Online Gambling Press

70-year old Grandfather Dominates Intercasino’s Roulette Tables

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A 70-year old grandfather of three is being hailed a hero by silver surfers everywhere after repeatedly beating the roulette tables at the world's oldest online casino, InterCasino. Leslie Perrott, a coach trimmer from East Sussex, showed the younger generation of online gamers how it's done by winning over £360,000 in the space of 10 days on www.intercasino.co.uk. In scenes reminiscent of Hollywood blockbuster Ocean's Thirteen, the quick-witted grandfather had InterCasino bosses scratching their heads as his roulette numbers kept coming up.

“I'm absolutely delighted with the win” said Mr Perrott “I plan to treat my family to very generous Christmas presents!”

So, what was the secret to Mr Perrott's success at InterCasino's online roulette tables? “I don't want to reveal too much about my winning roulette formula” he said, “but keeping up with modern technology and being both physically and mentally active has definitely stood me in good stead!”

Spokesperson for InterCasino, Peter Marcus said, “I'm delighted Mr Perrott has kept up the long tradition of big winners at InterCasino, only recently we gave away over £4 MILLION to a player, which was the biggest online casino jackpot payout in history, so this a relatively small hit for us!”

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Australian Casino Chain Expands Las Vegas Presence

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Australia’s largest casino company, Crown Ltd., said it agreed to buy Cannery Casino Resorts for $1.75 billion, expanding its business in Las Vegas.

Cannery Casino, which is privately held, operates three Las Vegas casinos, including the Cannery Casino and Hotel and the Nevada Palace casino, and the Meadows Racetrack and Casino south of Pittsburgh. This month, Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd. split into separate listed companies, Crown and Consolidated Media Holdings Ltd. A private company led by James D. Packer, Consolidated Press Holdings Ltd., owns 38 percent of Crown’s stock.

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Macao’s 2007 Casino Revenue Expected to Reach $10 billion

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Macao's casino industry will likely see record gross revenues of 83 billion patacas (USD 10 billion) in 2007, an increase of 46.5% over last year, according to local news reports. The casinos' gross receipts were expected to reach 8.1 billion patacas (USD 1.03 billion) in December according to a senior official of Macao's Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.

The official added that the Las-Vegas-style casino resort MGM Grand Macao, opened on Dec. 18, recorded gross receipts of 51.5 million patacas (USD 6.6 million) in its first two days of operations. The opening of MGM Grand has added to the number of casinos in Macao to 28, including the Macao Palace floating casino that is currently closed for renovation works.

Official statistics released previously also showed that the gaming taxes collected in the first 11 months of 2007 exceeded those for the whole of last year by 34.9%, and direct gaming taxes accounted for 71.4% of the government's total revenue in this period. Macao, an hour by high-speed ferry west of Hong Kong, beat the Las Vegas Strip last year in gaming revenue.

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Betting Firm Rank Scraps Dividend Payment

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Bingo, casino and online betting firm Rank scrapped its final dividend payment on Wednesday, blaming tough trading in its bingo and casino businesses. Rank said its Mecca bingo like-for-like revenues in the 14 weeks since Sept 1. were down 18 percent, admissions were down 15 percent and spend per head fell 3 percent. It added that Grosvenor casino like-for-like revenues were down 7 percent, admissions were down 5 percent and spend per head was down 2 percent.

“The short-term trading outlook for Rank remains challenging,” the firm said in a statement.

The firm has had a torrid time over last year with its bingo business hammered by a ban on smoking in its clubs and by the forced removal of around 950 lucrative slot machines, while its casinos have also been hurt by a surprise hike in tax. Rank said bingo revenues were showing signs of stabilising with spend per head recovering slightly despite the number of players going into its clubs continuing to drop.

Analysts are worried that the decline in casino and bingo earnings could see Rank breach its borrowing terms with banks.Rank said it expected to stay within banking covenants as long as trading did not deteriorate further, but scrapped its planned 4 pence final dividend and said it was shelving 30 million pounds of projects.

Rank's share price slumped more than 20 percent after a profit warning in October and closed on Tuesday at 105.50 pence, compared with a price around 300 pence two years ago.

