Let your mouth speak archive

The internet gambling industry requires a number of systems to keep the business viable and one of those services includes storage of the mountains of data that internet betting generates. Icertis shares a close partnership with Microsoft ever since its creation. Microsoft is Icertis’ customer, Icertis is a Microsoft customer whose products are built on Windows Azure and the Microsoft technology stack, and both companies work closely with each other on sell-with and go-to-market activities.

Bwin.party digital entertainment has partners with Icertis. The company has recently announced a partnership agreement with the online gambling company to fulfill contractual requirements by facilitating a safe and common storage solution that effectively manages and monitors their entire portfolio of contracts.
Icertis services will improve user productivity for bwin.party allowing better tracking of contracts including renewal and expiration dates, and strengthen bwin.party’s contracting process helping save costs and allow significant improvement in contract turnaround time. Sports bets are the core business at bwin. digital entertainment today, the sports betting lineup includes more than 90 different sports; the core area of customer interest is football.

Bwin.party has an operating income of € 16.5 million 2012 and made € 24.9 million 2012 in net profit. bwin.party has a leading gaming market position for each of their product verticals that includes online sports betting, poker, casino and bingo with some of the world’s biggest online gaming brands including bwin, partypoker, PartyCasino and Foxy Bingo.
Bwin.party will benefit from the Icertis services in many ways as the leading provider of enterprise solutions in the Microsoft Cloud. Icertis' suite of products and solutions are built around three fundamental principles. Ease of use and deployment with quick return on investment and access to data and business processes anytime, anywhere on any device.
The rapid iterative, agile development to quickly address customer needs surround products and pre-fabricated development with integrated frameworks, helping to diminish deployment timelines, improve time to value, and making employee, partner, and customer interactions more effective and cost-efficient.


Icertis and bwin.party Online Gambling Form Partnership

ONLINE gamblers are more likely to be at risk of becoming problem gamblers, new research shows.

A survey of 4688 Australians who gamble online found 30 per cent of these people experienced low to moderate risks compared with 15 per cent of people who gamble using traditional, "offline'' means.

And Gamblers Help Eastern is seeing one new online problem gambler from across the east each week.

Low to moderate risks include not being able to pay bills, spending more than intended and chasing losses.

Southern Cross University postdoctoral research fellow Sally Gainsbury said her nationally representative survey was the first of its kind on online gambling in Australia.

"When you're gambling online, because it's electronic, it doesn't have the same salience as having that $50 note in your hand," Dr Gainsbury said.

Dr Gainsbury said another telephone survey of 15,006 Australian adults conducted by Southern Cross in 2011 showed 8 per cent had gambled online in the past 12 months.

"That's a massive increase because more than half of these started playing online from 2009 or later," she said.

Her research has found half of problem gamblers betting online have developed their addictions after using internet gambling but half already had a problem before they started using online methods.

"One of the biggest risk factors is being young," Dr Gainsbury said.

Gamblers Help Eastern manager Jackie Bramwell said the centre's counselling services had seen an increase in calls from online problem gamblers over the past two years.

"Every week we are receiving a query or a referral in regards to online gambling," Mrs Bramwell said.

"We need to educate parents and teens on the risks of gambling.

"It's not a game."

If you know someone who needs help or would like to talk to someone about gambling, phone Gamblers Help Eastern on 1300 131 973.

Famous Brazilian songwriters – long activists for freedom of expression – are themselves coming under fire as they fight an attempt to overturn a law allowing celebrities to veto unauthorized biographies.

The debate emerged when the well-known musicians, including Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque and others, spoke out against an initiative by book publishers to have the law declared unconstitutional.

The artists’ vehement opposition drew accusations they were now seeking to reinforce the type of censorship they had always fought.

The songwriters are turning from “being censored to the agents of censorship,” an editorial in Brazilian newspaper O Globo alleged Thursday. “There is no difference from what the dictatorship imposed on them.”

