Bodog Casino offers over 100 titles from the software provider Realtime Gaming. It also offers some innovative online slot games from CTXM. The new online casino lobby interface provides instant access to all game information, making it easier for Bodog Casino players to select the games best suited to them. This interface is quick and saves considerable time in the search. It is also easy to use and players need not worry about learning procedures anew because of the change. In fact the novelty adds to the excitement. One of the new features provided is a convenient search bar that will help Bodog Casino players zero in on the online casino games that they are looking for without navigating through the lists. Sorting tools have also been provided that can arrange the games according the parameters more important to players. Players at online casinos do not wager on all the games offered but have a selected list of favorites. The new interface at Bodog Casino allows players to create a customized games list in a simple manner.

At the heart of the new interface are the panel view and the list view. The panel view depicts the game icons in a panel, whereas the list view depicts the games titles in a tabular form. Each view has its own advantages and therefore Bodog Casino now gives players an option. Players who are familiar with the games’ icons would find the panel view more convenient. Those who are more familiar with the titles would prefer to scroll through the list.

The panel view offers five easy-to-read game categories to choose from. It also makes the game sorting and navigation easier. The advantage of the list view is that all the game information is on one screen. Toggling between the panel view and the list view is made very easy. Both views offer a recently played games list. This is very convenient for players who wager repeatedly on few online casino games. They have to go to the recently played games list to open the games instead of scrolling through the complete list or using the search engine. Players can also create a favorite games list. The players should ideally include those games in the favorite games list that they like but do not play very often. It does not make sense to have the same set of online casino games in the recently played and the favorite lists. Updating the favorite games list has been made easy with the new star icon.

Immediately after Black Friday the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC), which is the licensing authority for Full Tilt Poker, had announced that it would review the situation. Yesterday AGCC announced that it had suspended Full Tilt’s licences, forcing the online poker room to suspend all operations. The complete statement from AGCC read, “The decision to suspend these licenses follows a special investigation prompted by the indictments unsealed by US Attorney General’s Office in the Southern District of New York on 15th April 2011, during which grounds were found to indicate that these licensees and their business associates were operating contrary to Alderney legislation.”

Full Tilt Poker’s servers are down and play at the online poker site has been fully halted. The reactions expressed at the online gambling forums are more of resignation than of anger. English poker player Keith Hawkins wrote, “Full Tilt ceases operations. I guess after Black Friday, today should be called Predictable Wednesday. I hope everyone gets their money.” The Full Tilt web site says that the system is currently shut down because of maintenance in progress and requests players to check back later. But no one is buying that story. A Full Tilt spokesman has gone on record that a statement from Full Tilt Poker is expected in the next 24 hours, and further interim statements will be made during the week. This suspension from AGCC could not have come at a worse time for Full Tilt Poker. The online poker room was engaged in advanced negotiations with a financer that would allow it to pay back the deposits of its American players.

Meanwhile PokerStars, the other major American online poker room affected by Black Friday, has reacted to the Full Tilt suspension to assure the online gambling fraternity that it is not under any similar threat. PokerStars stated that its “online operations continue as normal and all funds in players’ accounts are safe and available for withdrawal as usual with no delays.” The Isle of Man Gaming Commission, which is the prime licensor to PokerStars stated that PokerStars’ worldwide licensing is intact and that the online poker room’s operations are in full compliance with all licensing requirements. Traffic on PokerStars has reportedly gone up by 5% after Full Tilt suspended its operations.

Fortune Valley released a statement that they compensated Ms. Chavez for the money she put into the slot machine (US$23), plus a free hotel room and breakfast to make up for the mistake. They also said that they would examine the machine to determine the cause of the software problem and investigate how the faulty jackpot message occurred. The matter is also under investigation by the Colorado state gaming board to determine if either the casino or Ms. Chavez is at fault.

Ms. Chavez has been interviewed on several television news and talk shows to discuss the issue. She claims that the casino is trying to cheat her out of her winnings and that “whatever that machine said, I should get it”. She has not mentioned if she would sue the casino in order to claim her winnings. In many cases, casinos will pay settlements to plaintiffs to avoid bad publicity, even though slot machines typically display messages that mention that a machine malfunction would void any payouts.

However, any suit brought against Fortune Valley and its parent company, Centaur, may not bring a swift resolution. Last year, Centaur put Fortune Valley up for sale after the company filed for bankruptcy. A Fortune Valley spokesperson said that, if they had to pay out such a huge jackpot, they would “have to turn over the key” to the casino to Ms. Chavez.

