Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Antigua protests US online poker bill | iGaming Business

Antigua protests US online poker bill

30 October 2012

The Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda is protesting against proposed legislation in the United States that would see some forms of online poker and off-track horserace wagering legalised.

According to a report from The Hill newspaper, the tiny island country feels that the planned Internet Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection and Strengthening UIGEA Act of 2012 legislation, which was drafted by Senators Harry Reid and Jon Kyl, mischaracterises the long-running trade dispute between the two nations and would hurt its domestic iGaming industry by favouring companies based in the United States.

“If they pass this legislation, we can go back to the [World Trade Organization (WTO)] and embarrass them even further,” said Mark Mendel, a legal advisor to Antigua.

“Work with us before this thing becomes law and figure this out and reach a settlement. We want to work with you. We want to have a fair and reasonable settlement and this is the perfect time to get it done.”

Antigua filed a complaint with the WTO against the United States in 2003 for violations of its commitments under the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) in not allowing it to provide online gaming services to players based in America. The international organisation later ruled in the Caribbean nation’s favour but the dispute lingers with Antigua claiming that it is owed $3.4 billion per year in damages for being denied access to the US iGaming market. In retaliation, the WTO authorised Antigua to violate $21 million per year in intellectual property although both sides have agreed to seek a fair settlement.

A recently released draft of the proposed legislation from Senators Reid and Kyl called the earlier WTO decision ‘erroneous’ and states that the United States might never allow members to provide online gambling services.

“The United States never intended to include Internet gaming of any kind within the scope of its commitments under GATS and, therefore, no WTO member had any competitive expectation of access to the United States Internet gaming market,” the draft legislation reads.

Mendel said that the planned online poker bill would further squeeze Antigua out of the American iGaming market.

“The way that they designed the bill is to get a license, you have to be a land-based casino operator already,” said Mendel.

“There's no way the Antiguans would able to get a license under this bill. What the bill says is that your servers and whatever else you need to physically run the business, it has to be located in the United States.”

Antigua entered the online gaming industry in the 1990s with Mendel declaring that the nation wants to diversify its economy so that it is not dependent upon tourism.

“The wording of Senator Kyl's legislation misrepresents the facts,” said Harold Lovell, Finance and Economy Minister for Antigua.

“Given that the United States has been immersed in a trade dispute for the last decade with Antigua and Barbuda, the evidence is there for all to see that remote gaming was always at issue. This is nothing short of legislating historical fiction.”

3G, Eldorado launching first U.S. online poker site | Digital Trends

All eyes are on 3G and casino chain Eldorado for first legal U.S. online poker platform

October 28, 2012 By Francis Bea

pokernight by chrischappelear via Flickr

3G Studios and Eldorado have partnered to launch the first online poker site in the U.S., but it will be restricted to Nevada citizens.

Online gambling has been a Pandora ’s Box for poker players in the United States. But that all changed overnight in 2011 on a day dubbed Black Friday, when sites were forced to stop offering real money to players. Online gambling activities have since moved off shore, operators of online gambling hubs that were predominant in the United States like FullTilt were shut down, and online poker players fled to Canada or Europe to continue their careers. But the black out on Internet gambling may end as early as next year, contingent on the success of the first ever online real-money poker site that’s planning to launch on U.S. soil.

3G Studios , the company partly responsible for the development of the game Rock Band, and Eldorado Interactive, LLC , owner of a chain of resorts and casinos in Nevada, have entered into a ground-breaking partnership that could change the course of online gambling in the United States for millions of online poker players this coming spring.

And there is plenty of red tape they’ll have to cut through; this industry is heavily monitored and regulated. For starters, Nevada restricts online gaming licenses to brick and mortar casinos. The surface, this might appear to be politically charged, but in reality, the Nevada gaming board is reducing its risk. “Casinos already have a history of successfully detecting fraud, putting security controls in place, reporting to the gaming board, and paying their taxes,” founder and CEO of 3G, James Kosta, explains.

