Online Casino Edition – Casino News News about online casinos and gambling

The Canadian online Maple Casino that has been powered by Microgaming software provider recently launched the chance for playing with Ukash to it players. This innovative payment structure has been growing more popular because it is believed to be both secure and dependable. Ukash has proved to be trustworthy, no doubt having been regulated by the British Financial Services Authority.

To use Ukash for payment purposes, the players must buy vouchers with cash at the point-of-sale terminals; else through bank transfers. These vouchers can then be cashed online to pay for a player’s gambling expenses. A representative for the Maple Casino speaks in favor of introducing this payment method because it gives their clients more flexible banking options and makes it both easy and convenient for them to transfer funds to casinos from their bank accounts. He feels that more numbers of players need to try out this option to pay for their gambling experiences.

Nuworks Launch

The US-friendly Nuworks online gambling software generated quite a buzz when the Buzzluck Casino came to be its first licensee. Following its failure, the better known Club World Casinos based in the UK took over this casino. This software house’s next licensee is expected to be the Lucky Club Casino. This was sold earlier by Jackpot Capital. Buzzluck is supposed to start completely new types of slots based on Nuworks software and will be able to churn out as many as 30 new slots games along with four table games as well as video poker.

Class 1 Casino Suffers Setback

The sudden shutdown of this casino since October 11, 2011, has been explained by the company as being the result of a unilateral action taken by Playtech without having given any previous notice. Playtech shut down all gaming servers to stop all gaming activities in the casino. The management is yet to take legal actions and is focusing on restoring the site to win back their players. They have sincerely apologized to the players and also for the delay in sending over their humble apologies. In this regret statement they have even expressed their wishes to ensure that those players who had positive account balances at the time of closure are duly compensated. They have asked for some understanding from their loyal customers and have expressed their hope of being able to get the site up and running in no time. But, Playtech, on its part, has made no efforts whatsoever to explain this sudden decision. This move may be related to the Italian gambling industry where this casino does operate, but without having a fair AAMS license.

New Software Platform at Lucky Club

The Lucky Club Casino started a new software platform to invite its customers to a mindboggling site that promises new online games. This new metro-type design is very appealing to the new generation of gamers using iPhones. The initial responses to this new design have been rather overwhelming and players are excited about the new set of online casino games on offer.

The Happy Halloween Bonus was announced by Manhattan Slots much in advance of the trick and treat holiday. This bonus seeks to satisfy and appease all players, regardless of whether they are high or low rollers. The low rollers are likely to be extremely happy with this bonus because they need to pay only $20 to become eligible for it. The high rollers, on the other hand, are equally thrilled because they can get a maximum bonus worth $1000. From October 31^st to November 2^nd, the Happy Halloween Bonus is going to be 100 percent of the deposits made.

These bonuses can be got only on specific games like Keno and slots or scratch cards. To make a withdrawal valid, the bonus and deposits need to be wagered 25 times. Among the new games launched by the Manhattan Slots Casino this time is the Monster Mayhem. It has 50 pay lines and there are two monsters in this game, namely Crash and Smash. Both these monsters are wild symbols because they turn really wild during animations and create mayhem which happens to be the scatter symbol. Other game symbols are car, chopper, policeman, footprint, frightened lady, fire hydrant, search light, camera, and newspaper.

A striking feature of this game is the Monster Mayhem re-spins which gets triggered whenever Smash and Crash appear on the reels at the same time. While reel numbers one and five are constant, the others will re-spin up to ten times. The players keen to take part in this new promotional by Manhattan Slots could meanwhile try their luck at the cashback bonus. This cashback bonus which lasted between October 24^th and October 26^th sought to benefit those players unable to make profits during the promotional period. As this cashback has a very less minimum wagering criterion and you need to wager only twice on particular games for withdrawing cash, it had become very popular. The Manhattans Slots Casino is an online casino which is part of the reputed Club World group and has Realtime Gaming as its gaming software provider. It has a license under the Curacao gambling authorities and takes players from all over the United States.

International Gaming Awards

With the International Gaming Awards or IGA being the most prestigious awards in the online gambling world, nominations were expectedly overwhelming and the last date for nominations had to be extended. Nominations had to be given by the gambling industry. Finally, these have come in and the panel of judges has begun working on them to judge the winners of awards. The iGaming software provider, for instance, has been given 25 nominations. Similarly, other software providers like Playtech, Microgaming, Net Entertainment, Chartwell, and others also find a place in the nominees lists. Playtech had been the last year’s winner and this year the favorites happen to be Microgaming because of its newly launched Quickfire platform which has won many fans. The GREat Foundation in the United Kingdom is an organization that is committed to socially responsible game researches and education and has been chosen as the beneficiary of this year’s awards ceremony. This proves the IGA’s commitment to establishing responsible gaming.

