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Online gambling sites are turning their attention towards Bitcoin, with BusinessWeek describing how one site is letting US users pay with the digital tender following a huge poker site crackdown in 2011. Money never hits US banks at all, allowing the sites to operate without fear of reprisal from the government. Even the payouts are quicker — what normally takes up to 12 weeks with a US bank transfer takes only a matter of hours with Bitcoin. The new use for the decentralized currency will no doubt raise some legal questions, but for now the online US gambling community has found its workaround.




Online gambling sites adopt Bitcoin in an effort to circumvent the law | The Verge

After a rush of voting last month, New Jersey’s online gambling bill is in Gov. Chris Christie’s hands. He has until Feb. 3 to sign or veto the legislation.

This bill would allow casino games, including poker, to be offered on the Internet to New Jersey residents and to players outside of the Garden State if officials determine doing so is legal.

New Jersey released a report right before the end of 2012 which discussed the possible fiscal impact of such an activity being approved. The report described the uncertainty with predicting the figures since online gaming has never existed in such a way in the United States for an complete and thorough study. The industry has wallowed in a gray area for years.

The lack of precise data might not matter much for the decision of Gov. Christie, who has long looked for ways to help the state’s struggling brick-and-mortar casino industry and other gambling businesses. However, he did veto a similar bill in 2011.

Much has changed since Gov. Christie’s veto. The federal government has relaxed its stance on intrastate online gambling, Nevada and Delaware have legalized the activity within their borders and a recent hurricane has further damaged Atlantic City’s performance.

State lotteries have also gotten into the mix and a federal online poker bill still looms in the horizon as a way to allow all states to get in on the action at once.

Atlantic City’s slumber could get deeper as other states in the region look to build more land-based casinos and might one day OK web gaming as well.

About a year ago, the governor explained his veto and stance on the idea.

“I think [New Jersey] should be an epicenter for [the Internet gaming] business, but I want to do it right — I do not want to rush and get legislation that either doesn’t pass state constitutional muster, or creates other problems for us,” he said.




New Jersey Waiting On Governor Decision On Bill That Would Legalize Online Poker

So The Big Bang Theory, CBS's sitcom about how smart people are silly, has broken its second ratings record in as many months, with Thursday night's episode "The Egg Salad Equivalency" attracting a mind-walloping 19 million viewers, with a 6.0 rating in the key 18- to 49-year-old demographic. So that is about as big as a sitcom gets. Toward the end of its run, Friends was topping out around 20 million viewers, meaning Big Bang is now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with one of network TV's biggest and longest comedy successes. That is mighty impressive for any show, let alone one without much watercooler or blog buzz like Big Bang Theory. (People watch it, but do people really talk about it?) What does this mean for the future of the show? Well, basically it means that Johnny Galecki is going to be very rich, not that he isn't already, and that creator Chuck Lorre will be stuffed and mounted in the CBS HQ lobby once he dies and will be worshiped as some sort of deity. And that he can now make any show he wants, really. So get ready for Jerks and Blonde Ladies, coming to CBS in autumn 2013. [Entertainment Weekly]

Actually, get ready for Mom, a show that Lorre is currently developing and that has just signed Anna Faris as its lead. That's the one we heard about a little while back, about a newly sober single mom trying to get her life back together in Napa Valley. We've already made the jokes about new sobriety and wine country not exactly mixing that well — it'd be like a recovering meth addict moving to Heisenberg's Albuquerque — so let's instead focus on the fact that Anna Faris might soon be doing a network comedy. On CBS. Just a couple of years ago she was poised to be this big movie star! There was a New Yorker profile written about it for god's sake! But now it's a Chuck Lorre show. I suppose she could still be a movie star while working on TV — it seems to be working for fellow Lorre employee Melissa McCarthy — but we expected that Faris would give movie stardom a few more years before she jumped into a steady contract gig. Ah well, work's work, and money is absolutely money. It might have something to do with Faris being a new mother, with TV offering regular hours and workplace not far from home. Now she and Chris Pratt can drop each other off at work and it will be totally cute and they'll have their nice funny life and we'll watch from the other side of the screen and gurgle softly. Everyone wins. [Deadline]

