Included in the product release Chartwell’s new Rapid Game Deployment architecture – part of the Chartwell Games Platform – which will enable Victor Chandler to integrate forthcoming casino games with no downtime.

With this software upgrade, Victor Chandler is ready to launch Chartwell’s Live Dealer product when it launches in the next couple of weeks.

Victor Chandler has also deployed two of Chartwell’s latest slots – Angel’s Touch and Draco’s Fire , which add to their online suite of over 100 Chartwell casino games. The slot, Bars and Bell, as well as Sinful Spins, will soon follow as well as a selection of Novomatic games.

“We are proud to continue to bring great new games to market and to work closely with loyal partners such as Victor Chandler,” said Dan Phillips , the CEO of Chartwell Games (International) Limited.

Andrew Dymock, the Head of Casino & Games at Victor Chandler, commented: “We at VC continue to enjoy working closely with Chartwell and we have been impressed this year in the quality, stability and timing of their new games releases.”

The app, designed by the Leroy Group, lets Nevada residents place sports bets on their Blackberry phone. Only the Blackberry app has been approved so far, with the Android app pending approval. The key roadblock to approval was the need to convince the Gaming Commission that the app’s technology was sufficient to verify that the person using the phone was actually physically located within the state of Nevada when placing the bet. That is important because sports betting is illegal in most U.S. states.

The Interstate Wire Act of 1961 makes it illegal to use a phone or “wire communication facility” to place an interstate or international bet on any sporting event or contest. That makes any online sports betting illegal if it crosses state lines, because that would make it subject to the federal “interstate” law. With the activity confined to Nevada’s borders, though, the federal Wire Act lacks jurisdiction in Nevada.

John English, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Public Affairs for American Wagering, who was involved with the project, is excited that the gambling app was approved. “The Nevada regulators placed significant challenges on American Wagering to provide a means of offering account wagering on a mobile device whereby we could verify that the bettor was in the state,” he said. He then triumphantly added that “we rose to the challenge and succeeded.”

Laws and regulations often build upon other laws and regulations. What starts as something small snowballs into something much larger, for better or worse. That being the case, allowing online gambling via a sports betting app may pave the way for Nevada to allow all forms of online sports betting and, eventually, all forms of online gambling. It may take some time, but government regulations rarely stay where they started. They tend to branch out and expand. Doing so in this case could help Nevada become the major online gambling hub for the United States.

Tags: gambling apps, Nevada gambling, Nevada Gaming Commission, sports betting

Peninsula Gaming plans to erect a $260 million casino called the Kansas Star. The casino would take four years to reach its final phase. They would open an interim casino in February 2012 in a building that will include casino games, horse racing, a convention center and more. That interim casino would include 32 table games and 1,310 slot machines. When the permanent casino opens in January 2013, it will include a hotel, restaurant and large poker room as well.

Before the deal is official, the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission will conduct a thorough screening of Peninsula Gaming and all of its employees. They must give the okay before Peninsula is awarded the 15-year contract from the state.

If the commission is conducting background investigations on Peninsula Gaming, they are likely going to look into the recent scandal in Iowa. Back in October, Peninsula’s president, Martin Brent Stevens, and another executive, Jonathan Swain, were charged with making illegal campaign contributions to Governor Chet Culver’s failed re-election campaign. According to the indictment, the executives violated Iowa’s disclosure rules by making contributions in someone else’s name. The contributions, not surprisingly, came as Peninsula was bidding for a contract to build a casino in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

In addition to the new casino to be built in Mulvane, two state lawmakers have drafted a bill to bring a new casino to southeast Kansas and slot machines to a dog track that is currently closed. The bill would reduce the required casino investment from $225 million to $100 million.

Tags: Kansas gambling, new casino

Both companies confirmed that they were in negotiations as the new week commenced, with 888′s share price soaring by 24% on the news that it may be acquired by the major UK online and land gambling group.

It provided 888 investors, who have seen their shares lose around two-thirds in value since January 2010, with some welcome and positive momentum, although the market quieted down to a rise of approximately 18% later Monday.

Under the leadership of former CEO Chris Bell, Ladbrokes made an acquisition run on 888.com four years ago but the deal fell through over concerns regarding 888.com’s vulnerability to US legal problems connected with its pre-UIGEA presence in that country.

Unlike Party Gaming and Sportingbet, 888 has not negotiated a probably expensive settlement with US authorities.

With a new CEO at the Ladbrokes helm in the form of Richard Glynn, analysts are predicting that the present negotiations could be the new incumbent’s first big deal.

Collins Stewart analyst Simon Davies said: “We believe a 70-pence offer should be a slam dunk for investors, but see significant regulatory risk to a successful transaction given that 888 has not procured a non-prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice, which represents a potential poison pill.”

Morgan Stanley analysts said the deal could be a strategic and financial winner, matching Ladbrokes’ strong sports betting book with 888′s internet casino offering to create a combined online gambling business with annual revenue of around £350 million and earnings of £85 million. They opined that potential yearly savings for the companies could be as high aa £25 million in technology, marketing and overhead costs.

His appearance before U.S. District Judge Carol E. Jackson was brief and his sentence was a year on probation, with permission to serve it at his home in Costa Rica.

The quid pro quo for this was that Steinberg agreed to drop a “mysterious civil lawsuit” naming the U.S. government and filed under seal in the federal court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania. No further information is available on the nature of the suit.

Steinberg’s legal representative Jason Kreiss declined to reveal more to reporters, saying only: “The civil lawsuit was instrumental in our ability to resolve this matter in the fashion it was resolved in. We’re prohibited by court order from saying more.”

The agreement with Steinberg entailed the federal prosecutors withdrawing multiple racketeering-related charges.