Second, the law will only allow online gambling sites to focus on online poker and its many derivations. 3G and Eldorado’s real-money gambling poker site will offer 12 games initially, but Kosta told us that he hopes to eventually offer 15 and 20 additional poker games pending the gaming board’s approval.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg: To meet the standards of the Nevada gambling board, which oversees the regulations for gambling, an online gambling operator has to meet its strict requirements.

For example, an online gambling operator must collect geolocation, age, and identity verification data to make sure that its gamblers are of age and located within the state of Nevada. They must be equipped to detect money laundering and collusion, which Kosta says was “the most difficult of all.” For example, if hackers were to DDOS the online poker site, 3G has to handle the fallout in respect to the players that may lose or gain money at the time of the attack. They’ll even have to enable a feature to blacklist addictive or problem gamblers, which according to Kosta is a little known fact about the gambling industry.

Because 3G and Eldorado will be the first to launch a legal online gambling site on U.S. soil, all eyes will be on Nevada and the partnership. “It’s going to be a learning experience for the gaming commission,” says Kosta. With criticisms and pressure from legislatures looking for reasons to forever ban online gambling in the United States, the gaming board is on edge and limiting online gaming to a fairly select group of people “who can respond very quickly to threats.” Kosta adds. “In one way it’s a very political process, getting your gaming license.”

On the other hand it’s an expensive and laborious endeavor that will run 3G several hundreds of thousands of dollars for thorough independent testing, and between $750,000 and $1 million for the gaming license alone. “It’s meant to be an exclusive club for a while. Everybody is paying attention to whether or not Nevada can successfully launch these games and regulate them,” says Kosta.

3G and Eldorado aren’t looking to become the kings of poker. Instead the partners are looking to create a cross-platform online gambling service with social features baked-in to target the casual arcade gamer. You can call it a social poker site, but Kosta noticeably treads carefully here and tells me that “it’s misplaced to be pushing social gaming in the real money environment.” There’s a delicate balance between social and gambling that 3G and the gambling industry is trying to figure out right now with the million dollar question being, “Does adding social hooks increase participation?” For instance if you’ve hit a real-money jackpot would you necessarily want to publish that fact on Facebook or Twitter? Or, if you lost a significant amount, would you want that fact broadcast to your social network?

Before 3G and Eldorado’s real-money gambling site is launched to mobile devices and desktops, it will release a series of play-money casino games like its recently announced SlotALot Casino. But 3G’s heart isn’t just in casino games, and Kosta eventually wants to turn his venture into a platform for betting on first-person-shooter and strategy games for the PlayStation and Xbox systems. But for now, 3G will work on getting the hearts and minds in the market on board with online gambling.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Big Fish Games launches first real-money gambling game in the U.K. via Betable alliance | VentureBeat

Big Fish Games launches first real-money gambling game in the U.K. via Betable alliance

October 29, 2012 10:54 PM

Dean Takahashi

1 Comment

Big Fish Games has launched its first casino game in the United Kingdom that enables real-money online gambling.

The new Big Fish Casino U.K. app allows players to choose whether they want to play for fun or if they want to make a real-money wager in the slot machine title.

The game uses technology from Betable, which hopes to enable online gambling as an option for all sorts of social mobile games. Betable does the hard work of verifying who a user is and determining if that player is old enough to make real-money bets in a game. It also checks to see if the player is in the right location for legal gambling, and it executes the round to determine whether a player won or lost a bet.

The game is the first in a series of Betable-enabled games that Big Fish will launch. The title is available in the Apple App Store in the United Kingdom and runs on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

“Real-money betting is just one more way we are enhancing the Big Fish Casino gameplay experience,” said Carey DiJulio, the general manager of Big Fish Casino. “With the launch of Big Fish Casino U.K., real‐money players in the United Kingdom can join our other Big Fish Casino players in the social aspects and thrill of casino gaming from their iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch — anywhere they happen to be.”

Seattle-based Big Fish said Big Fish Casino is one of the top-grossing mobile games with more than one million monthly active players worldwide. Betable’s servers for handling the processing are based in the U.K., but Betable contends that its technology could be used by developers anywhere in the world except in countries that explicitly forbid online gambling like the U.S.