The Television Critics' Association winter press tour is currently underway, and one big thing coming out of the junket so far is that A&E's upcoming show Bates Motel is really only using Psycho as vague inspiration rather than a guide or template. Show creator Carlton Cuse says "the mythology that you think is what dictates the relationship between Norma and Norman is not what it's going to turn out to be." Aha, OK. We kind of knew this already, after seeing a production featurette and realizing that this thing is set in present-day rather than the 1960s, but this solidifies it more. This is a show about a crazy kid named Norman Bates and his large, looming mama, but that is, I guess, the only similarity. Oh, and there's a motel. There is still a motel. Sigh. I don't know about this thing, guys. I just don't know. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Here's a trailer for director Sally Potter's Ginger & Rosa, a Toronto Film Festival hit about two teenage girls forming an intense bond during the Cold War nuclear scares of the 1960s. It looks rather lovely, and features a cast of great actors, among them Elle Fanning (as Ginger), Christina Hendricks, Oliver Platt, Annette Bening, and Alessandro Nivola. Mostly we're excited about seeing Christina Hendricks and Elle Fanning do British accents. Why is it always so fun watching American actors do that? Who knows. But it always is.

The State of New Jersey in the USA is poised on the thresh hold of making online gambling a reality. Meanwhile the State of Iowa Lottery is asking the US Congress to strike down proposals for online gambling. The CEO of the Lottery, Terry Rich, recently went to Washington, D.C. to lobby the issue, coordinating efforts with the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries Rich released a report to the Iowa Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee containing the reasons for the visit. The report detailed, “The lotteries emphasized that the federal government should not infringe on states’ rights to implement and to regulate Internet gaming within their own borders. Lottery staff also stressed that individual states are best equipped to respond to their citizens’ unique local preferences and decide what, if any, intrastate gaming should occur within their jurisdictions.” Rich explained that Illinois and Georgia already have the ability to sell lottery tickets online and Delaware has agreed to offer online gambling with their state lottery.

Rich is concerned that the proposal put forth by Harry Reid will compromise the state’s tax situation. Rich continued with his report, “The Iowa Lottery has raised more than $1.4 billion for vital causes, including economic development, education and support for Iowa veterans and their families. Across the nation, in 2011 alone, lotteries provided $25 billion in net profits to local causes. In short, state lotteries are funding important missions. Congress should not enact legislation that supersedes state authority and that selects winners and losers.”

The legal bind that New Jersey faces by its proposal to offer online sports betting is the canary in the coalmine scenario. The tip of the iceberg for legal challenges is starting to appear as the individual states of America declare their interests and needs with regard to online gambling legislation in the Federal arena.


America Divided Over Online Gambling Proposals

Every so often the online gambling world gets a boost from innovators that claim they are making the playing of casinos games and sports betting a little faster or a little easier. Payment processing services have been making steady progress in supplying the punter smooth and accessible fund transfer methods. Pintronic Global Network has announced that they have now formally changed their name to iPIN Debit Inc. and as the new name suggests the business of iPIN Debit is enabling online gamers and gamblers to use the iPIN device attached to their mobile smart phone to send funds to their gaming accounts by the use of their debit card and their bank assigned Personal Identification Number. iPIN is calling this new online methodology ICT (Internet Consumer Terminal) which uses the iPIN and like devices to enable consumers to send funds that are the same as cash to online web merchants.

Canadian based iPIN Debit has plans to utilize the Internet Consumer Terminal to its full advantage with estimates that the ICT industry will capture 25% of the internet marketplace or 500 million consumers over the next 5 years. The ‘cash is king’ slogan is the idea from which the popularity of the ICT technology is based. The use of this terminal will speed the money flow and incure less costs for the consumer and the merchant of online products such as casino play and sports betting. Global Marketing Director for iPIN Debit, Jeff Atwood, confirms that the launch of iPINDebit.co.uk means “easier usability and increased leverage for online gamblers.It means you can send instant online gambling wagers to online casinos and government lotteries through your bank issued debit card and PIN number. iPIN Debit also helps gamers enroll in contests and play venues with the power of cash. We think it’s a real game changer for merchants and consumers alike.”

