Ladbrokes Ad
Ladbrokes became the first bookmaker to take advantage of recent changes to the UK gambling laws by advertising during the halftime interval of Manchester United's Champions League clash with Roma, shown live on mainstream channel
ITV1 in late October.
Ladbrokes Chief Executive Chris Bell said of his company's adverts, "These ads capture the fun of having a flutter on football and testing your opinions, something millions of people already enjoy every week. We're pleased to be the first to air with betting advertising."
When the 2005 Gambling Act came into force on Sept. 1, broadcast advertising of sports betting was permitted for the first time under a new code of practice.
While adverts for casino gaming such as poker, roulette, and blackjack are subject to a 9 p.m. watershed, sports betting can be advertised around sporting events.
Meanwhile, it would appear PokerStars has booked a string of adverts on
SKY Sports, which run during the intervals of the Ladbrokes-sponsored
Poker Million, which airs on Tuesday nights until the end of the year.
Coral the Donation Rocks
Heart of Midlothian Football Club (Hearts) has announced a two-year sponsorship agreement with Coral Bookmakers to become the official online gaming partner with the Edinburgh-based club.
Coral will provide a range of online gaming services for the club and their supporters, including general betting and poker.
As part of Coral's commitment to social responsibility, the gaming giant has agreed to make a whopping £1 donation to the Heart of Midlothian Education and Community Trust with every new Hearts account that is opened.
In the Mail
The
Daily Mail newspaper in England continues its persistent attacks on gambling by running its own campaign attacking the UK government's "lax approach to gaming" and "failure to clamp down on the gambling industry."
In its most recent piece, coinciding with the release of figures compiled by Nottingham Business School that show an increase in gambling, the paper quoted Tory culture spokesman Jeremy Hunt, who said, "Gordon Brown has used abandoning the supercasino as a red herring; the real cause of the [gambling] problem lies with betting roulette machines and Internet gambling, and the Gambling Act has failed to address either of these."
That report did find that Britons lose £9.5 billion a year across all gambling, a 36 percent increase on the £7 billion lost in 1999, the year online gambling emerged. Removing the lotto from the equation, the figures show that the annual loss from "hard gambling" went up by 56 percent.
Professor Leighton Vaughn Williams, of the Nottingham Business School, said online gambling and deregulation would fuel the boom next year, when he estimates the amount lost will top £10 billion.
Microsoft Hold'em
Microsoft has issued a free add-on pack for buyers of its Windows Vista Ultimate operating system. The extras pack includes a number of tools and utilities designed to make the operating system more secure and user-friendly. Among them is a poker game called Windows Hold'em.
Ladbrokes Playwize
In a surprising move, Ladbrokes has signed a development and licence agreement with software developer Playwize.
Under the agreement, Playwize will develop and licence to Ladbrokes an exclusive version of its innovative online 3-D poker for use by players on the Ladbrokes poker network.
Foo Katan, chief executive of Playwize, said, "We are very excited about creating a poker room for Ladbrokes that incorporates advanced 3-D technology with our exclusive features, including real-time statistical calculators, interactive tutorial, and live voice chat. The agreement represents the first step in the company's new strategy to develop and license its online 3-D poker technology to third-party poker rooms; the company anticipates that more
similar agreements will follow."
Colin Cole-Johnson, director of gaming at Ladbrokes, said, "The Playwize 3-D software has an impressive interface that is supported by unique interactive player development content, so we firmly believe this will broaden the appeal of online poker. Importantly, the new 3-D platform is fully integrated with our existing software, so this will help us build liquidity."
Climb Every Mountain
Everest Poker has appointed former The Sportsman communications chief Ed Pownall as its new European PR and events manager.
Pownall, who left the sports daily when it closed due to financial trouble last year, has given Mulberry Communications a pan-European coordination brief, working across seven countries.
Fournier Launces New 'Poker Vision' Card
Fournier has launched an innovative new card called "Poker Vision," developed by poker players for poker players. The cards feature a discrete corner-pip turned 45 degrees with jumbo-size faces in the centre.
The benefits for players are clear. On one hand, it gives them more security at the table, as they have to fold less of the cards to see their hand. They also are able to see from every seat at the table the cards that are faceup, thanks to the jumbo indices.
Fournier Poker Vision cards are made of the most resistant and durable material: 100 percent PVC plastic, which is
double-coated with a long-lasting varnish.
24h Gain
24hPoker has announced an agreement with the Irish online gaming operator Betdaq, a betting exchange where punters bet against each other and pay commission on winning bets.
Under the agreement, Betdaq will launch a new poker product on 24hPoker's poker network and Betdaq owner Dermot Desmond will receive an option to acquire 125 million B shares in 24hPoker Holding AB.
GUKPT to Continue
Grosvenor Casinos and Blue Square have announced the return of the
Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (
GUKPT) in 2008. The Tour mirrors the format of 2007, with nine £1,000 legs and a £3,000 grand final. The £1,000 main event of each leg is four days long, with two starting days, and will take place within a weeklong festival with preliminary events.
Playtech signs bet365
Playtech, the publicly quoted designer, developer, and licensor of software to the international online and land-based gaming industry, has announced the migration of bet365 to its iPoker platform.
Bet365, which migrated its casino platform to Playtech in 2005, has signed up for three years and plans to use the network to target both the European and Asian markets with a range of customized language- and culture-specific games.
Betfair Grows
Online betting exchange Betfair has seen annual revenues jump 30 percent after investment in technology and new products, including a revamped poker client.
A new online casino and the relaunch of Betfair Poker on a proprietary platform helped active users increase by 57 percent, to 433,000, in the year up to April 2007. The company now has 1 million registered users.
Revenue was up 30 percent to £182 million and underlying earnings grew 26 percent to £48 million. However, one-off investments of around £12 million led to a fall in pretax profits to £25.3 million from £36.5 million a year earlier.
Betfair is a betting exchange that operates with punters betting against each other. Its revenue is derived from taking a percentage of winning bets.
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in the United States had no effect on Betfair's revenues, as it does not take bets from American bettors.
Revenue from overseas customers grew 6 percent to 38 percent of total revenues. The company recently engaged in a major sponsorship investment at the
World Series of Poker Europe. It has existing licenses in the UK, Malta, Germany, Austria, and Australia, and plans to enter Italy in the near future.
