1st US Online Casino

The satisfying prospect of a gang of lotto fraudsters meeting their comeuppance features in a story in The Register this week, which reported that Somerset police have busted a bogus lottery winner scam following a raid on a cheque processing and clearing house.

Readers will be familiar with the letter-based scam at the centre of the raid, where the fraudsters attempted to dupe members of the public into thinking they had won a prize. Recipients were asked to send in £20 as an “administrative fee” in order to collect their “winnings,” and of course if they were unwary enough to do so, that was the last they saw of the lottery, their fictitious winnings…

(Read the full post about ‘UK police bust bogus lottery scammers’…)

Chinese police in the city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province this week arrested 11 people on charges of running an illegal gambling network, involving bets worth over 500 million yuan ($73 million).

“The (Hangzhou) network acted as a bridge between Chinese gamblers and overseas Internet casinos in the Philippines,” Wu Jun, spokesman for the public security bureau of Xiaoshang district told the newspaper China Daily.

“About 80% of the gamblers are local businessmen, and chances are that the money they bet came from their companies’ accounts,” Wu claimed.

Briefing the press, Wu Jun said that the underground gambling network was set up by a wealthy forty-something local businessman surnamed Li in March 2008.

(Read the full post about ‘Chinese police uncover $73m illegal gambling network’…)

Just a reminder that tonight is the start of the Final 4 $40,000 Guaranteed Slot Tournament at Vegas Technology powered online casinos.

The Games Begin
Tonight at 8PM (ET), the Final 4 $40,000 Guaranteed Slot Tournament will kick off and it will run until April 7th at 8PM. The top 125 finishers will split the great $40,000 prize pool and the top 4 will also get $444 on top of their winnings.

Powered by Vegas Technology
Make sure you get over to one of the casinos on the Vegas Technology network to be a part of another great slot tournament.

(Read the full post about ‘Reminder: Final 4 Slot Tournament Starting Tonight’…)

It didn’t work in Italy, and it is creating major waves of protest in Australia at present – the prospect of governments forcing Internet Service Providers to impose blocks censoring online gambling websites.

Sweden is the latest country to consider the censorship option, reports The Stockholm News this weekend. The newspaper reveals that a government report suggesting the blocks is at present undergoing a public consultative process, and picking up plenty of flak as it does so.

With Wednesday April 1st as the deadline, the criticism is likely to escalate, the newspaper reports.

(Read the full post about ‘Sweden considers instituting ISP level blocks on gambling websites’…)

Lottomatica S.p.A.’s wholly-owned subsidiary, GTECH Corporation Owner of Boss Media), has announced that it has been chosen as the preferred bidder to negotiate a seven-year integrated services contract with the New York Lottery to provide new online lottery solutions and services. The Lottery has the option to extend the contract for an additional three years. GTECH’s proposed solution set includes a full suite of online and instant systems, up to 20,000 online lottery terminals, a variety of self-service lottery products and multimedia technology, a new wireless telecommunications network, instant-ticket warehousing, and ongoing services.

Online activities in state lotteries are exempted from US legislative bans on Internet gambling financial transactions.

The proposed contract, which is expected to commence in March 2010, follows a competitive procurement process. The

(Read the full post about ‘GTECH seals 7 year contract with New York Lottery’…)

Seattle lawyer and Poker Players Alliance supporter Lee Rousso may have reached the end of the line in his litigative attempts to overturn the state of Washington’s draconian ban on Internet poker. The feisty lawyer has been battling the state, which allows almost every form of land gambling but imposes draconian penalties on anyone caught wagering on the Internet, for the last two years.

On Monday the state appeals court rejected Rousso’s arguments that a 2006 law that forbids Internet gambling in the state violates the clause of the U.S.

(Read the full post about ‘Rousso appeal against Washington state Internet poker ban fails’…)

Playtech, one of the leading online casino software developers on the market is adding sportsbetting to its list of services.

Increased Earnings
2008 was a great year for Playtech. The company released their full 2008 numbers last week and reported a huge €40.69m in profit, quite the step up from the €26.9m profit that they had in 2007.

Besides that, they’re expecting 2009 to be an even better year and this has a lot to do with the new joint venture that they have agreed upon with William Hill Casino.

A New Venture
Playtech has now followed this up by paying an undisclosed amount for sportsbetting software provider Player2Player and just like that, they have entered the sportsbetting world as well.

There’s no reason to think that Playtech’s sportsbetting venture won’t be a success.

(Read the full post about ‘Playtech To Enter Sportsbetting Arena’…)

Also using the UK Gambling Commission numbers this week was the political opposition Conservative Party, which claimed that ‘nearly a quarter of a million more’ people gambled online last year compared to 2007 when advertising was permitted for the first time.

The Gambling Commission estimates that 7.4% of online gamers go on to develop an addiction to betting, reported the Daily Telegraph, leading the Tories to suggest that there could be an additional 17,760 people with a problem.

Tory politicians criticised the Labour government for failing to crack down on Internet gambling sites based overseas, which may have fewer safeguards such as contact numbers for helplines and limits on stakes, they claimed.

(Read the full post about ‘UK conservatives call for restrictions on jurisdictional white-listings’…)

Sandra “Black Mamba” Naujoks won this year’s European Poker Tour Dortmund event Sunday, becoming the second woman behind Vicky Coren to score an EPT title. With the tournament’s $917,000 pot she also becomes the second woman to claim over $1 million in career poker winnings.

In addition to Naujoks, the $5,000 buy-in tournament’s final table consisted of Holger Kanisch, Marc Gork, Johan Storakers, Mike McDonald, Luca Pagano, William Thorson and Cengizcan Ulusu. Heads-up saw Naujoks holding A, 9 against Kanisch’s A, Q, and pulling out two pair on a flop-turn of A, 7, 2, 9o. When the river came blank Kanisch’s fate was sealed, and Naujoks found herself headed into EPT history.

Na

(Read the full post about ‘Tournament: Naujoks nails EPT Dortmund’…)

There can be few people with a track record in the hotel and casino sector to match that of Stephen Wynn the founder of Wynn Resorts. While many of the larger competitors in the sector continue to struggle, as highlighted by our post on MGM Mirage, it appears as though Wynn Resorts is in one of the strongest positions of any company in the sector. Over the last few months share issues have been regarded as desperate fundraising operations but the 9.6 million share offer, to raise $182.4 million, has been well received by holders of Wynn Resorts stock.

While it would be foolish to suggest that the company can swim against the tide forever, the $182.4 million to be raised will be used to realign the company’s debt position with speculation that some may also be put aside for small-time acquisitions. (Read the full post about ‘Wynn Resorts fares better than many in the casino and hotel industry’…)