The share price fall has sparked media and market speculation that the firm could be a takeover target. Media reports say Rank rejected an offer from Harrah's to effectively swap the U.S. firm's UK casinos for a 28 percent stake in Rank. Malaysian gambling giant Genting and, according to reports, the Richardson family, have since taken near 10 percent stakes in the firm.

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Former NFL Player Arrested in Internet Gambling Raid

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A former NFL offensive lineman was one of five men arrested over the weekend in a bust of an alleged Internet gambling operation. Todd Burger, 37, of Freehold, allegedly collected gambling debts for suspect Anthony “Cheese” Pecoraro, 34, of Colts Neck.

Burger started all 16 games and both postseason games for the New York Jets in 1998. He played for the Chicago Bears from 1993-97, starting a total of 24 games. He was signed by the Bears as a free agent after playing at Penn State.

According to the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office and New Jersey State Police, who conducted a four-month joint investigation, the operation used the Web site www.beteastsports.com to process illegal wagers. Players used code names and Pecoraro set gambling limits, settled disputes and controlled the paying off and collecting of bets.

In addition to Burger and Pecoraro, authorities arrested Stephen Barone, 44, of Jackson; Daniel Alaimo, 51, of Metuchen; and Peter Carfaro, 26, of Brooklyn. Authorities seized about $70,000 in cash from the suspects in addition to computers and a .357 Magnum handgun.

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WTO Awards Antigua Sanctions in Gambling Case

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Antigua and Barbuda are entitled to levy $21 million a year in sanctions against the United States for being shut out of the U.S. online gambling market, a World Trade Organisation (WTO) arbitrator ruled on Friday.

The tiny Caribbean nation can exercise the sanctions in intellectual property, such as films and music, for instance by lifting copyright protection, as well as in services, which includes sectors such as banking and telecommunications as well as gambling, he said.

Antigua had asked the WTO for permission to impose $3.44 billion in “cross-retaliation”, allowing it to seek damages outside the original services sector. Washington had argued Antigua was entitled to only $500,000 in compensation.

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Totesport Casino Goes to Offshore Tax Haven

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Totesport Casino, an internet arm of government-owned bookmaker the Tote, is switching its operations to the offshore tax haven of Alderney in a controversial move that will allow it to advertise freely in the UK while avoiding UK tax and regulation. The move will come as an embarrassment for ministers who have sought to present the UK's approach to online gaming regulation, set out in the Gambling Act 2005, as world-leading. In practice, the industry has boycotted the UK regime.

At a conference of international regulators held at Ascot last year, Peter Dean, chairman of the government's new Gambling Commission, said: “Everybody who offers gambling in Britain will be required to be licensed by us [from September 2007].” But when the September deadline came, none of the leading poker and casino operators took up a UK licence. They said they had been forced to boycott the UK because Gordon Brown, in one of his final moves as chancellor, had set a prohibitively high 15% “remote gaming duty,” the tax on online poker and casinos.

One operator called the tax “a joke,” insisting the industry would continue to target UK punters from offshore bases where they pay little or no tax. The UK is believed to be the biggest legal market for online poker and casinos in the world after ministers chose to try to regulate rather than restrict the new industry. In September, the Gambling Act greatly liberalised advertising restrictions on gambling groups, regardless of whether or not they held a UK licence.

Other governments have moved to frustrate unlicensed internet groups and last year the US - then the largest online poker and casino market - drove most operators out of the country after passing tough legislation targeting payments for online gambling.

A spokesman for the Tote, which is about to be privatised, said the decision to switch its online casino operations from Curacao to Alderney had been taken in order to allow Totesport Casino to advertise freely in the UK, in particular permitting it to sponsor horseracing events. Curacao-licensed operators do not qualify for UK advertising freedoms. Asked why the Tote had not sought a licence from the UK Gambling Commission, he confirmed Alderney offered lower costs, particularly when it came to tax.

The spokesman said the decision to relocate to Alderney had been taken in full consultation with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A spokesman for the DCMS said: “This is a business decision for the Tote. The Tote is run as a business.”

The government has been trying to privatise the Tote for about seven years but early efforts were blocked in Europe because they breached rules on state aid. Tote management, under chief executive Trevor Beaumont and backed by a consortium of race track and horse owners, is believed to be in the final stages of negotiating an alternative sell-off plan.

