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"Renowned online poker site PokerStars has just launched a new survey related to online casino gaming and sports betting. The survey might indicate the poker company's intention to expand into other areas of the online gambling market. Just recently, online poker site PokerStars has launched a new survey that was mailed to all of its online poker players. The survey asks poker players various questions related to online casino gaming and sports betting. One of the questions of the survey is whether or not the player in question was engaged in an online casino or online sports betting activity during the recent past. If the answer to this question was yes, then a list will appear from which the player will have to select the brands where he or she has been playing in the past. "

CLUBS should be the sole operator of online casino games if they are legalised, with the community-benefit model of pokies revenue flowing to local clubs to be applied, the pokies lobby says. Online casino games, including poker, are at present illegal, but a recent interim review of interactive gambling laws recommends a liberalisation of online gambling, with online poker hosted by Australian companies to be trialled over five years. Other casino-style games would remain banned. Conservative estimates show at least 130,000 are playing online poker on overseas websites despite the current law.

Although online poker is a gold mine of data, until now nobody knows where the players and their money come from. It seems that the knowledge about the online poker market has not been able to keep up with the speed of its evolution in the past years. This paper is the first to shed light on this matter. We use data of 4,591,342 poker identities from the Online Poker Database of the University of Hamburg (OPD-UHH) collected over a six months period from 09/2009 to 03/2010. We find that the USA is still by far the biggest market with 1,428,823 active players and 650.5 million US$ net revenues in 2009. However, with regard to the number of internet users in a country Hungary is the biggest relative market: One out of 57 Hungarians with internet access plays online poker for real money. The two main drivers of the proportion of online poker players per internet users are GDP per capita and culture. Using the data from the OPD-UHH, future research will be able to break down the market also on a regional level within countries and to examine inter and intra country differences in the playing habits of online poker players.

"The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Zynga is working hard to try and push online gambling in the United States. The company has spent as much as $75,000 to lobbying policy which would make online gambling legal in the US."

Sweden's refusal to open up its gambling market means it is missing out on billions in tax revenue and is hindering the growth of its online gambling industry, Casinoonline.se report concludes. Sweden may be missing out on billions of Krona in tax and licensing revenue, as well as jeopardizing the continued growth of one of its key high tech industries, by not opening up its online gambling market to competition. This is the conclusion reached in an in-depth report conducted by Casinoonline.se, a leading online casino portal.

Mark Pincus, chief executive of Zynga, said in a conference call with analysts today that the company will launch its first real-money online gambling poker game in the first half of 2013. The game will likely be launched outside the U.S., since real-money online gambling is still illegal in the vast majority of states. There are regulatory roadblocks in many countries, but Europe is pretty open. Pincus said the launch will be subject to online gambling regulatory reviews. Zynga's non-real-money poker game, Zynga Poker, accounted for 18 percent of revenue. In that game, users purchase poker chips with real money, but they cannot cash out any winnings

"Boom… Prior to 2006, Internet-based gambling was effectively legal in the United States. Although the Federal Wire Act from 1961 prohibited transmission of sports betting information using telecommunications services, in 2002 a U.S. appeals court ruled that the sports-related provisions in the Wire Act did not preclude Internet gambling. Although some states and jurisdictions did have laws on the books specifically prohibiting online gambling, many did not - and so started a bit of an online gold rush as online gambling companies tried to capture chunks of the lucrative U.S. market."

Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA)'s attempts to enter real-money gambling may be held back by US laws, which favor existing casinos, according to Bloomberg. So far, 3 US states, including New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware, have passed laws that will allow online gambling games to be played on their territories, but it looks like the conditions will benefit casinos which dominate the gambling scene. This could create problems for the social gaming giant, which is looking to reduce its dependence on its current business model, including bolstering growth and business transactions by offering real-money games. At present, Zynga (ZNGA) has employed a 'free to play' business model, which was started by multiplayer online games like Jagex Games Studio' RuneScape. It allow players to play games free of cost but with the choice to spend real money on virtual items or other in-game advantages. These in-games purchases are called "micro-transactions".

If you love gambling and live in Delaware, you'll soon be able to legally play slots and games such as roulette and poker online. The state hopes to launch online gambling in 2013 and intends to make betting available on a variety of digital devices, including smartphones and tablets. The new gambling offerings will generate $7.75M in fiscal 2013.

Nearly 130,000 Australians are playing illegal internet poker games, with United States operators raking in $68 million in one year, according to new research. Online casino games, including poker, are currently illegal in Australia. But in May the federal government released an interim review of interactive gaming laws that recommended legalising internet poker games, as part of overall liberalising of industry. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/illegal-online-poker-is-costing-australians-68m-20120705-21kdg.html#ixzz1znVbSn89

FOUR out of every five problem gamblers in South Australia are addicted to pokies - despite the growth of online and sports betting. A profile of problem gamblers treated by the Flinders University School of Medicine shows less than 1 per cent said they had a problem gambling online but 83.9 per cent admitted to poker machine addiction. Flinders University Professor of Psychiatry Malcolm Battersby said experts did not know why a boom in sports betting and online gambling had not yet translated to an increase in problem gamblers.

"Nevada and the District of Columbia have already taken steps to authorize online poker, and state officials in Iowa have been studying the issue closely. Lawmakers in New Jersey and California are redoubling their efforts to legalize it, bolstered by a recent Department of Justice decision that reversed the federal government's long-held opposition to many forms of Internet gambling. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey spoke this month of making his state an "epicenter" of the online gambling industry. "

In April, Wynn was in talks with Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), the world's largest social gaming developer, to form a strategic online partnership. (See our previous post: Wynn Takes Hard Look At Online Gambling Market With Zynga) Speculation is rife that Wynn is interested in partnering with Zynga for this project. Zynga enjoys a dominating position in the social gaming industry and has about 232 million average monthly active users across 166 countries.

AUSTRALIANS could get access to legal online poker tournaments and a wider choice of online sports betting options under proposals to liberalise the internet gambling sector

888, one of the world's most popular online gaming entertainment and solutions providers, has today announced, as part of its online US strategy, an alliance with WMS Gaming Inc., a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of games, gaming content and gaming machines in the United States.

"While Zynga waits to make a move into the online gambling space, other Internet casinos are all in - and have been for more than a decade. This infographic shows how much the industry has grown since 1998, from online bingo and poker sites to national and state lotteries."

NEARLY 130,000 Australians are playing illegal internet poker games, with US operators raking in $68 million in one year, according to new research. Online casino games, including poker, are illegal in Australia but in May the federal government released an interim review of interactive gaming laws that recommended legalising internet poker as part of overall liberalising of the industry. Other casino games would remain banned.

With literally thousands of online casinos on the internet, it can sometimes become very confusing as to which ones are safe and reputable, and which casinos are not. So many of them are beautifully designed, look very professional and offer great signup bonuses, so how does one go about choosing the "reputable" online casinos while avoiding the "dodgy" ones?

"I started playing at 6 p.m. on a Friday and found myself still going at 9 a.m. the next morning…But wait, I needed to get a job! Hold on I had just found one! The low buy-in tournament I entered with my promo money was coming to a close - and I was in second place! $1850! Not bad for a night's work. And so, that's how I entered the online poker world. Back in 2006 these sites had so much traffic and the U.S. market was so wide open that the sites would essentially just give players free money to get them to play on their site"

Online poker could be just months away in Nevada, and Gov. Brian Sandoval said he's comfortable state regulators are taking appropriate steps to license operators while protecting the public.