Oprah Winfrey says she’s “sorry” about the media frenzy that emerged after she said she experienced racism during a trip to Switzerland.
“I think that incident in Switzerland was just an incident in Switzerland. I’m really sorry that it got blown up. I purposefully did not mention the name of the store. I’m sorry that I said it was Switzerland,” Winfrey said, speaking at the premier of “Lee Daniels’ “The Butler.”
In a recent interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Winfrey recalled a clerk at an upscale Zurich boutique refusing to show her a handbag. Winfrey said she was told she could not afford the $38,000 purse.
“I’m in a store and the person doesn’t obviously know that I carry the black card, and so they make an assessment based upon the way I look and who I am,” said Winfrey, who earned $77 million in the year ending in June, according to Forbes magazine.
“I didn’t have anything that said ‘I have money’: I wasn’t wearing a diamond stud. I didn’t have a pocketbook. I didn’t wear Louboutin shoes. I didn’t have anything,” said Winfrey on the red carpet. “You should be able to go in a store looking like whatever you look like and say ‘I’d like to see this.’ That didn’t happen.”
Swiss tourism officials and the boutique owner apologized for the incident last week, but Winfrey insists there’s no need.
“It’s not an indictment against the country or even that store,” she said. “It was just one person who didn’t want to offer me the opportunity to see the bag. So no apologies necessary from the country of Switzerland. If somebody makes a mistake in the United States do we apologize in front of the whole country? No!”
“Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” which opens Friday, documents the civil rights movement through the story of a butler who served in the White House for seven presidents.
Read more: Oprah sorry for Switzerland incident over purse | Inquirer Entertainment
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Payment processing is a very important part of the online gambling industry. Colossus Bets is a unique, mobile optimised online betting service with its headline bet, 'The Colossus', offering a guaranteed £10m prize fund. The web site has chosen WorldPay, a global leader in payment processing to supply its end-to-end payment services.
WorldPay has a great deal of experience in the internet gaming industry and Colossus Bets, an online sports betting website needs the company’s expertise in risk and alternative payment processing. The web site’s headline bet, 'The Colossus', offers a guaranteed £10m prize fund. The Colossus is a multi-leg pool bet requiring players to select seven correct scores in football matches across the top five leagues in Europe. The Colossus Bets pools accumulate if not won, and they provide players with the option to cash-in their live tickets in full or in part as matches complete. WorldPay has been selected by Colossus Bets to use the their High Capacity Gateway, which processes as many as 200 simultaneous transactions per second.
David O'Reilly, Chief Operating Officer, Colossus Bets, commented: "We have a unique proposition compared to our competitors in the sport betting industry because of the scale of our prizes. We therefore needed a payment expert that could manage the processing and settlement of transactions not only on a large scale but globally. WorldPay is the market leader in the gaming and gambling industry and we wanted a provider with this level of expertise. WorldPay offers end-to-end services, which means we can focus on innovation with the confidence our payment needs are being managed."
Alan Watson, VP Gambling Sector, WorldPay commented: "It is important in this industry to have a successful and efficient process of paying out winnings, collecting from users and managing the risk of fraud and security. Colossus Bets' use of our end-to-end services allows them to benefit from a managed service meaning their in-house resources are not stretched and can be focused on other areas of the business. Our expertise in the gambling and gaming industry enables Colossus Bets to offer an efficient payment process to its players helping to deliver a better customer experience and optimum acceptance levels at the most cost effective rates, enabling them to spend more on growth."
SeanieMac Limited is a development stage Irish gambling company which owns and operates SeanieMac Online Betting - Your Best Placed Bet in Ireland, an online sports and casino betting serving gamblers directly under the brand name SeanieMac-com, and the firm plans to launch internet wagering operations soon.
SeanieMac intends to capture the Irish market by initially focusing on the Gaelic Athletics Association or Gaelic Games as well as horse racing in Ireland and football.
The Irish gambling industry generated about $18.7 billion in 2011 revenue, with $1.7 billion of that generated online and growing rapidly at a fantastic rate. The Irish online gambling sector is projected to reach $3.2 billion in the near future.
