Last week, the White Hall Bingo Hall near Huntsville, Alabama was shut down after a task force led by state police raided the facility and confiscated two hundred video bingo devices. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the machines constituted illegal gambling devices and that the owners were subject to criminal prosecution under the state’s strict laws.

The bingo machines have been popular in bars and stores around the state since the 1980s, but anti-gaming groups have set their sights on eliminating them from their borders. These groups, led mostly by Baptist ministers and their congregations, have a powerful ally in Republican Governor Bob Riley. Riley has stated that all of the state’s sixteen thousand electronic bingo machines should be removed and that "it’s time for them to go."

Riley also said that he plans to prosecute any company that houses, buys or sells the illegal machines "to the fullest extent" of the law. He has sent letters to governors in states like Nevada, New Jersey and Louisiana, where the gambling industry is at its strongest, asking them to make sure that manufacturers of these machines do not ship their devices to Alabama in an attempt to circumvent the law.

The governor’s stance runs into the full opposition of the developers of new and expanded sites for the popular games. Ronnie Gilley, the lead developer for the Country Crossing facility, said that plans at his site are going “full speed ahead” for a December 1 opening day. His facility will include a concert hall, an RV park and a bed and breakfast along with 1,700 video bingo machines.

Ron Sparks, the state’s Agriculture Commissioner and prospective gubernatorial candidate in the next election, also voiced his disagreement with Riley’s position, stating that the removal of the video bingo machines would cost state and local governments millions in lost tax revenue. Sparks promised that, if elected governor, he would create a plan to regulate and expand gambling within the state in an effort to lower taxes and relieve the state’s budget crisis.

The report “Problem Gambling in Europe” highlights the lack of known empirical evidence surrounding gambling and problem gambling, presenting an overview that suggests that many governments are not doing enough research into this critical important subject.

Professor Griffiths conducted a country-by-country analysis of the known empirical evidence on gambling and problem gambling in Europe and found that only one-third of the nations surveyed had carried out comprehensive surveys.

The findings will be read with considerable interest in an environment where state gambling monopolies frequently justify their stranglehold on national markets by claiming that it is to protect citizens from compulsive gambling.

Griffiths revealed that countries that had carried out national studies on gambling and problem gambling of varying representativeness, quality and empirical rigour included Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Lithuania, Sweden and Switzerland.

However, he found Austria, France, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain lacking, commenting that these countries had only conducted their research at a regional or local level.

And almost nothing is known about gambling and problem gambling in Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland and Portugal.

“The debate about gambling is multi-faceted,” said Adrian Morris, deputy managing director for StanleyBet, which has seen its share of legal struggles against state monopolies.

“Many reasons and interpretations are put forward as to why a particular (European Union) state does or does not grant access to its market by operators from other Member States, be they online or offline, be they casino, betting or other type of gambling operator.

“I have become increasingly concerned that this debate is informed by little or no information and the argumentation seems to be based on myths appealing to emotion rather than facts informing reason and leading to policymaking. Unfortunately, to this day, it seems that emotion continues to overrule facts.”

The Griffith report comes in a week where the Las Vegas Sun newspaper drew attention to startling new research into gambling addiction involving functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the human brain during gambling.

The scans provided the first biological evidence of what treatment providers had long known from working with the hardest cases: For addicts, gambling is truly compulsive and becomes all-important - eclipsing commitments to family and work with a need not unlike scoring drugs and getting high.

The research hopefully opens the way to more effective help for the small but tragic percentage of gamblers who fall prey to addiction.

The Las Vegas Sun article reports that a growing collection of research has found that the most afflicted gamblers have the kinds of biological brain disorders that are found among drug and alcohol abusers.

“Before the relatively recent use of MRI machines, scientists could only view people’s behavior, dissect the brains of the deceased or study brain chemistry by drawing fluid from the body. Functional magnetic resonance imaging allows real-time study of the brain by measuring changes in blood flow as well as oxygen levels in the blood,” the report notes.

The report goes on to examine the phenomenon of dopamine, a feel-good chemical secreted by the brain which in the words of one eminent researcher ‘highjacks’ the brain’s reward system to create intense cravings and an obsessive focus on gambling.

“The brain pulls off this mutiny by figuring out that, if it can identify and connect with an addictive target - say, a slot machine - it can produce its own jackpot - a flood of rewarding dopamine,” the article explains. “Triggering that dopamine overflow can overwhelm brain circuits that normally moderate risky behavior.”

Addicts in this situation seek out gambling not for pleasure, but for the dopamine rush, which in turn creates a vicious circle where the person focuses more intensely on gambling at the expense of everything else.

In further studies, the dopamine rush among addicted research subjects occurred before any gambling and in response to cues indicating that gambling was about to occur, such as an image of a slot machine or the person’s favourite casino.

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Moneybookers has transferred the benefits of the Moneybookers eWallet into the offline world whilst giving its customers instant access to their cash, wherever they are, using the new product. Moneybookers is the first mainstream eWallet provider to do this, a spokesman claimed this week (apparently ignorant of similar Neteller cards that have been around for over 2 years).

Unlike existing prepaid cards customers using the Moneybookers MasterCard, issued by Newcastle Building Society in the UK, will not have to split funds and separately preload the card. Instead, the Moneybookers MasterCard synchronises automatically in real time with the funds in the customer’s Moneybookers eWallet.