Rest assured with the use of iPIN Debit no debit card information is retained by the gaming websites.




iPIN Debit To Use ICT for Cash Online Gambling Transactions

Last year, we wrote about Satoshi Dice, a Bitcoin-based online "slot machine." This month, at least one company hopes to introduce Bitcoin-based poker. The move could help to re-open online poker to American gamblers in the face of vigorous efforts by the US government to shut down online poker sites that serve Americans.

Online gambling has been illegal since 2006. But of course that hasn't stopped American Internet users from looking for ways to play on overseas websites. In recent years, the government has used a variety of tactics to crack down on overseas sites that cater to American customers.

A key vulnerability of offshore gambling sites is the need to get cash to and from American gamers. Until recently, the only practical way to do this was via traditional financial networks that are subject to regulation by the US government. Indeed, a ban on the use of credit cards for betting was a key provision of the 2006 online gambling ban.

But Bitcoin's peer-to-peer design and global reach effectively puts it beyond the reach of the feds. And its pseudonymous design gives online gambling sites plausible deniability: they might suspect that some of their users are based in the United States, but there's no practical way to verify the nationality of any specific Bitcoin depositor.

Businessweek reports that a Calgary company called Infiniti Poker is planning to accept Bitcoins for deposit when it opens for business later this month. Founder Michael Hajduk says his primary motivation is to speed up the payment process—Bitcoin payments can clear in a matter of hours rather than days or weeks—but he acknowledges another consequence is that it will also make it easier for American gamblers to play on his site.

“Because we’re using Bitcoin, we’re not using US banks—it’s all peer-to-peer,” Hajduk told Businessweek. “I don’t believe we’ll be doing anything wrong.”

If Bitcoin-based poker catches on, it could further increase demand for the cryptocurrency. During 2012, the market price of a Bitcoin rose from $4.75 to $13.50.




Bitcoin-based gambling to expand in 2013 | Ars Technica

The former governor, promoting his new gun-heavy "The Last Stand," called the Newtown, Conn. shooting "a tragedy beyond belief."

Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't see a tie between violence in his movies and outbreaks of gun violence in America, like the December shooting in Newtown, Conn.
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Schwarzenegger, who returns to the big screen this month in The Last Stand -- his first leading role following his 8-year stint as California governor -- spoke to reporters in Beverly Hills on Saturday while promoting the film.

“I think one must always keep it separate," Schwarzenegger said. "This is entertainment and the other thing is a tragedy beyond belief and serious and the real deal."

The Last Stand continues in the vein of violent and explosive movies that made him a household name in the '90s, the type of entertainment cited by NRA chief Wayne LaPierre recently as a contributing factor behind the Newtown shooting.

In it, Schwarzenegger plays the sheriff of an Arizona border town who must stop a Mexican cartel boss from crossing illegally into Mexico. Costarring Johnny Knoxville and directed by South Korea's Jee-Woon Kim, the movie features extensive shootouts, including Schwarzenegger firing a Gatling-style gun from the back of a school bus.

Schwarzenegger is on record as a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, but also supports the Brady Bill, which requires background checks. While campaigning for governor in 2003, he softened his stance claiming he is for gun control as well as closing gun show loopholes which allow the purchase of firearms without a background check.

“Whenever there’s a tragedy like that it would be foolish not to look into all ways of what we can do as a society to improve the situation and to reduce the risk of those kind of issues,” Schwarzenegger said. “How can we do better with gun laws? If there is any loophole, if there’s a problem there, let’s analyze it.”

The former governor also pointed to the lack of mental health oversight as well as parenting as contributors to the problem.

“Does a mother need to collect those guns and take her little kids shooting?” he asked. “Everything has to be analyzed, no stone unturned. And I think that’s what we owe to our people, and I think that’s what they ought to do, rather than make it political.”