A reader of the Folha newspaper wondered “What happened to Caetano, our idol, who sang ‘it’s forbidden to forbid,’” amid furious commentary from biography authors and other writers.

But Veloso strenuously denied the charges against him and his fellow songwriters, in his own commentary Sunday in O Globo.

“Me a censor? Over my dead body,” the popular singer wrote.

The fight is not about censorship, he said, but about protecting privacy.

“Freedom is nice but not infinite,” Veloso wrote, quoting lyrics by another Brazilian singer, Jorge Mautner.

He and several other musicians have circulated an article on Facebook saying they “don’t advocate censorship,” but they are fighting to avoid “the exploitation of work and lives of others without remuneration” and to ensure that “privacy not be violated.”

In one well-known example, singer-songwriter Roberto Carlos, known in Brazil as “the king,” has used the law to block publication of an unauthorized biography about him for years.

Read more: Brazil singers fight for right to veto biographies | Inquirer Entertainment
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Hi Friends,
My name is Albert, I'm new in this forum

Hello everybody,
my name is patrick and i need help with my statistics research paper. I am currently taking a business statistics class and our instructor has assigned us to write a 10 page statistic paper. the topic i chose was gambling, more specific roulette. i chose roulette because i thought it was an easy topic to analyze because of a constant stream of data. so far i have come up with histograms, expected values and probabilities. unfortunately, my instructor is wanting more. He wants bell curves, regression charts, and testable hypothesis. i dont know where to start. Is there anyone that knows statistics and roulette well to help give me direction on where to take my paper? also i need hypothesis.

thanks

Hi There😡 And Welcome!!

Start with ixgames Roulette - Play roulette game at the casino with strategy and rules.

Sixteen years ago, Congress was so concerned about the spread of casino gambling that it set up a commission to study the issue.

In 1999, the commission recommended a moratorium on new casinos until the government could get a better handle on their social and economic costs. In addition, the commission recommended banning credit card and ATM use at casinos, prohibiting aggressive casino advertising and restricting political contributions by the gambling industry to guard against political corruption.

None of the recommendations were implemented, and casinos continue to multiply. We have nearly 1,000 of them, almost evenly divided between Indian and non-Indian operators. Now a study of government-sponsored casino gambling was just published by The Council on Casinos, an independent, nonpartisan group of scholars assembled by the Institute for American Values, a New York based nonprofit whose mission is "to study and strengthen civil society."

"From time to time," the council states "a new institution takes root across the country, and in doing so changes the nation — changes the physical landscape of communities, impacts the patterns and habits of daily life, affects citizens' and communities' economic outcomes, and even alters relationships" among its citizens.

That is what casinos are doing, according to the study. States' hunger for casino revenue creates a host of problems, from fostering gambling addiction to draining wealth from lower-income people and contributing to economic inequality in America.

Among the council's key findings:

•Once a largely upper-class activity, casino gambling moved to the mainstream of American life.

•The American casino is primarily filled with highly addictive slot machines. It caters overwhelmingly to middle and low rollers who live within an hour's drive away, return frequently and play the slots.

•Modern slot machines transformed American gambling. They are sophisticated computers, engineered to create fast, continuous betting designed to get players to gamble longer and lose more.

•Problem gamblers (those with moderate and severe gambling addiction) account for 40 percent to 60 percent of slot machine revenue.

•Problem gambling leads to debt, bankruptcies, broken families and crime.

•Casinos extract wealth from communities, weaken nearby businesses and reduce voluntarism, civic participation, family stability and other forms of social capital.

•Casinos are the creation of government and its public policies, have a negative long-term economic impact and constitute a regressive tax.

As the result of the weak economy and growing competition, slot revenue at Connecticut's two casinos is down more than 30 percent from its peak (with the state's share dropping from $430 million annually to under $300 million). With Connecticut's casino monopoly gone and mounting evidence of gambling's negative impact, the state should focus on finding non-gambling revenue to replace its shrinking slot receipts.

