Friday, Aug. 5
Delayed Re-launch -- Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut had planned to bring its PlayAway Web site back online on Aug. 2, but the re-launch date has been moved to Aug. 15 so that the casino can provide more information about the site to the state's regulatory authorities. Foxwoods soft-launched the site last month and took it offline less than a week later due to concerns of the state's attorney general and Department of Revenue Services. Customers on the gaming floor at Foxwoods can purchase tickets for PlayAway and then log onto the Web site when they get home to find out whether they won. Although the site offers games like video poker and slots, whether the player wins is in no way determined by his or her performance in the games, which are actually an extension of the casino's keno game. Results are instead predetermined at the time of the ticket's sale. Winning tickets can only be redeemed at Foxwoods. The casino remains confident that it will be able to bring PlayAway back online. In the meantime, it is adding to its software a feature informing players that the games have no impact on their chances of winning as well as a feature enabling players to bypass the games and immediately find out whether they've won.
Spam -- InfoPowa News reports that domain registrar GoDaddy last weekend delivered an offline suspension to the Fortune Lounge group of online casinos due to alleged complaints from spam monitor SpamHaus. Although Fortune Lounge out-sources its e-mail marketing, the contract was reportedly awarded on terms that no spamming would take place. Fortune Lounge is also said to discourage affiliates from spamming. The situation is still unfolding, and IGN will have more details next week.
Slotland Aid -- Online casino Slotland will donate 10 percent of all new player deposits through the end of August to charities that aim to prevent starvation in Africa. The aid organizations will be chosen by Slotland.com players via a poll at the casino's new independent information site, Slotland.info.
Sponsorship Ceased -- National Public Radio 's Las Vegas affiliate, KNPR, has ceased running a traffic report sponsored by PartyPoker.com after the Las Vegas Sun questioned the radio station about the legality of the ads. The traffic reports were produced by a company called Metro Networks, which provides traffic reports nationwide for free in exchange for the stations mentioning the sponsors of the reports. Lamar Marchese, general manager of KNPR, said the Las Vegas office of Metro Networks decided to pull the ad after its conversation with KNPR. "It was just one of those areas that was murky as to whether it was legal or not," Marchese said. "They decided to err on the side of conservatism."
Z4P for Betfair -- Multi-platform remote gaming solutions provider Zone4Play has entered into an agreement to become an affiliate partner to British betting exchange Betfair. Zone4Play will create and provide mobile betting exchange solutions that will become available to Betfair customers in the fourth quarter of 2005. Zone4Play will charge a monthly subscription fee to existing Betfair customers who opt to use the mobile service, but will share revenue generated from new users.
Purple Cows -- GoldenPalace.com 's latest eBay auction purchase allowed the company to paint its logo and URL on 100 cows that graze in a field next to an interstate outside Tampa Bay, Florida. The company also painted some of the cows purple, as a literal interpretation of author Seth Godin 's "purple cow" marketing analogy. Godin equates the advertising world to a sea of grazing cows, and that it takes a purple cow to see your brand amid today's marketing clutter. Golden Palace also welcomed PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to have a presence in the stunt, and some of the cows display the message "Go Veg" in support of PETA's plight for vegetarianism.
Virtual Gambling -- Player One Limited, a publisher of mobile games and content, has launched a new Java-based mobile play-for-free game that is endorsed by champion jockey and sports personality Frankie Dettori. Called "Virtual Gambling …with Frankie Dettori" and developed by Typhoon Mobile, the game enables players to use their betting knowledge to predict winning horses based on in-depth statistics, odds and previous race history.
Thursday, Aug. 4
Mobile Content -- TEAMtalk Media, the content division of ukbetting, has partnered with mobile entertainment provider Monstermob to re-launch the sports.co.uk brand, giving its monthly Internet audience of 8.5 million sports fans a wide range of mobile content for SMS, MMS, WAP and 3G that would be complemented by Monstermob's own sports and non-sports mobile content. Mostermob will assume responsibility for direct marketing, delivery and billing of mobile sports content across TEAMtalk's sports Web sites, including Football365, TEAMtalk.com, SportingLife, Planet Rugby, Rivals.net and Planet F1. Launch content will include Java games such as Football365 Fanatic, Football365 Fantasy Manager and Planet Rugby Drop Kick, fun animations including Cheeky Chav and Nobby the Ref and live SMS goal and score alerts for top games. There will also be a daily video "bikini sports bulletin" as well as a large selection of sports wallpapers and ringtones.
