However, the main reason why May 25th should signal party time for everyone on this earth is because it is also Calvin Ayre’s birthday.

Seeing that Calvin’s special day magically falls on a Friday, its only appropriate that week’s Becky’s Bender is dedicated to wishing the man who throws some of the best benders in the universe a very happy birthday and another year of health, wealth and living life to the fullest!

You know, the usual.

Get staring!

It’s that time again when the weekend arrives and the only plan is to find the nearest pub and see where the night takes you. By your side will obviously be your mates, a pile of empty glasses and with any luck a beautiful bird come the end of the evening. You’re forgetting something already though. It’s small, sometimes black, sometimes white and if you learn how to press its buttons you can work wonders with the opposite sex. It’s your iPhone of course.

Heading out this weekend we thought we’d set out a five-point guide on how to get the best from this oh-so-essential of toys:

1. Load it up with all the sports apps you can find. One can never ever have too many of these useful trinkets and it will alleviate a lot of boredom if you find yourself having to take part in the walk of shame tomorrow morning. For football fans we particularly recommend the Football App and for those of over the pond I’m told that Canadian app ScoreMobile is the one to go for. It actually focuses on other stuff besides hockey and is up to date almost all the time. How aboot that!

2. Get yourself a copy of THE game. On a stag do earlier this year one of those wearing a pair of antlers brought Rack Stare to my attention. You score points by trying not to get caught staring at a woman’s cleavage and can even buy new women to stare at later on in the game. Definitely makes the Night Bus home a lot more bearable and you get those all important #LAD points in the kitty for playing it.

3. Betting apps. One of the easiest and best ways to entertain yourself on that dreaded hungover Saturday afternoon is to sit in front of the day’s sport and bet in play. We’re not going to sit here and advise on which ones to download. No. We’re going to suggest you get them all and get on OddsChecker to get the best deal. Then sit down. Open beer. Turn on TV. Done

4. Make the Saturday more exciting with a dating app. These are very easy to find and a lot of fun to peruse over on a quiet Saturday evening. PlentyOfFish is obviously the grand-daddy of them all. A friend of mine swears by Flirt Maps. So it really is take your pick and, if you like, see what you can find and take the plunge with one of those fish.

5. Instagram. This begrudgingly makes the list as it’s almost weirder if someone doesn’t have it already. It’s a good way to document the weekend that was and make really horrendous pictures look a lot better.

Check out the party review and pictures here.

Sponsors Betting Promotion, Call Credit, Ukash and Hyperion made free beers, wine, trays of tequila and Sambuca shots, passed appies and iphone cases possible, so we all love them for that.

Hyperion drew a big crowd of 100+ iGaming professionals and the room was jam packed for several hours. The night served as an excellent opportunity for meeting new people, especially seeing as free booze always helps to break the ice plus everyone was wearing a sexy name tag.

As the night went one and more shots were consumed, we had a little dancing in the reserved room and a little mingling in the main area for those who were brave enough to mix with the creeping early 20’s crowd. Yep. Meat market is an understatement.

There were great late night performances by all Hyperion recruiters, significant others of Hyperion, the Ukash Crew, Patrick Sharkey who entertained anyone and everyone hangin’ out in the smoking area and one of the Samvo boys who very successfully tore up the dance floor while surrounded by beautiful ladies.

Pictures from the night available at the CalvinAyre.com picture gallery!

As per usual, iGaming Business has organized a number of parties for four days straight because that’s how we do it in online gambling industry land. Here is your guide to all those official networking parties and if you’re unable to attend but want to know what goes down, don’t worry…we’ve got you covered.

Tuesday, 22nd May:

What: Official iGaming Super Show Welcome Drinks sponsored by Gala Partners
When: From 13:00
Where: The Bewley’s Ballsbridge Hotel, Merrion Road, Ballsbridge Dublin 4
Description: Get your arse in gear and register early for the SUPER Show while enjoying a cocktail with friends and fellow delegates.

