-
News Categories
-
News Archives
-
Other Resources
- Big Daddy Poker - Everything Poker, All The Time!
- Resources
Free Flash Slot Games
Free Flash Blackjack
Canadian Casinos 
German Casinos 
Spanish Casinos
UK Casinos
French Casinos
Italian Casinos
Japanese Casinos
Belize Authorities Hunting Unlicensed Online Casino Operations
A scandal started by the busting of an illegal online casino by Israeli police has led to disclaimers and a supposed investigation by Belize authorities, who say the Internet gambling operation was clandestine and unlicensed.
Play Now at Slots Oasis! Following last week’s declaration that an Israeli online casino operation had been lying about supposed licensing in Belize, law enforcement officials in the South American country say they are investigating to see if more unregulated Internet gambling sites are using Belize as a base.
The arrest in Israel of brothers Idan and Shai Raviv led to the statement by the Belize government that the operation, illegally taking plays from Israeli citizens, had never been licensed or applied for regulation by the country. According to a statement by Minister of Economic Development Lincoln Blake, the only companies authorized to run online casinos from Belize are Fulton Data Processing and Sports Offshore Limited.
“Any other company that claims to have such a license from Belize is clandestine,” Blake told Belize Channel 5. “We ask all Internet users to refrain from doing business with these.”
Blake added that any operator seeking to base in Belize must apply for a license, as specified under the Gaming Control Act.
“They must follow strict requirements and they must have a proven track record in gaming,” said the Minister.
While the government denies any connection to the Israeli operation, some witnesses from the online gambling community has stated they were introduced to the Raviv brothers by members of the Belize administration, who seemed friendly and familiar with the two.
Good Sign for 2010: PartyGaming Reports Better Online Poker Business
But finally, good news emerges: In what might be a positive sign for the entire online gaming world, PartyGaming has reported that its poker room revenues have finally returned to a growth stage after six quarters of decline.
According to London’s Financial Times, the upward trend began at the end of September. Prior to that, PartyGaming’s poker room had been struggling against major competitors such as Full Tilt Poker, which has been aggressively expanding overseas (and into PartyGaming’s market).
“In a note, Morgan Stanley attributed three reasons to the poker revenue recovery,” writes Roger Blitz in the Financial Times article, “a more regulated European market; the strength of the dollar (the currency in which players play and PartyGaming reports its numbers); and the company’s loyalty schemes.”
This could mean that online poker players are finally comfortable with spending more playing poker on the Internet again, after months (years, really) of skittishness. Or it could just mean that PartyGaming’s leaders have hit upon an effective new strategy. Either way, it’s likely to be good news for the industry as a whole.
Did Tiger Woods Have A Gambling Addiction Too?
Reports began surfacing this week that disgraced golf champion Tiger Woods was into more than just “other women”. Tiger Woods also apparently had a gambling addiction.
From The Examiner:
Woods became a regular at the Mansion, a club for high rollers at the MGM Grand casino, where he was given a $1m betting limit and routinely played blackjack at $25,000 a hand.
From The Money Times:
“Tiger’s favorite clubs were the Mansion, the Bank and Tryst, all known for their discretion with high-end clients. His table always had to be filled with hot party girls and he loves being catered to,” a Vegas nightclub source told the Sunday Times.
Woods was always in the company of other multi-millionaire athletes wagering at the casino. They were all pampered by girls; it was more of a norm than an exception.
Emma Trotter, a Vegas nightlife reporter, told the paper, “The VIP host at the club of their choosing will arrange everything for them. You might say you want 20 girls, half brunette and half blonde, and the nightclub will make it happen.”
Facebook to Ban Online Gambling Ads
The popular social networking website Facebook.com has come under fire this week for its updated privacy policy, much of which is an attempt to bring additional exposure to the site’s advertisers. Now they have announced that online gambling related ads will be filtered.
The new rule applies to the so-called ‘morally unacceptable’ products such as those dreaded spy cameras, firearms (these include paint ball guns), tobacco products and just about anything related to gambling, including bingo.