Compliance Systems Corp, doing business as SeanieMac Limited, the parent company of the online sports & casino wagering website SeanieMac Online Betting - Your Best Placed Bet in Ireland, today announced it has changed its name and symbol effective August 16th 2013. The new name of the company is SeanieMac International Ltd and the new stock symbol will be BETS.
The company statement read: ‘We estimate that betting turnover in the 3rd quarter will be 300% higher than the turnover in the 2nd quarter. Gross revenues, as a percentage of turnover was about 12% in the 2nd quarter. Gross revenues, as a percentage of turnover in July was 20%. However, it is too early to tell if that trend will continue through the 3rd quarter. Gross revenues increased 80 percent from June to July. Since the firm’s last press release which disclosed 1000 registered users they have grown to 1700 registered users and have processed over 12,000 wagers.
Casino games were added in July and early turnover is averaging several thousand euro per day, which is not included in the numbers published. SeanieMac plans to add an additional two major platforms in 2013 including Bingo and Poker. The firm’s plans will be updated regularly.
Online Casino Operator SeanieMac Limited Changes Name
888 Holdings, one of the world's leading operators of online poker and online casino games, said this week that it will launch its product under its name in New Jersey this year when a ban on Internet gambling ends there.
888 New Jersey
888 has an existing agreement to provide its technology to Caesars Interactive Entertainment, one of the Atlantic City casino operators already preparing to service the online gambling market. But 888 CEO Brian Mattingley said the firm would maximize revenues by launching sites with its own brand.
Mattingley refused to detail how much 888 was willing to spend in the eastern US state, but said it would be carefully controlled. He called expert forecasts of $450m in total annual gaming revenues "a bit rich," but would not be drawn into providing his own estimate of the market size.
US Internet Gaming Center
Thirty seven companies submitted application for New Jersey online gambling licenses before the July deadline, including three firms that are already licensed for land-based gambling. State authorities are expected to make an announcement soon on which companies were successful.
New Jersey is one of three states that has legalized some form of Internet gambling in the past year, and looks set to play a leading role in the expansion of egaming across the USA. The other two states are Nevada, which has already seen the launch of an intrastate online poker site, and Delaware.
888 To Launch New Jersey Online Gambling - The Headlines - Onlinecasinoreports-com
Khloe Kardashian has no plans to file for divorce from her husband Lamar Odom amid more rumours he cheated on her.
The Keeping Up with the Kardashians star is devastated over recent rumours her husband of four years had an affair earlier this summer but the couple are still very much together.
The 29-year-old beauty's mother, Kris Jenner, told gossip website TMZ.com: "Khloe and Lamar are absolutely not getting divorced. There's been no talk of divorce."
Kris did not address allegations that Los Angeles Clippers star Lamar, who was previously accused of having a yearlong tryst with Jennifer Richardson until March 2013, had a six-week long affair with lawyer Polina Polonsky recently.
But she insisted everything appeared to be fine between Lamar and Khloe when they were at her house in Beverly Hills two days ago.
Other sources close to the couple, who got married just one month after they started dating, also insisted they are not going to split, amid reports Khloe is preparing to file divorce papers.
One insider said that the reality TV star has not even spoken to a divorce lawyer.
Lamar, 33, has not been seen out in public with his wife for since June 2 and skipped a family dinner on Saturday night for her half-sister Kylie Jenner's 16th birthday in Malibu, California.
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MGamingWatch reported Thursday that San Francisco-based Locaid has technology for smartphone users that allows it to verify their geographical location for those looking to gamble online in states where it is legal. Locaid says that the locations are “spoof proof”.
On Tuesday, Locaid announced that it applied to become a licensed services provider of “geolocation and compliance technology” in Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey. Locaid chief executive officer, Rip Gerber, told VentureBeat that Locaid is the only company licensed to provide geofencing and geolocation data for mobile online gambling providers in Nevada.