What: Opening Party at Alchemy sponsored by Paddy Power
When: 20:00-Late
Where: Alchemy, 13 – 17 Fleet Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Description: Get ready for some Guinness, green cocktails, shot girls and other fun surprises. Party hosts from Paddy Power, natives of Dublin and experts on a good old fashioned Irish inspired night out, promise a craic’n opening party for all SUPER Show delegates.

Wednesday, 23rd May:

What: Happy Hour Networking Drinks sponsored by GameOn Marketing
When: From 18:00
Where: Official Hotel, The Bewley’s Ballsbridge
Description: Swing by the hotel bar after the conference to wet your whistle before hitting the official conference party.

What: Networking Party at ClubM
When: 20:00-Late
Where: ClubM, 3-6 Anglesea Road, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Description: ClubM offers a loungy area, a sexy dance floor and a level that overlooks the sexy dance floor so no matter what your mood is, you’ll find your spot in this joint.

Thursday, 24th May:

What: Happy Hour Networking Drinks sponsored by GameOn Marketing
When: From 18:00
Where: Official Hotel, the Bewley’s Ballsbridge
Description: Here we go again…swing by the hotel bar after the conference to get shitcanned before hitting the official conference party.

What: Closing Party at Vanilla Night Club
When: 20:00-Late
Where: Vanilla Night Club, 29 Morehampton Road Donnybrook, Dublin 4
Description: The decadent Vanilla Night Club is nice and stumbling distance from Bewleys so the perfect location to finish the iGaming SUPER Show with a bang. Literally if you’re lucky!

Friday, 25th May:

What: The Super Show Unwind Session
When: From 13:00
Where: Paddy Cullen’s Pub, 14 Merrion Road, Ballsbridge Dublin 4
Description: For you crazy people who have not had enough, pass the time till your flight departs by enjoying a pint at a traditional Irish drinking spot with gambling industry friends.

And now its time to detox. Forever and ever.

Google

Gartner’s latest figures, which are plotted in Statista’s latest chart of the day, which you can see down the bottom, will make happy reading for most of those in the gambling industry that have jumped on the coat tails of these two OS’s. Of course, if Windows Phone or any other OS makes gains it will be a marvelous opportunity for firms and give even more weight, if it needed it, to the view that HTML5 will be very important going forward. If the others don’t make gains, iGaming industry firms can firmly focus on Apple iOS and Android for growth.

The research company also released figures for all global phone sales and even though phones as whole declined it wasn’t the case in the smart phone sector. It shot up 44.7 percent in Q1 compared with the year before and Statista’s chart shows that 56 percent of the market is taken up by Android (up from 36 percent in Q1 2011) and 23 percent is made up of iOS phones (17 percent last year).

The biggest losers are Nokia’s former OS Symbian, with a drop from 28 percent of the market in Q1 2011 to just 9 percent in the same timescale this year. Research in Motion also continued its descent with a decrease from 13 percent last year to 7 percent this year. The news is hardly a surprise and just shows how far the Windows Phone/Nokia hook-up is going to have to come in order to get close to these two firms.

Statista's Chart of the Day

Also a myth? Gambling as an addiction, at least, according to researchers at the University of Sydney’s Gambling Treatment Clinic. Dr. Fadi Anjoul, who has treated problem gamblers for 15 years, says what most regard as addiction could better be described as “a misguided obsession” that results from “habitual and poorly informed choices rather than biological processes that are beyond individual control.” While others lump problem gambling into the same category as drug and alcohol addiction, Anjoul points to the obvious withdrawal symptoms associated with each and the comparative lack thereof in problem gamblers. Anjoul’s team has developed cognitive therapies to help people understand their own gambling origin story and to change how they think about their relationship with gambling. According to Anjoul, such therapies are proving more effective at ‘curing’ problem gamblers than the traditional addiction/disease model therapies.

Sadly, that won’t stop “gambling disorder” from appearing in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) when it finally hits shelves in 2013. The DSM-V will dramatically widen the net for classifying what is and isn’t considered an addiction and this has critics up in arms. Duke professor Allen J. Frances told the New York Times the DSM-V’s overly broad definitions – the DSM-V adds ‘craving’ something as a symptom of addiction – would lead to “medicalization of everyday behavior,” which in turn would create “false epidemics.” For example, Australian researchers determined that the DSM-V’s expanded criteria would boost the number of ‘alcoholics’ by 60%.