The people of Denmark are considered some of the happiest on the planet. The country has laws that keep them that way and their recent liberalization of online gambling is no exception. Denmark has become a noted leader in online gambling regulation and when it comes to creating a system that everyone can live with theirs is a model to be regarded and copied.

The new regulations and licensing regime came into effect in 2012 and now in 2013 the Danish Gambling Authority has extended the licenses of 25 operators, five being local and 20 being offshore operators for a period of five years. Additionally nine other firms were granted a limited license arrangement that gives the operators a maximum limit for revenue generation set at 1 million krone or about $175,000.

Denmark is not a push over when it comes to the unlicensed sites that attempt to do business in Denmark.In 2012 the Danish Gambling Authority blocked the non compliant gambling operators from offering their services. The head of the DGA’s legal division, Tina Olsen, commented that number was at around 20 websites.“The fact that 20 illegal websites have been blocked in 2012 illustrates that the DGA performs its obligation to monitor the Danish gambling market in order to protect both consumers and the legal operators on the market,” The high tax rate is common in European jurisdictions which brings the Danish market into perspective. Licensed operators in that part of the world must have patience and deep pockets to offer services there. Denmark has limiting restrictions that could cause some difficulty for smaller firms.

The larger more aggressive companies will rise to the challenge and glean a decent profit from the gamblers in Denmark. Online sports betting is handled separately, and for now, no licenses will be given for online bingo games in Denmark. Poker operators are able to run their online poker rooms with international liquidity, providing a much more positive player experience.



Denmark Extends Online Gambling Licenses

The bloody "Texas Chainsaw 3D" buzzed past rivals at the weekend box office, generating a chart-topping $23 million in ticket sales at U.S. and Canadian movie theaters.

The movie revives a horror franchise that started four decades ago with the original 1974 film about a serial killer named Leatherface. The new movie picks up where that film ended, following a woman who inherits a family home.

The horror flick topped Quentin Tarantino Western "Django Unchained," the second place film from Friday through Sunday with $20 million. No. 3 movie "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" grabbed $17.5 million, according to studio estimates.

Lions Gate Entertainment released "Texas Chainsaw." The Weinstein Co. distributed "Django Unchained." "The Hobbit" was released by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc.

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A three day meeting of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States wrapped up in Nevada this week, which attracted over 100 lawmakers from 21 states and Canadian province. The closing session saw the reiteration of the policy adopted by the council last year, which states, according to the Las Vegas Sun that it opposes “any federal legislation that would diminish state policymakers’ authority over gaming within their states.”

However, the panel also concluded that before lawmakers introduced online gambling into their states and provinces, they should glean as much regulatory expertise as they possibly can, and “stay ahead of the technology curve”.

One of the attendees, Tony Cabot of Lewis and Roca law firm, warned of the need to learn as much as possible about the regulation of online gambling. “Even the most experienced people are not completely ready to regulate online play,” Cabot said. “You will need at least a year before a regulatory body can competently regulate it. If New Jersey thinks they can do it in three months, they’re kidding themselves.”

Cabot also warned that even after online poker and gambling regulation takes place in states such as Nevada, hackers and cyber criminals would continue to search for ways to penetrate even the toughest systems. “You can be sure that hackers, cheats and scoundrels will try to hack the system,” he said. “There will be persons trying to defeat the verification systems. They’ll find the weakest of the jurisdictions and compromise those jurisdictions.”

Others on the panel even suggested that states keep online gambling off their books for now; however with Nevada and New Jersey moving full steam ahead with their plans to introduce intrastate gambling, and other states following suit, it seems to be a futile and unnecessary call.



States Warned About Online Gambling Regulation

The competition for the online gambling punter’s money has reached fever pitch in many jurisdictions but it is most intense at the top where Ladbrokes and William Hill gambling providers are trying to capture market share.

Ladbrokes has been attempting to expand their sphere of influence but acquiring operations that would enhance their current offerings. Recent reports have confirmed that Ladbrokes is in negotiations with betting exchange Betdaq. A statement confirmed the firm is active on the takeover front, “discussions regarding a potential future acquisition” and that negotiations are “ongoing” with “no certainty that an agreement will be reached.”

