Online Casino Games

The latter event kicked off on Monday and ran through until the past Friday, offering $20,000 to dozens of players at Online Vegas casino – and there’s a lot to choose from.

The best thing about that tournament – it was completely free! Most tournaments at Online Vegas carry a $12.99 entry fee. Tournaments at Online Vegas have recently been shy on players, meaning it is far easier to make the money – for example, this $30,000 guaranteed tournament has only 500 participants. First place is $15,000.
 

The veteran online gambling software developer Cryptologic has issued a trading update ahead of the release of its third quarter results on November 5th, indicating that the traditionally slow nusiness period has not been kind to the company.

Uncertain macroeconomic conditions and sluggish wagering activity across the industry continued in the third quarter, contributing to a significant decline in wagering volumes at Cryptologic in both casino and poker compared with Q3/2008. A company spokesman said that while the third quarter is traditionally the slowest season for Internet gaming, the seasonal uptick in demand normally seen in September was well below historic trends.

There was a strong take-up of branded Cryptologic games by new licensees during the Q3/2009. The company expanded its total number of branded games on the market to 33, up from 13 in the second quarter and three in Q1/2009. As most of the new games scheduled for the quarter were not launched by customers until late in the period, revenue from these will only start to come through from Q4/2009.

As a result, the company expects to report Q3/2009 revenue of approximately $9.6 million and a trading loss of approximately $3.4 million.

However, the pipeline of new business continues to be strong and with a substantially expanded base of 28 new licensees, management remains confident of its strategy to return the business to profitability and long term growth, albeit at a slower rate than anticipated by management and the market.

The fourth quarter has started well and an up-to-date outlook for the period will be provided with the Q3/2009 results announcement, the spokesman added.

October 3 - Big slots tournaments have become somewhat of a regular occurrence at Golden Online Casino, powered by the Vegas technology platform.

Here is an overview off the tournaments on offer at Golden Casino and also at their sister casino, Online Vegas Casino.

The first big tournament of the month is the Columbus Day Free Slot Tournament:

This tournament commences on October 12th at 10AM (ET), and offers a $20K Guaranteed prize pool. The Tournament runs until October 16th and features the game ‘X Marks the Spot’. the winner will receive an awesome $5,550 with prizes paid out to 500th Place. Their is also a rebuy available at $9.99.

To celebrate Halloween the casinos are running the ‘Fearfully Fun Fright Night Freeroll with $2,666 Guaranteed.’

This Free roll tournament takes place on October 30th at 10AM (ET). 1st Place prize is a Frightfully Fantastic $666 with prizes paid out to 200th Place. Entry is free with rebuys at $1.99 and the featured game is ‘Black Magic’.

Next in line is the Halloween Weekend Madness with $66,666 Guaranteed. Starting October 30th at 8PM (ET) is the Halloween Weekend Madness $66,666 Guaranteed Slot Tournament. Entry fee is a $13.13, with a chance to take home a spooky $16,666 1st Place prize. There are prizes all the way to 500th Place. The featured fame is ‘Monster Money’.

Read our reviews of Goldencasino.com and Onlinevegas.com.

US players are welcome.

PayPal, like many other companies, was scared away from the online gambling industry in the US. The popular payment processor was stopped by its parent company, eBay, from accepting payments for online casinos in the US.

Now, however, the company is back in the online gambling market. The company signed a deal to become a payment service provider for merchants of Neovia Financial. Neovia has a strong presence in the UK online gambling industry.

PayPal will still not process payments from US customers to online gambling sites, but they will do so in other jurisdictions where Internet gambling is regulated. The move to sign the deal with Neovia has some people believing that PayPal may be reconsidering their online gambling stance.

“It was very clear back in the early part of this decade that PayPal made an effort to move away from online gambling altogether,” said Gaming Analyst Steve Schwartz, “With this deal, however, it may be a signal that PayPal is reconsidering that stance and is preparing to make a full jump back into the online gambling industry.”

Right now in the US it has become increasingly difficult for payment processors that want to accept online gambling transactions. The US government has already began seizing bank accounts that are related to online gambling payouts.