The DSM-V’s defenders in the medical industry claim the new criteria will help them identify addicts at earlier stages of their addictions, which will save costs in the long run. In the short term, however, doctors and mental health practitioners – and the pharmaceutical companies with whom these doctors are closely aligned – will have a lot more patients/customers. And anti-gambling groups will have vastly inflated statistics of ‘addicts’ with which to harangue politicians into restricting or eliminating gambling options for the overwhelming majority of people who gamble responsibly. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re ‘craving’ some music…

Hyperion’s Online Gaming Links Drinks will be kicking off straight after work on Thursday, May 17th at Agenda Bar, a venue fully equipped with a courtyard to enjoy the nice weather…and also one of London’s finest meat markets.

Oh yes, its paaahty time.

Hyperion’s guest list has already ballooned to 130 with a cap at 160 so you best RSVP right now by email if you’d like to join the fun. The theme of these socials is networking with new and old online gambling industry friends while enjoying a cocktail or a dozen, so prepare yourself and that lovely liver of yours!

As always Hyperion has done a great job securing sponsors who make free drinks all night long possible, so lets take a minute and thank our generous friends at:

Betting Promotion
Ukash
Call Credit Group
Hyperion Gaming

and of course Media Partner CalvinAyre.com which means we’ll be there with a camera, the blue mic and a smile.

See you on the 17th!

What: Hyperion’s Online Gaming Links Drinks
When: Thursday 17th May, 6:30pm till late
Where: Agenda Bar, Minster Court, 3 Mincing Lane, EC3R 7AA
Tube: 5 min walk from Monument or Tower Hill.
RSVP: guestlist@onlinegaminglinks.co.uk

There are a plethora of different ways to describe your feeling when you hit that pinnacle of intoxication. More important than finding the words to explain your state are the choice of drinks or, most importantly games, that got you into that situation. In order to aid our readers in their quest for optimal drunken performance we’ve compiled a list of our favorite drinkin’ games to use on a night out.

Grab your deck of cards, cassette player and maybe even a marker pen to join us on a voyage the like of which you’ll never have been on before…

You heard the man

5. Beer pong

This is the ultimate head to head/team drinking game for the competitive drinkers amongst us. In pairs each team sets out an assortment of cups of liquor at their end of the table. It’s then the aim of the opposing team to get a ping-pong ball into your cups. If they do, you drink. There really isn’t a lot else to it. It’s one drinking game where if you practice you can avoid getting absolutely wasted. Who would want that?!

Materials – Beer, long table, plastic cups, ping pong balls.

4. Edward Ciderhands

If you don’t enjoy a delightful 3 litre plastic bottle of cider then we have to admit that this one won’t be for you. Who doesn’t like one of those everyone once in a while though?

The basic premise is that to “win” you must finish six litres of the stuff without having to go to the bathroom. Strategies in the past have involved chugging one and then attempting to use the urinal with the “empty” hand or even finishing the two canisters as quickly as possible. In truth there isn’t really a strategy when you have two bottles of cider duck-taped to your hands.

Materials – Duck tape, two three-litre bottles of cheap cider each, a willing bladder.

Invented by Johnny?

3. Ring of Fire.

No list of drinkin’ games is complete without this one. Widely recognized amongst University students as the game, it’s so good as it can incorporate a series of other games all into one. Like a compendium of board games, only that you play all of them at once and it does make the ultimate game if you have enough people willing to play seriously. The cards are assembled around a central vessel to form the “ring of fire” and from then on it becomes personal to the setting your in with one exception – the king means you pour drink into the central vessel and the last king pulled out has to down the drink. Played three times on the trot it’ll have you on the floor

Materials – A pack of cards, a centre vessel, 5+ participants,

2. Power Hour (UK – Centurion)

The North American version of this game was brought to my attention by none other than Becky Liggero just yesterday when I realized that Power Hour was simply a more fun sounding version of the British classic, Centurion. Power Hour entails creating a mix tape with a minute clip of each song and at the end of each time period you down a shot of beer. It last for 60 minutes and ends with you sprawled over the floor. Over the Atlantic we’re a bit more hardcore with Centurion lasting for another 40 minutes with every tenth shot regularly replaced by a spirit. I’m not gonna lie, aome of the heaviest nights have involved the “fun” this game involves. You have been warned.

