Online Casino and Gambling News: February 2009

Casino Rewards, the Australia-based Microgaming online casino operator that owns 18 Internet casinos has announced that it is to diversify its offering by getting into the online lottery sector.

Media Week reports that the Internet betting site Ladbrokes has signed a six-figure deal to sponsor horse racing television channel Racing UK.

A spokesman said that the deal will give Ladbrokes exposure across the channel and its recently relaunched website, which includes on-demand video content and live streaming.

The Cambodian gambling industry has been thrown into uncertainty by the arbitrary cancellation last week of gambling licenses as the minister of Finance, Keat Chhon, complies with an overall requirement from the country's prime minister Hun Sen to curtail the pastime for social and moral reasons.

UK gambling group William Hill plc has confirmed it intends to raise £350 million through a rights issue and has scrapped its final dividend. The proceeds of the rights issue will be used to reduce debt, currently standing at £1.2 billion, the company has disclosed.

The Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute has released a position paper titled "The Truth about Online Gambling" arguing that online gambling is legal in the US despite public misconceptions, and that the Internet gaming industry has been unjustifiably black-balled by US politicians who use fear as a means for furthering anti-online gambling moves.

Internet gambling on Fantasy Sports, one of the notorious carve-outs in national US anti-online gambling legislation, is under the microscope in Maryland, where Delegate John Olszewski Jr., D-Baltimore County, presented a bill this week to a House committee to exempt fantasy sports from state gambling prohibitions.

One of Britain's larger online and land gambling groups, Rank plc (Blue Square Casino), has published its results for the full year to 31 December 2008, showing a bottom line loss of £4.9 million (2007 FY: profit of £311.75)

Since its unveiling at the last ICE(i) expo in London last month, Wagerworks' new online gambing offering, Battleship: Search and Destroy, has been eagerly anticipated on player message boards. The waiting ended this week as the game was released to Wagerworks licensees.

US legislators considering Congressman Barney Frank's renewed assault on the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act may be given pause for thought by a new analysis of the potential taxability of online gambling in the United States just published by top international accounting group PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The dispute between online gambling software provider Cryptologic and its erstwhile CEO Javaid Aziz made it into the pages of the venerable UK business newspaper The Financial Times this week.

The newspaper reported on the events leading up to the latest rejection by Cryptologic of Aziz's demands for an extraordinary general meeting and a presence on the board, and commented that Aziz has been trying to re-establish a foothold to control the company after his departure last year from the CEO position.