The site gets more specific when it comes to gambling, making mention of the filtering of online gaming sites that, in addition to bingo, includes poker, casino games and sportsbooks.
Inflammatory religious content, politically religious agendas and nudity have also been targeted by the new policy.
Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
California Online Poker Hearings in February
Perhaps making the most of the United States’ new found interest in possibly giving online gambling regulation the attention it deserves, the state of California has also resumed its own separate drive to fully legalize online poker within its borders.
A group that was led by a powerful casino-holding tribe started the initiative last summer, but couldn’t make much progress given the state’s budget crisis. And even though that crisis hasn’t gone away — or more likely because that crisis hasn’t gone away — the same group is taking another crack at the goal of online poker regulation early in 2010.
And with good reason: “California Internet poker games could bring in at least $1 billion annually,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle. “If the state were to tax those games at the same 25 percent rate that it gets from the slot machines at Indian casinos, that would mean an extra $250 million a year.
“Small wonder that the chair of the Governmental Organization Committee, state Sen. Roderick Wright, D-Inglewood (Los Angeles County), said that he’s planning hearings in February. So far Wright’s chief concern seems to be getting a bill that would win the support of the Indian tribes (which, coincidentally, donated $50,000 to his election last year).”
Ironically, given the fact that it was Indian tribes who first started this drive, it may also be tribes that kill it. Casino revenues are extremely competitive in the state, and any deal that doesn’t include a majority of tribes may not get very far.
So, the state has its work cut out for it. And it will have to act before any kind of federal regulations are passed (but that doesn’t seem like a problem). It’s good to see a state trying to get something done on the issue.
Offshore Sports Betting Sends US Resident to Jail
The story of an online sports betting operator’s long case and final plea arrangement sets the tone for all US prosecutions of online casinos thereafter.
A Florida resident, James Giordano, ended a years-long fight with US officials by accepting a plea bargain on charges of illegal gambling related to sports betting run at offshore locations. Although Giordano says no employee ever accepted a bet on US soil, allowing US residents to play at the Internet gaming sites was enough for law enforcement to pursue and prosecute him.
Giordano told the Miami New Times that government prosecution of him is “hypocritical.”
“If you want to bet the [New York] Giants, you have to fly to Vegas,” stated the ex-online gambling magnate.
Giordano, who had had several run-ins with the law regarding running sports books in New York, decided in the late ’90s that he could avoid his legal hassles by setting up an online gambling site, run on St. Maarten, which allows sports betting. He was licensed by the Netherlands Antilles government.
Giordano recruited famed maverick Al Goldstein to help publicize his operation, which became PlayWithAl.com. Making tens of thousands of dollars a week, Giordano moved to a South Florida mansion, while maintaining his servers in St. Maartens and expanding to Costa Rica.
US authorities set a precedent with Giordano, as his company became the first foreign Internet operation accused of criminal behavior in the US, without any base in the US.
Giordano accepted a five month sentence, a $1 million fine, and the loss of another million which had been seized. Considering police claimed the sports betting site had booked over $3.3 billion in just more than two years, a number Giordano calls preposterous, federal officials may have been quick to close a weak case.
As for Giordano, he says he conducted all business on the up-and-up, paid taxes, and broke no laws. But he worried unethical and illegal conduct on the part of prosecutors could continue, leaving him in the right but receiving a much worse sentence.
The form by which US authorities would attack online gambling had emerged. Using the power of the government to cost defendants millions of dollars and destroy lives, prosecutors would not worry about law, but simply bully and intimidate operators into taking half-baked plea arrangements and non-prosecutorial settlements.
Published on December 14, 2009 by Ed Bradley
Poker Ducks Bites the Dust
The latest casualty of the online poker room wars is a little-known room called Poker Ducks (www.pokerducks.com), which has shockingly pulled the plug on itself without any explanation or prior notice.
A notice currently posted on the Poker Ducks website simply states:
“Poker Ducks is closed.”
