Recently Everest Poker has released studies according to which the poker gamblers demographics are changing. The preceding demographics were varied in dependence on the county, nevertheless, poker and online casino gambling has always been played rather by men than women. But now the situation is changing. Women are starting to gamble and using the online casino gambling sites to polish their skills. Online casinos are increasing in Europe and the gambler demographics are expected to change over the next years.

Everest Poker, the popular and well-known online casino gambling site, accepts players from every corner in the world and provides games in multiple languages. Everest Poker joined hands with the highly respected Juniper Research organization in order to poll online gamblers across the European Union. The study’s results showed that women gamble in heavier rates than before, that is not just a single instance. The results showed that women in the most of the countries that were polled were taking part in online gambling in higher numbers. In general, women make up 34 % of online gambling in the European Continent.

Besides female players, there are also a lot of younger gamblers at the online casinos. Germany saw a 24% raise in the amount of gamblers in the 18 - 24 age group. Earlier there were much older gamblers visiting German online casinos. The 35 - 44 age group accounted for the highest gamblers percentage there before.

3,000 people took part in the study representing 16 countries of Europe.

Comments Off

Some time ago an online casino player from Greece won the largest progressive jackpot in the history of Sportingbet.com while playing at Paradise Casino. Mr. K. Vasileiadis had been playing a lot of online casino games on 20April, 2008, before he won the “Super Sevens’ Progressive Jackpot”, he contrived to get a record $1.47 million payout as well!

It was not only the largest payout of the company that had ever been scored, but it was also the biggest online casino winning in such a country as Greece. In early May, Mr. Vasileiadis arrived at the Sportingbet office in London, England, in order to get his winnings officially.

Not only is Mr. Vasileiadis obviously joyful and excited, the Sportingbet staff is certain to be enthusiastic as well. In the company’s official news release, the representatives of Sportingbet stated that Mr. Vasileiadis has always been a loyal player, and that in spite of the fact that they have suffered some material losses, they are happy that he has won. The news release explained that their delight concerning giving the winnings to Mr. Vasileiadis is provoked because these winnings prove the fact that their clients can really win at their casino.

At this time Sportingbet is the chief example of how an internet casino can create big winners. Moreover Sportingbet’s online casino is an award-winning product and it is recognized for offering one of the most wide-ranging online casino gambling experiences. Having such big jackpots available, who can really surpass them?

Comments Off

We want to present you the latest Microgaming’s online video slots that were launched this month. They are “Alley Cats” and “Quest for Beer”.

Alley Cats is the smallest and funny new online slot game, though the possible winnings do not inevitably indicate this. The slot name speaks for itself. Playing you can see five different cats, a bowling trophy and some garbage and other things you could see in an alley. “Alley Cats” is a five reel, 9 paylines video slot.

The greatly revered symbol of the game is “Strike”. It’s a scatter symbol that can get up to 100x winnings and 20 free spins. During the free spins winnings are doubled. In addition it triggers a second-screen bonus round set there cats like bowling having Chihuahua’s as bowling pins in a back alley.

You can win as much as 50,000 coins during the base game, and your earnings are doubling on free spins.

Quest for Beer is a 5-reel, 25 line video slot that is set in an imaginary Viking giants’ world and beer is gold there. This game is very entertaining, there are free spins, a Wild (Beer tankard symbol), “beer wench” symbol that is a scatter, and a Bonus Feature.

The winnings are doubled and 10 free spins are given when the beer tankard symbol appears on the 2, 3 and 4 reel simultaneously, and a chance to enter the Bonus Round and retrigger. To open the bonus round, 3 scattered beer wench symbols should appear. The given bonus is to throw axes at beer kegs and you can get as much as 40x winnings.

Comments Off

The first quarter report for 2008 has been issued by eCOGRA (eCommerce Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance), informing about both good and troublesome news. The fact that the average complaints amount decreased compared to 2007 is the good news. However, the amount of unfounded dispute complaints increased noticeably, but there isn’t any fault to any casino or eCOGRA.

Tex Rees, the dispute mediator of eCOGRA, said that in the first quarter the players made 171 dispute complaints. This amount is less from the 2007 average (195 for each quarter). 27 of these complaints weren’t examined as they didn’t refer to eCOGRA approved casinos. 17 disputes were dismissed because there was no sufficient information to make any claim.

