betradar, whereby Betradar will monitor betting in German football. Betradar's monitoring and supervision products allow companies to compare their odds and starting times to the market averages and immediately informs them if there are any crucial differences. German soccer has been rocked in recent months by the revelation that referee Dominik Marks has accepted money from the Croatian mafia to fix several matches.
Spanish Data -- Spain's Liga de Futbol Profesional (Professional Football League-LFP) is asking Internet betting companies to cease their activities in Spain. According to a recent press release issued by the league, online betting companies have been asked to "stop any activity in Spain that is not authorized according to standing Spanish laws," including accepting wagers and using data, results and scheduling information relating to the Spanish football championship. "These companies are using, for their own benefit, data that they do not own, without authorization or payment to the organizers or participants in the league," the league's statement read. "We expressly reserve the right to take any and all possible legal actions."
Streaming Casino -- Malta-based gaming company Vegas Interactive has licensed software from CWC Gaming (CasinoWebcam) to launch LondonCasino.com, which enables players to gamble with actual--not computerized--cards, dealers and tables by streaming live audio and video from an actual casino floor in Costa Rica. The no-download, Flash-based software is CWC's second-generation gaming platform and the first to support audio capabilities. By streaming actual casino games from a real land-based location, LondonCasino.com hopes to eliminate customers' distrust of the random number generator-based games.
Wednesday, March 23
Spread Betting Fines -- Spread betting firm City Index has been fined £35,000 by the U.K. Financial Services Authority because some of its promotional material was deemed to be misleading. Advertisements that appeared in newspapers, in magazines, and on bags used by some deli shops failed to accurately describe the commitment required and the risk involved with spread betting. The FSA says that it is important that financial promotions use clear and simple terms so that the customer understands that he could quickly incur liabilities that are greater than his initial stake. The Financial Promotions Department of the FSA was established last year to better monitor the advertisements of spread betting firms. The FSA fined Cantor Index £70,000 in December 2004 for similar violations.
Gambling Federation -- Following an inquiry into allegations that I-gaming software provider Gambling Federation inserted "malware" into its software so that players would not be able to access the Web sites of competitors, the interactive Gaming, Gambling and Betting Association (iGGBA) has determined that the company is in violation of the iGGBA code of conduct and has therefore terminated its membership.
Play-by-Play -- Sportingbet has launched Interactive Systems Worldwide Inc's play-by-play sports betting system, SportXction, on its Croatian wagering Web site, hr.sportingbet.com, and its Slovenian wagering Web site, sl.sportingbet.com. Sportingbet has also launched the SporXction system on its Spanish, Turkish, Bulgarian and Greek Web sites in recent months. The SportXction system is set to offer play-by-play wagering on over 1,000 events this year, including games of soccer, tennis, rugby, cricket, golf and snooker.
Predict the Future -- A team of researchers will present a paper called "Market Efficiency in Person-to-Person Betting Market" this week to the Royal Economic Society's annual convergence. According to the paper, analysis of trends certain person-to-person betting exchange markets offers an unprecedented way to predict the future. As evidence of their claim, the researchers demonstrate that online betting exchanges accurately predicted not only the winner of every state in last November's general election in the United States, but also the correct date of the capture of Saddam Hussein. The paper was written by David Paton, Professor of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School, Michael Smith, a senior lecturer in economics at Canterbury Christ Church, University College and Leighton Vaughan Williams, Professor of Economics and Finance at Nottingham Trent University.
Phoenix Mobile -- Phoenix Interest Inc. has launched a wireless betting platform for its online account wagering site, BetBarn66.com. The mobile service enables customers to check their account status, receive entries and results and wager on any of the worldwide tracks that are in the system. BetBarn66 is a member of the AmericaTab affiliate system, a multi-jurisdictional simulcasting and wagering totalizator hub licensed by the state of Oregon.
Keno.com's Sports Book -- Gaming Transactions Inc. has entered into an agreement to license FutureBet Systems Ltd's sports book software for use on the Keno.com Web site. Gaming Transactions says the site will offer a full range of sports betting option and an extensive number of betting types, including straight bets, parlays, over/unders, money-lines and teasers.
Strategic Alliance -- Boss Media and lotteries company Oberthur Gaming Technologies have formed an alliance to jointly provide solutions for the converging gaming market in North America. Boss brings its e-gaming software and solutions to the alliance, including payment and accounting systems, player behavior tracking and performance evaluation, strategic marketing, prize structures and wagering limits to prevent addictive play, while Oberthur brings its Cyber Games portal, which gives lottery clients access to digital technologies targeting a new generation of consumers.
CYOP Poker -- Online skill games software provider CYOP Systems International Inc says it plans to target Asian portals for the integration of its new poker software. The company's backend financial systems are already localized into traditional and simplified Chinese, and it has begun working on the front end game translations of its poker games.
