William Hill Casino CEO Steps Down

William Hill Casino CEO and one of the top online casino industry's most respected, Mr. David Harding, is to step down from William Hill at the end of the 2007.

Mr. Harding said that he will be moving on after seven great years with the UK bookmaking giant to seek new challenges, this departure follows the one of William Hills Chief Operating Officer Mr. Tom Singer who left in November 2006. Mr. Singer was regarded as a potential successor to CEO David Harding but he stepped down after a review of the company's key executive roles found that he was no longer required.

Mr. Harding said, "Having spent seven years helping to build the company into the UK's leading bookmaker, the time is right to move on and I am looking forward to a new challenge".

Harding led the UK gambling giant to flotation on the London Exchange in June of 2002 and stands to gain almost around £7.5 million when he leaves, a figure that would bring his total compensation for the last two years to over £11 million. Since flotation back in 2002, William Hill’s stock price has doubled and Mr. Harding holds £5.5 million worth of stocks.

The Chairman from wiiliam hill, Mr. Charles Scott praised Harding’s contribution and went on to say, "he was leaving the company in good health and the board would continue to work closely with Mr Harding during the transition to a new Chief Executive.

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Israel Rules Against Online Gambling

The District Court in Tel Aviv has upheld a lower court ruling stating that online casino websites that target Israelis are breaking the Israeli law, even if the sites are operated abroad.

This ruling revolves around the appeal of the CEO of Victor Chandler Casino, Mr Michael Carlton, Mr Carlton was questioned by the Bat Yam fraud squad on suspicion of illegally running a gambling business in Israel along with investigations regarding sports betting involving events in which Israeli teams participated.

Even though Victor Chandler’s gaming server resides in Gibraltar, Mr Carlton was placed under house arrest even though no charges had been filed. The VC CEO was allowed to deposit over $70,000 in guarantees as a condition to leave the country.

Victor Chandler has become one of the most popular gambling sites in Israel and pays Israelis over £9 million in winnings each year. The question the District Court faced was whether the gambling that Israelis carry out from Israel via an international site is a crime even though the company is not Israeli.

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CryptoLogic Releases New Poker Game

CryptoLogic the major online gambling software provider, has announced the release of its latest online casino game called, Headhunter Challenge.

This multi-table Poker tournament game is available InterPoker and other CryptoLogic powered poker sites, this new game adds incentives above and beyond typical poker tournaments, which pay out only if players finish in the money. This can be frustrating for some players but Headhunter Challenge lets players win cash for every other player they eliminate so even those that end their event early can win money.

The Headhunter Challenge game pays the same way as other games plus a bonus for knocking out your opposing poker ganblers as a portion of every buy-in is assigned to players' ‘heads’. So, anyone who knocks a player out of the tournament will receive cash and the more players someone eliminates, the more cash they win and the bigger a target they become as the value of their own head increases with every head that they take.

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Man from Sunderland Hit the Jackpot

A 39 year old gardener from Sunderland is celebrating after hitting the PartyCasino.com jackpot of USD 1,092,957 off a stake of just 10p, Mr. Brian Somers, who normally earns around GBP9,000 a year won the PartyMega Jackpot on the Super Fortune Wheel game PartyCasino.

Mr Somers said 'All of a sudden the screen started flashing, I was asked to choose six smiley faces. Four revealed golden dollars and the ticker at the top of the screen started to race and all these numbers came up. It said I had won over a million dollars. I thought it was a mistake. I turned the computer off and even unplugged it. I then logged back on saw $1,092,957.68 on the screen and got on the phone and they said 'your balance is over $1 million dollars sir.'

Mr Somer also said that he intends to use the money to secure the future of his six-year-old son Corey with his windfall. 'I'm hoping to use the money to make myself and my family secure for the rest of their lives. I want to buy a house, go on holiday and get a new car. I also want to expand my gardening business.'

A spokeperon from PartyCasino said: 'We've seen some big winners in our time but for someone to win so much from just 18 cents is truly remarkable and is a record win, Brian is a great guy and deserves it and we wish him and his family all the very best for the future.'

