Online Casino and Gambling News: August 2010

During the last 48 hours a player at Microgaming powered casino Spin Palace has hit the Mega Moolah Summertime progressive slot for $4,170,128. Full details are currently awaited from the operator regarding how the lucky punter managed to crack the life-changing win.

News of a cricket betting scandal involving the touring Pakistani team broke over the weekend and has topped most British, Australian and Pakistani headlines. British police detained bookie Mazhar Majeed, interviewed four players including captain Salman Butt, and confiscated cell phones for further examination.

This weekend a Skybet online sports gambler in Hampshire, England will be breaking out the champagne and celebrating two remarkable five-fold accumulator bet wins within 24 hours of each other.

Tom Malkasian, a director of the Commerce Casino, has responded to the Poker Players Alliance's 'Players Before Profits' campaign in which the million strong action group urged US players to voice their disapproval of the Californian card room's opposition to federal legalisation of online poker.

Residents in the Alberta province of Canada like to gamble, and to a lesser extent enjoy throwing back the odd alcoholic beverage, it appears from recent survey results published by the National Post newspaper this week.

Net revenue from provincial government-run lotteries, video lottery terminals, casinos and slot machines not in casinos totalled Cdn$13.75-billion in 2009, essentially unchanged from the year before, Statistics Canada reported this week.

The Gauteng Gambling Board's claim that online gambling is illegal in South Africa following a judgment in the North Gauteng High Court last week continues to generate discussion and argument in the country.

The finance minister for the Prince Edward Island region in Canada says the government is considering joining the Atlantic Lottery Corporation's initiative to bring online gambling to its residents.

Taking many industry observers off-guard late Thursday was a press release from the largely unknown e-gaming firm Blanca Games revealing that it has acquired the interests of the Cereus poker network formerly owned by Tokwiro Enterprises and including well established if at times controversial sites Absolute Poker and UltimateBet.

The one million member online poker action group Poker Players Alliance came out with all guns firing this week in a press release criticising the Commerce Casino for its opposition to the federal legalisation of online gambling.