The new target is another in a list of attempts at takeover by the Ladbrokes team. First it was 888 then Sportingbet which would have given Ladbrokes a toe hold in the Australian market. William Hill online services are making some headway in the internet wagering world something Ladbrokes is attempting to do from a different perspective. Betting exchanges are becoming popular and William Hill has not gone down that road as yet. Ladbrokes’ discussions with Betdaq is a logical step forward after Ladbrokes discussed the possible use of Betdaq’s exchange technology. Not all of the analysis on the subject was positive as Panmure Gordon’s Simon French , explained, “Acquiring Betdaq would provide Ladbrokes with broader product reach and may reduce leakage of certain customers to Betfair, but significant investment in product and marketing would likely be required for Betdaq to become a material profit contributor to Ladbrokes.”

This sort of comment did not deter investors from seeing the potential in such a takeover bid with the stock price of Ladbrokes reaching a high of 203.30 pence. Betdaq has had a serious go of it the last few years with the firm exited from the Down Under market after an media investigation found there was a problem with the legality of its operations in that jurisdiction. This fact alone may see Ladbrokes reconsider its choice of acquisitions.



Ladbrokes and Betdaq In Online Betting Exchange Discussions

One year after the Danish Gambling Authority issued 12-month betting and online casino licences to a number of local and foreign gambling operators, it has extended the licenses of the majority of these operators to five years.

25 receive extensions

Denmark's online gambling authority granted five-year extensions to 25 casino and betting operators - 20 of them foreign and five Danish. In addition, it allows nine operators to continue their activities under income-restricted licenses, meaning their gross gambling revenue must not exceed DKK 1 Million ($170k)

Operators to receive extensions include: Betfair; Betsson; Betway; Cryptologic - operator of InterCasino and VIP Casino; Danish License Games; ElectraWorks - operator of PartyCasino and PartyPoker; Hillside - operator of bet365; Interactive Sports Limited, Ladbrokes International, PKR Technologies, and Skill On Net (EUcasino)

Where to play

Danish online gamblers are lucky people, for as you can see from the list above, they have a multitude of legal playing options. Among the globally renowned casino, betting and poker brands Danes can enjoy are bet365, Betfair, Ladbrokes, EUCasino, InterCasino, and the entire Party platform.

All these sites cater to Danish players. Take bet365.dk, for example: it offers the usual sports betting, casino, poker and games sites, but with the full platform offered in the Danish language, and with a range of top DKK payment options. And because bet365 is properly authorized, players are protected and secure.



Denmark Extends Online Casino, Betting Licenses - The Headlines - Onlinecasinoreports-com

Internet gambling is an issue of strategic financial stability and Wall Street regulation. It is not just an issue of silly games and electronic poker as argued by supporters of the proposed Reid-Kyl bill to legalize gateway gambling in cyberspace (See “Lipparelli: Congress Should Use This Brief Window to Legislate Internet Gaming.”)

In 1995, congressional hearings led to enactment of the U.S. National Gambling Impact Study Commission, which concluded in 1999 that maintaining a total ban on Internet gambling was a U.S. imperative.

Currently this ban is supported by almost all members of the National Association of Attorneys General. Congress even strengthened the ban by enacting the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which passedin the House with an overwhelmingly favorable bipartisan vote. Immediately the Internet gambling stocks on the London Stock Exchange lost billions of dollars as speculators finally recognized that these stocks were predicated on illusory gambling activities. Fortunately for Wall Street, the U.S. ban meant that such vacuous gambling stocks were already prohibited on U.S. stock exchanges.

Around the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin sanguinely noted the economic and crime costs of state-sanctioned gambling and recriminalized 2,230 casinos — virtually wiping the economy clean. Associated leaders such as Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed that “the gambling business is ... [a threat to] national security.” What do the Russian economists know that is still eluding Washington politicians?

Led primarily by the U.S. ban on Internet gambling, by 2009 about 30 other countries had also banned online gambling.

