The UK newspaper The Daily Mirror reports that a nationwide scratchcard competition that was promoted in more than 300 gambling publications has been fined GBP100 000.
Called Cash Attack, the competition required players to match three symbols on the card and then call a 090 number to claim a online casinos prize, or text a keyword printed on the card.
Premium rate phoneline regulator PhonepayPlus received 95 complaints from people who said they replied by text, only to received further unsolicited texts at GBP 5 per week.
The “service” was provided by Cheshire-based Jackpot UK on lines courtesy of mobile gambling Interactive Group Limited of London.
Besides the fine, PhonepayPlus has ordered Mobile Interactive to refund victims and has banned it from scratchcard competitions until it implements “compliance advice”.
The extraordinary World Series of Poker Main Event journey of Darvin Moon, a 45-year-old Maryland logging company owner who has only been playing poker for three years, continues. Not only has he dominated Day 7 and 8 play, but on almost 59 million at the end of Day 8 action he now holds a substantial chip lead of 24 casinos million over his nearest rival as the final table survivors, known as the November Nine, now pause for a few months before this year’s champ is decided.
Day 8 cards hit the air just after noon Vegas time on Wednesday with 27 gambling players left from an original entry field of 6 494. With seven minutes of level 29 still to play and Moon holding the chip lead, it took only twenty minutes for player number 27 to be ousted. It was the only woman left in the tournament - 26-year-old 888.com marketing manager Leonora Magrets who’s company-sponsored WSOP ride was brought to a halt by South African amateur player Warren Zackey when her ace-seven didn’t improve against his ace-10. Her 27th placing payday for the experience was $352 832.
Tournament officials said about three percent of the 6 494 WSOP main event entrants were women this year.
Zackey went on to quickly eliminate Jesse Haabak in 26th place, also for a $352,832 paycheck, but was later eliminated himself.
The two were among four eliminations in the first level of play of the day, which also saw Francois Balmigere taken out in 25th Place for $352 832 by pro Billy Kopp, and big name pro Antonio Esfandiari eliminated for a similar payday by former Bear Sterns broker Steven Beglieter. Esfandiari was one of only two prior World Series of Poker tournament winners left in the contest - the other is the still surviving Phil Ivey - among the 27 players who started the day.
Begleiter and Eric Buchman between them cut down several players as the day wore on with heavier than expected action that saw regular eliminations and millions in chips flying across the tables. This was especially true when the survivors neared the nine man cut-off point and the final table for the really big money to be played for in November.
By late afternoon, the first $500 557 paycheck player, Andrew Lichtenberger, had been taken out in the number 18 slot by Moon, at that stage riding high with 25 million in chips.
By 6 pm, when Nick Maimone was busted out in 15th place by Buchman, the departing prizemoney had reached $633 022 in the $10 000 buy-in event, and just before 10pm, when Billy Kopp met his 12th placing nemesis in the unstoppable Moon (by then up to 45 million in chips), the take-home had reached $896 730.
The final November Nine player list was decided just before 11pm Vegas time - 11 hours after the start - when Jordan Smith, a 27-year-old player from College Station in Texas, was bundled out of the tournament in 10th place by Darvin Moon, leaving the logger with a chip stack of almost 59 million - way ahead of Buchman as his nearest rival.
Smith’s reward for running so deep in the tournament was a check for $896 730.
The official chip count at the end of the day shows Phil Ivey in seventh place on 9.76 million, six times less chips than Moon’s top chip count. Ivey continued to play a professional measured game throughout the day, calmly handling bad card setbacks and building his stack.
Official chipstacks at day’s end were:
Darvin Moon 58,930,000
Eric Buchman 34,800,000
Steven Begleiter 29,885,000
Jeff Shulman 19,580,000
Joseph Cada 13,215,000
Kevin Schaffel 12,390,000
Phil Ivey 9,765,000
Antoine Saout 9,500,000
James Akenhead 6,800,000
The players now break for the next four months, reconvening November 7th to 10th to battle it out for the top prize of $8.55 million, in the certain knowledge that they will each earn well over a million dollars for making the final table.
Each of the nine players left will be paid $1.26 million this week as ninth-place money. Organisers Harrah’s Entertainment will put the rest of the prize money into a conservative interest-bearing account until the day before the final table starts.
Perhaps better known for its online poker operations, where it is fast making a name for itself, Chilli Gaming of Malta is moving into the online bingo sector, and has chosen Parlay Entertainment as the technology to support it.
CEO Alexandre Dreyfus says the move into bingo is motivated by the knowledge that it has become the fastest growing element in the online gambling industry, with a quickly growing online audience despite the current difficult economic times.
He said that despite the growing competitive interest in the bingo sector he did not believe that the market had yet reached saturation point, and was therefore an attractive business proposition.