Instead, our government appears determined to double down and promote more gambling. It recently increased the casinos' free play allowance so they can beef up promotions and has begun to put the state in the electronic casino gambling business.

For starters, the Connecticut recently legalized keno (essentially electronic bingo) for restaurants, bars, taverns and convenience stores. The next day a group of legislators proposed installing video slot machines in Connecticut's OTB parlors.

Still more troubling, Nevada and New Jersey recently legalized in-state online gambling for their casinos, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has indicated he favors doing the same for Connecticut's casinos. The casinos want it to attract a broader and younger audience, and experts view it as particularly addictive because of the fast pace, 24-hour availability and the instant gratification.

The legislature approved keno in the wee morning hours without notice or hearings and after apparently making a secret deal to share the profits with Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. Given the administration's proclivity for backroom deals, the danger is that Connecticut residents will wake up one morning with video slot parlors and Internet gambling without ever having a chance to voice their opposition.

It is not too late to kill keno and begin a vigorous public debate on the future of state-sponsored gambling in Connecticut.



More gambling in Connecticut — keno, online — a bad bet - Courant-com

An estimated 90 million people who participate in social games on the internet are actually playing casino games. As such, game developers are eager to combine the multimillion dollar online casino industry with the multimillion dollar industry of social media.

Popularity of Online Gambling

Three of the top ten internet games are gambling games; at the same time, the top five gambling games - Texas Hold'em Poker, Slotomania and DoubleDown Casino, Bingo Blitz and Best Casino - get a combined number of eleven million hits a day. Moreover, the latest research shows that 53% of Facebook users play social games online, making them prime targets for online gambling's new initiative.

Social gaming and gambling

On average, players participate in social games every two days; gambling sites are only visited every four days. The idea of developers is to mix gambling with social networking so that players will have an added motivation to visit the gambling site and keep players.

Earning money from social gamers

Research has shown that social gamers are hesitant to pay for gaming, but they are willing to pay for virtual goods, extra lives and new features. This means that social media sites can earn profits through bonuses and advertisement. In other words, social media sites (namely, Facebook) have realized that they don't even need players to pay in order to make money - they can bring in profits from a wide array of other sources, all connected to online gambling.



Social Media: The Next Big Thing in Online Gambling - The Headlines - Onlinecasinoreports-com

Having expressed the need for federal minimum standards for online gaming in his inaugural speech during the recent Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, Geoff Freeman, the new CEO of the American Gaming Association (AGA) expanded on that theme in a speech last week in Barcelona, Spain.

Freeman’s urging of the gaming industry to embrace the opportunities created by the digital expansion of gaming was reiterated in his keynote speech to the European iGaming Congress in Barcelona, where more than 1,500 online gaming professionals and executives from Europe and around the world had gathered.

He cited the need for standards that would “make innovation possible” in what he referred to as “one of gaming’s most dynamic eras.”

Freeman outlined his intent to drive a more proactive, aggressive and unapologetic agenda for the industry, describing his organization as “an AGA aggressively in pursuit of growth.”

In outlining his future plans, Freeman committed to moving swiftly to remove barriers to industry growth, educating the public about gaming’s important economic contributions, and ensuring the continued creation of innovative products and experiences – including online gaming.

He told the iGaming Congress attendees the U.S. gaming industry “welcomes new competition” but only within “a legal and fair regulatory environment,” and he strongly emphasized the need for regulation saying, “We are not against regulation. We have never been against regulation. We want regulation.”

But, Freeman called for a more modernized system of regulation, one that allows the industry to thrive in a new era of growth – an era he said will be “defined at the intersection of digital technology and social media.”

He urged support at the state level for an updated regulatory structure that “provides the necessary protections required while allowing us to act nimbly, to be innovative and to grow.”


