Virgin Takes a Bet on Betfair

St Minver the online gambling group have just released the results from an online survey, this has revealed that 63% of bingo players are also smokers, would spend an increased amount of time playing Internet Bingo when the UK smoking ban comes into force on July 1.

Around 3000 bingo players were questioned, this news will no doubt strengthen online Bingo’s already flourishing position in the online gaming market, with thousands of sites operating in the UK alone.

Internet bingo firms are also confident of the sector’s growth with several high-profile companies including Mecca, Gala, Jackpot Joy and Parlay Entertainment confirming their attendance at the second annual Online Bingo Summit held at Regents Park Marriott hotel, London on September 25th and 26th to discuss how offline bingo can move forward.

CEO from Bingos.co.uk, Mr. Dominic Mansour, said of the summit, 'The Online Bingo space is gearing up to corner a large slice of the online gaming sector... things are very exciting right now. The Online Bingo Summit is the only place in Europe to meet with key Bingo industry executives and to discuss the challenges we will face over the next year.'

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Blair supports 2 UK Super Casinos Plan

According to the BBC, Soon for the chop, PM Tony Blair, has told his MP’s that he thinks Manchester and Blackpool should both get new UK Super Casinos.

Mr. Blair told MP’s during prime minister’s questions that he hoped the government would be able to bring in the new regional casinos very soon.

Both houses of parliament have already passed the Gambling Act 2005, but the House of Lords threw out the Gambling Order for the super-casino in Manchester, speaking about the supposed Super Casino, Mr. Blair said: “Personally I have never seen the reason why we should have pitted Manchester and Blackpool against each other.”

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US to ignore WTO

In a decision that could have disastrous consequences for the future of the World Trade Organization the United States has plans to ignore the WTO’s recent ruling on the trade dispute between the Antigua and Barbuda and the USA, over online gaming restrictions.

In an surprising move US trade representatives are claiming they never meant for online gaming to be part of their services agreement with the WTO, and as a consequence do not plan to honor their pledge to open the online gaming market in the US to foreign providers. According to Mr. John Veroneau who is the Deputy US Trade Representative, the US is “just clarifying (its) commitments.”

Both countries are allowed to withdraw their commitments under WTO rules, this will be the first time any country has done so in the face of a lost trade dispute, and it could have severe consequences for the future of the WTO. If other member countries decide to follow suite whenever trade disputes don’t go their way, the WTO would become an irrelevant organization in world trade.

The position of the United States with regards to the online gambling ruling is further compromised by the fact that it DID have the chance to exempt gambling from its commitments when it first signed up to the WTO. According to Mark Mandel, Antigua’s chief counsel in the case against the US, there were widespread debates about gambling when the WTO was being set up and over a dozen countries ensured gambling was excluded from their commitments. The US was not one of them.

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NETeller launches PrePay Cards

World leader payment online processor, NETeller witch is widely used for online gambling payments, has announced the launch of the first product in a new range of prepaid, reloadable debit and payment cards for its customers in across Europe and Asia.

This new prepaid card will be directly linked to the customer's NETeller account and is accepted at over 24 million cash machines and terminals internationally.

President from NETeller sais, "The ability for our customers to access and use funds from their e-wallets at over 24 million online and offline outlets worldwide is very important to both them and us, as we continue to grow our business in Europe and Asia Pacific, we believe this new prepaid debit programme will allow us to open up new areas of business."

The new cost-effective product, which will replace the current NETeller card when it is withdrawn early this May, will be available in a number of worldwide currencies and is set to become available by the end of May.

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Yahoo ventures into the online gaming world

One of the worlds largest search engines, Yahoo! has announced its about to venture into the online gaming Poker, with the announcement of the launch of Yahoo Poker, a real money online poker room, with there new partner St. Minver Ltd., a Gibraltar-based online solutions provider for European gaming networks.

US residents are not currently accepted as a result of the introduction of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which makes it illegal for banking facilities to accept money transfers to and from online gambling sites.

Yahoo! will become the only Internet Service Provider (ISP) to offer play for real money although competitors like AOL operate a 'play money' site and computer giant Microsoft has incorporated a play money poker game into the Windows Vista system.

The site is set to go from strength to strength with the ready-made customer base generated from the ISP’s main site.

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