Online Casino and Gambling News: November 2008

One of the most frequently rolled out justifications for state gambling monopolies - that these are good for sports funding - has been put under the comparative spotlight by a new survey commissioned by the European Gaming and Betting Association and published this week.

The feisty move by Swedish online gambling company Betsson to challenge Swedish monopolistic practice by opening a land betting shop in Stockholm as reported previously continues to generate headlines.

Mangas Capital Gaming, which owns 75 percent of the UK online betting firm Betclick, will be half owned by Monaco hotel and land casino group Société des Bains de Mer soon following a deal involving Euro 100 million

Online gambling group Sportingbet's belt-tightening has started to deliver results, with a brighter first quarter report that shows a pretax profit of GBP 4.9 million

A long running Irish civil dispute over shares in a lotto syndicate is currently playing out in the courts, and may serve as a warning to the many informal syndicates that share decisions should be documented and reviewed regularly.

Australia's federal government continued to take flak this week in the growing row over its attempts to muzzle the Internet by selective ISP and enforcement actions against sites it deems unacceptable, which include online gambling.

Paul Leggett, the COO of Tokwiro Enterprises, was busy midweek briefing employees on the upcoming Sixty Minutes television expose of the Absolute Poker and UltimateBet scandals and the online poker industry in general.

Interest in the Isle of Man as an online gambling jurisdiction has resulted in the Treasury launching the Gambling Supervision Bill 2008

A UK National Health initiative to provide advice and treatment for problem gamblers bore fruit this week when the first National Problem Gambling Clinic opened in Soho, west London.

Jacksonville's Lottery Post reports that two local men are facing felony charges over a stolen lottery ticket that was redeemed for $20 000, according to a police report.