AGA seeks online gaming standards :: GamingToday-com

Madonna has been banned from a chain of cinemas in the US.

The Girl Gone Wild hitmaker is no longer welcome at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, founded in Austin, Texas, after reportedly texting up a storm at the premiere of 12 Years A Slave at the New York Film Festival on Tuesday night.

Alamo founder and CEO Tim League tweeted on Friday: "Until she apologises to movie fans, Madonna is banned from watching movies @drafthouse."

He also posted a link to a report that the 55-year-old singer lashed out after a fellow audience member called her out for texting during the screening and allegedly said: "It's for business ... enslaver."

Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas is famous for its strict policy of requiring its customers to maintain proper etiquette.

Mr League later told his Twitter followers he was only joking about the ban but has now confirmed Madonna won't be allowed into his cinemas.

He told EntertainmentWeekly-com's Inside Movies: "Yeah, I'm serious, but I don't think it really affects her life that much."

His initial tweet was an "offhand joke, a spur of the moment 140 characters" and was "more of a means to get the issue out there, that it is rude to text during movies".

He added: "But now that it seems to have taken hold, sure, I'm going to enforce it."



Madonna banned from movie chain for texting - Entertainment - NZ Herald News

Is online betting fun entertainment or a seedy fraud? Your opinion likely depends on whether you label it “gambling” or “gaming,” reports a new Cornell study that shows how industry labels help shape consumer attitudes.

“Changing an industry label from gambling to gaming affects what consumers, especially nonusers, think of betting online. A label like gaming prompts all sorts of implicit associations like entertainment and fun, while a label like gambling can prompt seedier implicit associations like crime,” write Kathy LaTour, associate professor of services marketing at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, and Ashlee Humphreys of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

In the study, which is online and to be published in the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, LaTour and Humphreys analyzed media descriptions of online, lottery and casino gambling between 1980 and 2010 in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. They then analyzed coverage of “Black Friday,” April 15, 2011, when the federal government shut down the three largest online betting sites. Newspapers shifted how they described the online activity, framing it more as a crime, which led to a shift in consumer judgments about the legitimacy of online casinos, especially among nonusers.

The authors said that a clear pattern emerged – that lotteries and casinos were associated as legitimate forms of entertainment and business, while online gambling was associated more with crime and regulation.

To better understand individuals’ sometimes-unconscious judgments about gambling, the authors conducted two experiments. They found that “rags-to-riches” narratives prompted favorable associations while “get-rich-quick” narratives prompted unfavorable associations. In a stronger test of their hypothesis, the authors changed only one word in the narratives – gambling or gaming – and found that the gaming label caused nonusers to judge online betting as more legitimate.

This is the first study to examine framing from a macro level, analyzing effects in the media over time, and a micro level, showing the impact an industry name has on consumer perceptions.

“We found that how you label an industry really matters. This is especially true for nonusers or individuals who are not as familiar with the industry,” explains LaTour.

The research also has important implications beyond online betting.

“There is great promise for using theories and methods from linguistics and rhetoric to understand consumer behavior,” the authors conclude, questioning how labeling might subtly affect food choice or brand image. They continue, “Labeling can equally work in the interest of opponents to an industry. Consider the case of fracking. Although industry actors have searched for a replacement term, the practice of extracting energy from below the earth’s surface has become known as fracking, which carries with it rhetorical connotations of fracturing naturally existing rock.”



How you name it matters: 'gambling' vs. 'gaming' | Cornell Chronicle

There’s still about six weeks to go before New Jersey’s online gambling sites will go live for the general public, but the first casino has already been approved to provide games when that times comes. The Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa was awarded New Jersey’s first Internet gambling permit.
#1 to Be Licensed

According to New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement, the Borgata was the first casino in the state to file their completed application to offer online gambling. Having that application completed and approved means that they’ll be able to start offering online gambling on November 21 when the state’s closed trial period starts, and – assuming things go to plan – to the general public on November 26.