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Casino Game Distributor Fined and Jailed

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A MAN behind an online casino popular with gamblers was jailed for three months on Monday and fined $80,000. Cheh Back Hai, 59, was the local webmaster and chief salesman for an Internet gaming house whose software he peddled to shops across Singapore, a district court heard.

Cheh pleaded guilty to eight charges under the Common Gaming Houses Act, with 17 other counts taken into consideration. The crimes took place between place between August last year and May this year.

The investigation showed that Cheh was the main agent for JV8, an Internet casino. He sold the game's start-up software to 19 Housing Board shops and doled out user names and IDs to online gamblers. The game, which is played on home computers, made it onto machines in Bangkit Road, Tampines, Serangoon North, Pasir Panjang and Yishun, the court heard. A district court heard that he and another man were arrested in a bust by Gambling Suppression Branch officers at his Bukit Batok West Avenue 2 home on May 14.

Cash of $152,500 and exhibits relating to internet casino gambling were seized. and distributed the game by providing the line to 19 shops. In return, he would get a 5 per cent commission on the profits earned. He provided the addresses of the shops and follow-up raids were conducted. The casino games were played on computers by members of the public.

As the 'senior master agent', he supplied the user ID and password to download the game from the website into the computers at places such as Bangkit Road, Tampines, Serangoon North, Pasir Panjang and Yishun. He helped an unknown operator overseas to carry out the downloading of the casino games for gaming.

His lawyer, Mr R.S. Wijaya, said the father of three's limited education led him to believe that a Philippines licence was enough for him to operate here.Cheh, he added, was indeed a 'pawn' in the game for unscrupulous overseas operators who used him for their own gains and personal benefit. Counsel said Cheh had a 'frail' medical condition of coronary heart disease.

He said the amount seized by the police from a safe included some of his life-long savings but he was not claiming any of it. Cheh could have been fined between $5,000 and $50,000 and jailed up to three years on each of the eight charges.

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EU & US Reach Deal in Gambling Disagreement

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The European Commission dealt a blow to European online gaming companies on Monday when it accepted a U.S. offer of openings in other sectors as compensation for closing U.S. gambling market to foreign firms. European firms such as PartyGaming and bwin Interactive Entertainment had hoped the European Union executive might shun a settlement and fight on instead to restore their ability to operate in the world's biggest market.

“A bilateral agreement was signed in Geneva, which provides EU service suppliers with new trade opportunities in the U.S. postal and courier, research and development, storage and warehouse sectors,” the commission said in a statement.

“The U.S. also made concessions in the testing and analysis services sector,” the commission said, adding it would still try to dissuade the United States from discriminating against foreign operators.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office in Washington said the United States had reached a compensation deal with the EU, Canada and Japan. She declined to estimate how much the U.S. market openings in warehousing, technical testing, research and development and outbound international letter delivery would be worth to the three trading partners.

The United States hopes to persuade India, Costa Rica and Macau to accept similar deals, but those countries have the option over the next 45 days to ask for WTO arbitration, Hamel said. A representative of Europe's online gaming sector, which saw billions of euros of market value wiped out by the U.S. restrictions, said the announcement was a disappointment.

“The commission can still press for an opening up of the market but the leverage of the outstanding (compensation) negotiations has been taken away,” said Clive Hawkswood, chief executive of the Remote Gambling Association.

The case dates to April 2005 when the World Trade Organization ruled that a U.S. law allowing only domestic companies to provide online horse-race gambling services discriminated against foreign companies. That case was brought by Antigua, which has asked the WTO for permission to retaliate against the United States by suspending copyright protections on about $3.4 billion worth of American movies and music each year.

Mark Mendel, an attorney representing Antigua, said he still hoped for a ruling on that issue before the WTO closes down next week for holidays. “Nobody in Antigua really wanted our claim to be overshadowed by the EU,” he said.

Last year, the U.S. Congress tightened restrictions on Internet gambling by making it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites. In May, Washington said it was retroactively excluding gambling services from market-opening commitments it made as part of a 1994 world trade deal, kicking off compensation talks with the EU and other countries including Japan and India.

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