Tuesday, online bookmaker Betfair announced it has signed a deal with the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Test Match Grounds to become the organizations’ official betting partner. The deal comes only months before the start of the English cricket season, which will feature the much-anticipated npower Ashes Test Series against Australia.

The new deal will grant Betfair the use of the ECB logo on its collateral and will see the betting exchange featured prominently on perimeter boards, tri-vision sight- and replay-screen advertising, product sampling and promotional activity at all eight Test match grounds. In a press release, the company said it will use the new advertising space to increase brand awareness and to “(help)… reward existing customers both in the U.K. and internationally.”

“This summer’s cricket sponsorship launches an integrated campaign to underpin Betfair’s standing as sports fans’ betting company of choice,” Betfair director Lee Cowles said. “The npower Ashes Series will be the biggest sporting event of the summer, and provides the perfect platform to take our growing brand to a wider consumer market.”

The company also said it will continue to sponsor the “Betfair Blimp,” which provides Sky Sports with aerial footage of the npower Ashes Series.

Police from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia raided an apartment block in the city one Saturday afternoon. 25 people, including the tournament organizer and some college students who are allegedly part of organizing an illegal poker tournament were arrested, New Strait Times reported. Suspects aged 18 to 30 and two were foreigners, an Indonesian student and 57-year-old Italian national who is already permanent residing in the city. They seized cash, laptops, poker tables, briefcases filled with casino chips and decks of playing cards from the place of incident.
Police spokesman Asst Comm Wan Abdul Bari Wan Abdul Khalid said during press conference at police headquarters last Monday that the illegal poker tournament was organized through a website. Time and venue where it will be held is also detailed in the website. Participants can register online and a fee is required for deposit to be able to participate in the tournament. It is being believed that although this tournament was organized locally, there are foreign gambling syndicates that are also connected in this.

Everest Poker will match the WSOP Main Event winnings of their qualified players up to $1,000,000…and share it with all those qualified…even if you busted out in the first hour! Based on last year’s figures that would mean all 62 Everest Poker players – regardless of how quickly they were kicked out – would have netted $20,000 EACH!

There are many ways you can qualify for the biggest prize in world sport (over $9,000,000 last year) but only with official WSOP sponsors, Everest Poker, could you go home richer even if you lose.

Ed Pownall, Everest Poker PR Manager, commented: “Our aim last year, our first as sponsor, was to encourage more European players than ever before to go to the WSOP which we did. This year we want to reward that loyalty by offering a knock-out reason to qualify with us. This bonus gives everybody hope of winning something even of they are out early on and it will also give an added sense of camaraderie to all those qualified with us.”

Daily Mail, a UK newspaper which is well known for its sensationalized opposition on online gambling sported a headline this week that “there is nearly 200,000 people that are hooked on online gambling”. They pointed that it is the Labour government’s too lax gaming laws that causes to create nearly 15000 new gambling addicts in one year alone.
This was concluded when the newspaper took a survey numbers from the Gambling Commission that shows around 5.6 percent from over 16s had participated in remote gambling in 2008, which is noted higher than in 2007 which is only 5.2 percent. These percentages were applied against the total population of UK with 2.7million online gamblers. This is an increase of 198,000 from the previous year.
An unidentified expert claimed that 7.4 percent of these players will be problem gamblers which mean an increase from the Daily Mail newspaper’s perspective of 14,700 over from last year.
Daily Mail failed to mention that remote gambling per se has a low percentage increase. The biggest increase in gambling must pertain to punters that go to National Lottery. This is the fact pointed during the debate by Britain’s Sport Minister Gerry Scutcliffe. The newspaper also failed to mention that there are different meanings of addictive gambling or “possibly problem gambling behavior”. Definitions to it are notoriously imprecise and inconsistent. People who bet more than twice a week can already be classified “at risk”. An increase in the number of people gambling online does not necessarily mean a significant increase also of addicted compulsive gamblers if calculated against the entire population of Great Britain.
It is also suggest by the Daily Mail reports that an average amount of debt for every problem gambler can be amounted to GBP 17,500. The newspaper also noted that online poker and bingo has increasingly become popular especially among women.

As reported by Gaming Intelligence: “Continuing his efforts to dismantle the anti-online gambling legislation passed by the Bush Administration, Congressman Barney Frank will introduce a bill which would establish a licensing and regulatory framework for online gambling operators before the end of April as a standalone bill.

“Barney Frank, Chairman of the US House Financial Services Committee, told The Hill congressional newspaper last week that the bill, Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2046), would be a standalone bill despite the fact that Republicans added the legislation on the back of a vital port security bill in the 109th Congress.

“Commentators have suggested that the decision to introduce the bill as a standalone bill would make it even more difficult for it to pass through Congress. Congressman Frank said however that it would be ‘inappropriate’ to follow the Republicans’ path. “That is not my intention. It would be a mistake. I want to do this with hearings, discussions and votes,” Frank told The Hill.

“…Jeffrey Sandman, spokesman for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative which backs Frank’s bill, told The Hill: ‘We welcome a standalone bill, which would allow for a thorough discussion of all the issues relating to regulations and consumer protections.