“It’s always nice to be first in a queue,” said Borgata president Tom Ballance. “Borgata and bwin.party are aggressively pursuing our objective of being among the first to launch online gaming in the state. We believe online gaming is an exciting growth opportunity for New Jersey’s gaming industry, one that will generate significant benefits for the state as New Jersey assumes a leadership role in this emerging form of gaming entertainment.”

The final approval comes after preliminary licensing for both Borgata and bwin.party. As with most other Atlantic City casinos, Borgata has teamed with an online gambling software company in order to provide games in the state, with both parties needing licenses in order to do so.

Top Revenue Producer

The Borgata is the largest and most successful casino in Atlantic City. Opened just over ten years ago, it leads the 12 Atlantic City casinos in gambling revenue, as it has done almost every month since it opened.

Of course, if you know the Atlantic City gaming revenue numbers for the past seven years, that’s not a very tough race to win.

Just because the Borgata received the first license, no special benefits will be conferred on the casino. It’s likely that several other casinos will also have licenses before the trial period begins, meaning there will not be a situation similar to the one seen in Nevada’s online poker marketplace. In that case, only one site – Ultimate Poker – was given a license before all others, and only months later has Caesars’ World Series of Poker-branded site joined it in offering real money play.

Still, both the Borgata and bwin.party were pleased to receive the state’s first license.

“We are honored to receive New Jersey’s first Internet gaming permit,” Ballance said in a statement.

“This is a big step toward the opening of the regulated market for online gambling in New Jersey next month,” said bwin.party spokesman John Shepherd. “We’re working very closely with our ‘blue chip’ partner to launch Borgata-branded poker and casino sites and our PartyPoker site, which will also offer casino games, on Day One of the opening of the New Jersey market.”

In order to gamble on the New Jersey sites, players will need to be located within the state’s borders, which will be confirmed by GPS technology. Players can participate in the games on a laptop, smartphone, or tablet device. Online gambling will only be available to players 21 and over, and all sites will be operated by Atlantic City casinos.

It is hoped that regulated online gambling could help struggling Atlantic City casinos regain some of their lost revenues. Over the past six years, Atlantic City has lost more than 40% of its gaming revenue, mostly due to increased competition in nearby states.


Borgata Awarded First New Jersey Internet Gambling Permit

Even though G2E (Global Gaming Expo) has long since passed, moments after it ended they were promoting the 2014 model.

Such is the continued attraction of Las Vegas to both the national and international gaming community. While gambling is certainly no longer restricted to Nevada, it was abundantly clear at the Expo that Vegas is where everyone wants to be to promote their items.

And maybe as good an example of this as any is a company called BetConstruct, one of the many online betting operations existing around the world. BetConstruct doesn’t affect Vegas right now because of our country’s incredibly naïve and primitive view of the gaming industry, still perceived to be sinister and corrupt.

Meanwhile globally, gambling is embraced. Online poker, slots, table games, sports betting, presidential elections, the royal family – almost anything can we wagered on. While we live in the virtual, it’s sobering to see just how far advanced this industry is globally and how we are missing the boat financially.

BetConstruct operates out of Armenia and Malta. I don’t know if many of us have been to those places in Eastern Europe, but if you see this betting operation, you would think home base is Silicon Valley.

When I spoke with Anahit Grigoryan, sales manager for BetConstruct, there were 107 live sporting events going on around the globe. The betting was brisk and on large TV monitors for all to see.

“We have more than 10 years history,” Grigoryan said. “Our technical developers are in Armenia. We have clients from Europe, Russia, Africa and Asia. None from the USA.”

Sports betting is the most popular form of gambling in Armenia, a small Christian nation surrounded by mountains and located near Georgia, Turkey and Azurbaijan.

BetConstruct develops, provides and manages a complete range of products for online and land-based gaming companies. While specializing in sports books, the product range also includes poker, skill and casino games.