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New Ozzy Osbournes Slot Machines

Microgaming announces it has signed a licensing deal with one of the world’s most famous families, The Osbournes. The deal will see Ozzy, Sharon, Jack and Kelly feature in a special series of cutting edge, graphic rich video slots, planned for launch later in the year.

The announcement follows swiftly on the launch of the Hitman and in the footsteps of Microgaming’s hugely successful Lara Croft series, both of which have proved massively successful among the playing community.

Premiering on MTV in 2002, the Emmy Award-winning reality series – The Osbournes, ran through to March 2005 and in its first season, was cited as the most-viewed series ever on MTV. Since then, all members of the family have gone on to enjoy successful music or television careers on a global scale.

Roger Raatgever, CEO, Microgaming, says, “I can honestly say that when I came into this business I would never have believed that one day we would be welcoming Ozzy Osbourne and his family into the fold, but this goes to show how far we have come. Online gaming is well and truly part of the entertainment mix and we can’t wait to launch our cutting edge Osbourne video slot to players later this year. We promise it will be a game to remember.”

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Biggest jackpot ever won at InterCasino

InterCasinos Millionaires Club progressive Slot has a record for giving away big jackpots, but last month it surpassed even its own best when it donated over GBP4 million to the pockets of a factory worker playing the online Slot machine for the very first time.

The multi million pound prize is the biggest in the history of online gaming and is due to be collected in person next week by the lucky winner.

Peter Marcus, from InterCasino, was beaming with pride when he spoke about the win, 'This is great news,' he said. 'We are looking forward to welcoming the winner and celebrating with him and his faily next week. In the meantime we have reset the progressive jackpot which is now over $2 million and growing rapidly every day.'

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VC Poker in the dock for TV advert

The UK Advertising Standards Authority watchdog has ordered the firm behind VCPoker.com to stop linking gambling with financial and sexual success.

A complaint was levied at betting house Victor Chandler, which ran a VCPoker.com advertising campaign featuring a scantily clad pouting young lady with the strapline: ‘You love sex. She loves sex. You love money. She loves money. You have money. She loves you. See how much you have in common?'

The complainant said the advert was irresponsible and in its adjudication, the ASA agreed, despite Victor Chandler's assertion that the ads merely sought to suggest that ‘everyone loves a winner’ and did not encourage excessive gambling.

Victor Chandler said that the advert had been used to promote an online poker tournament held in January of 2007 and had since been discontinued, and that it had provided copies of other gambling ads for similar tournaments that they believed showed aspirational messages, commonly used by the gambling industry to promote tournaments.

It also stated that the visual of the woman and the corresponding text was only used to gain attention and explained that it had acted responsibly by ensuring the poster was placed in the gentlemen's toilets of a licensed premises to limit the target audience to men older than 18.

However, the ASA ruled that the adverts implied that gambling would improve players' sex lives and also said the line ‘See how much you have in common’, reinforced the notion that men ‘even if socially inept, could obtain sexual success’.

These constituted a breach of CAP Code clauses 2.2 on responsible advertising and 54.3 on betting and gaming.

UK advertising rules ban the association of gambling with sexual prowess and Victor Chandler has been told not to do it again.

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888 predicts better future

At the recent annual shareholder meeting at 888 Holdings plc news of an encouraging start to 2007 after releasing new games and recruiting more gambling customers.

This news comes despite its share price dropping 7p to 115.5p per share in May, followed by the end of the acquisition talks with Ladbrokes and the company’s decision last year to pull out of the American market.

Mr. Richard Kilsby Chairman at 888.com, told shareholders that these new games would sustain its momentum as it moves into the traditionally quieter second quarter.

'Trading is in line with expectations and we continue to look forward to the future with confidence,' said Mr. Kilsby.

The company was among several London-listed gaming groups to close or sell their American businesses after the United States effectively banned Internet gaming in October by passing the UIGEA.

888 fared alot better than many of its online rivals because it had already built up a substantial non-American business and profits increased 55 percent last year as these customers played more online casino and poker games. The company said that it now gets 45 percent of its sales from the UK and 36 percent from the rest of Europe.

888 also raised its research spending to a record $19 million and introduced a new casino game almost every month in the last quarter of 2006 to help rebuild its business. This year has been no different and it has most recently added games including Crazy Blackjack.

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