Recent academic volumes of the multi-volume United States International Gambling Report even have titles reflecting the international economic realities. Specifically, the 2010 volume is alarmingly titled “The Gambling Threat to Economic and Financial Systems: Internet Gambling.” The title of the 2012 volume is even more alarming: “The Gambling Threat to National and Homeland Security: Internet Gambling.”

In its news video “The Bet That Blew-Up Wall Street,” the website for 60 Minutes reports on gambling’s interface with the current crisis in credit default swaps. Cogently, Warren Buffett named the story “Financial WMDs,” while U.S. Senate hearings blasted this Wall Street gambling debacle as “casino capitalism.”

At least the subprime crisis had some real property as collateral. However, with Internet gambling there’s nothing of real value — just people dumping money into gambling accounts which can evaporate more easily than the Bernie Madoff monies.

U.S. gambling is an economic cancer ready to metastasize into Internet gambling. For example, the Congressional Gaming Caucus used the 9/11 tragedy to cripple the 2002 Economic Stimulus Bill with $40 billion in tax write-offs for slot machines and associated electronics (and the caucus had asked for $133 billion in tax write-offs). These recurring write-offs for slots are still draining the U.S. Treasury and could easily be transposed into more write-offs for Internet gambling technologies.

Gambling lobbyists also dominate the economic policies of 28 states, draining state treasuries — as exemplified by Illinois, with the nation’s worst state budget crisis. With a total fair market value of $5 billion ($9.5 billion in 2012 dollars), the original 10 Illinois casino licenses, for example, were granted to political insiders for $25,000 each — including one political insider recently convicted in the scandals surrounding former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Within this gambling aura, experts commonly refer to Internet gambling as “crack cocaine” for addicting new gamblers. Internet gambling would place the worst type of computer gambling at every school desk, at every work desk, in every living room and on every cell phone.

In an instant, a person could “click the mouse and lose the house.” Again, 60 Minutes highlights these problems in its video “Slot Machines: The Big Gamble.”

With justification, gambling lobbyists brag that Internet gambling is the “killer application” — killing both individual and institutional finances.

Countries cannot gamble their way to prosperity. Internet gambling shrinks the consumer economy and destroys consumer confidence by promoting a ubiquitous gambling philosophy.

Legalizing U.S. online gambling would allow dubious parties to tout the U.S. imprimatur — empowering them to create a queue of speculative bubbles that could collapse already fragile financial systems and destabilize essential international economic security.


Kindt: Internet Gambling Will Cripple World's Economic, Financial Systems : Roll Call Opinion

In a new issue of Sci-Fi Now magazine, Mark Frost, the co-creator, with David Lynch, of Twin Peaks, says that the return of the show, cancelled after just two seasons, is "something we talk about from time to time . . . If we ever do decide to move forward," he adds, "I know we have a rich trove to draw from."

Those quotes come from the website Moviehole, which fans the flames by reminding readers of an interview from a couple years back with Bob Engels, who wrote several episodes (and also co-wrote the Twin Peaks movie, Fire Walk With Me).

"I think if we could figure out a way to do" a third season," Engels said, "I think everybody would have fun going back . . . I think, all things being equal, they'd say 'I'm in.' I certainly would."

The Frost interview gets more specific, speculating that "the third season could realistically be set 25 years on . . . picking up from the original's iconic dream sequence between Cooper, Laura and the backwards-speaking dwarf, that took place in the original series 25 years into the future." (That sequence aired in April 1990, so if production on the show really did resume shortly, new episodes would likely hit the air roughly 25 years after that dream.)

David Lynch has gotten involved with TV again lately, with a recurring character on The Cleveland Show and a brilliant turn on Louie.

The radical freedom FX has given Louis C.K. on the latter show seems like a more tenable model for the independent and wildly creative Lynch than, say, NBC.

In hindsight, Twin Peaks feels like a forerunner of the ambitious cable shows that have flourished since The Sopranos hit HBO.

And there's always Netflix: The upcoming return of Arrested Development in particular has made the revival of dormant series seems like less of a pipe dream than before.