“I like Las Vegas but would never leave Armenia,” Grigoryan said. “I am a patriot. There are a lot of freedoms here in Las Vegas but I would never think of leaving my country. And even though I find this business interesting, I don’t gamble and have no need to.”

And as for betting on politics, the 2016 U.S. presidential election leads the way with 56 possible candidates listed on the Bet board.

“Hillary Clinton is the favorite,” Grigoryan said. “My company is competitive and affordable to those who bet with us.”

The most popular sport to no surprise is soccer with Spain’s, Great Britain’s and Germany’s leagues drawing the most interest.

“My country likes the challenge of sports betting,” Grigoryan said. “I’m glad to be able to show people here what we do.”



All bets are on outside the U.S.A. with online betting :: GamingToday-com

It’s interesting to note that noontime TV rivals, “Eat Bulaga” and “It’s Showtime,” conducted recently contests that both highlighted Filipinos’ penchant for impersonation—“Eat” with its “Ikaw at Echo” sing-alike tilt and “Showtime” with its “Kalokalike” contest.

The “Echo” competition discovered some vocal standouts who not only sang well on their own, but were convincingly able to “channel” the unique and “signature” vocal stylings of local and international singing stars.

For its part, the second annual “Kalokalike” finals on “Showtime” was won by a local Nicki Minaj impersonator. We liked her savvy decision to choose an international star who would be relatively easy for a Filipino to approximate visually.

Another convincing standout was the young tisoy who astutely picked Rowan Atkinson’s “Mr. Bean” character to personify. He was able to mimic not just the “cartoon-y” character’s idiosyncratic looks, but also his comedic movements and funny antics.

A winner

He was a winner in our book, because what he did went beyond imitation—it showed that he had the sensibility to “understand” where the comedian’s antics were coming from.

This was an improvement over last year’s winner, a Christopher de Leon look-alike, who was more predictable and superficial in his approach.

In this regard, the “Kalokalike” tilt has done better on its second year, so things are looking up!

As for “Eat’s” “Echo” sing-alike tilt, we hope that it, too, will continue to prosper, since singing stars’ local “versions” remain popular with the local show biz audience.

Copycats

It’s similarly relevant to note that some local singing and dancing “copycats” have gone on to become stars in their own right, like local “Frank Sinatra” Bert Nievera, eventually finding his own voice, persona and style, and Gary Valenciano leaving his original Michael Jackson “peg” far behind.

Having said which, we should remind ourselves that, when push comes to shove, our penchant for impersonation and imitation is a surviving “symptom” of our “deathless” colonial mentality, which we obediently derived from our Spanish and American colonizers, who “taught” us that their way of doing things was inherently “better” than our indigenous practices and products.

So, let’s enjoy all those cute and clever impersonations, but we should look forward to the day when they don’t subliminally mean that foreign is better than local—

because it’s not!

Weaning ourselves from the colonial cultural “teats” we’ve gotten used to suck won’t be easy, but we really have to do it if we want to no longer be subliminally and psychologically dictated to by our foreign “teachers.”

Preferences

In the pop-cultural field, we should learn to prefer local entertainers who are confident enough about their own talent and musical style that they don’t need to ape foreign singers in order to make a vivid impression. We should also favor interpretations and meaningful, expressive nuances over sheer vocal bombast!

The fact that foreign songs and revivals are currently preferred by many of us indicates how difficult the transformation will be—but, we need to do it to truly come into our own.

Read more: Finding our own voice
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The Golden Nugget Atlantic City has received New Jersey's second Internet gambling permit.

The state Division of Gaming enforcement awarded the casino its permit on Wednesday. The Golden Nugget is Atlantic City's second casino, after the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, to receive permission to start Internet gambling once it launches in New Jersey next month.

Online gambling will begin with an invitation-only trial period on Nov. 21. Assuming all goes well, full-fledged Internet gambling will begin on Nov. 26.

