With the help of John Cleese, William Hill is now targeting the new Austrian online gambling market. William Hill, an online betting site based in the U.K., has launched a new Austrian website. To coincide with the launch, William Hill has released a new ad campaign featuring the slogan “Wetten wie die Briten,” which means “Bet like the British.” John Cleese, a Monty Python alumnus and one of the funniest people in the world, is featured in the television campaign.
Not long ago, it was pointless for an overseas company to try to enter the Austrian gambling market, but a lot has changed of late. Earlier this month, shortly after the European Court of Justice ruled that Germany was not allowed to favor local online casinos while excluding foreign competition, they ruled the same way regarding Austria.
Gambling in Austria had been controlled by the state, who had only given out 12 online casino licenses, all to companies run by the state. The European Court of Justice ruled that such a practice discriminates against companies based in other EU member states, which is prohibited under the EU’s free trade agreements.
Thanks to the ECJ ruling, the online gambling monopoly in Austria is no longer allowed, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise since the ECJ ruled the same way about every other gambling monopoly in an EU member state. With the Austrian and German markets now open for foreign competition, you can expect to see a number of other online gambling companies follow William Hill’s lead with aggressive campaigns.
Alleged money launderer and con artist Daniel Tzvetkoff has been released from a New York jail after posting bail and is supposedly cooperating with authorities. The Australian national was arrested in Nevada after attending a business trip where casino operators he had allegedly defrauded recognized him and alerted authorities.
Tzvetkoff is the head of Intabill, a payment processor used to transfer funds for online gambling. According to the complaints against him, Tzvetkoff used an Automated Clearing House system to transfer funds back and forth between the United States and the British Virgin Islands. He allegedly used that system to launder money, moving money from accounts of American online gamblers to his shell companies located offshore and then moving funds from those shell companies to online casinos.
After being spotted in a Las Vegas conference, the FBI arrested Tzvetkoff and charged him with bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to operate and finance and illegal gambling business. There is also a possibility of Tzvetkoff facing a civil trial for the $100 million he allegedly stole from online gambling operators, though that trial would not be in the United States.
Though originally held without bail after his August arrest, Tzvetkoff was granted bail after meeting with a federal judge. His trial is scheduled for June 2011. One of the reasons that Tzvetkoff was denied bail in the beginning is that he was considered a flight risk, due to his Australian citizenship and the fact that he has access to millions of dollars in assets.
Summer may be winding down, but that’s no reason to be sad. There may still be lots of beach days left, thanks to the unseasonably warm weather we should expect. Or things won’t be much different than during August, thanks to the unseasonably cold weather we’ve had. It all depends on who you listen to. In any case, the folks at Lucky Red Casino have a good mid-week casino bonus that could be enough to cheer you up if you have the I-can’t-believe-my-summer-is-over-already blues.
As is often the case at Cherry Red Casino, the match bonus is different depending on which game you play. The games with a higher house edge have a higher match percentage and lower wagering requirement as a way of compensating for the house edge.
If you play online slots, scratch cards or keno, the casino will offer you a 60% match bonus on your deposits, with an upper limit of $1,000. The coupon code for that bonus is PROPOWER. The deposit and bonus must be wagered at least 25 times before it can be withdrawn.
If online blackjack and video poker are your games of choice, Cherry Red will give you a 45% match bonus on your deposit. The bonus has a maximum amount of $1,000. The coupon code for that bonus is LUCKYWEEK. Before a cashout is allowed, the deposit and bonus must be wagered a minimum of 50 times.
For players of any other table games, the online casino is offering a 50% match bonus on your deposits, with a maximum bonus amount of $1,000. The coupon code for that deposit is BIGWINNING. The deposit and bonus must be wagered at least 40 times before a withdrawal is allowed.
Each of those match bonuses are unlimited, so you can claim those coupons as many times as you want. This bonus ends on Thursday, September 16. To take advantage of the deposit match bonuses, visit Lucky Red Casino.
Over the last few months, China has really been cracking down on online gambling. According to the Shanghai Daily, an English-language newspaper that is not run by the government, Chinese police in the city of Changzhou arrested 17 individuals during a recent online gambling raid.
