Police in the small Utah city of Murray raided an Internet cafe on Sunday evening and arrested over 50 people on allegations that they were conducting and participating in illegal online gambling activities. The Murray City Police Department revealed that it had conducted several undercover operations at The Fortune Cyber Cafe in the Salt Lake City suburb since spring in cooperation of the Salt Lake County District Attorneys Office and stated that customers were playing various online slot games alongside poker and keno. Following the raid, police formally charged six employees while issuing 45 others with citations. Ironically, the owner [ Read More ]
Online gambling group Party Gaming has released its first half results, showing a 6.5% fall in operating profit, which management has attributed to competitive pressures and the consumer slowdown. However, the group offered the more encouraging news that trade in the last three weeks had been strong. In the three weeks to August 18, the average gross daily revenue was $1.9 million, whilst average active poker players totalled 51,000 per day. The group posted an H1,2009 operating profit of $60.7 million on revenues down 21% at $201.3 million for the six months to the end of June. Management recapped on [ Read More ]
"If the media and oversensitive racism watchdogs continue this witch-hunt for racists, they are doing more to slow relations between races than to improve them." So writes Ricky Bauer of Gambling Review, one of many online gambling and poker information websites commenting on this week’s controversy suggesting that poker pro Daniel Negreanu might be a "racist". The uproar began after Thomas Somach, a special contributor to the Gambling911.com website and the proprietor of PokerHelper.com, authored an article asking whether "Negreanu was a racist" following one of his weekly blog entries. "Negreanu made some outrageous comments about the sensitive subject of [ Read More ]
NBC’s prime time Saturday poker show, Face The Ace, had only 1.46 viewers in its second showing. Things could have been worse as the program apparently didn’t lose many viewers (debuting with 1.59 million). As it turns out, Face The Ace is not being broadcast in all markets. Salt Lake City residents are being deprived of the show, which may not be such a bad thing based on the critical panning. KSL Channel 5, the local television station owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, won’t air the prime-time poker game show Face the Ace, saying the [ Read More ]
LAS VEGAS – (Associated Press) – Lower gambling revenue and continuing costs of opening its newest casino, Encore at Wynn Las Vegas, punished Wynn Resorts Ltd., but the 91 percent drop in profit it reported Thursday topped forecasts, and its shares soared. The company, run by billionaire and major stockholder Steve Wynn, reported profit of $25.5 million, or 21 cents per share, down from $272 million, or $2.42 per share last year. Adjusted to exclude one-time items, net income totaled 9 cents per share, beating analyst expectations of a penny loss per share. "All in all, we’re satisfied as you [ Read More ]
Online gaming laws are in a constant state of confusion these days. In the United States, the debate has been raging on for years ever since the creating of the Unlawful Internet and Gambling Enforcement Act. It seems sometimes as though companies are engaging in a massive shell game just to remain legally compliant while maintaining profitability. Events this week however, show that the issues are not just limited to America. Yesterday, PokerStars customers living in Italy discovered something unexpected when they logged into their accounts. Rather than logging into the main Poker Stars portal, they were instead re-routed into [ Read More ]
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) wrote a letter to US Attorney-General Eric Holder, asking him to vigorously oppose a suit challenging the Federal law banning the expansion of state licensed and regulated sports wagering, brought by the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA). iMEGA, et al v. Holder, et al, filed in US District Court in New Jersey in March of this year, seeks to overturn the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1991 (PASPA). That Federal law barred all but four states – Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon – from offering state licensed and regulated [ Read More ]
This week saw a strong Poker Players Alliance presence in Washington DC as the one million member poker organisation flew in state directors and top poker personalities to interact with politicians and sell the idea of legalised online poker in the United States as part of the National Poker Week initiative. At a dinner kicking off the week’s activities, Florida Representative Robert Wexler, author of the Skill Game Protection Act and a supporter of the move to legalise the game as one predominantly of skill, addressed delegates, backed by PPA chairman Alphonse D’Amato and executive director John Pappas. Wexler described [ Read More ]
Known taken in the character of the Fatty Male person, a billionaire blackleg avoids having to make compensation distant from a £2 the multitude stakes due behind having a very great loss strake at a London-based casino. Frouad al-Zayat, a 66-year-old businessman, destroyed a heavy collect of riches in person ignorance, wrote a cheque as far as concerns the losses but-end told the the money-lenders to rub out it. Behind crowd attempts
