1st US Online Casino

Skillstar, a BetClicEverest French online gaming website that offers skill gaming, has announced that it will be extending its game experience to television with the launch of a TV Web Show.

Skillstar will offer gamers a chance to play from home live on a TV gameshow through Skillstar website and a webcam. The first application is to be launched on a private free-to-air channel.

“We’re inventing a new generation of online games and TV gameshows, the connected TV games. We intend to export the concept in Europe in 2012 and in the US in 2013,” said a company spokesman.

The Italian online gambling operator Gioco Digitale in the Bwin group has reported a fast and positive Italian player response to its new Jadestone-developed games Burraco and Scopa, encouraging the development and introduction of further games and enhancements.

The games were launched in December 2010 and January 2011 respectively and quickly achieved a significant popularity among Gioco Digitale players, a company spokesperson revealed this week. The offerings have since been expanded to Bwin’s Italian website as a direct result.

The Italian network now boasts impressive player liquidity in Italy, with reports that over 20.000 players have been seated at the Giocodigitale tables with peaks of almost 2.000 players at the same time, with about 30% of the player base identified as female in gender.

(Read the full post about ‘Gioco Digitale’s success with Jadestone games’…)

Online gambling group Betfair has unveiled its first interactive football betting application on the video-on-demand platform FetchTV, reports New Media Age. The app lets FetchTV customers registered with Betfair place bets on UK and European football matches using the entertainment platform’s remote control.

The latest odds are furnished to players during the matches, which the application overlays onto the Freeview channel being viewed. All transactions are handled directly by the peer-to-peer betting company’s online system.

Betfair spokesman Simon Miller said this week that the company has pan to launch other sports applications on the FetchTV platform.

“We see services via broadband as a great way of delivering a first-class, live and interactive entertainment experience to sports fans”, he said.

The application launch is part of a Betfair initiative to put mobile at the centre of its development.

(Read the full post about ‘Betfair’s interactive TV betting’…)

SA government insiders have claimed that the much-delayed review of South African gambling, including online gambling, may finally be discussed in the coming weeks, having been delivered into government hands. Industry observers have been monitoring the review carefully in the hope that it may help clarify the government’s true position on internet gambling, at present declared illegal by the SA Gambling Board following a High Court decision that went against the Swaziland-based Casino Enterprises.

In early September 2010 the review commissioners announced that the findings were not yet ready, having missed the end-August deadline for submission.

The Commission was given a wide mandate to study all aspects of South African gambling, including its social impact.

(Read the full post about ‘Review of S.A. gambling to be discussed by government’…)

Macaubusiness.com reports that the boom in Macau’s gambling industry is set to slow down in the near future and warnings have again been sounded that the current high growth in the gambling market on the island should not be expected to continue indefinitely.

Macau ‘s secretary for Economy and Finance, Francis Tam Pak Yuen says the government is poised to control the level of expansion of the sector and said “in future we shall only see the industry increasing by a few percentage points every year”.

He cautioned youngsters to think twice before joining the industry, as it will be unlikely the gaming sector will continue to provide the large number of jobs as it used to in the past.

Macau set a new monthly record when Government statistics released this week showed February’s gambling revenue leapt 48% year-on-year and 33% over January 2011, driven mainly by mainland Chinese visitors.

A familiar industry name – that of eCOGRA chief executive Andrew Beveridge – is linked to reports on the progress of a proposed new Dutch law that is intended to regulate online gambling in that country.

It seems that Beveridge is also the Chair of the CEN Workshop Agreement for Responsible Remote Gambling, published by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), whose well thought out pan-European consumer protection measures were recommended to the Dutch government this week in a position paper authored by the Netherlands trade association Stichting Online Gaming Nederland (STIOG).

Responsible gambling is rightfully a vital component in any regulatory system, and Beveridge’s considerable eCOGRA experience in player protection and standards has probably stood him in good stead in his relationships with several licensing jurisdictions currently developing regulatory frameworks.

In its position paper, which presents several recommendations, STIOG recommends that the CEN-developed measures be deployed as a foundation for the regulatory requirements that will help make Dutch online gambling a safe, responsible and fair pastime for internet punters…and a viable business for operators.

The position paper follows a consultative process involving STIOG during the government’s drafting program, which includes the objective of submitting a final version of the proposed legislation to the Dutch parliament before mid-2011.

The CEN responsible gambling component includes practical measures to ensure the protection of vulnerable players; the exclusion of minors; anti-fraud precautions; data and privacy protection; safe and efficient financial transactions; gambling that is both fair and administered with integrity; ensuring player sensitivity and respect; responsible marketing, carried out in a professional manner; and the creation of a reliable, efficient and businesslike operational environment.

Other recommendations in the STIOG submission deal with fair and transparent licensing methods, taxation rates, maintaining international player liquidity, return-to-player suggestions, embracing internet sports betting, media and advertising policy, enforcement against unlicensed operators and IT proposals.

STIOG’s paper, which is to be followed by a public report on its recommendations, will be considered by Secretary of State Fredrik Teeven and other senior government experts as the drafting exercise progresses to its conclusion.

Rival Gaming’s latest 3D Slot offering – French Cuisine – is a twist on Pixar’s animated movie Ratatouille and centers around a band of entertaining mice and an amusing French Chef who wants them gone.

The game is a five-reel, 20 pay-line video slot and includes an expanding wild feature, a progressive jackpot link and two bonus features – a “Click Me” bonus round when the player lands three or more “click me” symbols” and a second screen bonus round where three bonus waiter symbols are the trigger.

Revelations of more anti-online gambling e-processing prosecutions surfacing this week brought with them a blast from the past, naming the now defunct sports betting brand BetonSports, one of the first major online betting firms to be taken down by the US federal enforcement authorities at a cost of millions of dollars.

The reports concern actions by the US Attorney’s office in East Pennsylvania and date back to allegations of involvement in online gambling processing between 2005 and 2006.

(Read the full post about ‘Another e-processing company to be prosecuted by US authorities’…)

Mobile gambling technology provider Probability Limited’s brand LadyLucks has announced the launch of two new mobile games: Head2Head Poker and DiscoDollars slot.

Head2Head Poker has been developed on the Texas Hold’em poker rules, and is a versatile mobile casino game where players can compete against each other for fun or real money. Features include measures against bot play; an exciting ‘heads up’ format; table limits from just £1 upwards; personalised avatars; and mobile casino bonuses.

Disco Dollars is a 50 pay-line mobile slot that features a funky boogie theme from the ‘seventies in which the Disco Diva is wild and substitutes for any symbol.

(Read the full post about ‘LadyLucks to release two more mobile games’…)

Recent media releases and player communications have confirmed that Casino Share, Grand Mondial, Players Palace and Quatro Casino have been sold to the parent company of Casino Rewards, although details of the reasons for the sale and the financial arrangements are not known.

Shortly after the announcement of affiliate changes appeared on affiliate message boards earlier today (Thursday) a media release from Casino Rewards appeared with wording that strongly suggested the agreement involved an acquisition and not simply a change of marketing arrangements.

(Read the full post about ‘Casino Rewards acquires Playshare Partners casino group’…)