We aren’t going to foster bad behavior, but if you aren’t aware of player cheat, let’s say it is quite common, especially regarding free bonus money. All casino bonuses have certain conditions and terms. Every online casino allows only one gambler per household to have right for a single account and welcome bonus. However, some players try to open several accounts using different names, different credit cards and so on, thus making bonus abuse. Such actions allow any online casino to freeze and make up a player’s account, that in its turn often results in indignant cries of disgruntled players who know they’ve done a wrong thing or haven’t read the bonus terms and conditions.

And eCOGRA’s first quarter report contains 34 dispute complaints falling into this category. Generally speaking, considering all above mentioned invalid disputes, the total amount of valid disputes is narrowing down to 127. Rees noted that almost half of all the disputes were solved in the favor of the player.

Comments Off

Two unbelievable tournaments are being held at the global online casino HollywoodPoker.com this weekend. Gamblers can watch and participate not only in the World Series of Poker (WSOP), but also in the inaugural Million Dollar Grand Tournament weekend of the site. This year this tournament is awarding prize packages with Las Vegas vacations at the cost of $120,000.

HollywoodPoker.com, licensed in Kahnawake, has announced that the Grand Weekend Tournament will be held between 30th May and 1st June, with great prizes and satellite entry to the World Series of Poker.

Players can win the fantastic prize packages through the online casino that is a side event package at the cost of about $26,000 and the WSOP Main Event entry, all in the $45,000 WSOP Grand Slam. In accordance with the online casino representatives, entry into the WSOP won’t be just a ticket, but a three week deluxe “accent to poker stardom”.

A $40,000 WSOP Side Event Slam will start this Friday at the online casino! Three top finalists will get side event packages, as well as entry into the $35,000 WSOP Main Event Slam, which will take place this Saturday. The WSOP Main Event Slam itself will give WSOP Main Event prizes to the two finalists.

The online casino HollywoodPoker.com tries to do their best to satisfy gamblers in all the possible ways. The online casino believes that this road into the 2008 World Series of Poker is suited even for the celebrities.

Comments Off

The argument in favor of a state-run online gambling monopoly is usually based on a problem of the players’ safety. This argument has been repeatedly defeated taking into consideration the more and more stringent regulations and restrictions in the majority of the main licensing jurisdictions. The online gambling companies demand the countries such as Greece, Sweden, France, Germany, and others open their markets to gambling operators from foreign countries. Since the European Commission increasingly forces these countries to open their jurisdictions, eCOGRA has published a report, which induces gambling operators to support the high safety standards the Commission asserts that foreign online casinos has.

Recently the UK Problem Gambling charity organisation GamCare, eCOGRA (eCommerce and Online Gambling Regulation and Assurance), and also some other regulatory boards and player advocacy groups worked together to create the eGAP (Generally Accepted Practices) global operational standards for the online gambling industry worldwide. The numerous organizations and experts on online gambling policy formed the set of standards that will act as main requirements and guarantee that the universal industry has the same level of player protection measures, policies and the minimum standards that are acceptable at internet casinos.

The internet casinos gambling atmosphere in the EU is changing now, since the majority of countries are starting to access foreign operators to their online gambling markets. So, eCOGRA and others are working to guarantee that there isn’t any backlash from the European gambling industry liberalization.

Nobody can predict when the European Commission will be able to put an end to all the state-run online gambling monopolies, but by now the Commission has moved a lot in opening up these closed online casino gambling markets.

Comments Off

The internet gambling industry in Europe is the thing that is much discussed these days especially in connection with continuous efforts of the European Commission to eliminate some state-gambling monopolies. Though, several online casino gambling and betting companies are trying to take matters into their own hands. Ladbrokes is one of the leading betting and gaming companies in the United Kingdom and in Europe. And in spite of the fact that Ladbrokes is an esteemed and established gambling company, the government of Sweden keeps denying foreign online gambling company’s access to their gambling market. Thus, as expected, Ladbrokes has taken on Svenske Spel, the Swedish gambling monopoly and challenged the company in Swedish adverts.

The present dispute flared up between Ladbrokes and Svenske Spel because of a specific ad that Ladbrokes placed in Sweden. The advertisement from Ladbrokes featured the headline “Svenska Spel, Engelska Odds” meaning, “Swedish Games, English Odds.” And now Svenske Spel is blaming Ladbrokes for infringing on Svenske’s trademark.

