Online Casino and Gambling News: May 2009

Harrah's Interactive Entertainment, the new division set up by the giant US gambling group to handle its future online gambling enterprises, will be headquartered outside the United States in Montreal, according to reports this week in the Montreal Gazette.

Event 1 of the 2009 World Series of Poker - the $500 buy-in Casino Employees competition - has passed into the history books with winner Andrew Cohen (39) appropriately commenting that it was more about the prestige of that WSOP bracelet than the money, although the latter was nice, too with the first placing prize at $83,778!

With the 40th World Series of Poker just started in Las Vegas, a new service for poker fans is making an impression, using the trendy Twitter short-comment social network. Poker Road Nation came up with this clever and interesting application, which carries the company's branding and aggregates tweets (brief comments) from professional players involved in the action.

The Herald Sun newspaper in Victoria, Australia reports that Tabcorp is gearing up to answer the growing competitive threat of corporate bookmakers. It response is to give notice of its intentions to offer fixed odds on every race in all three codes by the end of the year.

The legalisation of sportsbetting in Delaware successfully passed through its final stages into law this week as the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that the legislation does not conflict with the state constitution, paving the way for Delaware to become the only state east of the Rocky Mountains to allow wagering on the outcome of games.

The Canadian Internet bingo software developer Parlay Entertainment has reported another disappointing quarterly result in its numbers for Q1,2009, with revenues declining to $1 million (Q1,2008: $2 million).

Earlier this week InfoPowa reported on the case of an Australian grandmother who managed to claim a A$2 million lottery prize after finding a four-year-old Powerball ticket during a clean-out. Days later, Australia produced yet another heart-warming story of an even bigger lottery win on an old ticket.

The Chronicle Herald newspaper in the Nova Scotia province of Canada reports that new software effective in blocking underage gambling has been developed by an American company commissioned by the Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation.

The giant satellite channel Eurosport is to launch an online betting service after being granted an Alderney e-gambling licence. The broadcaster has partnered with Serendipity Investment to set up Eurosportbet.co.uk under the umbrella name of Societe des Paris Sportifs (SPS) - a firm based in Paris and Guernsey - after being awarded a licence by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission.

The planet's biggest poker tournaments launched at the Rio in Las Vegas this week as Event 1 of the 40th World Series of Poker championship was given the traditional "Shuffle Up and Deal" launch by 11 times WSOP bracelet winner Phil "Poker Brat" Hellmuth.