Bodog Productions -- Costa Rica-based online betting company Bodog.com is rumored to be launching its own television production company called Bodog Productions. The company's first production attempt is said to be its recent charity event held in Hawaii for the U.S. Military, for which rap star Snoop Dogg was on hand to perform. The company in June founded its own music label called Bodog Music.
Sportsbook.tv -- Sportsbook.com, Sportingbet's flagship brand for the U.S. market, has launched Sportsbook.tv, a Web site offering sports information and odds as well as free casino and poker games. The new site could reportedly serve as the target site of a series of 30-minute television programs Sportsbook.com is currently developing. The company's marketing director, Alex Czajkowski, told eGaming Review, "Rather than pushing [the .tv site] in our ads, we're actually running offline ads in core test markets to push up our viewership for the programs. It's all test-measure-scale for now though; we're putting a toe in and getting a feel for it."
Wednesday, Aug. 3
Ladbrokes Financials -- British bookmaker Ladbrokes has ventured into betting on financial markets by introducing a new fixed-odds betting service called "Ladbrokes Financials." The product was developed in association with Cantor Index and has already undergone an eight-week trial. It enables punters to make wagers on performance within the Dow Jones Index and FTSE 100 over the period of a trading a day, an hour, or even five minutes. Ladbrokes and Cantor consider the new service a viable alternative to financial spread betting.
Localization -- Xgames Ltd., a division of I-gaming software provider CTXM, has added some of its fixed-odds flash games to six Sportingbet Web sites: ParisPrestige.com, SuperBahis.com, MiaPuesta.com, sb28.com, EuroSportwetten.com and CasinoWelt.com. Xgames says it has tailored the offerings of each of the six sites to be consistent with local themes and languages.
Boss Business -- Gaming software provider Boss Media has signed an agreement to deliver a casino platform to online gaming operator Deutsche Entertainment Group in autumn 2005. Deutsche Entertainment, which already operates Euro888.com and NordCasino.com, will launch another online casino, KaiserCasino.com, as a result of its agreement with Boss.
Race Streaming -- SmartVideo Technologies, a company that provides broadcasting services for live, on-demand and download-and-play video content for mobile customers, and The National Raceline, which provides instant race calls and results via telephone to the racing community, have formed a revenue sharing partnership to stream live horse racing to mobile phones from racetracks in the United States.
Successful Appeal -- Britain's Competition Appeal Tribunal has overturned the Office of Fair Trading's April 2004 decision against the British Horseracing Board (BHB) and the Racecourse Association (RCA) by ruling that the 49 members of the RCA did not act anti-competitively when they collectively sold their interactive betting and media rights to the original At The Races consortium for £307 million in May 2001. The tribunal's decision is particularly remarkable because it is the first time a judgment has been made in opposition to the Office of Fair Trading.
Shuffle -- U.S.-based horse race wagering and content provider Youbet.com has appointed its chief operating officer, Gary Sproule, to take over the position of chief financial officer held by Charles Bearchell. Sproule joined Youbet just over three years ago and was instrumental in completing the company's restructuring efforts and financial turnaround. Youbet Chairman Charles Champion will assume the responsibilities of the chief operating officer position.
Tuesday, Aug. 2
Sportingbet Grows -- Sportingbet has entered into an agreement to acquire Antigua-based ISC Entertainment Inc., a company that owns and provides marketing service for certain U.S.-facing sports betting and gaming Web sites, including MySportsbook.com and WorldwideGamble.com. ISC's risk management, customer services and back-office functions have been carried out by Sportingbet under a white-label agreement since 2002. The deal's initial consideration of $33 million will be satisfied by a payment of $16.5 million in cash from Sportingbet's resources and the issue of 2,745,158 ordinary shares valued at $16.5 million. Deferred cash consideration of about $6 million will become payable in three years if the ISC business generates cumulative incremental profits over $22.6 million. ISC generated $90 million in profit for the year ended June 30, 2005, and its operating profit amounted to $6.7 million after its payment of royalties to Sportingbet. The board of Sportingbet expects operating profit before goodwill amortization for the year ended July 31, 2005 to be about $107 million.