Materials – Bowl (to decant beer into), one shot glass each, a tape player or computer with a Centurion countdown.

Unbelievable Jeff!

1. The Soccer Saturday Drinking Game.

For the UK’s legions of self-styled #LADS this game is the ultimate badge to obtain if you end up finishing it. For anyone that has no idea what Soccer Saturday is, it consists of a group of panelists watching games on televisions and reporting back to the host when something happen. The game itself takes place on a Saturday afternoon and gives every self-respecting male, or female, the excuse to drink heavily in the middle of the day – as if an excuse was ever needed anyways! I can honestly say I’ve never got any further than about 10 minutes into the second half with this one given the amount of liquid involved. Anyway here are the rules and come the new season give it a try for yourself.

• Goal = 1 shot of beer
• Red Card = Shot of Jager
• Chris Kamara is talking = You are drinking
• Merson Rhyming Slang = Shot of Jager
• Swindon Town appear on Vidiprinter = Last person to shout “Mackerel” downs a shot
• Dundee appear on the Vidiprinter = Last person to shout “Football” takes shot of Jager.
• Northampton Town appear on the Vidiprinter = Last person to shout out “Cobblers” takes a shot of Jager
• Phil Thompson mentions “Stevie Gerrard” = 3 shots of beer
• Jeff makes an “A Trialist” joke = 3 shots of beer
• Your team scores = 2 shots of beer on top of the one for a goal
• Jeff calls Kenny Deucher “The Good Doctor” = Shot of Whisky
• Any hint of racism (social or otherwise) from any of the pundits = Quadruple jager bombs all round
• Hartlepool score = 3 shots of beer
• Pundit shouts off camera = 2 shots of beers
• Le Tiss is mentioned in the same breathe as takeaways = Shot of Jager
• Chris Kamara says: “It’s unbelievable Jeff” = All drinks must be downed
• Jeff says “It’s Doom and Gloom at…” = Shot of Jager
• The team ‘Keith’ referred to as just being one guy =  Shot of jager
• Brighton & Hove or Dagenham & Redbridge are jokingly referred to as two different teams playing the same oppo = Shot of Jager.
• Anything bad happens to Craig Bellamy (injury, og, booked, arrested for assault etc.) = 2 celebratory shots of the spirit of choice.
• If a James Brown related joke is made = Last person to sing “I feel good” must down drink
• Any talk of Man City “Buying the title” = Down your beer.

There you have our five favorite drinking games. We want to hear what your favorites are, so use the comments box below to let us know how you get your drink on!

Check out the party review and pictures here.

The latter, when combined, is projected to ship 406 million units in 2012 – a number that will reach just 518 million in 2015 and backs up the assertion that laptops are already being replaced by tablets. Gambling is one of the industries that are capitalizing on this growth with optimism around the latest innovations welcomed in this fraternity.

Alongside Asia, mobile is the fastest growing part of the gambling industry with a number of firms posting treble figure percentage point increases in uptake. It’s especially favored by sports fans given the ease of placing bets in the lead up to and during live events.

Statista’s chart was uploaded on the same day that Nielsen released figures showing American’s were ditching so-called “dumb” phones in favor of smartphones. Their research found 50.4 percent of mobile phone users in the have smartphones. The market is dominated by Google’s Android, with 48.5 percent of the 50.4 percent, and Apple’s iOS with 32 percent. Research in Motion lags behind in third with just 11.6 percent.

All of this moves to back up the fact that mobile is growing at a rapid rate in the gaming industry even before markets such as the U.S.A. even start to allow online gambling. Sports betting, which we mentioned earlier, would be astronomically successful in the U.S. It’s unlikely to be regulated in the U.S. in our lifetimes, so short of moving north of the border or to Europe, U.S. citizens might never find out what they’re missing. Outside of Nevada of course.