The laws in the US may change, however, in the near future. Representative Barney Frank has proposed legislation that would overturn the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. That legislation is not expected to be discussed until early next year, although Frank has indicated that the issue would be brought up in Congress in the Fall.

The warrants to 2,500,000 class B shares in gambling group Entraction are being sold by the Global Betting Exchange Group (GBE), the parent company of Betdaq back to the company for a price SEK21 per share (€2.1) currently valued at around SEK 80 million.

Entraction will lay out a total SEK 23 million (€2.25 million) if shareholders are in agreement at an extraordinary general meeting to be convened soon.

A company spokesman said that had GBE exercised the warrants it would have created a dilution in capital of 19.4%. Instead, Entraction would cancel the warrants on execution of the acquisition.

“We have enjoyed the support of the Global Betting Exchange Group in agreeing to Entraction acquiring the warrants at a price substantially lower than current trading price,” Entraction chief executive Peter Åström said. “The exercise of the warrants would have incurred a large dilution at a low valuation, relative to the strong development Entraction has shown the past two years.”

He added that the purchase of the warrants will affect cashflow, but not financial results as the cost is made against equity.

In what appears to be a public riposte to attacks on its move offshore by UK racing bodies, William Hill's CEO Ralph Topping this week expanded on the reasons behind the move, starting with the assertion that the online gambling business offers great opportunities but is intensely competitive.

The competitive element is at the root of William Hill’s strategic transfer of its online operations to Gibraltar, where the company’s competitive edge is not blunted by the UK’s current 15% gross profits tax regime and 10% levy on all UK horseracing bets.

Describing the move as a logical step in the evolution of William Hill and its online entity, William Hill Online, Topping wrote: “Any company which wants to be a leading online betting and gaming business on the international stage has to take every competitive advantage possible.

“And it was simply impossible for us to compete from the UK, as the current 15% gross profits tax regime and 10% levy on all UK horseracing bets accepted discriminates against onshore operators. “Existing offshore operators don’t have those costs, giving them more capital to invest in growing their businesses.”

Topping says that although that point was repeatedly made to the UK government, it was not addressed, and as a consequence: “The decision to move was one we could no longer avoid making. Our online operations now have a really bright future.

“Relocating our online betting teams to Gibraltar, alongside our suite of existing casino, poker and other gaming products, is going to provide significant synergies further that will help us grow.

“Moving our online betting activities to join our existing gaming operations in our William Hill Online headquarters in Gibraltar will also make us more efficient operationally.”

Topping says that Gibraltar is a centre of excellence for online betting and gaming, giving his company access to a skilled workforce while offering a competitive tax regime.

“Around 60 employees have already relocated from the UK to the jurisdiction since the beginning of 2009 to support the expanded operations and we expect this number to grow,” he adds, noting that the company is becoming increasingly international in Europe and farther afield in addition to its well established UK business.

“This globalisation is also reflected in our online operations, with our egaming headquarters and gaming activities in Gibraltar, marketing teams in Israel and customer services in Bulgaria,” he points out.

In what seems to be a reference to horseracing authorities critical of the Gibraltar move, Topping comments: “As for those who have claimed that moving offshore will increase the risk of match-fixing or corrupt betting, bookmakers are the ones that suffer if fraudulent bets are placed. They have no interest in lowering their guard when it comes to monitoring these criminal activities.

“Moving to Gibraltar will enable us to continue our focus on internet gaming and betting, which up until we entered into our partnership with Playtech had become the underperforming cousin to the rest of our business.

“Already, we have seen marked improvements in our online activities: online bingo revenues have grown by 50% over the past 12 months and our overall egaming revenues rose 58% in 2009 to £100 million, compared with £63 million last year. These figures reflect the immediate impact of combining the Playtech brands with the William Hill name last year.

“We are also confident the migration of our online casino to the Playtech platform by year-end, in addition to the poker players we will ‘re-recruit’ once the poker player-base has been migrated from the CryptoLogic platform to Playtech, will continue to feed this growth.

“All these moves will increase our cross-selling capabilities, which when allied to the competitive edge we will gain in online betting thanks to our relocation, will enable our online division to achieve even more.”