The husband of a woman who killed herself after getting into $100,000 of debt due to gambling said that British Columbian casinos need to have more support in place.

Lost battle

Yoo Choi had moved to Vancouver and opened the Velvet Cafe based on Broadway. But, as her husband, Mark Dawson, explained, she had a compulsive gambling habit which she kept a secret but had been battling to deal with over a number of years.

After she had managed to get into $150,000 of debt playing at Edgewater Casino in Vancouver, she eventually registered herself into an exclusion program. Here she received counseling and her husband believed that she had managed to overcome her addiction.

But, on June the 16^th she phoned him, apologizing for the fact that she had started to gamble again. After this, she disappeared only to be found 26 days later floating in Lynn Canyon which is located on Vancouver’s North Shore.

Increased suicide risk

Dawson expressed his regret at not being aware that a problem gambler is two times more likely to commit suicide than any other form of addict.

“If I had known, I might have been able to take her home,” he said. “It wasn’t on my radar at all. I might have been able to say, ‘let me hear you start the car, stay on the phone with me while you drive home.’”

Gambling addictions that lead to suicide are not that uncommon. It was revealed that one man who murdered first his partner and then himself back in January had lost $200,000 in a local casino. Back in 2002 another man killed his wife, set fire to their home, then committed suicide. An inquest later found that he had got into financial difficulties due to gambling.

It is estimated that 200 problem gamblers commit suicide every year in Canada. In BC alone, the Coroners Service released that there were 34 suicides related to gambling between 2003 and 2010.

According to Professor Robert Williams, it is hard to truly estimate the figure due to the fact that in general a suicide is not linked officially to gambling. Williams, an expert in gambling addictions at the Alberta Gambling Research Institute as well as teacher at the University of Lethbridge, estimates that in Alberta about 20 percent of suicides are related to gambling in some way. Also, as per his estimate, for each person who kills themselves due to problem gambling, four others try but fail.

Program ineffective

At the Edgewater Casino and in other BC-Based casinos, facial recognition technology is used to help keep out problem gamblers who have put themselves on the voluntary self-exclusion program. Yoo Choi herself was escorted out of Edgewater a number of times. But, Dawson sees the program as ineffective in that there was no penalty connected to her lapses and he was not made aware of them.

“It’s a wake-up call … If you know somebody, be a little bit more aware of the repercussions,” Dawson said. “It can go, as I found out, beyond rock bottom.”

State lawmakers in Massachusetts are losing the battle against introducing casino gambling onto the island. Tim Madden, a Nantucket state representative, was the only one out of 32 legislators who went against the casino gaming bill. In the previous week the bill had had a good reception and been approved by a large margin.

If the legislation goes ahead, it will pave the way for three resort casino and these will built in different areas of the state. One of them is planned to be a single slot parlor and another a tribal casino based in Southeastern Massachusetts which will be owned by Mashpee Wampanoag.

State financial losses

Many critics are against the casinos because they believe gambling can bring with it a number of dangerous social problems and add no value to a community. But, this is not Madden’s biggest concern. He believes that allowing this form of legislation will not be beneficial to the district because money might be diverted for tourism and various other projects away from the region. The region in question is made up of Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and certain areas of Falmouth.

“My concern is the infrastructure dollars; what you spend on roads and maintenance gets diverted to make these resorts,” Madden said. “And tourism dollars would be getting devoted to promote casinos.”

He went on to explain that there might be financial losses as opposed to gains within the region. “I don’t see jobs being created in the district and we may lose people here on the island who may follow those jobs,” he said. “All I hope is that it provides the jobs and the income that it is purported to do. It’s not the path I wanted to go down, but I don’t begrudge it.”

House approval

In a roll call which took place last Wednesday, the legislation was approved by the House 132-32. The bill will now go to the state Senate where also it is expected to be approved. Once this has happened, it will be sent over to Governor Deval Patrick.

Bad for the community

State Senator Dan Wolf, who was also in discussions with Madden, explained that he saw the vote against the legislation as “non-negotiable.” He takes a clear stance against the state lawmakers even thinking about the legalization of casino resort within the commonwealth.

“You’re looking at two of the strongest anti-casino legislators on Beacon Hill,” Wolf commented on Madden and himself.

Wolf’s impression of gambling is that it does not bring any good into a community. “There’re so many things, like the social problems, the economic benefits it promises and doesn’t deliver, it’s wrong on so many levels,” he explained. “It’s an insult to the people of Massachusetts that your elected representatives are even talking about this.”