Supreme Play Casino has the more sophisticated looking website. It operates in three languages that are English, German and French and also offers a choice of four international currencies that are American dollar, British pound, euro and South African rand. The welcome match bonus to new players at Supreme Play Casino is $888 that can be availed over the first three deposits. In addition new players are entitled to a $22 free chip that they can use to get familiar with the Rival Gaming casino games offered without having to invest their own funds. Supreme Play Casino offers a wide range of weekly promotions, which include special games bonuses, free chips, raffles, cash backs and loyalty bonuses. Players can earn up to $2,000 in free money, each week. Special promotions are offered to players to wager at night. Players can contact the customer service on live chat and they will offer a surprise promotion. Players will be given a bonus of $50 for every friend they refer.

VIP Club Casino offers one of those whopping welcome bonuses that are becoming increasingly common at online casinos. New players are entitled to match bonuses of up to $4,500 over the first three deposits. They are also entitled to a no deposit bonus of $25. Regular players can also claim a number of bonuses. There is a 100% reload bonus on every deposit up to a limit of $1,000. There is a 25% Alternative Deposit Bonus for depositing funds through designated e-wallets. And there is a Refer A Friend bonus of $50 for every friend referred.

Both Supreme Play Casino and VIP Club Casino offer the complete range of Rival gaming online casino games. All the famous Rival i-slots can be played. These special slot games offer interactive bonus rounds. Last month Rival Gaming introduced some excellent video slot games like Candy Cottage, Shamrock Isle and Wacky Wedding. The regular table games and video poker games are also on offer. Both these casinos are licensed in the gambling jurisdiction of Curacao.

Philly.com has inked a deal with fantasy sports provider FanDuel.com that will see it becoming the first online news publication to use the power of daily fantasy sports games to open up a new revenue stream.

Following the model of UK newspapers, which generate millions of dollars in online revenue from betting and paid games, Philly.com plans to launch an online fantasy sports game where players play and win in a day – using real money.

Touted as “one-night stand” fantasy sports, the game is a white-labeled version of FanDuel.com, which first launched its standalone game in July last year.

Thanks to the fantasy sports carve-out in the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act, these instant fantasy games are legal in the US something that the FanDuel team has been very careful to emphasise. FanDuel and its partners generate revenue from taking a commission on each game.

FanDuel has been developed by Hubdub Ltd, the Edinburgh and San Francisco based games development company. Founded in November 2007, Hubdub Ltd launched it’s first free game, Hubdub.com, in 2008 and received venture funding in early 2009.

Ladies Poker Night in Blackberry’s Poker Room is where you can play heads up against 3 hot young women who look as if they may be in their undies. Lisa, Keira and Bridget challenge you to sit in on a casual poker game in an application that is apparently easy to use and has intuitive controls for every action.

Each opponent has a different AI style and skill level to keep the action interesting, and the game is laden with witty gameplay comments by the opponents and a full set of rules.

And, potential buyers are assured, “this game does not contain any nudity, and is suitable for all ages.”

The software is compatible with Blackberry Pearl, Curve and 88xx and Storm.

The Commission used information from gambling industry trade bodies, the Department for Culture, Media And Sport and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in arriving at the statistic, as well as information from its own regulatory returns submitted by licensed operators.

The UK gambling industry as a whole achieved a turnover of over GBP 84 billion with gross gambling yield at around GBP 9.9 billion, 25 percent of which was generated by the National Lottery alone.

The regulator revealed that the number of remote gambling licenses issued in 2008 rose from 300 to 328 with the majority of these consisting of betting exchanges alongside football pool and general betting.

“The majority of gambling sites accessible to British citizens are regulated overseas,” the Commission noted.

“In many cases an operator is licensed by the Commission for remote betting but (for fiscal and other operational reasons) its remote casino and poker operations are licensed overseas. The main European overseas jurisdictions regulating remote gambling are Alderney, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man and Malta.”

The report shows that an estimated 7 800 people are employed in the UK remote betting, bingo and casino industry, working with 6.2 million active customer accounts and 4.9 million new player registrations over the year. 16 million customer accounts held some GBP 257 million.

“The tremendous popularity of poker requires that the game be a part of every gaming operator’s interactive marketing strategy,” said John E. Taylor, Jr., president and chief executive officer of GameLogic. “Poker Play will help our clients reach an important male demographic who spend significant time on-line. As importantly, it will provide a critical foundation for operators to build on-line relationships with their players, as they prepare themselves for the future of gaming.”