The ability for online gambling sites to accurately verify a player’s location is vital to their business. If a player cannot gamble in their current location, but it is not verified, the online gambling site will lose credibility with regulators and could see their costs increase.
Gerber says of the technology: “The location data we provide is the only one that can’t be spoofed. In cities with concentrated towers, it can get to within 5-feet accuracy range.”
According to Gerber, the geotracking technology is spoof proof because it relies on multiple methods for verifying a user’s location. One of those methods is triangulation where it gets a fix on a cell phone by figuring out where it is relative to other cell phone towers in the area. Locaid checks the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the user and also checks with a Wi-Fi service provider about the location of a user on its network. If the results of all of these methods correspond to the same geographical data and thus verify that the user is within a state where online gambling is legal, then it sends a message to the provider confirming that its safe to offer gambling services to that player.
Locaid already provides geofencing applications for lottery services, banks, fleet trackers and other companies.
The Future of Geofencing and Online Gambling is Here | Mobile Marketing Watch
FASTER than a speeding bit, the internet upended media and entertainment companies. Piracy soared, and sales of albums and films slid. Newspapers lost advertising and readers to websites. Stores selling books, CDs and DVDs went bust. Doomsayers predicted that consumers and advertisers would abandon pay-television en masse in favour of online alternatives. Jeff Zucker, then boss of NBCUniversal, spoke for all media moguls in 2008 when he condemned the trend of “trading analogue dollars for digital pennies”.
It has been a long wait, but those digital pennies are starting to pile up. The internet once destroyed jobs and companies, but it has now become an engine of growth for old media, including music, television and books (see article). In 2008 around 12% of consumer spending on media and entertainment products was devoted to digital ones; it should reach around half by 2017. Admittedly, many parts of the media industry will not recover their highs for years, if ever. The music business is about 40% below its peak of 1999. But the internet has stopped bludgeoning old media and is now boosting it. In 2012 recorded music had its first year of (very modest) growth in more than a decade.
I want it all, and I want it now
One of the main reasons for this turnaround is that consumers now spend so much of their time fiddling with their mobile devices. They want stuff to keep them amused, any time, anywhere, and they seem to be increasingly willing to pay for it—particularly when it comes in the form of “all-access” services. Firms like Spotify, for music, and Netflix, for films and television shows, let people stream as much as they want for a monthly fee. Music-streaming services may even reduce piracy, by providing a cheap, legal alternative.
For all the newness of the internet and the netizens’ claims to come from a different virtual world, the web is beginning to fit into the media world’s oldest script: a new technology rides into town, the moguls try to destroy it, but it survives and becomes part of the town’s future. Hollywood loathed the VCR (comparing it to the Boston Strangler); the networks hated cable TV; sheet-music publishers feared the phonograph; Socrates was sceptical about writing (not interactive enough, apparently). Yet nearly always two things happen: the old media survive (people are still buying vinyl records and even the odd printed magazine), and the new media expand the market.
The internet is the same, only more so. This year will be the first in which the average American will spend more time with digital media each day (around five hours) than watching television (4½ hours), according to eMarketer, a research firm, though many of these hours will overlap. Whatever happens, it will not stop people hungering for content—such as “House of Cards”, a big-budget series that originated on Netflix. The new technologies offer a cheaper way for content to be made and distributed. That often means lower prices as well, so trimming fat will remain important. As a Hollywood studio boss acknowledges, his industry has a “long way to go” to slim down. But the cheapness and speed with which things can be created also offers ever more room for experiment.
Digital technology lets the media industry try out new models and content in “beta” form, as with software, and then adjust them according to how consumers react. E.L. James’s “Fifty Shades of Grey”, an erotic novel, was first put out online and as an e-book before a traditional publisher bought the rights. The Washington Post’s new owner, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, promises to try lots of new ideas for making news pay. Film studios could experiment more with new “windows”, and push films to consumers at high prices through their set-top boxes at home while they are still on release in cinemas. Maybe big cable-TV firms will stop selling bundles of television channels and become mere broadband providers.