At this moment Svenske Spel has moved further and threatened Ladbrokes online gambling group with a lawsuit if they don’t remove their advertisement from Swedish publications. To the extent that the Ladbrokes is concerned although, so game is on! Lasse Dilshmann, the Ladbrokes’ CEO at Scandinavia, said, “A lawsuit is a dream for us and we like our odds.”

And this isn’t personal it is a challenge to the existing internet gambling monopoly politics in Sweden, not only against Svenske Spel, but against the idea that merely the state monopoly can garantee “secure and responsible” online gambling.

Comments Off

The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa has just approved a new online gambling law to regulate an online casino gambling industry that is full of crime and exposed to money laundering, it is also thought to finance terrorism.

A memorandum, which is attached to the National Gambling Amendment Bill, reads that the online gambling industry was unregulated and was producing a lot of crime that was having effect on all areas of life. It said that this situation caused a considerable revenue loss for the national economy and compromised the reputation of the country as a responsible universal citizen.

The aim of the new bill is to eliminate the negative socio-economic effects that are connected with gambling. Moreover it deals with licensing, problem gambling, taxation, player protection and advertising.

Now every player who wants to play online must be registered with a licensed online gambling provider and give an affidavit in order to make sure they are older than 18.

The aim of this bill is to guarantee that gambling is conducted fairly, responsibly and properly and to protect underage and other defenseless persons from the negative gambling effects.

The bill made also provision for an electronic monitoring system in order to help exterminate potentially addiction and limit credit extensions to gamblers. Thabo Mbeki, President of the Republic of South Africa, must sign this bill into law before it comes into force.

In accordance with South African National Gambling Board revenues from all forms of gambling without internet grew from R6.2 billion in 2001-02 to R13.5 billion in the year 2006-07

Comments Off

These days the US land casino players are thought to flock to the online casinos. A lot of players consider online gambling as a cheaper alternate to travelling to land-based casinos taking into account the state of the US economy nowadays. A while ago the brick and mortar casinos stated that the recession and rising price of oil would have slightly effect on profits and revenues, but that has turned out rather untrue a little bit later. At present the price for a gallon of gas is $4 a gallon, a lot of gamblers are stopping travelling to land gambling venues and as an alternative trying to catch luck at the online casinos.

Not only the brick and mortar casinos report reducing revenues, but in all the states except Washington, players don’t bear responsibility for gambling online, therefore there isn’t any reason to avoid playing at online casino especially if it costs you less. Analysts in the gambling industry think why players are heading to the online gambling instead of simply giving up gambling. Thomas Jensen, a representative of Point-Spreadscom, commented, “People want to make quick money thus they’re joining online casinos.”

The US government is hoping that the move into the online casinos gambling precisely will not happen. Current controversial North American legislation tries to stop online gamblers from accessing the foreign online casinos gambling sites and offshore. At this time the legislation is stopped at the regulation drafting phase, and an increasing interest by Americans in the online gambling industry could make some politicians uphold legislation that would allow to license and regulate the internet gambling industry.

Comments Off

For the last decade the international online casinos gambling industry has been increasing enormously. The latest step of development at the online gambling websites is the development of whole sites in niche languages and servicing niche markets of players. The Mansion.com gambling site is the latest of the well-liked websites that have branched out from the usual English version and add a full French site to its gambling site. Developers of online casinos software provide online gambling games in many languages, but now the sites themselves are starting offering full language versions in order to adapt for the larger online gambling markets.

The new French Mansion site is the second attempt made by the Mansion gambling group to start providing expanded gambling choices for non-English speaking gamblers. Likewise the company launched out the site version in Spanish last year, and Mansion has plans to keep developing and launching other language versions of its popular online casino. They are going to begin with sites in German, Portuguese and Italian.

Mansion uses the gambling platform from Playtech and already offers gamblers to play the downloadable games in various languages. In addition, the Playtech gaming platform provides the always popular progressive slot machines games that help to bring in new players to the site. The gamblers who play progressive slots at the Mansion gambling site have an opportunity to win millions of dollars. Playtech is a growing online casino software provider which has continued creating innovative games and offering exclusive licensed software to licensees.

Comments Off