Poker Play, coupled with the GameLogic’s existing product suite, will deliver targeted real time offers to drive online engagement, loyalty and on-property participation to a younger adult player demographic.

GameLogic’s existing network of clients will provide critical mass for an all-live-play environment, while retaining unique branding for each individual property. Poker Play is a turnkey solution that can be run as members only, free to play, advertising sponsored, or as advergaming. The product will be implemented in the next 30 days with an existing GameLogic client.

“With Poker Play regulated U.S. operators can now provide their players with a branded poker experience from a trusted source,” continued Taylor. “Whether it is to distribute bonuses, award seats to your next on-property tournament, build loyalty or drive new player club registrations, Poker Play is specifically designed to fit the marketing needs of regulated U.S. casino and lottery operators.”

While GameLogic will initially implement Poker Play under its PlayAway family of play-for-fun and play-for-bonus Internet games, the product is also a fully functional play-for-money platform built on a system provided under license from Red Planet Gaming, a Vienna, Austria firm.

Speaking at the International Masters of Gaming Law conference in Amsterdam this week, the respected Las Vegas-based online gambling legal expert Tony Cabot appeared pessimistic on the prospects for success of attempts to legalise online gambling and poker by Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Robert Menendez.

“Nothing is going to happen this year,” Cabot predicted. “Barney Frank has already pushed his [legislative proposal HR 2267] back, and once we get into next year we will be into an election cycle. The Democrats in particular are under a lot of stress at the moment and the last thing the Democrats want to get involved in is an unpopular fight because the Republicans would be all over it.”

Cabot assessed the chances of success for the bill at around 5 percent. “This is a move that will not come at the federal level,” he said, implying that state initiatives are more likely to succeed.

Cabot gave an overview of recent moves in California and Massachusetts to move the online gambling legalisation agenda forward, but described these as having achieved ‘scant progress’ so far.

Turning to the Menendez’s attempt to legalise games with an element of skill such as poker, backgammon and bridge, Cabot characterised this as ‘Harrah’s’ bill’ and commented that neither the Frank or Menendez bills had the support of veteran Nevada Senator and Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid, and had also met with varying degrees of enthusiasm from US land gambling giant companies.

“There is a lack of consensus,” he said. “The senior senator from Nevada will not budge until there is a clear consensus on the issue, and this is not present. Harrah’s want to push this hard because they own the World Series of Poker. [But] Steve Wynn… has hired lobbyists to go against it.”

If the US did legalise online gambling it was likely that operators who had never taken US bets online, whom he described as ‘clean’ would be in a better position to achieve licensing. Those who had immediately exited the US market on the passing of the UIGEA “…may or may not be able to get a license depending on how this progresses”, he said.

Cabot added a new possibility to the opposition mix, too – the likelihood that large online poker firms like PokerStars and Full Tilt, which have continued to offer their services to US players in defiance of US legislation, may attempt to kill the legalisation initiative, realising they stood no chance of getting licenses and would face increased legal US competition. These companies had the resources to make such a threat credible, he opined.

The legal expert raised the interesting prospect of what he referred to as an unholy coalition of cross party opposition to the legalisation of online gambling.

“We have the conservative republicans and the Ralph Nader Democrats who oppose the bills – so it doesn’t even break on party lines. And one thing we know about the United States is that it is a lot easier to kill something than what it is to get something passed,” he concluded.

State casinos collected $818.2 million from customers during the month, a 13.8 percent decline compared with $949.3 million collected in the same month a year ago according to figures released this morning by the Gaming Control Board.

The total, the lowest since July 2004 when casinos won $813 million, was the 18th straight monthly slide as the gaming industry continued to be hampered by the sagging economy.

On the Strip, gaming revenues fell 14.8 percent during June to $414.5 million, compared with $486.4 million last year.

Frank Streshley, chief of the control board’s tax and licensing division, said June is traditionally a light month for gaming revenues. The double digit decline, however, was the result of gamblers not spending as much money as they have in the past.

The amount wagered on slot machines was off 10.7 percent while the money bet on table games declined 12.7 percent. Streshley said the $1.8 billion wagered on table games was the lowest single-month total since November 2003.

Gaming revenues suffered double-digit declines in every reporting area of Clark County except for downtown Las Vegas, which saw gaming revenues decline 5.6 percent.

The state collected $45.7 million in gaming taxes based on the June gaming revenues, a 13.5 percent decrease compared with $52.8 million collected during the same time period last year.