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.

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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.

“After a 10-day standoff that had Ohio’s government running on borrowed time, Gov. Ted Strickland and legislative leaders cut a deal Friday for slot machines at Ohio’s seven horse-racing tracks without a ballot vote.

“…Strickland will sign an executive order authorizing Ohio Lottery Director Michael Dolan to carry out the plan for the slots, known as video lottery terminals. The legislature will approve supporting language in the budget.

“…Strickland had pushed for legislative approval of slots, while Harris wanted the governor to authorize the plan himself or put it before voters in November.

“…While the slots are estimated to bring in $933 million, cuts also will be needed to help close a $3.2 billion budget hole…”

With Esab, Charter’s welding division, accounting for two thirds of group sales and current-year profit forecasts heading sharply lower, its shares declined by nearly 16 per cent, the worst fall in the FTSE 250.

Esab is dependent on short-term demand from metal bashers, which means that Charter is more susceptible to such shocks than engineers with longer order books. It also makes it difficult to peer too far ahead. The worry must be that factories undergo longer than usual summer shutdowns. Further out, demand from shipbuilders, which are among Esab’s biggest customers, is likely to dwindle later in the year if present trends in marine orders do not reverse. As with the profit warning in November, Charter accompanied this latest setback with measures that will mitigate the damage of industrial downturn. It is closing two factories and mothballing two others, meaning that it has cut Esab’s capacity by one third on the year. It also reassured that the company has remained profitable across all divisions.

The other encouragement is that Howden, the maker of industrial fans and compressors that forms the balance of Charter’s business, continues to trade as before. This operation is helped by resilient demand from the energy sector and the fact that after-market sales, which are 50 per cent more profitable than those of brand-new equipment, now account for 31 per cent of sales, against 24 per cent this time last year.

If there is a concern it is the recent first-time fall in electricity demand in China, a potential harbinger of slower spending on power-generating equipment, one of Howden’s key markets. Tempus advised “buy” at 348½p in January, since when, even after yesterday’s slide, the shares are up by 37 per cent. Charter has £43 million of cash and provides a 4.4 per cent dividend yield.

Even so, short-term investors should take profits.

Halfords

Selling cars and selling car accessories are clearly two very different things. The automotive industry may be in turmoil and new car registrations in the UK down 25 per cent last month, but Halfords keeps motoring on. True, yesterday’s full-year figures did not include details on current trading. But what the FTSE 250 retailer did reveal served to reassure: revenues held at last year’s levels, pre-tax profits up 2 per cent and earnings per share ahead 8 per cent. The full-year dividend was raised 5 per cent.

The skew of Halfords’ sales offers a degree of stability. If consumers are not buying new cars, fancy alloys or sat-navs, they are spending more heavily on keeping their old rides on the road. So, while the company’s car-enhancement categories are suffering, maintenance is growing.

The strategy of David Wild, chief executive, has also helped to insulate Halfords from the worst of the recession - not only in cutting costs and securing greater purchasing efficiencies, but also expansion into counter-cyclical niches. That means cycling, where, notwithstanding the company’s abandonment of its standalone Bikehut format, it is targeting children’s and premium bikes. It also means camping, where a combination of the economic incentive for Britons to holiday at home and the promise of a drier summer should work in its favour. Trading in Ireland is dire (if mostly offset by the euro) and Halfords has scaled back its roll-out ambitions in Central and Eastern Europe. But at 343½p, down 2p, or 11 times earnings, and yielding 5 per cent, the shares remain a solid hold.

Interior Services

Anyone who has worked in the City will be familiar with the work of Interior Services Group (ISG). This AIM-listed company, once part of Stanhope, carries out about a quarter of the fit-outs and refurbishments of London’s commercial offices.

But as demonstrated by yesterday’s contract update, its reach extends far outside the capital. ISG disclosed that its Asian division, where it now has 450 staff, has picked up £40 million of work over the past three months - including a £20 million deal for a resort and casino in Singapore and the £8 million refit of Abu Dhabi’s national football stadium.

That is encouraging when the company’s traditional London market is under pressure. It also provides encouragement that ISG’s domestic efforts at diversification will similarly reward. Through acquisition, it now has a significant presence in UK retail refurbishment, most of which might be considered non-cyclical: for supermarkets, whose roll-out programmes continue apace, and for banks, which are revamping branches as part of their efforts to pull in retail deposits. ISG also has a sizeable business outside London, three quarters of whose work stems from the public sector.

ISG’s order book has so far held up well (it last reported £365 million of work for its next financial year), on which it will provide greater clarity in next month’s trading statement.

The more obvious draw is what appears an anomalous valuation: a forward multiple of four, a yield of 10 per cent on a dividend that is twice covered by forecast earnings and last reported cash of £22 million - or half its stock market value. At 134½p, up 3½p, buy.