We started the journey on St. Patrick’s Day at the iGaming SUPER Show St. Paddy’s Day Social, moved on to a swank member’s only club for the Lyceum Spring iGaming Social, got down and dirty at Babble Bar for the SBC Spring Social and next up is the Hyperion’s Online Gaming Links Drinks on May 17th.

Hyperion’s Links Drinks always draw a good crowd and always come with more than enough free cocktails all night long, so clearly you’d have to be mad to miss this one.

The emphasis on the Links Drinks evening is networking and meeting new people, so expect to wear that name tag and bring those business cards because you’re actually going to get something from this night other than a hangover.

In other news, the venue itself a well known after work “meat market”, so who knows, maybe we’ll all get lucky too…

Thanks to sponsors Betting Promotion, Ukash, Call Credit, and Hyperion Gaming for forking out bean to fund the free booze and our absurd drinking habits, plus the venue boasts a huge courtyard, so pray for sunshine AND a liver transplant!

What: Hyperion’s Online Gaming Links Drinks
When: Thursday 17th May, 6:30pm till late
Where: Agenda Bar, Minster Court, 3 Mincing Lane, EC3R 7AA
Tube: 5 min walk from Monument or Tower Hill.
RSVP: guestlist@onlinegaminglinks.co.uk

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The amazing thing about a Sports Betting Community (SBC) Social is that all it takes is free booze, food and excellent company. It doesn’t really matter where we are or what type of entertainment is around, what does matter is the relationships and reputation that Rasmus Soejmark has built to get the right crowd together in one booze filled room.

This time around, the SBC Social was back at Babble Bar, a venue in London’s Mayfair and close to Palm Beach Casino, a place where some unnamed individuals may have wandered and lost some money later in the evening.

Starting from 6pm, around two hundred sports betting industry professionals came to the bottom floor of Babble to network and enjoy free drinks thanks to sponsors Oddslife, Citi Bet, Lotto Network and Betting Promotion. Other treats included passed appies, shots of Sambuca and Jaeger, Oddslife branded cupcakes, several half naked dancers, free issues of Citi Bet Magazine plus an appearance (and some tips!) from ‪Angus “Statto” Loughran‬.

Towards the end of the evening more shots seemed to magically appear and the dance floor suddenly heated up, no surprise there. When Babble started to wind down, the smart ones went home and reflected on their evening of fun while the bad ones went to the casino, another club or some other naughty place.

Good job Ras & SBC, you’ve done a great job yet again!

Let’s start with the hardware. Samsung, being bold as they may be with the new features on this phone, showed that there’s only so far you can go with hardware at the moment. Rather than slapping the phone with a 16MP camera sensor or slimming it down to Motorola RAZR width, they focused more on upgrading the OS on the phone. It ships with Android 4.0 also known as Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) but filled with new features and tweaks you didn’t even know you wanted.

Alright, now let’s get down to business. Let the geekgasm begin.

The phone boasts a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED panel with 720×1280 (306ppi) resolution. Oh sweet HD goodness right in the palm of your hands. Above the screen is a 1.9MP front camera which shoots 720P videos. The back features an 8MP camera that can shoot 1080p video. Don’t knock the simple 8MP camera because it has a few tricks up its sleeve thanks to the new features on ICS. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

The Galaxy SIII will be running on Samsung’s newest monster of a processor, the 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Cortex-A9 quad-core chip and it comes with 1GB of RAM. Mobile gaming just got better.

But I digress.

The Galaxy SIII comes with 16, 32, or 64 GB of internal storage. It also has a microSD slot where you can expand it up to 64GB.   The phone also has seven sensors built-in it which includes an accelerometer, RGB Light, digital compass, proximity sensor, NFC, gyroscope and for some reason, a barometer. I don’t know what that’s about but we’ll never know when a barometer might come in handy. In certain territories like the US, Japan and Korea, the Galaxy SIII will be available in LTE. Other countries have to make do with HSPA.

Now let’s take at look at what Android 4.0 has in-store for us.

ICS comes with new features but let me give you my top five favorite tweaks.

