Online Casino and Gambling News: April 2009

A recent academic study of online gambling presented by the University of Lethbridge in Canada created acres of media coverage with its finding that Australian and New Zealand gamblers were the worst in the world. But this week it emerged that the wrong impression may have been given because the statistics were skewed by the gambling habits of one high roller.

The Irish minister for sport, Martin Cullen, is unlikely to be the most popular politician with Internet gambling companies in the country following his threats to ban internet betting in Ireland if bookmakers don't cough up more money to the Exchequer to aid the controversial Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund, reports the newspaper Independent.ie.

Online gambling software and games developer Cryptologic has announced a multi-year agreement to supply Internet games to the UK land and online gambling group Gala Coral, which operates four of Europe's most popular online gaming sites. The deal calls for an initial delivery of 10 top online slots

Gibraltar based and UK listed online gambling group PartyGaming plc has signed an exclusive agreement to launch an online poker tournament service in Italy for Intralot S.A., one of the world’s largest suppliers of integrated gaming and transaction processing systems to state-owned lotteries.

Notorious for having some of the toughest anti-Internet gambling laws in the United States, but at the same time an active promoter of land gambling expansion, the state of Washington presents a confusing moral conundrum to both players and industry observers. This week News Tribune writer Peter Callaghan gave the state policies an insightful and incisive examination and came to the conclusion that the state and its legislators are just plain messed up.

Jane Holmes, a spokesperson for the Canadian horse racing firm Woodbine Entertainment Group, outlined the competitive impact of online gambling this week in an interview with the Toronto Sun newspaper in which she claimed that the racetrack is currently losing almost Cdn$200 million a year to what she termed "illegal" online gaming.

Fans of Microgaming's big win progressive slot Mega Moolah are speculating on when the next big jackpot will hit as the top prize approaches the £6 million mark, shaping up towards another industry record.

UK land and online gambling group Betfred has taken advantage of a sponsorship opportunity in the World Snooker Championships following the conclusion of 888's deal at the end of last year's tournament.

Texas Rep. Jose Menendez' proposal to legalise poker in the Lone Star state remained on track this week, successfully passing through the Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee on a 6-3 vote, conditional on a referendum among local communities that would empower Texans to vote on the issue.

Interesting weekend reading came from the Hawaii Reporter, which took an op-ed look at the five dumbest bans perpetrated by the US government - one of them involving online gambling.