Chilli plans to be part of a multi-lingual and multi-currency bingo network which will also provide side games to its members, who will come from targeted countries like the UK, France, Portugal, Spain, China, Hungary and Poland.
“We are interested in joining a network with which we can cooperate for mutual gain and that thus gives us the opportunity to provide players with life-changing prizes, a large welcoming environment and the social networking aspects of the game. This will help us create brand recognition and successfully generate revenue of the Chili brand across all our Chili products,” he said.
The British Columbia Lottery Corporation in Vancouver, Canada has launched a new initiative aimed at promoting responsiblke gambling, branded “Game Sense”. The program will include extensive use of media and public service television advertisements.
“These ads represent the first ever responsible gambling TV messages in B.C.,” BCLC president Michael Graydon said at a news conference.
GameSense will also promote provincially funded resources such as the problem gambling line and free counselling services available. The initiative is supported by the Responsible Gambling Council, a non-profit organization specialising in prevention strategies since 1983.
Last year the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. in Toronto launched a two-year pilot project in Windsor and Niagara Falls casinos to establish on-site Responsible Gaming Resources Centres, operated by the Responsible Gambling Council.
Since then the program has expanded to 27 gaming locations across Ontario. About $100 million a year is spent in Canada on responsible gaming awareness, education, treatment and research.
Graydon said 4.6 percent of the adult population in B.C. are problem gamblers and 8.7 percent are at risk players.
He said Game Sense kiosks and staffed booths will be at each of the 15 land casinos in B.C. and another 16 “community gaming centres,” which include bingo halls.
The BCLC makes $2.6 billion from gaming in B.C. and another $1.1 billion is allocated to the province’s charities.
Computers at Game Sense kiosks will provide gamblers with information about the odds of winning and how games are played.
The National Centre for Social Research, acting on behalf of the UK Gambling Commission has completed a study of 43 gamblers designed to “provide further insight into participants’ gambling behaviour” and, where relevant, “to explore the downsides of gambling”.
One of the more interesting findings of the researchers is that gamblers fall into four distinct categories when it comes to thoughts and actions, and that the current broad division of gamblers into “non-problem” and “problem” classifications is insufficient.
Accordingly, the study suggests four classifications: peripheral gamblers, gambling enthusiasts, business gamblers or compulsive gamblers.
* Peripheral gamblers bet infrequently and do not necessarily view their actions as gambling. Motivation is something other than the gambling itself e.g. social experience or to get a large win from a small outlay.
* Gambling enthusiasts bet frequently but feel no compulsion to do so. They view betting as a fun activity and are motivated by the desire to outsmart bookmakers.
* Business gamblers see betting as a business rather than a hobby or leisure pursuit.
* Compulsive gamblers, spurred on by a sense of escapism, have a powerful internal drive to punt. Gambling can become a central and controlling feature of their life.
Office of Fair Trading officials in the Australian territory of Queensland are currently investigating the activities of up to thirty sports arbitrage companies, mostly based on the Gold Coast, reports the Courier-Mail newspaper.
Some 650 gamblers have lodged complaints about the operators, who have allegedly been ripping players off with elaborate sports betting scams involving millions of dollars.
It is understood that half of the companies have vanished, after police found only empty land or a post office box as the principal place of business after following up on customer complaints.
Sporting arbitrage involves customers being offered “guaranteed” wins by spreading their bets on all possible outcomes with different bookmakers.
Nine software firms are also believed to be under investigation, and the newspaper names Sports Investment Services, which touts sports betting returns of 56 percent compared with only 6 and 9 percent on the share and property markets. Sports Investment Services director Mark Henderson told reporters he had had several complaints, but insisted he had done nothing wrong and sold software to help pick winners.
“It gives clients stand-out picks to bet on,” he said.
Asked about the claims of 56 percent betting returns on the company’s website, Henderson said: “At the time when it was published these figures were correct but they are variable and at different points they can return different things.”
The Courier-Mail reports that 650 punters have complained since last August after losing on the intricate betting systems or being unable to contact companies once they paid membership fees of between A$3 000 and A$19 000.
Fair Trading Minister Peter Lawlor told the newspaper that the high number of complaints showed consumers were rarely pocketing any profits.
“They are simply scams which are designed to take the money off unwitting consumers,” Lawlor said. “We also found that once these companies start receiving complaints from their clients, they often simply close down and start up again somewhere else under a new name.”
Lawlor said some of the companies styled themselves as investment schemes using “financial instruments” and “risk free” to secure the profits. They also often used telemarketers with false names to entice clients into parting with their money, he said.
The Office of Fair Trading would not confirm which companies were in the investigation’s sights, but the Courier-Mail names Suncity Equities and Investments and a firm called Profitrunner as being among those investigated.
The money thought to have been lost through the companies, which are often part of a tangled web of other companies, is believed to be between $4 million and $6 million.
The probe does not involve mainstream betting companies such as UNiTAB or Betfair.