1.) Direct Call. It auto dials a contact if you have their contact details or a message open. All you have to do is move the phone to your ear and the accelerometer, proximity sensor and gyroscope all go into high gear and automatically dials the contact’s number.

2.) Smart Stay. This uses the forward-facing camera to determine if you’re looking at the phone. You can set time intervals from as little as 15 seconds, which result in a small flashing eye logo in the Android notification bar. If it recognizes that your eyes aren’t focused on the phone anymore, the screen dims.

3.) S Voice. Think of Apple’s Siri but for Android. Need I say more?

4.) Social Tag. Integrates Facebook or Google+ to your photo albums.

5.) AllShare Cast. This lets you pair to TVs, laptops or tablets over Wi-Fi, mirroring whatever’s on the Galaxy SIII. Oh and the best part is, you can also use the Galaxy SIII as a game controller. Sweet.

Earlier I mentioned that the camera of the Galaxy SIII comes with a few nifty tricks. When it comes to taking photos, Samsung drastically minimized the reloading time so there’s virtually no lag between pressing the button and taking the photo. It also features Face Zoom which recognizes individual faces and by tapping the face, it zooms in and takes a photo of the person.

It also features Group tag, Face Slideshows and you can take photos while filming. But the best feature would seem to be its Burst Shot/ Best Photo option which basically takes 20 shots in rapid succession and then recommends the best photo. Seems like a pretty cool rival to Apple’s HDR feature.

All of that in a body that weighs 133grams, measures 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6mm. It also comes with a whopping 2100mAh battery. It’s Samsung’s first Smartphone with that type of battery. Simply put, not only is the Galaxy SIII capable of delivering things in all-HD glory, it packs a lot of juice for video playback, gameplay, and talk time. At least, users won’t have to worry about battery life problems with this baby.

While the Galaxy SIII will be available in the US this summer, a specific date has not been given yet for other countries around the world. One thing’s for certain, Android lovers probably could not wait to get their hands on this bad boy.

With that being said, Apple will probably release the new iPhone around the 3^rd Quarter of this year based on how they’ve released previous models in the past. But they better up the ante this time because the new android emperor seems like a tough one to beat.

We’ll start off with the binge-drinkin’ capital of the world…drum roll…the United Kingdom. Thanks to the primal instincts kicking in at all times of the day there are no shortage of eateries to serve up the masses. We’ll start off with a gem of a place in the depths of East London that serves up cheap nosh all night long. Anyone that finds themselves on Brick Lane can identify with the yellow signage of the street’s famous bagel eatery that serves up Salt Beef in a roll that has you ordering three bottles of water to offset the sodium explosion. On the dirt scale it’s a distant second to the selection that is sure to be dirtier than anything you’ve ever seen in the Amsterdam Red Light District – a Lamb Doner Kebab.

It might have originated elsewhere but the British post-night-out staple is a winner for all the wrong reasons. It has the meat, if you can call it that, which is a mish mash off all the bad parts of the baby sheep. The stale pitta that cost 0.0001p at cost price, and to polish it off the obligatory “salad”. Chili Sauce Sir? You’ll need it.

If you took a flight to North America then you find a very different type of cuisine though. Canada’s entry is firmly beaten in the meat steaks but what Poutine lacks in meat it more than makes up for in the sauce and dairy stakes. Montreal is Canada’s city that never sleeps and if you want poutine this is the place to come. Natives tell us that La Banquise is the city’s best and their 25 varieties are served all night long (cue Lionel Richie solo). The good news is they even serve it with meat and the calorific Poutine “3 amigos” is the one to go for. Hot dog sausage, pork sausage, beef sausage and merguez sausage has more pork than an abattoir without an ounce of salad in sight.

In terms of the good ole U S of A you can tell by the size of certain parts of the population that late night food is devoured with ample enthusiasm and it’s no surprise that the staple dish is either a nice greasy slice of cheese pizza. The delicious artificially packed selection weighs in at a MAHOOSIVE 1,309 calories at some eateries and will satisfy the most oversized of late night appetites.