Auctions -- The Belle Rock Gaming Group of casinos has introduced another online gaming innovation with its new Belle Rock Gaming Auctions program, which enables players to earn and use free auction points to bid on a wide range of items, including electronic equipment, jewelry, appliances, trips, tickets, home wares, sports equipment and rare collectibles. Players earn free auction points by playing at Belle Rock casinos and for making a number of interactions, including installing and logging onto the Belle Rock Buddy messaging application, opening additional real-money Belle Rock Gaming casino accounts, updating or verifying their details, linking their accounts in the Belle Rock Buddy and taking part in research surveys. An average of 10 new auctions will be hosted every day, and no item will ever have a reserve price. The featured item for August is a brand new SUV.
It's Official -- The Isle of Man's Department of Home Affairs today officially granted PokerStars.com an e-gaming license that will permit the company to begin operating its online poker business on the island.
Batter Up -- Starting Wednesday, William Hill's television network--Channel 425 on Sky Digital--will begin showing live U.S. Major League Baseball games each week. Punters will be able to make bets on several aspects of the game, including which batter will score the first run or RBI or how many strikeouts each starting pitcher will get. Live in-running betting will also be offered on a number of markets.
Hills Must Sell -- England's Competition Commission has declared that bookmaker William Hill must sell off 50 betting shops to remain compliant with competition standards. The company in May announced its purchase of 624 betting shops for £504 million from Stanley Leisure, thereby surpassing Hilton-owned Ladbrokes as the biggest bookmaker in the United Kingdom. Last month William Hill sold 28 shops to the Tote in the hopes that the sale would satisfy the commission's concerns. The 50 shops the company has now been ordered to sell do not include the 28 sold to the Tote.
Spread Betting -- London-based spread betting firm Global Trader has received a license from the U.K. Financial Services Authority to begin trading in Ireland. Although the company was founded in Dublin in 2001, it moved to London in 2004 because negotiations to obtain a license from the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority were slow and unproductive. The company's initial focus in Ireland will be toward customers who have an interest in emerging markets and who are currently unable to execute such products with the existing providers. Global Trader reportedly conducts over 300,000 trades per year for clients in 26 countries, which amounts to over US$5 billion in trades per year.
Monday, Aug. 1
Growing Empire -- Online gaming marketing firm Empire Online has purchased online casino and bingo operator Club Dice and online poker operator Noble Poker (both of which use Playtech software) for a total of £40 million. Club Dice operates Club Dice Casino, MonacoGold Casino, Carnival Casino and YouBingo, which together serve 70,000 registered real-money customers. Noble Poker is the largest operator on Playtech's iPoker network. Empire says the acquisitions will enable it to enhance its product offering and achieve its objective of diversifying its technology providers. The company will gain greater control of its casino product offering through the ownership of a gaming license. It also plans to launch a real-money backgammon site, 65.com, in the near future.
Reverse Takeover -- Interactive Gaming Holdings PLC has purchased London-based fixed-odds bookmaker Premier Bet Ltd. in a reverse takeover deal for a consideration of £1 million in shares and convertible loan notes. The purchase includes the Internet and telephone wagering operations and assets of Premier Bet, including the Web sites and customer databases of Premeirebet.com and PremierbetCasino.com. Premiere Bet launched in May 2002 and has over 36,000 registered users. The company reported gross betting turnover of £24.7 million in 2004. It does not take bets from U.S. citizens.
Using the API -- British betting operator Ubet2win Plc, has signed a licensing deal with Betfair that will enable it to access the Betfair Application Programming Interface (API) to manage its business more efficiently and profitably. The company, which began trading on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange on Thursday, will be able to take bets on a number of sports under the Ubet2win name. It will also be able to place and hedge its own bets via the Betfair API.
Lottery Discussion -- England's National Lottery Commission has published a discussion paper setting out the areas that need further work to ensure that competition for the lottery license takes place on a level playing field. Topics discussed in the paper include whether a separate competition should be held for gaming technology, whether dividing the bid process into two stages would help reduce costs for bidders and how to ensure the structure of the competition is designed to maximize the money for good causes. The commission has received 20 responses and has met over 150 interested parties since completing the discussion paper in January and will continue to seek responses from interested parties until September.
Quoteworthy -- "What we're trying to do is reflect this huge revolution that has been taking place in gambling in the U.K. sport is the new religion, but there isn't a daily paper that reflects that."
- Jeremy Deeds, former CEO of the Telegraph Group, explaining to the International Herald Tribune why he believes the launch of his new daily gambling news.