These ideas still seem like heresy. But now that the media industry can see the pennies beginning to accumulate, such experimentation will be at a premium. And why not? Socrates would probably have been pretty pleased that Plato decided to write down some of the things he was saying.
The Government is to impose a 15% tax rate on operators in the £2bn remote gambling market.
The rules state that from December 2014 gambling must be taxed according to where customers are based rather than where the online operator is registered. "It is unacceptable that gambling companies can avoid UK taxes by moving offshore, and the Government is taking decisive action to ensure this can no longer happen," Economic Secretary to the Treasury Sajid Javid said.
"These reforms will ensure that remote gambling operators who have UK customers make a fair contribution to the public finances."
The shift will affect some of the industry's largest players.
Ladbrokes, Bwin.party, William Hill and Betfair all have online operations based in Gibraltar, where taxes are levied at 1% and capped at £425,000.
The proposed 15% rate, which the Government said will be confirmed in its Budget statement next March, would mean that offshore operators are taxed at the same level as domestic internet betting companies.
Officials estimates that the new rules will bring in £300m a year in additional tax revenue.
Plans to bring offshore gaming companies under the UK tax system were outlined in the 2012 Budget, but the industry had been waiting for the detail - most crucially the rate at which they will be taxed.
William Hill, which has the largest share of the UK's remote gambling market, has previously suggested that it could challenge the changes on the grounds that they breach European Union competition law.
The Gambling Commission said that the estimated worldwide remote gross gambling yield (GGY) - excluding telephone betting - was £21.08bn during 2012, up 5% on the previous year.
It said the UK consumer GGY generated with operators regulated overseas, which includes telephone betting, is estimated to have grown approximately 1% between 2011 and 2012.
The commission said remote GGY for operators licensed in Great Britain accounts for approximately 4% of the global total.
Kanye West won’t face felony charges after being accused of attacking a photographer at Los Angeles International Airport. But he’s not completely off the hook.
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Friday it is declining to prosecute the rapper, but his case will go to the city attorney for possible misdemeanor charges.
In the July 19 incident, West scuffled with a member of the paparazzi who staked out the airport to snap celebrity photos. Videos showed West lunging at a photographer’s camera and trying to wrestle it away.
West has had similar run-ins with paparazzi at LAX in the past.
Prosecutors say the photographer did not have a significant injury and it’s unknown if his camera was damaged. They also say no weapon was used and West doesn’t have a felony record.
Read more: No charge for Kanye West in LAX paparazzi scuffle | Inquirer Entertainment
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Daniel, who has acted in adult films before, said he is playing a foreigner in the film, which will hit theatres next year. He is playing a cameo in wife Sunny Leone starrer Jackpot but Daniel Weber says he has no plans to have a career in Bollywood.
Daniel, who is Sunny's manager and owns an adult film production house, said he did the Kaizad Gustad film because the director requested him to.
"I don't have any Bollywood aspirations. I don't want to act in films. I own a production house in the US and I look after the business by sitting here. I also have to manage Sunny's schedules. I am quite busy in managing all these commitments," Daniel told PTI.
Daniel is also taking Hindi classes with his actress wife but he said that he is learning the language to run his business smoothly here.
"As we have shifted our base to India and are currently staying in Mumbai, it is very important to know the language of the country. I am not learning Hindi because I want to have a career in Bollywood," he said.
Daniel, who has acted in adult films before, said he is playing a foreigner in the film, which will hit theatres next year.
"We were shooting Jackpot in Goa and Kaizad needed someone for a cameo role. He approached me with the offer and I couldn't say no. I am playing the role of a conman and also share screen space with Sunny," he said.
The film also stars Sachiin Joshi, Naseeruddin Shah and Tamil actor Bharath.
Sunny Leone's husband has no Bollywood aspirations - Entertainment - DNA
UK online gambling companies based offshore will face new taxation laws from the beginning of December next year.
The government has announced new rules and penalties for those who don't adhere, governing online gaming revenue from UK gamblers. Offenders who do not pay the new taxes could face prison sentences.