Monday, October 29, 2012

A poker pro reveals strategy - Our Region - The Sacramento Bee

By Stephen Magagnini
smagagnini@sacbee.com

Published: Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012 - 12:00 am | Page 4B

Last Modified: Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012 - 12:56 pm

Yes, there's luck in poker, but over a thousand hands the better player always wins, says Steve Gee, who has outlasted more than 74,750 opponents to make it to the final table at the 2012 Word Series of Poker championship, which wraps up Monday and Tuesday in Las Vegas. ESPN2 will cover the action starting at 5 p.m. PDT.

Gee shared some of his secrets of success that have earned him millions of dollars, from general approaches for beginners to specific game-play tips for experienced players:

• Keep meticulous track of all your poker sessions: how much you bought in for, what the limits were, how long you played, how much you won or lost and several key hands. The biggest thing amateurs do wrong is fail to keep track.

• Take something from each poker session, and study your opponents.

• Read online discussions on strategy and tactics.

• Understand the value of position, it's the most critical thing in poker. If you have position – meaning you get to bet last or next to last – you get a lot more information because everybody has to act before you. When you're under the gun – meaning you have to bet first – your range is a lot tighter, but as you get closer to the button (which acts last), you've got to play a lot more hands, anything from pocket aces to 4-5 suited.

• Under the gun, I would probably play pocket 5s and higher, or 10-J suited and higher. On the button I'm playing down to pocket deuces and 4-5 suited.

• Don't limp into a bet, that's the sign of a fish. Players who call bets repeatedly are not in control of the pot. Poker rewards aggression.

• I bet the same amount every time from aces to 6-7 suited, so my opponent doesn't know what I've got.

• In cash games I'm ready to sit down for eight hours. If you sit down for only an hour or two, you're not going to have the patience and discipline to wait for the right hand. But if you haven't played a hand in 20 minutes, your opponents are more likely to be afraid of you.

• The higher the buy-in and bet size, the better the value you get on the rake, or the house's cut of each pot.

• You have to know the size of the pot and how much you're in for. Study how much is in the pot and calculate your odds accordingly. If you have a flush draw on the flop in No-Limit Hold 'em, you're a 5 to 1 underdog to hit it because there are 46 unseen cards. So if there's $1,000 in the pot after the flop and you call an $800 bet with a flush draw, you've made a mistake because you're now paying $800 to win $1,800, less than 3 to 1.

• I know weak players right away, calling big raises from out of position.

• Even the best players sometimes lose hands to players who luck out on the turn or river cards (the fourth and fifth face-up cards in Hold 'em).

Online Casino Advertising Is About to Be America's Best Growth Industry

Hamilton Nolan

If you're a poor desperate person looking for a road to economic salvation, you need to stop dreaming about hitting a jackpot on the internet casino, and start looking for a job at an ad agency that helps convince other suckers to blow their money at internet casinos. Advertising for those fuckers is gonna be big.

How big? I would describe the size of the online gambling ad market as "astoundingly fucking big," if this Ad Age story is to be believed. Alexandra Bruell reports that Nevada casinos will start advertising their (newly legal) online gambling operations in a matter of months, and other states may soon come rushing in behind them. The "big winners" here (gambling joke)? Ad agencies, naturally:

According to Simon Holliday, director at H2 Gambling Capital, "somewhere between $3.5 billion and $4 billion could be spent by the internet-gaming sector" on marketing over the next five years. That's more than General Motors spent in U.S. advertising in 2011. And if Mr. Holliday is right, by 2017 the online-gambling industry will be spending nearly as much as the entire insurance category did last year.

So, more than the combined GDPs of Greenland and Belize is predicted to be spent convincing people on the internet to lose money gambling online, in the next five years. Traditionally, the only way to win at gambling has been to own a casino. You can now add "own an ad agency" to that list. This would be a great way to rescue the U.S. economy, if only every dollar earned were not coming out of the pocket of another poorer and more desperate U.S. citizen.

Please keep in mind that you, personally, will never win.

[Ad Age. Photo: Flickr]