This innovative feature gives the card an ease of use and simplicity that makes it suitable for managing finances in a wide variety of applications. As well as allowing customers to shop online and offline, users can both book holiday flights and pay for their souvenirs when away. Businesses can pay their suppliers - all whilst managing their spending directly via their Moneybookers eWallet.

The card is available for all Moneybookers customers with a set up fee / annual fee of €10, and withdrawal fees set at €1.80 and FX fee at 1.99%. The card will initially be available in four currencies: GBP, EUR, USD and PLN.

Currently, over 12,000 new Moneybookers eWallet accounts are opened every day, the spokesman revealed, adding that the alternative payment sector is estimated to make up 30% of all online transactions by 2012, suggesting that consumers will continue to seek alternatives to banks for day to day activity.

Martin Ott, co-CEO of Moneybookers, said: “We’re very pleased to be launching the next step in online payments. We recently signed up our ten millionth account holder; as this sector grows our customers are increasingly looking to exploit the time and safety benefits of the eWallet in the real world.”

“As the largest provider of MasterCard prepaid cards in the UK and Europe, NCS is pleased to work in partnership with Moneybookers and together drive further the development of the prepaid cards industry,” said Kriya Patel, Head of Newcastle Card Solutions Limited. “The Moneybookers eWallet offers a whole new dimension in terms of convenience and this new card brings together for customers the benefits of a sophisticated online payment platform with access to their money offline, wherever they are, whenever they choose.”

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The previous record of $878,959 set only just over a week ago by Antonius and Isildur1 was smashed by a giant $1,356,947 pot generated by the same duo in a heads up high stakes Pot Limit Omaha match on the Full Tilt online poker tables Saturday night. And, generating a deja vu atmosphere, it was Antonius who scooped it again.

Not content with pulling in the biggest pot in online history, Antonius went on to take Isildur1 for another mammoth pot worth $810,984, according to independent stats from MarketPulse.

The full 4,470 hand session was an expensive one for Isildur1, who handed $2.1 million all told to the Finnish ace.

That wasn’t the end of the excitement, however, for the mystery Swede then took on Phil Ivey over a pot worth $827,960 and won it, only to lose a $832,940 pot back to Ivey later on the same night. Over the course of the night Ivey also boosted his bank balance at the Swede’s expense, taking $1.2 million off him in POL and NHLE nosebleed action.

Isildur’s incredibly successful arrival on the high stakes Internet poker scene back in September saw him play against the best on offer and build a bankroll of around $5 million by mid-November, but that has been seriously eroded by more recent clashes and must now be below a million.

For the record on those records, MarketPulse reports that Tom Dwan and Di Dang set the record for largest ever pot online in October 2008 when they generated a $723,000 monster. Antonius and Isildur1 smashed that record November 16 with a pot worth $878,959, and on Saturday night the duo broke their own record with that mega-pot of $1.356 million.

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Details are not yet available on the punter and his good fortune at the Microgaming-powered online casino, but it is known that Treasure Nile has been generous over the past couple of months, generating six significant jackpot wins.

In the event it proved to be quite an evening with the mystery maven dropping around $2.4 million and a new record for an online poker pot being established over the nine hours and well over 2,000 hands that were played. It was a great session for Antonius, who took home over $2.4 million and the distinction of winning online poker’s biggest pot yet.

Isildur1’s successful run over the past few days in particular came to an end when he and Antonius faced off across four $500/$1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha tables. Highlights of the big money action were no fewer than six pots of over $500,000 each, another six over $400,000…and that monster record pot of $878,959, which Antonius made his own after an exciting passage of play that began with almost even stacks held by both players.

Adding even more spice to the evening, Antonius and Isildur1 at one point switched to the $500/$1,000 NLHE tables, where Antonius continued to crush his gutsy opponent, this time for $275,000, according to the independent poker statistics site MarketPulse.

Zicarelli was merely a customer of a gambling operation that federal authorities are investigating. His legal representative asked U.S. District Judge Greg Kays to grant a two-week recess and compel prosecutors to produce evidence showing that Zicarelli was something more than a casual gambler.

“He’s a law-abiding citizen who doesn’t want to be dragged into this investigation,” the lawyer emphasised.

Zicarelli had earlier invoked his 5th Amendment right not to give evidence that would tend to show that he had committed a crime after he was ordered to appear before the Grand Jury last month. A judge then gave him immunity from prosecution, but Zicarelli persisted in his refusal.

On Monday, Kays found him in contempt and committed him to detention for up to 18 months or until he agreed to tell what he knows to the grand jury.

Arguing against the 5th Amendment application from the witness, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Becker said the grand jury has a right to hear evidence about violations of U.S. laws.

“A law-abiding citizen has to make a decision,” Becker said. “Do I obey the law, or do I protect my bookmaker?”

After the hearing, Zicarelli’s father, Anthony Zicarelli, confronted Becker in a courthouse hallway and challenged him to investigate more serious crimes.

“It’s amazing how much power you have to destroy my son’s life,” Anthony Zicarelli said. “You’re putting all these young kids in jail.”

Becker listened to the criticism without comment and returned to his office.

Local media report that Judge Kays jailed three other men under similar circumstances in August this year.

Those jailed for refusing to testify could be released earlier if the grand jury completes its probe, if they decide to testify or if the jury completes its term, officials said.