No explanation or other information about the closing is posted on the site, including info on when and how Poker Ducks customers can collect the monies in their wagering accounts.
Little is known about Poker Ducks, which was not a major player in the Internet poker industry.
Poker Ducks had one paid flack, Swedish poker pro Christer Johansson, who promoted the website and also posted on-site answers to e-mailed-in questions about poker.
Johansson won the 2009 Irish Open poker tournament.
According to the Poker Ducks website, “Poker Ducks’ goal is to offer a site that is fun and interesting for our players…Poker Ducks’ number one priority is that you as a player shall be satisfied…
“Poker Ducks is a partner of Tain Poker, who has a license from Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC). All games is played within iPoker network.”
Savvy gamblers know, of course, that a license from the KGC means nothing and is as worthless as Confederate money.
The KGC, a small panel of Canadian Mohawk Indians, is best known for regulating tribe-owned online gambling sites that are run from the tribe’s reservation outside Montreal.
In addition, Poker Ducks claimed to be located in Malta, a tiny Mediterranean island nation that licenses numerous online gambling sites.
However, Malta’s Lotteries and Gaming Authority, which does that licensing, issued a press release in 2006 that read, in part: “The Lotteries and Gaming Authority would like to bring to your attention that a foreign remote gaming company by the name of Poker Ducks is claiming that it is being located in Malta and therefore winnings for European Union citizens are tax-free.
“The Authority would like to inform the public at large that the above statement is not true. Pokerducks.com has no connection whatsoever with the Maltese jurisdiction.”
By Tom Somach Gambling911.com
Israel Based Online Gambling Site Internet1×2 Busted
A 10-year old troubled online gambling site that specialized in soccer betting has been busted up by Israeli police resulting in the arrests of 5 people.
Internet1×2.com (at one time also affiliated with a website called Yahoops.com, which the search portal Yahoo! threatened to sue) operated out of Israel and the Central American nation of Belize. The company was started by two brothers, both of whom were former Israeli basketball players. The online sportsbook has long endured a checkered past of slow pays.
Police on Tuesday uncovered the illegal online gambling network, according to the YNet news organization.
At the end of a lengthy undercover investigation, police arrested five people suspecting of operating an offshoot online gambling network directed at Israeli gamblers.
Other suspects, who police believe were involved in providing technical support to the websites, and managing finances and payments, were also detained, according to the report.
Some gamblers were detained as well.
Israel has increased its efforts to crack down on illegal online gambling operations over the past year.
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
eDeck – Vegas Online Gambling To Go
Looking to gamble but tired of those smoked filled casinos in Las Vegas? Want to get back up to your room but still enjoy the fun of playing blackjack, baccarat, slots, video poker, and roulette? Well a company called Cantor Gaming has created the eDeck for players just like you! A hand held wireless device that will let gamblers do their thing anywhere (well anywhere in the Venetian Hotel and Casino). Initially the pre-mentioned games will be av available with, live-action poker, sportsbook betting, and proprietary games coming soon. Testing for the eDeck will commence in the Venitian Hotel’s high stakes slot lounge with plans to offer the service throughout the hotel soon.
PPA Responds to Online Gambling Hearing
In last week’s hearing in the U.S. Congress regarding the potential regulation of online poker, the main piece of data to emerge seems to be the fact that those lawmakers opposed to regulating online poker claim to fear the risks of fraud.
That seems a bit counter-intuitive — if the risk is so great, after all, it would seem to present a need for more regulation, not less. On these grounds, some pro-online poker groups are debating the charge.
The Poker Players Alliance (PPA), often at the forefront of issues of legalizing online poker in the United States, has issued a formal letter of response stating the reasons why the Republican legislators’ claims are not valid.
“Every concern the letter raises is better addressed by licensing and regulation than by prohibition,” states PPA Executive Director John Pappas in a press release. “The letter misconstrues much about the current state of online poker, but it does so in a way that clearly makes the case for why federal oversight is necessary.”
CSR Approved Casinos
