Will the last US-facing online gambling site please switch off the lights?
And then there were… none? The English Harbour Casino group issued notices that it was shutting down Aug. 1, as did VIP.com, Nine.com and BetGameDay.com. A week later, it’s BetJamaica and TheGreek that have shut their doors to US customers.
Potential Full Tilt Poker investors only want the UK and Irish operations
The ‘white knight’ investors negotiating taking a stake in troubled Full Tilt Poker apparently aren’t as pure of heart as players might have hoped. Rumors now suggest the buyers are only interested in FTP’s UK and Irish bits, leaving US players no clearer as to what this means for their frozen funds. Less murky is the news that Phil Gordon somehow got his name dropped from the class action RICO lawsuit filed against FTP principals by some of those same disgruntled players.
Harry Reid & Jon Kyl want feds to block intrastate online gambling
In what could be the worst cast of The Odd Couple ever, US Senators Harry Reid and Jon Kyl co-authored a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, asking him to keep those pesky states from going down the intrastate online poker route, possibly because that might interfere with similar plans at the federal level, which they really, truly, seriously mean to think about maybe considering at some undetermined point in the not too distant future. Honestly.
European Commission says ‘nein’ to German states’ taxation plans
The much-maligned plans by 15 German lander to impose a 16.67% turnover tax on sports betting have run afoul of EU regulators (or as Betfair refers to them, ‘mommy.’)
Playtech in mongo deal with Gala Coral
Playtech inked a 10-year deal to supply Gala Coral with all its digital online gaming needs, then turned around and purchased mobile betting specialists Mobenga. And throughout it all, William Hill didn’t file a single injunction!
World Series of Poker November Nine set
The 2011 WSOP is all over except for the bizarre four-month timeout until we can actually determine who’ll be the winner. Meanwhile, the withdrawal from no longer having to keep a daily tally of all the bracelet winners has left us hanging around jewelry stores to see what kinda bling people are buying.
Harvard Medical School profs prove that unicorns don’t really exist
Actually, Howard J. Shaffer and Ryan Martin poked holes in the mythology surrounding problem gambling and why such misinformation shouldn’t be allowed to deny Americans their basic freedoms. A separate study found that gambling increases happiness in the elderly, and not just because it helps to distract them from the painful knowledge that they can no longer manage a stiffie without pharmaceutical assistance.
It’s second quarter results time!
Among the companies turning in their homework for grading this week were Wynn Resorts, Net Entertainment, 32Red and 888 Holdings.
Viva Italia! Operators get stuck in as Italian market widens
Just some of the companies expanding their Italian online gambling offering this week with regulators’ blessing include bwin.party, Net Entertainment, Ongame, William Hill and Dragonfish.
VIDEO PICKS
Becky Liggero takes a look ahead at what the future holds for sponsored poker pros, while Calvin Ayre takes a look back at his Canadian ranch, where Annabelle the donkey happilyy subsists on a steady diet of billionaire fingers.