According to police, a group of men used a technology company based in Guangdong as a front for two illegal online gambling websites. They took customers from mainland China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Malaysia. Their online gambling websites were based in the Philippines and Malaysia and had their servers registered in Taiwan.
Online gambling is banned in China but the government has never made enforcing those laws a top priority. However, after a recent scandal involving illegal sports betting by a soccer referee, the county decided to crack down on all forms of online gambling. Hundreds of arrests have been made since then and after some customers of these unnamed websites were arrested for gambling earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before the investigation led to the group running the gambling operation.
According to police, the online gambling ring was led by a man named Zeng Weiquan. The raid resulted in 17 arrests, the seizing of their records and the confiscation of 元40 million. Police believe that the online gambling websites run by Weiquan had more than 50,000 customers and had made over 元3 billion over the last five years. The names of the websites involved and the other 16 people arrested have not been released.
The casino bonuses are things that, in my opinion, separate a good online casino from a great online casino. A good one will offer a good welcome bonus for new players who sign up with the website, but after that the bonuses are not as common. The great online casinos are constantly offering a variety of casino bonuses to their existing customers. They reward players for coming back and continuing to play at their casino, instead of only rewarding them for joining.
Cherry Red Casino is one example of a casino that always has lots of bonuses available to their current customers. When you join the casino, Cherry Red gives away a $7,777 welcome bonus, which is spread out over your first 10 deposits. After that, there are other casino bonuses available to you.
There are the game-specific bonuses, such as the blackjack special bonus, the video poker bonus and the slots special bonus. With the blackjack special bonus, players can receive a 200% match bonus, with a maximum value of $1,200. The video poker bonus is also a 200$ match bonus worth up to $1,200. The slots special bonus is a 400% match bonus worth up to $2,400.
Cherry Red Casino also offers regular weekly and weekend bonuses. During the week, players can redeem up to 10 coupons for a 50% match bonus, worth up to $5,000. Five coupons can be redeemed on Tuesday and five can be redeemed on Thursday. The weekend bonus is a 150% match bonus worth up to $750.
For players who like to deposit and spend a lot of money, the online casino also offers a high roller bonus. If you deposit $1,000, Cherry Red will give you a free $1,500 to play with. Each bonus comes with its each coupon code and has its own wagering requirements and other terms and conditions. Be sure to read the conditions first.
To take advantage of the regular casino bonuses, visit Cherry Red Casino.
Within the next two weeks, online betting giant Betfair plans to introduce a £1.5 billion stock market flotation, according to the UK’s Guardian. By going public, the company hopes to gain healthy revenue from investors, but going public always has its risks.
This year, many private companies that have opted to become listed in the stock exchange have seen their share prices plummet. While the reasons for such are complex, one explanation is that shareholders are not “prepared to pay high valuations for companies coming to market.” Even companies that slashed their share price prior to becoming listed in an attempt to seem like a better deal have seen their shares drop in value after making their market debut.
It is not known where Betfair plans to price their shares. Currently, the largest chunks of the company are owned by two men and a bank. Andrew Black, a former professional poker player, and Ed Wray, a former city trader, own approximately 24% of the company. Softbank, a Japanese bank, holds approximately 23% of the company. The rest of the company is owned by executives and private shareholders. Going public could help Softbank recoup a good portion of their debt in a time when they need it the most.
Betfair, based in England, is the largest online betting company in Europe, boasting 2.5 million users. The online betting website acts as a betting exchange, allowing betters to wager against each other on sports, current events, politics and practically anything else that can be judged concretely enough to hold fair bets.
It’s so obvious I don’t know why the game wasn’t released before. Rushmore Casino has a new online slot called Rushmore Riches. It has a theme that is based on – you guessed it – Mount Rushmore, the sculpture of four U.S. presidents on a mountain in South Dakota.
The Rushmore Riches slot features symbols of the Mount Rushmore sculpture as well as cartoonish representations of sculptures of each president individually. For those not in the know, the four presidents featured are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Each president is given a light-hearted treatment here, with Washington shown smoking a cigar and Lincoln wearing a bandana, for instance.
When used in winning combinations, the stone-sculpted presidents will become animated, such as Washington blowing smoke from his cigar. The Rushmore Riches slot is a 5-reel slot with 25 paylines. There are a number of bonuses available, such as up to 25 free spins and a multiplier of up to 5 times your wager.