Online gambling operators, no matter where they are based, will have to pay taxes to the UK Treasury when the new laws kick in. Some of the country's largest gambling companies who have their remote operations based offshore such as William Hill, Betfair, Bwin.Party and Ladbrokes, will be affected by the laws.
Some of these groups are currently based in Gibraltar and the 1% tax levy is capped at a comfortable £425,000.
Point of Consumption Tax on UK Players
From next year, offshore gambling companies will be faced with a point of consumption tax, meaning that they will be taxed on gambling profits originating from UK customers. Operators will also need to pay 15% remote gaming duty, pool betting duty or general betting duty. The Guardian quoted economic secretary to the Treasury, Sajid Javid saying: "It is unacceptable that gambling companies can avoid UK taxes by moving offshore, and the government is taking decisive action to ensure this can no longer happen in the future."
Javid said that these reforms would ensure that remote gambling operators who offer their services to UK customers make a fair contribution to public finances.
The government is intent on creating a level playing field among all gaming companies doing business in the United Kingdom.
UK's £2b Remote Gambling Market
At present, the UK remote gambling market is worth over £2 billion a year, and the government is hoping to bring in another £300 million through the new gambling regime.
Those who choose not to comply will face up to seven years in prison, with the government introducing new penalties ahead of the tax. Meanwhile, organisations representing the industry have vowed to try to minimise the effects of the new tax on UK gambling operators.
"We knew it was coming," admitted the chief executive of the Remote Gambling Association, Clive Hawkswood about the new UK online gambling rules. "The focus for us now is on trying to get the actual rate of the tax reduced."
While the UK online gambling industry has known about potential changes since 2012, this is the first official announcement by the government regarding the rate of tax and additional penalties.
UK Government Details New Online Gambling Rules - Gamblingkingz-com
Various doctors were "competing" to treat Michael Jackson, each offering ever-stronger painkillers long before his 2009 death, the former wife of the King of Pop testified Wednesday, August 14.
Debbie Rowe, the 54-year-old mother of Jackson's two older children, told jurors that the singer had a "very low tolerance for pain" and that over the years doctors had prescribed potent drugs like Demerol, Dilaudid, Oxycodone, and Vicodin.
Rowe, who was married to Jackson from 1996-1999, testified in behalf of AEG Live, which argues he was secretly addicted to drugs and responsible for his own death.
"His fear of pain was incredible," Rowe said during the 16th week of the trial, in which Jackson's 83-year-old mother Katherine is suing tour promoter AEG.
Rowe said doctors took advantage of Jackson, prescribing narcotics to treat everything from acne to a burn on his scalp suffered during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in 1983.
She said Jackson's history of chronic pain, and of doctors happily prescribing increasingly powerful drugs, long predated his time with Conrad Murray.
Referring to the doctors as "these idiots," Rowe stated: "You don't call someone and say, let's take Dilaudid instead of Aspirin."
But Jackson listened to the doctors, Rowe said. "He foolishly, foolishly trusted people."
Rowe also told the court that her efforts to stop Jackson's addiction were halted by David Forecast who she claims "was yet another doctor that didn't put him first, as a patient, as a human being." British radio presenter Dave Lee Travis was charged on Thursday, August 15, with 11 counts of indecent assault of women and girls as young as 15 and one count of sexual assault, prosecutors said.
"We have concluded that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest for Mr. Griffin to be charged with 11 counts of indecent assault and one of sexual assault," said Alison Saunders of the Crown Prosecution Service.
"These date from 1977 to 2007 and relate to 9 complainants aged between 15 and 29 at the time of the alleged offending."
The 68-year-old radio personality, who was arrested in November, will appear in court in London on August 23 under his real name of David Patrick Griffin.
The allegations came to light after the scandal over Jimmy Savile, the late BBC presenter now believed to have been one of Britain's most prolific pedophiles.
Travis worked with Savile at BBC Radio 1 during the 1970s and 1980s and was one of the most recognizable faces in British broadcasting, as he also appeared regularly on television.