"All players that desire to gamble online deserve a fair and trustworthy experience," said Tom Pohlman, the casino's vice president and general manager. "Rest assured, that is our customer commitment, and unlike others, we have an Atlantic City land-based casino to stand behind our online brand."

The Golden Nugget will offer Internet gambling under its own brand, GoldenNuggetCasino-com and GoldenNuggetPoker-com. It is using Bally Technologies as its online technology partner.

Aside from an acknowledgement that state regulators feel confident of a casino's preparations for online betting, there is little practical benefit to receiving an Internet gambling permit early. Any casino that wants to offer online gambling must receive a permit, and getting one early does not allow them to begin taking online bets before the state startup date.

New Jersey is the third state in the nation to offer online gambling, along with Nevada and Delaware.

Online gambling is designed to give the struggling casinos new revenue, though some worry the in-person business will simply migrate to computers, leading to casino job losses.

Atlantic City's casino revenue has plunged from a high of $5.2 billion in 2006 to a little more than $3 billion last year and could dip below that mark by the end of this year. Thousands of casino jobs have been lost already as many gamblers choose options closer to their homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland.

All table and slots games available in the casinos will be available online once full play starts.

Gamblers will have to be physically located within New Jersey's boundaries to play.

Of the 12 Atlantic City casinos, only Revel Casino Hotel and The Atlantic Club Casino Hotel have not divulged their online gambling plans.

Read more at NJ gives Golden Nugget an Internet gambling permit

London-listed 888 Holdings is expecting to start to see the benefits from next year as a number of U.S. states ease a ban on Internet gambling.

888, which runs online gambling and poker sites, is already operating in Nevada, with markets in Delaware and New Jersey expected to go live in the coming weeks.

"In 2014, we should start to see some meaningful revenues come through," Chief Executive Brian Mattingley said, talking about prospects in the American market.

Internet betting was banned by the U.S. Congress in 2006, dealing a blow to companies such as 888 which had set up in the United States. However, tax-hungry states are now relaxing rules, creating opportunities for European players with years of expertise in the sector.

Mattingley said he was optimistic that larger states such as New York and California could be among the next to liberalise, although adding that the regulatory process was notoriously hard to predict.

"California is the prize. We are working flat out to identify some quality partners out there," he said.

In a trading statement, 888 said group revenues rose two percent to $94 million in the third quarter and that it was trading in line with its expectations.

Shares in the company were slightly up, 0.24 percent, to 164.4p at 0730 GMT, valuing it at around 575 million pounds ($918 million).

Analyst Ivor Jones of Numis noted that revenues had been increasing more rapidly earlier in the year.

"Growth in the U.S. is coming along just in time to offset slowing growth in some of the current core products," he said.



888 sees revenue boost as U.S. states ease online gambling ban | Reuters

The expanding use of the internet to gamble has grown in relationship to the technology available to the player. At first the use of computers to gamble with were big desktops and the computing power was enormous.
It wasn’t long before the lap top overtook the big machines and made gambling more portable. Now with the advent of smart phones and tablets gambling on the net has become a pastime that is fast, convenient and portable.

BBC’s Newsbeat reported that for the third consecutive year a rise in the number of 18 to 35-year-olds contacting the advice service. The increased use of smart phones and online betting availability appears to be the reason behind the change.
GamCare is the leading provider of information, advice, support and free counselling for the prevention and treatment of problem gambling. GamCare takes a non-judgemental approach to gambling. We do not wish to restrict the choices or opportunities for anyone to operate or engage in gambling opportunities that are available legally and operated responsibly.
Gamcare reported the number of 18 to 35-year-olds that rang the service last year was 5,552, 6.5% more than the previous year’s total of 5,215. An even younger sub-section of that group – 18 to 24-year-olds -make up 30% of the calls made to Gamcare with 8,813 people contacting the service throughout the year.
Those opposed to internet wagering have used these stats to point out that the accessibility factor with the use of smart phones and tablets has given rise to increased addiction to gambling. The simplest and most obvious line of thinking is that the more available a gambling service is, the more problems that it will cause.
This logical train of thought is compelling but as other research has contended there are some benefits to the online gambling trend.