Betdirect Mobile -- Sportech's betting brand, Littlewoods Betdirect has launched a new Java-based mobile betting service using technology from mobile gaming solutions provider Mfuse. The mobile service provides betting on of the sports available via the Internet-based service and also offers advanced bets such as tricast and forecast. Betdirect also says its mobile sports book is the first to offer mobile-specific free-bet functionality, a feature which it expects to drive significant user uptake.
Tuesday, March 22
Mobile Poker -- Sweden-based PokerRoom.com announced that on April 11 it will launch a mobile poker platform that will enable players to compete with live human opponents for real money. Players will also have the ability to use play money or to compete against computer-simulated opponents. They will choose from three different table views: the normal view, which has graphics similar to those seen on PokerRoom.com; the symbol view, which gives a view over the whole table with simplified graphics; and text view, which gives history of how a hand was played.
Basketball Lottery -- Reuters attributes this week's launch of a basketball lottery in Shanghai to an increase in the sport's popularity ever since Yao Ming joined America's National Basketball Association (NBA). Lottery tickets cost about $0.25 each and will be issued three times a week for NBA matches that are televised live in China every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Participants will try to predict the results of each quarter of play, the sum of both team's final scores and the point spread. Soccer lotteries are also legal in China but most other forms of gambling are not. The government has begun investigating and shutting down traditional and online gambling services with renewed zeal this year.
No Incentive -- A new report commissioned by the Association of Remote Gambling Operators and conducted by Europe Economics, a London-based independent economics consultancy with experience in the gambling industry, concludes that if the U.K. Treasury does not reduce the level of taxes for online gambling companies then there will be little or no incentive for those companies to relocate their offshore operations to Great Britain. A new bill aiming to overhaul gambling regulations is working its way through the British Parliament, but according to ARGO Chairman Ian Spearing, "Britain could have the best gambling legislation and regulation in the world, but it will be to no effect if the tax regime acts as a fundamental disincentive for gambling operators to be based in this country." A full copy of the report is available at www.argo.org.uk.
Changing Ship -- Tony Cabot, a founding member of the International Masters of Gaming Law Association and the author of several reference books on traditional and interactive gaming law, has left Las Vegas-based law firm Lionel Sawyer & Collins to join the firm Lewis and Roca, which is based in Phoenix, Arizona but is committed to growing its Las Vegas office. Cabot worked 23 years for Lionel Sawyer & Collins, which is not only the largest law firm in Las Vegas but also has the largest gaming law department in the world. Cabot told the Las Vegas Sun that he welcomed the opportunity to head a gaming practice at one of the most prominent firms in the Southwestern United States and added that Lewis and Roca is looking to hire additional gaming attorneys to fill out its practice.
Monday, March 21
Tattsnet -- The Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation is investigating Victoria-based lottery operator Tattersalls' involvement with Lotto Nigeria because it is not clear whether Lotto Nigeria is operating legally. Last year Tattsnet, a company that is half owned by Tattersalls and Swedish lotteries company EssNet, entered a 10-year contract to provide lottery services for National Sports Lottery (NSL), a company that was awarded a 30-year license by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. The lottery is operated by an NSL subsidiary called NSL Lotteries Management Company Limited, which went broke in 2002 and was therefore unable to pay winners and creditors. The Victorian watchdog wants to make sure that Tattersalls honors the legislation that prohibits it from having business associations with unsuitable partners.
Sports Betting Bill -- Rep. Tom Osborne, R-Neb., has introduced a bill that would prohibit Nevada casinos from accepting wagers on college sporting events. A former football coach who led the University of Nebraska to two national championships, Osborne also introduced similar legislation in 2003. He got 33 representatives to support his bill that year, but it was never scheduled for a Congressional hearing. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., first introduced a bill prohibiting college sports betting in 2000, but efforts to pass such a bill through have lost much momentum in the last few years.
Reemergence -- Rob Hartnett, former managing director of Betdaq, has reemerged as the chief executive of Race-O, a new betting and information company that is scheduled to launch in the summer. According to ATE Online, the company plans to introduce a new "Super Bet" that will provide a regular route for racing and sports fans to land million pound jackpots, and revenue from every Race-O bet will directly benefit horse racing. The company is chaired by Sir David Sieff.
Playtech Games -- I-gaming software provider Playtech has expanded its suite of casino games to 75 by introducing Blackjack Surrender, Derby Day, Jacks or Better 10-line video poker and Aces Faces 25-Line Video Poker. Blackjack Surrender adds a new element to single deck blackjack by allowing bettors to forfeit the hand after being dealt the first two cards. When a player surrenders he only loses half of his stake. Derby Day is a fixed-odds virtual horse racing game that allows players choose multiple betting patterns. The company says it developed the 10- and 25-line video poker games in response to renewed demand in the online casino industry for a greater diversity of video poker games. Prior to the two new video poker additions, Playtech had already included nine video poker games in its casino gaming suite.