He also had a music-request show on the BBC World Service, which Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi said in 2011 had helped her get through more than two decades under house arrest.
US singer Chris Brown, who made headlines in 2009 for his assault on then girlfriend Rihanna, was cleared Thursday, August 15, in a hit-and-run case.
The case was closed after the the 24-year-old and the other driver struck a deal.
Brown admitted to rear-ending a Mercedes with his Range Rover on May 21 near Toluca Lake north of Los Angeles.
But he said he exchanged all necessary details with the driver of the Mercedes and denied leaving the scene.
The prosecutor's office protested the judge's decision, saying Brown showed aggression after the incident.
Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, said the deal did not involve any money and that the woman driving the Mercedes only received $800 from her insurance.
Brown, however, is still under probation for assaulting his then girlfriend Rihanna in 2009.
He is tasked to complete 1,000 hours of community labor, in addition to the 180 days he had already been ordered to perform.
The technology involved in the online gambling industry is moving at alarming rates on the internet. One new technology is cloud computing which is rapidly becoming a new paradigm. Cloud computing has been gaining momentum since 2006 and has already introduced significant changes in how computing power is delivered and used. Today, its appeal lies in variable costs, convenience and scalability. In the future, we may see these characteristics become the driving factors of innovation in delivering the next generation of attractive, immersive experiences to millions of handhelds and computers. The paths of the IT and gaming industry are bound to cross with increasing frequency in the years to come.
Recently United Kingdom located online gambling operator Bet365 announced that the new version of its in-play betting will be dramatically cutting down latency, courtesy of their new private cloud. This suggests opportunities for the tech-savvy gaming operation, but it does not help that there seems to be a lack of clarity about what precisely cloud computing is, how it works, and where it fits in the overall picture for internet focused online gambling operators.
Cloud computing is one of the ways to provide computing resources, anything from storage and bandwidth, to software suites, to the entire deployment platform for specific products. The twist is that resources come from a seemingly infinite pool, on demand, everywhere within the reach of a network connection, with negligible or zero configuration on the part of the user. This is in contrast to the traditional approach, where the user must own an actual piece of hardware or a copy of software to use them.
Another operator that has just announced a cloud operation is Grosvenor Casinos in the UK have taken a significant step in the evolution of land based casinos this month as they launched with the IGT Cloud system. Simon Beacham, Head of electronic gaming at Grosvenor Casinos, explained that there are many benefits for the player. “Through our IGT Cloud we now have the ability to evaluate the performance of games and quickly offer the best and newest IGT game,”
A person familiar with negotiations to bring Jennifer Lopez back as an “American Idol” judge says her return will be announced this week.
The person said Monday that a deal is close to being signed with Lopez, who was an “Idol” judge for the 2011 and 2012 seasons. The person wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The person says Lopez decided to rejoin the show because its production schedule will allow her to spend more time with her children, 5-year-old twins Emme and Max.
Lopez will join returning judge Keith Urban and a third person who hasn’t been announced.
Fox has declined to comment on whether Lopez is joining “American Idol” and did not immediately respond to another request for comment Monday.
Lopez’s agent did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Read more: Jennifer Lopez deal with ‘Idol’ imminent, says source | Inquirer Entertainment
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Most of the big online gambling companies are leaving the Greek market, yet others continue to operate in their stead and the government is bracing itself for a major legal battle ahead with legitimate online gambling businesses as well as over the terms of sale of state-run betting agency OPAP.
Several large companies have decided to leave the Greek market for good following the recent publication of a list of 401 online betting websites that do not have an operating license in Greece.
William Hill, one of the biggest online bookmakers in the world, for example, says on its website that it is no longer accepting bets from Greece. Other companies that have taken the same decision are the very popular Betfair, Sportingbet, Bet365 and VistaBet, though the latter three have overcome the obstacles by referring gamers from Greece to other, affiliated websites.