Mobile Online Gambling Increasing Problems

With online gaming in New Jersey just around the corner, at least one prospective internet operator is getting started on its marketing early. London-based Betfair has launched two sites – LetsPlayNJ-com and BetfairNJ-com – to begin hyping its internet gambling offering in the Garden State.

Both websites are exactly the same and both actually display the “LetsPlayNJ-com” banner. They are well-designed and attractive, featuring a dark yellow-orange background and black and white graphics and text. To get people in the mood to gamble, the sites provide a three question quiz about various games. An airplane smoothly scrolls down the page as you advance to the next question and, in a creative touch, a large roulette wheel on the right side of the page also turns as the page scrolls.

At the end of the quiz, visitors to the sites are given an opportunity to enter their e-mail and zip code so that Betfair can keep them informed about future developments, namely the launch of online gambling in New Jersey.

Speaking of that launch, the state announced earlier this month that sites will go live on November 26th. For the five days prior to that, there will be a “soft launch” of sorts during which the sites will be tested to be sure everything is running smoothly.

Though Betfair has revved up the marketing, it has not actually been licensed yet by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE). As it says on the bottom of the two sites, “The future availability of Internet gaming services on Betfair-com in New Jersey is contingent and conditioned upon the issuance of all necessary approvals, licenses and permits by the State of New Jersey including, but not limited to, all approvals, licenses and permits required by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.”

Though the launch of online gambling in New Jersey is only a month away, the granting of licenses has been slow. To date, only the Borgata has been approved by the DGE, or at least that is the only approval that has been made public.

All online gaming operations in New Jersey must be house in one of the dozen Atlantic City casinos. As such, Betfair has partnered with Trump Plaza to offer games to players located within state borders. Each of the dozen casinos has found an online operator partner. Caesars, which owns four Atlantic City casinos – Bally’s, Caesars, Harrah’s, and Showboat – has teamed up with 888 Holdings, Trump Taj Mahal has struck a deal with Ultimate Poker, Tropicana and Gamesys are paired, Borgata and bwin.party are working together, and Resorts Casino Club has joined up with PokerStars.

Both the Revel Casino Hotel and the Atlantic Club Casino have formed partnerships, but neither has announced the details.

Wynn is also in on the action, even though it does not own a casino in New Jersey. In order to operate an online gaming site, it has inked a deal with Caesars in which one of the Caesars casinos will host Wynn’s servers.




Betfair Begins New Jersey Online Gaming Advertising

A new government sets out to open up Norway’s restricted gambling market.




The new governing coalition in Norway, which took power on October 14, has said that it plans to liberalize the Norwegian online gambling market and allow market access to foreign operators.

Online gaming and mobile gaming will be introduced in November. 64 new online games will be offered, including video poker and 35 different casino games.

Playing hours will be restricted to 7am to 3am, and there are strict daily and monthly loss limits. The maximum monthly limit is Kr10,000 ($1,640), but even that is a massive increase from what has been previously allowed.

Frustrated Norwegian gamblers have instead turned to the gray market, which has flourished. The government has made attempts at restricting foreign operators, but with little success. Freedom of speech laws make it hard to enforce advertising restrictions, although some cases have been prosecuted.

Attempts to use a UIGEA-like law foundered because the Norwegian banking system does not process enough of the transactions and alternative payment processors are freely available to Norwegian citizens.

Correction: The article originally stated incorrectly that online poker would be introduced in November, due to mistranslation. The Norsk Tipping expansion will include video poker and casino games only.



Norway to Liberalize Gaming Laws, Allow Foreign Operators | Pokerfuse Online Poker News