online gambling

This week the US prosecutors agreed to let two of the three Internet gambling companies mentioned in a $3 billion fraud suit to re-launch their websites, partly to allow customers to cash out their money. The domains of these companies were seized by federal authorities and websites were shut down. 11 people were charged with tricking regulators and banks into processing illegal gambling proceeds.

Bodog, an online gambling company, started to lay odds on whether Facebook will first attract 1 billion users or make an initial public offering.

Well, each of the outcome is possible and seem pretty sure things. In fact, Zuckerberg figures that hitting that ellusive 1 billion user mark is practically a sure thing. "It's almost guaranteed," he says.

So, Bodog is asking in reference to Facebook's user count, "[W]ill they reach 1 billion before January 1st 2012: Yes Evens, No 8/11?"

As the US lawmakers seem to reconsider the legislation for the online gambling in the United States PartyGaming and Bwin have agreed to merge. The merged company will be the world's largest listed online gaming company, with pro forma revenues for 2009 of €682m and earnings of €196m.

Under the terms of the merger agreement 48.36% of the joint company will be owned by PartyGaming shareholders and 51.64% owned by Bwin investors.

The European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) released the rulings on the two cases this week which implicate that EU countries can impose bans on online gambling companies if their aim is to combat fraud. The rulings brought by the ECJ are related to the cases considered by lower instances in the Netherlands.

British bookmaker Ladbroke was taken to a Dutch court by De Lotto, a Dutch non-profit-making foundation which offers games of chance, who asked the injunction on the UK firm’s online gambling operations on the grounds they are not licensed in the Netherlands.

NEOVIA Financial Plc, an alternative payment business, reports that now it provides its payment services to over 85% of UK online bingo operators which includes Wink Bingo, 888 Ladies, Posh Bingo and the market-leading Foxy Bingo.

With NEOVIA’s NETELLER e-Wallet, part of the NEOVIA Payment Network™, being offered on their websites, bingo operators can provide their customers with an opportunity to start playing immediately while also reaching those players who would previously have been excluded.

A prominent online tycoon Daniel Tzvetkoff has been arrested in Las Vegas this morning on charges that he assisted illegal internet gambling companies by processing approximately $500 million in transactions between U.S. gamblers and internet gambling websites and disguising the transactions to the banks so that they would appear unrelated to gambling.

The country, the name of which is transliterated as the “Rich Coast”, Costa Rica represents the only Latin American country included in the list of the world’s 22 older democracies. This Central American country is bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Costa Rica has consistently been among the top Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index.

The introduction of the legal regulation by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) that includes provisions to legalize and regulate Internet gambling under the "Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010” found hot support by an advocacy group The Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative.

Visa Inc followed the actions taken by MasterCard a few weeks ago and blocked all online gambling transactions, as reported by CasinoNews.

The move of Visa and MasterCard surprised the Internet community as the US seems to adopt the proper legislation to regulate online gambling across the nation.

Norway has officially passed a ban on the processing of any unauthorized online gambling transactions into law. Norway’s Payment Act that would regulate such kind of transactions was granted royal assent and thus it became a fully adopted legislation, reports EGR magazine.

Under this Act if the gambling is conducted without a Norwegian license will amount to “accessory involvement” in unlawful gambling.

In another move to take as strict control over the online content as possible China announced the war against online gambling industry including the banks and websites that support it, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement.

The statement says that the campaign will "concentrate on investigating major and important cases of online gambling, knock out domestic and foreign groups that organize online gambling, and severely punish the criminal elements.”

Being one of the Central American countries, Belize has more in common with the Caribbean island-states than with its Central American neighbours. That makes Belize to be culturally unique among Central American nations. This peculiarity is reflected in various languages spoken, like Kriol and Spanish; and English is official, meantime, unlike in its neighboring countries. It is the only nation in Central America with a British colonial heritage, and is the only constituent nation of the Commonwealth of Nations in its region.

A bill to legalize online gambling in New Jersey was recently introduced by Senator Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), who also introduced a separate bill which calls for New Jersey residents to vote on a constitutional amendment that would allow state-regulated sports wagering in Atlantic City casinos, and to state residents via an intra-state Internet gambling system.

Realex Payments, Europe’s fastest growing payment provider, announced its 3-year partnership with global gaming developer Cryptologic, the innovative provider of internet gaming solutions. Realex Paytments entered into an agreement to support Cryptologic’s card processing requirements across its increasing customer base.

According to the reports in the Sunday Times the popular online gambling company PartyGaming is in talks with the Austrian rival bwin Interactive Entertainment over the possible agreement so as to combine their businesses and create an Internet gambling giant.

According to the report the two companies have been holding on-off talks since the summer about combining to create a group worth 2 billion pounds ($3.30 billion).