The online slot has a jackpot of 5,000 coins. Aside from the carved presidents, there are also symbols of the American flag, an old box camera, and a golden dollar sign. I guess that’s because for most people, old presidents are only associated with the bills they are on.
I’m not sure why it took this long for this game to make its way onto Rushmore Casino, but now that it’s here it is the perfect game for the casino. Maybe it should be the featured slot, one that you can only play there and always has some sort of special bonus.
A new law passed in Belgium will significantly restrict their online gambling market, turning it from an open market to a more closed one. What was an online gambling market that allowed foreign competition will now restrict those services to companies that are licensed to operate in Belgium.
According to legal experts familiar with the legislation, the new law does not mean that Belgium will exclude all competition and operate a gambling monopoly. It’s worth noting that every time a member of the European Union has done that, the EU has said that the country is in volition of EU free trade agreements. Instead, Belgium will simply limit the online gambling companies who can operate in their country by regulating them. According to Belgian lawmakers supporting the new law, the purpose is to protect Belgian citizens by ensuring the online casinos are safe and fair.
Other members of the European gambling community have already filed complaints with the European Commission about the new law. Aside from the need to obtain a license, opponents of the law balk at the requirement that online casinos operate a land-based casino within Belgium. Opponents of the law state that the offline requirement serves as a barrier to other European online gambling operators. According to one lawyer opposing the new law “the Belgian Parliament adopted the offline requirement regardless of the Commission’s comments” that such a rule could violate the E.U.’s rules about a free movement of services between member states.
I already know what I’m doing this weekend: watching football. On Saturday there’s great college football games all day and then on Sunday there is the first full week of NFL games. I guess I can go out and do something else tonight after work, but I don’t know what. If you’re not as big of a football fan as I am, then you might want to play some slot tournaments this weekend. If so, Online Vegas has some good options for you.
The big weekend slot tournament is the $30,000 Guaranteed Weekend Madness tournament. The tournament begins today, September 10, at 10:00 PM and runs until 10:45 PM on Tuesday, September 14. The Weekend Madness tournament is played on the Bigfoot slot and has a $10 entry fee. That buy-in earns you 325 chips to play with and if you run out, you can re-buy for the same amount. The tournament has a $30,000 prize pool.
While that tournament is a great deal for some people, others will be scared off by the $10 entry fee. Though it’s not an exceptionally large fee, it’s not cheap, either. The good news is that Online Vegas has a good variety of different priced tournaments. That includes a freeroll that runs this weekend. In the $2,500 Bonus Buck Weekend Freerool, players compete on the Cash Caboose slot for a share of $2,500 in bonus bucks. It is a free slot tournament, but once you run out of credits you can re-buy for $1.99.
For a cheap slot tournament where you play for casino credits rather than bonus bucks, I would recommend the Frugal Friday tournament. The tournament began at 9:00 this morning and runs until 7:45 tonight. The game is played on the Dr. Love slot and has an entry fee of only $1.99. Players compete for a prize pool of $1,500.
To take part in any of these weekend slot tournaments, visit Online Vegas.
Germany just lost a court battle with the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the highest court of the European Union. The ECJ ruled that German laws protecting their state-run gambling monopolies are “unjustifiable” and that they cannot prevent other EU countries from competing in their market.
The case in question regards online sports betting, though the ruling could easily be taken to apply to online casinos as well. German authorities claimed that they exclude foreign competition in order to protect its citizens, but the ECJ was unconvinced. In the ruling, the European Court of Justice stated that “the public monopoly of the organization of sporting bets and lotteries in Germany does not pursue the objective of combating the dangers of gambling in a consistent and systematic manner.”
Studies estimate that approximately €7.8 billion are wagered at sports books – both online and in person – in Germany, but half of that is spent on unlicensed online bookmakers. With the country’s gambling monopoly shot down by the European Union’s high court, it is likely that Deutschland will move toward creating a licensing and relating organization.
The ECJ decision is being celebrated by online gambling operators and their unions. The European Gaming and Betting Association released a statement on the “landmark ruling,” stating that other EU states have opened their gambling markets to foreign competition and in doing so, have shown that “consumers can be better protected in a market that is both regulated and open to competition.”
