|
Back to work. The boy has been born, the pregnancy is over, and I've had a nice rest at home nursing my new baby and watching a lot of TV. He's gorgeous and healthy. Being a parent the second time around (my first son is two years old and two months) is a bigger juggling act than I expected. I never thought that my first son would be so fascinated and protective of his little brother. Big brother screams whenever someone other than me or my husband hold baby brother, how amazing is that? And have you ever tried explaining to a two year old why they can't pet their baby brother on the head? My friends are wagering on how long the love will last with big brother towards little brother. Their guess is once baby brother starts to get too cute and pull away the attention (say, when cooing starts at around 4 – 6 months). I'll keep you posted. I would like to say that I had been keeping up with all of my reading about the gambling industry but that would be lying. To be quite frank I have better things to do. When I'm not nursing or playing with my son I was sleeping! Yes, the nights have been, and still are, all about feeding every hour to hour and a half and that has left me a tad too comatose in the morning to even think about reading about gambling. However, the new boy has generously started sleeping for two to three hours at a time now. The site is still showing my year in review, so I'm guessing my boss is desperate for some new material. It's time to sit down and catch up with what's been happening since I "went away". It seems I've been missing some juicy news while in hibernation. Debates over the legal age of gambling and when it should be enforced (it seems an internet casino out there has decided to enforce it only when it suits them – oops! I think I found the subject for tomorrow's article!) Wagerlogic won the iGaming Software Provider of the Year at the 2006 in the UK Gambling Awards (excuse me as I look blankly at the wall bored stiff. It's not that they don't deserve it it's just that I'm suspect of all of these awards. What are their criteria anyway? Hmmm… another article topic for the future perhaps…) Casino City has stopped it's litigation against the all-mighty United States Department of Justice, which is a pity in my opinion as it would have been fun to watch the Department of Justice squirm. The case was about freedom of speech. He US Department of Justice was (and occasionally still does) sending out threatening letters to companies to accept advertising from internet casinos. Of course, one could argue that the threatening letters the D of J was sending out stating that the advertisements "may" be illegal were freedom of speech as well. After all, they didn't say that they were definitely illegal and they didn't state that they would definitely prosecute the companies. All of that is really irrelevant now that most internet casino and poker sites have .net free versions of themselves to advertise there's no real point in wasting the money on legal fees. The gambling industry won this match. PartyGaming, one of my favorite news sources as they always seem to have such a sense of drama around them, has been focusing on getting players from outside the US and they have been succeeding. Over 30% of their new players signed up in 2005 (such a great year for them) were from overseas. Their share price is back down again, no doubt due to the fourth quarter results published. They'll go back up again, so now would be a good time to buy… People are still addicted to the internet and now there's a drug to help them. I wrote about this before I went on maternity leave. The drug actually combats the addictive part of the brain, but it works for all sorts of addictions, including gambling addictions. It's just started to get a lot more press. People are predicting that the US will start getting tougher on internet gambling very soon. This is mainly due to the political crackdown on lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Funny enough it's not our favorite Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyle who is leading this standoff, but Iowan Republican Representative Jim Leach. The bill which they are trying to pass through is the House of Representatives is H.R. 4411. Internet gambling is illegal in most of the United States however, more than 7.8 million Americans still placed bets online last year with offshore companies. Rep. Jim Leach's Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act would work to restrict the $12 billion industry by making it illegal to use credit cards or bank drafts from American financial institutions to fund online accounts with web gambling services. With Ohio Republican John Boehner as the new House majority leader it stands a great chance. Of course they could still legally fund a Neteller account, since Neteller is not a gambling institution. Don't these people realize that most credit cards already block deposits into internet casinos and that having a Neteller account actually makes your life easier when depositing? Hmmm, now would be a good time to invest in Neteller if this bill passes the House. Bodog.com CEO Calvin Ayre was in a car accident while in Miami recently. The taxi he was taking to the airport was hit by someone who had lost control of their vehicle. Fortunately Calvin Ayre is fine, so this part isn't really major news. What is news is the fact that an owner of an internet casino was in the US and the Department of Justice did nothing. In 1998 Jay Cohen, co-owner of World Sports Exchange, was prosecuted and jailed for owning an illegal off-shore internet sportsbook which allowed US citizens to bet in. Maybe the Department of Justice lost the memo from the House of Representatives? Posted on: February 16, 2006
Back to February 2006's archive |
||||||||||||
|
|
Del.icio.us
Digg
Google
Spurl
Furl
Simpy
Y! MyWeb