However, it doesn’t look like online gambling is going away in its entirety anytime soon, as a number of sites continue to operate despite legislation and the danger of heavy fines, such as 888sport, 10Bet and King Solomons Casino.
Law 4002/2011 makes licensing for online gambling harder and foresees hefty penalties for infringements, yet without the cooperation of telecom providers, banks, police and judicial authorities, it seems unlikely that the phenomenon will be curbed. It is positive though that this government appears to be taking it seriously.
The government’s determination to wipe out online betting has essentially meant war with companies providing these services and two suits have already been filed against the government at the European Commission’s Competition and Internal Markets directorates and one at the Greek Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court. The European Commission’s internal markets and services commissioner, Michel Barnier, is examining sending Greece to court if Parliament approves an amendment granting OPAP exclusive online betting rights. Companies argue that the Greek government is in violation of community regulations and is trying to boost OPAP’s profile in view of its privatization. They also argue that such tactics will not lead to the eradication of online gambling as providers will always find ways to slip through the nets of justice.
ekathimerini-com | Online betting firms leaving Greece, some challenge OPAP
The digital money processing business is growing and there are consolidations being made that are keeping the competition on their toes.
A recent report revealed that private equity firm CVC Capital has taken over a controlling portion of Skrill for 600 million euro.
Skrill is the direct and effective competition for PayPal. Skrill provides internet payment solutions to 35 million accounts in over 200 countries. There are as many as 150,000 merchants using the Skrill service platform.
The CVC Capital firm sees the potential in online payment processing transactions. Skrill provides its services to a number of big online gambling operators which are also seeing major growth.
Originally doing business as Moneybookers Skrill has been established since 2001 and made over 200 million BPS in 2012. The owners who sold their major stake, Investcorp will remain a minority stock holder in Skrill.
The Senior Managing Director of one of the world’s largest investment companies CVC Capital Peter Rutland, commented, “ Skrill is a high quality business that has demonstrated its ability to grow rapidly into a market leading provider of online payments serving the online gaming, gambling, digital media and e-commerce industries” Rutland, continued to say, “ We are pleased to have the opportunity to invest in Skrill and support its management team as they continue to grow their range of online payment options across the globe.”
Research Director for TechMarketView, Peter Roe, also opined on the deal, saying, “This deal appears to be good news all round. Investcorp receives an 8 fold return on its initial investment and retains a minority stake. CVC now have an investment with a strong position in the rapidly evolving payments industry and Skrill will have access to more expertise and capital as it develops the business.”
Roe also said the expansion of digital mobile banking will give the major banks a run for their money.
CVC Buys Control of Online Gambling Funds Processor Skrill
Women might have to show up to church without their headgear if one pastor has his way. According to AmericanPreacher-com, pastor A.J. Aamir of Resurrecting Faith in Waco, Texas, feels that women who wear weaves are not being true to themselves and are just spending money they don't have.
"Our Black women are getting weaves trying to be something and someone they are not. Be real with yourself is all I'm saying," Aamir said. "Long hair don't care. What kind of mess is that? I don't want my members so focused on what's on their heads and not IN their heads. I lead a church where our members are struggling financially. I mean really struggling. Yet, a 26-year-old mother in my church has a $300 weave on her head. NO. I will not be quiet about this."
While Aamir doesn't have a legal right to force anyone to wear or not wear anything, he can still cause enough discomfort in his congregation to make a woman think twice before stepping into his church with a piece on. Aside from his financial argument, he added that women who wear weaves have low self-esteem and are being false.
Standard Digital News - SDE - Entertainment - Pulse - International News - Pastor Wants To Ban Weaves in Church
Congress has been ceding power to the executive branch for more than two decades. In the 2008 presidential election, President George W. Bush was often criticized by then-candidate Barack Obama for his executive overreaches. Candidate Obama even promised to “reverse” the Bush Administration’s expansion of executive authority in 2007. However, no president in modern history has done more to circumvent Congress and rewrite legislation than President Obama has.