A selection of filthy night out eats wouldn’t be complete without something unpalatable from the Philippines. Balut was described as “shocking” by the person that suggested it to me and the Wikipedia in itself is vomit-inducing when you find out what it actually is – bird embryo in shell with choice of marinade. We doff our hat to anyone that’s taken the plunge and tried it and you’ll be following in the footsteps of Calvin too. We’d recommend it as a hangover cure. If only for the fact it’ll have you heaving before you’ve even eaten it.

Hungry?

So there you have it. The definitive night out foods that we “recommend” you try at least once. If you can think of anything we’ve missed off let us know! Otherwise just remember when you get to the end of the night in the Philippines and are given an egg you know what to do!

Social gaming will be one of those times that one factor in particular contributes to its success. In order to gauge what this will be we decided to ask readers of CalvinAyre.com “what will contribute most to the success of social gambling” in last week’s weekly poll.

Out of the options available a majority of our users thought that social developer innovation will have the most to do with the success of social gambling. 37 percent voted for this option with the belief that if the developers come out with something really special it’ll be a cash cow.

Second up is, you feel, another vital component to throw into the mix – mobile. It’s already the largest area of growth in the gaming industry as a whole and with 24 percent of the poll you guys obviously think it’ll be a player in the social gambling industry.

As we mentioned earlier, Facebook could have much to do with the success of social gambling. 22 percent of you lot voted that it would be single biggest factor. We still wait with baited breath as to whether they’ll even take the plunge.

A lot further back than the obvious three was deals with gaming industry firms. Only 9 percent of voters think this will have an effect and it goes to show that partnerships aren’t likely to mean that much.

Growth in new markets got the wooden spoon with 8 percent.

This week’s poll goes to the other end of the spectrum as we ask which country will be the largest in Macau this time next year? Happy voting!

In the 18+ services arena the gaming industry is one that has been experiencing the same sort of spike for some time and it’s no surprise that the voyeuristic pleasure that is “adult entertainment” is going the same way.

There used to be a time back in the days of the trusty 56k that porn was for those of a patient disposition and creatures of the night. Anyone that could get a 5 minute video featuring some deep down and dirty action was a god – even if they did only come out of their bedroom to top up on Kleenex.

Nowadays the demographic is completely different and it’s something that is also reflected in the gaming industry. Most of us can identify with the image of the traditional betting shop back in the days when you were able to smoke, drink and leer at anyone that entered the shop. Nowadays the image has changed to one that is increasingly dominated by younger tech savvy individuals with smart phones and tablets. The local betting shop will never disappear and is an integral part of many a community but at the same time the industry is likely to continue moving to a more mobile dominated stage

The same seems like happening in the adult industry if this is to be believed with the move from dark dank room to the back seat of a bus now looking like a valid conclusion to make.

Since that dark dank room, the landscape has changed considerably and today’s figures from Juniper just move to back this up. Broadband still has its place for those pornographic epics like the multi-million dollar film Pirates though and there’s a lot that can be said about home computers. In terms of a future even past mobile expansion there will come a time though that a company takes full advantage of the mobile offering and launches something akin to Netflix for the adult industry – the day that also translates to Euphoria for red-blooded men everywhere.

We’ve made it through the iGaming SUPER Show St. Paddy’s Day Party plus the Lyceum Spring iGaming Social and since the online gambling folk in London are clearly alcoholics, we’ve got another one on Thursday- the Sports Betting Community Spring Social.

What separates the SBC Social from some of the rest is the sports book industry slant and organizer Rasmus Soejmark is the master of networking and making intros for his sponsors and guests.

Another beautiful thing about the SBC Socials is that all drinks are free for all or most of the night plus there is always some food passed around so no need to go out for dinner first.

Before attending this goodness, all guests MUST RSVP first and prepare themselves to mingle with 250-300 sports betting industry professionals, some very senior as well so don’t forget those business cards.

A very special thank you to sponsors Lotto Network, Betting Promotion, Citibet and Oddslife for making the free goodies possible and CalvinAyre.com really looks forward to seeing you at this one!