Last February, just prior to Facebook’s highly anticipated IPO, Envision IP analyzed the US patent holdings of various social networking companies. At that time, we identified only a single US patent, and only 9 published US patent applications assigned to Zynga.

Over the last year, however, Zynga’s push to acquire patents has been impressive, and the company currently has 89 US patents, and 36 pending US patent applications.

The increase in Zynga’s patent holdings is partly attributable to its acquisition of 38 patents from Walker Digital, LLC. Of these, 33 patents relate to casino gaming and gambling technologies.

For example, US 7559838 is directed to a game of chance allowing users to place wagers. US 6843724 is directed to a gaming device connected to a slot machine server. Also, US 6503146 is directed to team play within a casino slot club, and making payouts based on predefined payout rules.

Shown below is Figure 3B from US 7559838 which depicts a gaming device and menu: The patents acquired from Walker Digital relate to software and methods for facilitating multi-player casino-style gaming, and for processing various casino-style wagering and payout schemes. While the patents appear directed towards a physical casino environment, the claims of these patents are not specifically restricted to an in-person setting.

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Zynga had filed for a gaming license with the Nevada Gaming Control Board. In October, TechCrunch reported that Zynga had entered into a partnership with bwin.party, a Gibraltar-based online gambling company, to offer real money online poker and casino games in the United Kingdom.

The Walker Digital patent acquisition certainly seems in line with Zynga’s announced foray into the online gambling and casino business, as these patents may help Zygna build and protect its online gambling assets.

Zygna’s remaining 51 patents appear to have been developed internally (with the exception of US 6884172, originally assigned to nGame Limited). These patents include technology for virtual currency management and gifting, interactive multi-user online gaming, remote software updating, and social networking features.

Software developer Net Entertainment has signed a partnership agreement with one of the largest online gaming operators 888, which will see the two cooperating on online and mobile content.

Big gaming deal

Under the terms of the agreement, Swedish firm NetEnt will supply a wide range of leading online and mobile casino content to 888's global casino and bingo platforms. This will include software for the regulated Italian market, where 888's brand name has been growing of late.

This is a big deal for both sides, and solidifies Net Entertainment's growing reputation as one of the world's most successful suppliers of premium online gaming content. Its complete gaming solution comprises both a complete management platform and full suite of high-quality games, which 888 customers will soon be able to enjoy.

888's existing product

888 will now be able to build on its existing product, which includes popular casino, poker, sports betting, online bingo, games and VIP websites. It also offers a number of localized sites in newly regulated markets, such as Italy's, which cater to regional gambling tastes and preferences.

It is 888's ability to offer a top product across the range of online gambling platforms that has made it so popular. No doubt, this latest deal with NetEnt will only improve its product and increase demand from the playing community.



NetEnt Sign Online Gaming Deal with 888 - Industry Coverage - Onlinecasinoreports-com

The gambling industry warns that the government is not even remotely prepared to effectively regulate online gambling.


“You can be sure that hackers, cheats and scoundrels will try to hack the system,” Cabot said. “There will be persons trying to defeat the verification systems. They’ll find the weakest of the jurisdictions and compromise those jurisdictions.”

“Even the most experienced people are not completely ready to regulate online play,” Cabot said. “You will need at least a year before a regulatory body can competently regulate it. If New Jersey thinks they can do it in three months, they’re kidding themselves.”

Michael Hajduk had sunk one year and about $20,000 into developing his online poker site, Infiniti Poker, when the U.S. online gambling market imploded. On April 15, 2011, a day now known in the industry as Black Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice shut down the three biggest poker sites accessible to players in the U.S., indicting 11 people on charges of bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling. Player accounts were frozen, leaving thousands of Americans without access to their funds. “It was like a bomb went off,” Hajduk says. To continue gambling, “U.S. players were uprooting their families and moving to Malta. Crazy stuff was happening.”