“‘The excitement over Congressman Frank’s bill is that it would create an environment that would protect American consumers and include safeguards against underage gambling and compulsive gambling, which don’t exist right now,’ said Sandman…”

As reported by the Dayton Daily News: “Backers of expanded gambling now are placing their bets on at least three separate proposals for Ohio.

“State Reps. Todd Book, D-McDermott, and Louis Blessing, R-Cincinnati, said on Tuesday, April 7, that they’re drafting legislation based largely on an Ohio Racing Commission plan to put 14,000 slot machines at Ohio’s seven racetracks without a vote of the people.

“They’re gathering cosponsors and hope to introduce the bill next week, Book and Blessing said.

“Separately, Philip Craig, executive director of the Ohio Licensed Beverage Association, said he is gathering legislative support for a plan to permit slot machines at bars and restaurants, also without the vote of the people.

“…Work on both proposals comes with the Ohio Ballot Board scheduled to meet on Monday, April 13, to consider a petition from backers of a proposal for casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo. The board must give its OK before supporters can begin to gather the 402,275 signatures needed to put the proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot…”

On the latest survey, “Betting & Gaming Industry - Business Ratio Report” by Internet business research specialists Research and Markets.com compare compares the financial performance of the leading players in this industry sector, thus offering a quick and cost-effective competitor analysis tool for senior management. They use ratio as an important tool for comparing the performance of companies on a like-for-like basis. By using ratios, you can directly measure or compared with ease the profitability relation such as debt and growth levels of different sized companies. The study made by R&M focuses on the performance of key players in the industry, having closely analyzed the sector. They are also focusing on the 118 leading companies in the Betting and Gaming Industry and their performance for over three years up to 7th April 2008. It is being discovered that during this term, an average company has a 17.4 percent increase in turnover, with sales rising from GBP243.7 million in 2005/06 to GBP271.9 million in the middle analysis year, before peaking at GBP285.9 million in 2007/08. Pre-tax profits increase from GBP8.1 million in 2005/06 to GBP9.1 million in 2007/08, which resulted to an overall increase of 11.6 percent. This study as the authors claim helps to enable the companies in the online gambling space to identify the financial strengths and weaknesses of competitors in terms of profitability, liquidity, gearing, efficiency and employee performance, and benchmark their own business performance. This can also be an effective tool to identify the potential acquisitions using the Performance League Tables.

Thursday, a Swedish court sentenced gangster Rade Kotur, aka “Spelkungen,” or the Gambling King, to 14 years in prison. Kotur stands convicted of instigating a murder, illegal gambling and several other serious crimes.

Eleven others were also tried by the Gothenburg District Court in connection with Kotur’s activities. Among the nine convicted was Nenad Misovic, a 36-year-old already serving a life sentence for carrying out a murder at the gangster’s behest.

According to The Local, an online English-language source for Swedish news, prosecutors struggled to secure the convictions. Several witnesses, the news source said, went into hiding or left Sweden to avoid testifying.

Prosecutors said they would have preferred a life sentence for Kotur, who was arrested in England shortly after police raided 150 suspected gambling dens in November 2007. Initially Kotur was charged in connection with collecting 460 million kronor ($52.2 million) in untaxed revenue from nearly 600 illegal slot machines.

Sentences for the nine others convicted with Kotur ranged from two years in prison to community service. Two of those tried were acquitted.

Monday, Europarl announced that Members of European Parliament will debate a report that would leave regulating online gambling up to individual member states.

The report, prepared by Danish Socialist Christel Schaldemose, was adopted 32-10 by the Internal Market Committee after generating marked controversy. Some 400 amendments were tabled in Committee, with dissenting members maintaining a strong stance against several provisions after the vote.

Schaldemose’s report specifically stipulates the EU take a super-national stance against gambling addiction, personal data farming and match fixing. It also proposes banning credit transactions and setting age limits and includes an amendment by Dutch Liberal Toine Manders that would impose ceilings on the amount a person can gamble each month.

The report would leave other responsibilities, including taxing and policing online casinos and poker rooms, to national parliaments and would generally prevent regulation in line with other internal-market activities.

MEPs are expected to debate the report during the current plenary session.

A scheme to start up the online gambling market in France in 2010 to state-rival internet gambling companies is in the works by the country’s government, it was revealed this week. As said by France budget minister, the online gambling market is going to be open in 2010 and the authorities are going to being granting licenses to companies to run online gambling sites in France the same year, after the country’s coffers have suffered from the losses in the latest years from the state control on gambling. PMU (Pari Mutuel Urbain) is now the only authorized choice in France for gambling, both offline and online, providing more than $6 billion annual to the country’s finances. But force from the European Union for canceling sports betting and gambling domination in the Union has caused the conclusion to release the internet gambling market to other members. The plan indicates that betting companies with license to run lawful online gambling websites in France are going to pay tax of around 7.5% for sports betting and horse racing wagers and 2% for online poker rooms.