06 Jan 06 888 Gets Pretty For Ladbrokes 888 Holdings, the online casino and poker company, closed at a record high yesterday on hopes that it could be a takeover target for Ladbrokes once the bookmaker has completed the £3.3bn sale of its Hilton hotels.
Chris Bell, the Ladbrokes chief executive, is determined to make the most of the company's independent status by expanding overseas and online, and traders reckon 888 could be a tempting target for the cash-generative bookie.
05 Jan 06 SkillJam To Provide Games For Lycos Skill game provider SkillJam (a subsidiary of FUN Technologies) has signed on with Lycos to
create a private-label casual-gaming platform. The game platform will be set up on Gamesville.com, Lycos' gaming
channel.
05 Jan 06 PinnacleSports.com Signs With The Prima Network The Prima Network has announced that PinnacleSports.com (www.pinnaclesports.com) will launch its own poker room in early 2006. PinnacleSports.com is one of the Internet's largest sports betting site, offering wagering to customers in more than 80 countries worldwide.
05 Jan 06 MSN Israel "Visited" By Police The Israeli Police's National Fraud Unit on Tuesday continued its investigation into illegal online gambling advertisements by raiding the offices of three Israeli Websites: MSN Israel, Start and Nana.
The actions come two weeks after raids on the offices of portal site Walla! and sports content site Sport Line.
As they did in the first series of raids, police on Tuesday seized documents and questioned senior managers of the companies targeted.
Investigators say that the three Web sites have continued to display advertisements for illegal online gambling despite the police action taken against Walla! and Sport Line.
04 Jan 06 Betfair Has New CEO David Yu, formerly CTO and then COO of Betfair, has been appointed CEO for the company.
In other changes, Betfair's Executive Chairman Sir Robert Horton and non-executive directors Nick Irens and Justin Dowley have resigned.
Tim Bunting has joined the Board, and takes over as Chairman.
04 Jan 06 And The Next Poker Float Is....... Well, either go public or change hands (more likely the latter). Pokerstars, the number two online poker operator (behind only Party Poker)have signed on with NM Rothschild, the London merchant bank, to sell or float PokerStars at a price of more than $2 billion (£1.2 billion).
04 Jan 06 Gala Grabs TV Gaming Channel UK-based interactive TV content and services company, YooMedia sold its interactive TV gaming channel, Avago, to betting and gaming company, Gala Group.
The channel, which features live presenters, is currently available on the Sky satellite platform and will shortly launch on ntl's digital cable platform. The deal sees Gala acquiring the Avago brand and associated intellectual property, and the channel's database of over 250,000 registered customer accounts.
03 Jan 06 The Pendulum Swings Back On Winnings William Hill will beat its forecast as a run of winning wagers by customers came to an end.
03 Jan 06 LVSC Swings And Misses On Playoff Game When the opening lines were sent out for this weekend's NFL Wild Card games, Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) pegged the Cincinnati Bengals as a 3-point favorite hosting Pittsburgh.
Their Las Vegas clients opened with this number, or close to it, while the early lines offshore opened with the other side, Pittsburgh as a 2-point favorite.
Vegas books were hit hard with Pittsburgh money, as you might imagine, and within an hour, virtually all books, offshore and in Nevada had the Steelers at -3, where it will stay until kick-off.
03 Jan 06 Will Hill Sponsors Poker Awards William Hill Poker is the new sponsor of the European Poker Awards, as the ceremony moves from Helsinki to Paris in 2006.
This year’s awards will be held January 8, and will be hosted by Dave 'Compo' Compton.
03 Jan 06 Vegas Casinos Going Wireless It looks like Nevada casinos will get the approval, by this March, to offer wireless, handheld gambling devices to their visitors.
The guidelines permit the devices to be used only in public areas of casinos that have 100 or more slot machines and offer at least one other game. They're barred from hotel rooms or other private areas.
Proponents say the remote gambling devices will help Nevada casinos stay competitive despite the expansion of Indian casinos, Internet betting and of resorts elsewhere in the country and around the world.
03 Jan 06 Gibraltar Updates Gaming Regulations In an effort to update gaming regulations that the industry had passed, the Gibraltar Parliament approved new legislation for the jurisdiction's online gaming operators.
Its 15 registered gaming companies collectively operate 104 gaming sites.
02 Jan 06 CRIS Bails Out Rich Coast Sports Players Rich Coast Sports, a new online sportsbook this football season, had apparently gone belly up, basically closing down operations last week.
Industry stalwart CRIS sports stepped in to fully secure all players who's money hung in the balance with Rich Coast - it was a happy ending to what was shaping up as a mess.
02 Jan 06 First Biloxi Casino Opens After Katrina Four months after all the Biloxi casinos were damaged/destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, the Imperial Palace is the first of the original 13 to re-open for gaming business.
30 Dec 05 Online Gaming Increases over Christmas InterCasino, one of the oldest and Europe’s largest online casino, noted a 12% increase in activity over Christmas and Boxing Day, compared to any other Sunday and Monday and also compared to last year, primarily due to players escaping the in-laws and family. The UK online casino market has over 1.5 million visitors per month.
29 Dec 05 Youbet.com Reaches Deal With Magna Entertainment Online account-wagering company, Youbet.com, has reached an agreement with Magna Entertainment Corp. to simulcast races from all of Magna's tracks during 2006. Youbet's customers can now watch and wager on races from Magna-owned tracks, which include Santa Anita, Gulfstream Park, Laurel Park, Pimlico, Golden Gate Fields, and Lone Star Park.
29 Dec 05 Hilton Seals $5.7bn Sale of Hotel Assets Hilton Group, the hotel and betting company, on Thursday said that it had agreed the $5.7bn (£3.3bn) sale of its hotels business to Hilton Hotels Corporation of the US. The sale turns Hilton into a pure betting business, with its Ladbrokes betting and gaming brand inheriting the group's London market listing. The hotels sale clears the way for Ladbrokes to begin targeting the lucrative US betting market with its online betting and gaming products.
28 Dec 05 More BOS News Shares in BetonSports slipped as it cautioned margins in its NFL football business have been hit by a run of favourites winning.
The company said it expects margins will follow the trend of earlier years and return to normal levels during the balance of the financial year, but if they do not the outcome will be below expectations.
28 Dec 05 BetOnSports Buys MVPSportsbook.... BETonSPORTS bought MVPSportsbook, and their other brands Player's Super Book and V-Wager for an initial $20.2 million, with further payments scheduled, depending upon profitability (up to $37 million).
There had been previous discussions between BOS and the MVP group of books pre-2005, but a deal was not able to be reached that time.
22 Dec 05 Potential Buyers for Ladbrokes Group British financial media reported that Brit hotels and gaming company Hilton Group Plc had confirmed earlier speculation that it has received expressions of interest in buying its Ladbrokes gambling business, lifting its shares to new highs. Hilton said the expressions of interest emerged after U.S. group Hilton Hotels Corp. revealed in October that it was in talks to buy the hotels of its British namesake.
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