Hajduk, though, was barely fazed. Calgary-based Infiniti Poker, like several other new online gambling sites, plans to accept Bitcoin when it launches later this month. The online currency may allow American gamblers to avoid running afoul of complex U.S. laws that prevent businesses from knowingly accepting money transfers for Internet gambling purposes. “Because we’re using Bitcoin, we’re not using U.S. banks—it’s all peer-to-peer,” Hajduk says. “I don’t believe we’ll be doing anything wrong.”

Developed in 2009 by a mysterious programmer known as Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoins behave much like any currency. Their value—currently about $13 per Bitcoin—is determined by demand. Transactions are handled through a decentralized peer-to-peer network similar to BitTorrent, the protocol for sharing films and music over the Internet. An assortment of merchants around the globe accept Bitcoin; it’s also the currency used on online black markets such as Silk Road, which processes an estimated $1.2 million a month in sales of illegal drugs, according to Nicolas Christin, the associate director of Carnegie Mellon’s Information Networking Institute.

Individuals can buy and sell Bitcoins using global currencies through such online exchanges as Mt. Gox. There’s even a service facilitated by BitInstant, a payment-processing company, that allows you to purchase the virtual currency for cash at 700,000 U.S. locations, including participating Wal-Mart (WMT), Duane Reade, and 7-Eleven stores. Once users have Bitcoins, they store them on their computers or mobile devices in files known as Bitcoin wallets or in cloud-based “e-wallets.”

Hajduk says Infiniti Poker will accept credit cards, wire transfers, and other payment options, but players in the U.S. will be able to play only using Bitcoins. He originally included the currency not to get around U.S. law but to reduce the time it takes to cash players out. Bank transactions can take up to 12 weeks; players who use Bitcoin can get a payout in a matter of hours, he says.

GamblingCompliance, which tracks the global gaming industry, says most estimates value the U.S. online gambling market at $4 billion to $6 billion. On Black Friday, gamblers in the U.S. had more than $100 million in online accounts frozen. Nearly two years later, the U.S. government is still working to reimburse the players, who were not targeted in the crackdown.

Hajduk says the ability to store Bitcoins on players’ computers is appealing. “At the end of the day, [the government] cannot freeze your account because they cannot kick down the door to Bitcoin,” he says.

It’s unclear whether the government will go after Bitcoin gambling sites. “Bitcoin poses some new legal challenges for financial authorities,” says Martin Williams, the Asia editor of GamblingCompliance. “I suspect that much of it will involve playing catch-up, as with so many other things relating to the Internet.” The Justice Department declined to comment.

There are other risks as well. In recent months hackers have pulled off several Bitcoin heists, and this summer Bitcoin Savings & Trust, billed as a “Bitcoin hedge fund,” made off with more than $5 million entrusted to the site by investors, in what appears to be a Ponzi scheme. Also, Bitcoin wallets can vanish as a result of hard-drive crashes or other computer problems. That’s how at least one user lost 50,000 Bitcoins, according to Peter Vessenes, chairman of Bitcoin Foundation, an organization that helps develop and promote the virtual currency.

“It’s still a pretty raw technology,” says Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at Bitcoin Foundation. “It’s pretty obvious that it’s been designed by geeks for geeks. It’s not easy to use yet, but it’s getting easier to use all the time.”

Bitcoin gaming sites keep popping up. Erik Voorhees, director of marketing and communications at BitInstant, helped design SatoshiDice, a gambling site hosted in Ireland and owned by an anonymous investor. Since launching in April, the site has taken in about $15 million in bets, Voorhees says. SatoshiDice is careful to keep everything in Bitcoin; until it’s clear how the site will be treated legally, “it’s better to keep it completely separate from real life,” he says.

When it comes to letting Americans gamble with Bitcoins, not everyone is as bold as Hajduk and SatoshiDice. Josh Strike, who in 2011 launched the Costa Rica-based Bitcoin casino site Strike Sapphire, says he makes sure Americans can’t access his games. “I’m an American, and the guys who help me with this—lawyers, part-owners, guys I’ve known since high school—they’re American,” he says. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

The bottom line: Bitcoins may help satisfy Americans’ appetite for online gambling—if using the online currency to place bets remains legal.


Bitcoin: Making Online Gambling Legal in the U.S.? - Businessweek