Other high profile names in the rise and fall of BetonSports included founder Gary S. Kaplan, who in August 2009 was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to forfeit $43.65 million on multiple charges of conspiracy to violate the RICO Act. BetonSports chief executive David Carruthers, detained in Texas whilst in transit to Costa Rica from the UK, was sent to prison for 33 months and ordered to pay $75,000 for racketeering conspiracy.

Described by his lawyers as “No. 3 on the totem,” Steinberg’s original sentence of three years on probation and a $10,000 fine was significantly more low profile and mostly ignored by the media, although he was cited as co-owner with Kaplan of the BetOnSports subsidiary, Millenium Group, which operated telephone services and Internet gambling websites in Costa Rica.

Eleven individuals were eventually indicted on 22 diverse charges by federal enforcement agencies back in 2006; local newspapers report that the only outstanding indictment is now one against Gregory James Haggard, who remains at large and has been classified as a fugitive from justice.

Local media reported that the bills, mostly designed to revive the state horse racing and Atlantic City casino industries, drew bipartisan support in a 3 hour session as legislators raced to send many of the bills to Governor Christie’s desk before the end of the year.

With passage through the key Regulatory Oversight and Gaming Committee now behind it, Lesniak’s bill could be brought to a vote in the Assembly as early as next Monday, making it the first state in the Union to legalise online gambling.

Governor Christie has said he is not philosophically opposed to Internet gambling, but that the legality of the concept was still being reviewed by his administration.

The committee also offered its support for another measure, one that seeks a statewide referendum next fall on legalising sports betting at Atlantic City’s casinos, as well as at the Meadowlands Racetrack and Monmouth Park.

State Senator Lesniak, a Democrat who has been energetic and determined in pushing the legalisation bill through its various obstacles and stages, told the committee that by allowing online gaming only for New Jersey residents within New Jersey state lines, the state would not run afoul of federal restrictions on such gambling.

Lesniak added that an economic analysis showed that Internet gambling would produce $210 million to $250 million in annual gross revenues.

The Lesniak bill initially recommends a 15% tax on Internet gaming revenue. About $30 million of the tax proceeds would be used to supplement horse racing purses – replacing a similar purse supplement that had been provided by the Atlantic City casinos.

“This bill would create a bridge to self-sufficiency for the horse racing industry,” Lesniak said.

On the sportsbetting initiative, Lesniak and his law firm have filed a federal lawsuit attempting to strike down previous law as unconstitutional. Federal law currently permits sports wagering – other than horse racing and jai alai – only in Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana. And only Nevada is allowed to offer single bets, such as wagering on one National Football League game or another based on a point spread.

Christie has dismissed the suit as pointless, given current federal law, while Lesniak countered Thursday that the state risks seeing the suit thrown out of federal court unless political support is demonstrated.

The Spanish Government announced plans this week to partially privatise the lottery in order to cut debt and expects to raise €5 billion from its sale. The State lottery has an estimated €2.6 billion ($3.5 billion) revenue for 2010 and is renowned for its considerable El Gordo and El Nino draws.

An un-named source told El Mundo that the company is closely watching developments in Spain but continues its focus, for the moment, on its online business.

Tain offers a wide range of software and infrastructure services to small and medium sized gaming operators and for the past five years has provided its licensees with access to Playtech’s iPoker network.

The new agreement significantly expands this arrangement through the provision of Playtech’s online casino product, encompassing a games library that includes slots, table and card games, video poker and a wide range of branded content. Tain’s licensees will also have access to a full range of management tools via Playtech’s unified administration system, the IMS.

A Playtech spokesman said that the deal opens up a wider range of operators to the Playtech offering, pointing out that by making its online casino product available through Tain’s cost-effective platform, smaller operators who might otherwise not have the opportunity to access this technology or content would now be able to do so.

Tain chief executive Christer Fahlstedt said: ‘This deal further strengthens our cooperation with Playtech, which is approaching its fifth anniversary. The ability to offer Playtech’s excellent content greatly strengthens our offering and is an important step in our commitment to supply small and medium sized operators with the very best products available.’

Mor Weizer, CEO at Playtech, noted: “We….look forward to welcoming their operators onto the casino platform, having had considerable experience with the iPoker product for a number of years. This is made possible through Playtech’s cross-platform infrastructure which gives operators the ability to integrate a number of different products from our portfolio.”

Judge Kerry O’Brien, who last week adjourned the case for sentencing after Abeysuriya pleaded guilty, handed down a sentence of seven years imprisonment for stealing from the Uniting Church’s Blue Care organisation, reports the Courier-Mail newspaper. After money found in his accounts was frozen, the value of the shortfall was about A$900,000.

Abeysuriya was also found guilty of a second charge based on his use of his Commonwealth Bank credit card with sports betting organisation Centrebet, where $1.88 million in bets was shown on his Commonwealth Bank credit card account. When Abeysuriya finally stopped gambling his credit card was overdrawn a by $223,409, the court heard.

Judge O’Brien said he had been asked to impose a five year jail sentence so that Abeysuriya could have a partial suspension of his sentence, allowing him to have a definite date for deportation back to his native Sri Lanka. However, the judge said that he could not take into account what other bodies, the parole board or immigration authorities might do in the future when imposing a sentence.

Despite the mitigating factors, including Abeysuriya returning to Australia under his own free will, a sentence of seven years jail was indicated, the judge said, setting set a parole eligibility date at November 22, 2012.

The prosecution in the case adduced evidence that Abeysuriya used three methods to misappropriate the money – inflating invoices and paying the extra to himself, paying invoices twice to legitimate creditors and himself, and paying invoices to himself. He was audited when a bank employee flagged the uncharacteristically large amounts flowing into his personal account.