Miscellaneous Online Casino Info Dec 2005

Published: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

MISCELLANEOUS ONLINE CASINO INFORMATION DECMEBER 2005

This is where Online-Casinos.com try to sum up this months online casino and gambling news

English Harbour group including Odds On taken over by Alistair Assheton's Leisure and Gaming group.

In October 2005 Leisure and Gaming also took over the Stanley Leisure Internet interests such as the online Crockfords and Acropolis casinos.

Sandpiper Online Casino relaunched after a heafty revamp and is now licensed in Curacao.

Australian betting group Betcorp has launched Poker Pump

RTG-powered Wild On Casino is dead.

Likewise Net Entertainment powered Gamrock.

Also Lucky Chance online casino (software unknown)

The Jazzsports/ Dionysus/ ABS Islands/ Looselines group has changed to ISP Pro software.

Casino.co.uk is now both portal and online casino and has dropped Boss software in favour of no-download Virtual Fusion. Gaming Corp is the owner - part of an expanding and apparently well-heeled group.

The betting exchange group Betfair, although still using Cryptologic software on its Betfair Poker operation has acquired the Danish company Pokerchamps/Aglet and can be expected to change softwares in the new year.

VIP Casino (now part of the Leisure and Gaming group) dropped IGW software in favour of RTG.

Wild Vegas Casino has changed to Parlay Entertainment software

Royal Vegas Poker in the Fortune Lounge group has undergone a revamp (Oct 2005)

Odds On's upgraded software is branded Vegas Technologies.

Grand Virtual-powered Everest Casino has been relaunched after an extensive revamp. Canadian company Grand Virtual itself was taken over by the Taiwan based GigaMedia group earlier this year.

Golden Cairo Online Casino has undergone a revamp.

Coral Eurobet Poker has dropped the Party Poker connection following the latter's decision to go it alone and moved to Ongame's network. How Ongame's purchase by Bet and Win will effect this is at present unknown.

Parbet has left the Prima network, but the following operations have joined Prima: All In Poker, BetEd, Dream Poker, Poker Time, Poker Arena and 5 Dogs Poker.

The Jackpot Factory group has launched Wild Jack Mobile Casino.

Atlantis Internet Group is soon to launch Motown Legends online casino shortly, owned by past greats in Motown music The Miracles and The 4 Tops. An expensive marketing and personal promotional tour is planned.

888 Casino has made its games accessible to more online gamblers with the launch of a suite of no-download flash casino games compatible with Mac, Linux and Windows. Whilst introducing the Flash technology, 888 also upgraded its poker room at Pacific Poker, which is now available to Mac players through the use of the Java platform.

Taiwan-based broadband and entertainment provider GigaMedia has acquired online Mahjong gaming site FunTown for US$45 million.

CYOP Systems International Inc., a provider of online gaming software and operator of games portals executed an agreement with FutureBet Systems Inc., this week to purchase 40 online casino games and a sportsbook software and platform for $1,2 million on terms.

Ten more quality online casinos have passed probity, fairness and efficiency inspections and have been awarded the eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance (eCOGRA) "Play It Safe" seal by the board of directors of the standards authority.

The latest casinos awarded the seal are:

Colosseum Casino
Vegas Joker
Floridita Club Casino
Grand Casino Venice
Grand Hotel Casino
Old Samurai Casino
Royal Plaza Casino
Vegas 7 Casino
Vegas Country Casino
Vegas Slot Casino

After intimations earlier this year that it intended to focus on its core business of skill gaming, it should come as no surprise that FUN Technologies is shedding most of its interest in the betting exchange venture Betbull.

The company, which was created by Cryptologic founder Andrew Rifkin and Internet entrepeneur Lorne Abony has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Columbia Exchange Systems Limited, has completed the sale of the majority of the group's equity interest in Betbull - aka European Betting Exchange plc.

Veteran online casino company Winward Gaming has launched its new real-money gaming site, Slots Village. The new Parlay Entertainment-powered site offers a wide range of slots games including 1-reel, 3-reel, 5-reel and video slots with bonus rounds.

Boasting over 50 slot machines, with 36 currently linked to various progressive jackpots, the site also offers a number of video slots in a range of machines offering maximum payouts of up to $200,000. There are also 25 other popular games including video poker, keno, pulltabs, blackjack, roulette and craps. The plan is to add new games every month.

The Alderney licensed and WagerWorks powered The Price Is Right Games.com has emailed players with its announcement that it is to close on January 13 2006, urging them to clear their accounts. Owned by the substantial UK-based FreemantleMedia group (part of RTL and Bertelsmann AG) this outfit has given no reasons for the closure.

Tribeca Tables Europe has signed up a major North American facing sportsbook, Bowmans International Sports Ltd for its online poker network.

World Gaming executives have completed the final acquisition of the Sportsbetting.com group with all pre-conditions on the deal having been met. Funding for the acquisition includes a $40 million term loan from Barclays plc plus the previously announced placing of shares to raise GBP 6 million for the group before expenses. In addition, Barclays has provided a revolving facility of up to $ 5 million.

Virgin owner Sir Richard Branson has re-launched subsidiary Virgin Gaming's revamped online poker offering, powered by Boss Media and a member of that provider's network. There has been extensive site redesign from the original offering introduced last year.

The Swedish government's Svenska Spel is to enter the online poker sector powered by Boss Media. Svenska Spel estimates that the organisation will be able to corner at least a third of the 1 billion kronor (US$124 million) Swedish market within a year.

The approval has a two-year trial caveat that comes with specific conditions: The minimum age for accepting any gambling action is 18; marketing will only be allowed in newspapers and on the Internet and Swedish players will only be allowed to gamble after having defined a specific limit on how much they want to stake in each session. Current proposals have set the maximum limit in this regard at 79,400 kronor (approx US$10,000).

Following its decision to go it alone, the market leading online poker site Party Poker has announced that it will pay $14.5 million (GBP 8.34 million) for its former skin Multipoker and, it is believed, $4 million for most of IntertopsPoker.