What: Sports Betting Community (SBC) Spring Social
When: Thursday, May 3rd, 6pm- 3am
Where: Babble Bar, 59 Berkeley Square, W1J 6ER
Tube: Green Park
RSVP at LinkedIn events page

The news represents the first time since 1998 they’ve relinquished the spot and today’s Statista Big Chart of the Day, which you can see at the foot of the page, gives an idea of why this is the case. For a while now Nokia has been making a dogs dinner of their assault on the smart phone market. It’s been over a year since they signed a deal with Microsoft to try and remedy this. Needless to say it has barely bared any fruit so far.

One problem with Nokia making a deal with Windows is that it could easily put off developers. We heard at this week’s mGaming Summit that the cost of developing different apps for all version of Android can sometimes be prohibitively expensive. When it comes to entire platforms needing their own apps this only gets more expansive. Therefore if Nokia’s deal with Windows doesn’t bring in the punters it’s far less likely app developers will be jumping at the chance to launch with the two.

Samsung has gone the other way and together with Google’s Android is skipping away into the sunset. The only thing on the horizon that might put a spanner in the works is Apple. That’s been taken care of as well though.

Strategic Analysts are reporting that Samsung has now passed Apple in the smartphone market. Talk about a double whammy! The Korean firm achieved global sales of 44.5 million to give them a 31 percent share of the global market. Apple could manage a mere 35.1 million and 24 percent of the market. From the Cupertino based firm’s point of view that 24 percent is just on one phone whereas Samsung’s spreads across a few. It’s still mightily impressive for the Korean company though.

Nokia lag way behind these two companies with 12 million device shipments in third place. A lot depends on the new Nokia Lumia 900 that runs on the latest version of Windows Phone. If it manages to become popular without either an Apple logo or Android then they could see a recovery. Even more tricky than this will be getting developers on board that are willing to develop apps for all three platforms. If this isn’t the case then the demise of the Finnish-based former plastics specialists could continue unabated.

The photos, most often taken by the naked folks themselves using their reflections in bathroom mirrors and the like, were usually accompanied by screenshots of the subject’s Facebook profiles. The site owners got into this pattern as a way of demonstrating that the subjects were of legal age, but the connection also removed any plausible deniability the nudies may have wished to claim in a desperate bid to salvage some dignity.

Facebook sent the site a ‘cease and desist’ letter in December, citing their outrage that anyone (besides themselves) would dare profit by sharing their users’ supposedly private info. But just last month, a defiant IsAnyoneUp? owner Hunter Moore gave perhaps one of the douchiest interviews ever to the Daily Beast, in which Moore referred to Facebook execs as “fucking idiots” and claimed his response to the threatening letter was to email them “a picture of my dick.”

Once pictures were posted, IsAnyoneUp? categorically refused to remove them unless it could be proven the subject was under 18 years of age. Regardless of whether the law was on their side, most of the subjects lacked the resources to mount a legal fight against Moore, but there were other way of getting even. One irate young woman eventually tracked Moore down and stabbed him in the shoulder with a Bic pen. Moore’s only response was to post photos of the wound to the site.

Then this week, the naked photos disappeared from the site, replaced by a blog post from Moore explaining he’d sold the domain to anti-bullying group Bullyville. Moore claimed IsAnyoneUp? “was a blessing for me and still is, but I am burned out and I honestly can’t take another underage kid getting submitted and having to go through the process of reporting it and dealing with all the legal drama of that situation.” Moore claimed that Bullyville’s founder “helped me realize that my talents in the programming and social networking world could be channeled in a positive way.” Bullyville founder James McGibney also penned a letter on the site, saying “IsAnyoneUp.com served no public good. That is why it is offline.”

Frankly, we think IsAnyoneUp’s demise is a mixed blessing. If there ever was an effective method of convincing teenage girls that it was a spectacularly dumb idea to send naked photos of themselves to their boyfriend because, you know, he loved them, this site was it. Forget parental guidance and public service announcements… There’s nothing like seeing a gynecological close-up of the girl down the block sticking two fingers up her hooha on a site readily accessible by everyone you know to make you think twice about taking your smartphone into the bathroom for a little snap snap, grin grin, wink wink.