While the Obama Administration’s rewriting of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to delay timeframes may immediately come to mind, perhaps the most blatant example of executive branch overreach is the Justice Department’s decision to rewrite more than 50 years of consistent interpretation of the Wire Act of 1961 to allow revenue-seeking state governments to go into the online gambling business.
Perhaps most disturbingly, the Justice Department’s decision is clearly a result of back-room deals, coming without a single Congressional hearing or public discussion on the topic. And, to compound matters, the decision was released on Christmas Eve 2011 – an extreme version of the infamous Friday afternoon news dump.
Since 1961, both Democratic and Republican administrations interpreted the law to prevent states from instituting online lotteries. However, facing pressure from the President’s home state of Illinois and the Vice President’s home state of Delaware, the Attorney General said states can not only institute online lotteries, but also other online gaming, including poker, slots and blackjack.
In addition to the Wire Act of 1951, the Unlawful Internet Gaming Act of 2006 (UIGEA) makes it illegal to transmit or accept Internet payments in connection with gambling. Through these two pieces of legislation, Congress clearly asserted itself. Yet, the Administration used an executive directive to reverse the legislation's clear intent, sending big-spending states facing budget deficits into a furor over which one could be the first to capitalize.
Unsurprisingly, it was the President’s home state of Illinois that struck first, followed by an expansion of online gaming in other cash-strapped states including Delaware and New York. Until recently, Congress was largely silent on the issue. But, last month, the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance held a hearing on the fallout from the DOJ’s hasty decision, particularly with respect to vulnerable populations, notably teenagers and young adults and the elderly. In testimony before the subcommittee, Catholic Advocate President Matt Smith cited the CEO of the leading lottery provider in the U.S., who stated that his company sought to attract “younger players” via online gaming and noted that Internet-based gambling platforms have few protections in place to exclude underage players.
Senior citizen groups have expressed similar concerns. 60 Plus Association Chairman Jim Martin wrote in a letter to Senator Kelly Ayotte, who sits on the subcommittee, that expanded online gambling "leaves millions of seniors vulnerable to losing their life savings to online predators and overseas scam artists who have only been encouraged by this rule change"
Congress needs to reassert itself and make its ban on government-sponsored Internet gambling explicit, taking back control and oversight over trade and commerce in the process. Our elected representatives should be a bulwark against executive overreach and move to halt the Obama Administration's now-familiar practice of legislating by fiat. Vulnerable populations shouldn't have to pay the price for the inability of a handful of liberal states to rein in government spending.
With Online Gambling Fight, Congress Must Regain Constitutional Powers - Ken Blackwell - Page 1
“I think that incident in Switzerland was just an incident in Switzerland. I’m really sorry that it got blown up. I purposefully did not mention the name of the store. I’m sorry that I said it was Switzerland,” Winfrey said, speaking at the premier of “Lee Daniels’ “The Butler.”
In a recent interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Winfrey recalled a clerk at an upscale Zurich boutique refusing to show her a handbag. Winfrey said she was told she could not afford the $38,000 purse.
“I’m in a store and the person doesn’t obviously know that I carry the black card, and so they make an assessment based upon the way I look and who I am,” said Winfrey, who earned $77 million in the year ending in June, according to Forbes magazine.
“I didn’t have anything that said ‘I have money’: I wasn’t wearing a diamond stud. I didn’t have a pocketbook. I didn’t wear Louboutin shoes. I didn’t have anything,” said Winfrey on the red carpet. “You should be able to go in a store looking like whatever you look like and say ‘I’d like to see this.’ That didn’t happen.”
Swiss tourism officials and the boutique owner apologized for the incident last week, but Winfrey insists there’s no need.
“It’s not an indictment against the country or even that store,” she said. “It was just one person who didn’t want to offer me the opportunity to see the bag. So no apologies necessary from the country of Switzerland. If somebody makes a mistake in the United States do we apologize in front of the whole country? No!”
“Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” which opens Friday, documents the civil rights movement through the story of a butler who served in the White House for seven presidents.
Read more: Oprah sorry for Switzerland incident over purse | Inquirer Entertainment
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