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

September 29, 2011

Full Tilt On The Lookout For Buyers

Filed under: Casino — Tags: , — OCE News @ 12:00 am

Full Tilt which is one of the popular online poker sites is now facing a crisis. They are now on the lookout for potential buyers. Rumours are on that lot of people are looking to buy it and negotiations are still on. Full Tilt was the number two online Poker site in the year 2011. Due to sudden developments and changes in regulations by the US Government, Full Tilt is witnessing a reversal of fortunes.

What Happened to Full Tilt?

Full Tilt had received the gaming license Alderny which does not require an online casino to keep enough funds as reserve. Full Tiltt suddenly stopped US players from playing in the online casinos and it was not able to refund the deposit amount given by US players. This led to a major chaos and the US Government took action against Full Tilt and cancelled their gaming license. Ultimately, they had to close down their online casino. The case has been going on since April and in late June, the site had to be completely shut down.

Current Status of Full Tilt

The former second top Online Poker site, Full Tiltt is now put up for sale. However, there are not many potential buyers and negotiations are still going on. The main reason for this is that the site owes nearly $150 million to US players which is an enormous amount. Buyers will have to think twice before taking up such a huge debt. Added to this are the legal formalities and uncertainties associated with buying Full Tilt. The company’s US operations are under the threat of legal consequences and their inability to pay off the money has made it difficult for them to get a virtual buyer. Full Tilt is now desperate to find a buyer who can take up both the high debt and also face the legal hurdles.

Due to lot of online casinos coming up, Full Tilt is also losing its reputation. Any company who is going to take over Full Tilt will have to build it up from scratch. The online casinos sector is facing huge competition with a number of new players entering the industry. The industry is also becoming a little insecure and the necessity for stringent rules and regulations has become indispensable for ensuring a better gaming experience that is both safe and secure. Measures like immediate cancellation of licenses help boost the confidence of gamers as this gives them the feeling that everything is under control.

It is also worth mentioning that Full Tilt owes millions of dollars too many US players. All these people are waiting for someone to take over the online site. Only when this happens will their money be refunded but according to rumour mills, it is not going to be easy to find a buyer for Full Tilt. All these players will have to wait for some more time to get back their money. Some of the potential buyers of Full Tilt include Playtech, bwin.party and 888.

September 25, 2011

UK Online Casinos Coming Under More Regulations

Filed under: Casino — Tags: , — OCE News @ 12:00 am

UK is one of the countries which had introduced better regulations and licensing rules for online casinos as well as many poker sites. Now, they are again trying to frame better rules for regulating the activities of online casinos in order to make them safer for players.

Need for Regulation

There has been no development regarding regulating the activities of online casinos for many years. Despite the increasing number of online casinos, very little attention has been paid by the authorities towards the licensing aspect. Though there are some existing rules, they are not being followed by the industry players.

Latest Case of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker

Recently due to a case that happened in April, the US made some stringent measure to tackle the security lapses in online casinos. Full Tilt who had secured the license from Alderney did not require its online casino to hold any funds required for refunding to the players. Everything went for a toss when Full Tilt stopped allowing US players to play in their online casino. They did not refund the money to players who had deposited money. The matter became worse when Full Tilt did not have enough money to refund to players when their license for gaming was suspended. This created lot of chaos among players as they became aware of the rules only then. It resulted in many players suffering heavy losses.

This was the time when people who were visiting online casinos started thinking about how secure these online casinos were. The US passed very stringent regulations in order to provide a safer gaming experience to players in online casinos. PokerStars is a very good example. They were given license by the Isle of Man. They were required to maintain sufficient funds depending upon the volume of business in order to meet the refund demands of players. When their license was suspended, they had enough funds to refund around $100 million to players from the US without any hiccups.

New regulations for licensing and to curb fraud and theft

The regulations and licensing requirements of online casinos are being reviewed by the Culture, Media and Sports Department in the UK. A lot of factors are being taken into consideration in order to frame better legislation to ensure that online casinos in UK are safe and secure.

Factors being taken into consideration include better rules for accounting for online casinos, rules for limiting the advertising campaign and sponsorship programs by online casinos, better and effective measures to curb fraud and theft and many more. All this will help provide a better environment for players so that they can play in online casinos without any problem. Due to the growing number of cases of fraud and theft, a lot of discussion is being held for framing rules for curbing the same.

In the US, authorities have started their campaign against fraud in online casinos by introducing better legislative measures. Very soon, even the UK government is expected to implement such measures. In the next few months, a lot of drastic changes are expected to be seen in the way licensing is done in UK online casinos.

August 25, 2011

A Boom In Gambling On Smartphones

Filed under: Casino — Tags: , — OCE News @ 12:00 am

What if you’re able to play your favorite online game on your Smartphone? Sounds interesting! Many online casinos have promised their clients that they would soon introduce mobile gambling. This will allow players to play casino games on their internet-enabled Smartphones. Some casinos have just built the high hopes about introducing mobile gambling, whereas some are already working on it. Mobile gambling has a huge market and there is a huge potential for online casinos to earn more revenue through it. It will provide them with the capital to grow their operations cross-boarders. Apart from this, they will have more chances to earn big profits as cell phones have become an important thing in everybody’s life.

Betting on Mobile

The time is rapidly approaching when you would be able to play casino games online while waiting for your train on the platform or during a short break in your office. Paddy Power and Betfair have already come up with mobile betting applications in new generation Smartphones. Gambling via Apple’s iPhone is rapidly rising. Statistics have shown that around 35 percent of existing casino customers are placing bets through the phones. It is gaining tremendous popularity. The reason being, it gives more freedom and flexibility to the players in accessing the betting services through their phones. They do not have to carry their laptops wherever they go as their phones act as complete package for them.

Paddy Power Mobile Betting Service

Paddy Power is the most reputed and the largest bookmaker in Ireland. It offers a wide selection of services including online pingo, online poker, spread betting, sports betting, and online casino games. Listed on UK and Irish Stock Exchanges, it is a licensed betting company. It introduced mobile betting services in the year 2010. Since then, it has experienced four times increase in its annual revenue. The surprising thing is that around one-third of its active customers access online betting services through their mobile phones. In the month of April, over 120,000 players accessed spread betting, online pingo, online slots, poker games, and sports betting from their Smartphones.

Betfair Mobile Betting Service

In June 2000, Betfair has become the world’s largest internet betting exchange and UK’s largest online betting company. Based in West London, it has over three million clients in the UK with a turnover of £50 million in a week. Offering a wide range of online betting services, Betfair had announced mobile betting services last year. After its launch of mobile operations, the company experienced a growth in revenues by 90 percent over the last year. More than one billion wagers were taken in through mobiles. The company had invested a huge amount while introducing mobile services.

Apart from these two companies, many other betting companies and online casinos have been thinking on the same lines. They are planning to launch their mobile operations as soon as possible. One of the major reasons of popularity of mobile operations is the launch of Apple iPhone. It had approved the gambling-related applications in its Smartphones.

August 7, 2011

Microgaming Has New Launches

Filed under: Casino — Tags: , — OCE News @ 12:00 am

Whereas regular exciting launches of slot games has always been Microgaming’s forte, this time they have come up with diverse game types.

One of which is an online roulette game, second being a regular slots one, and the third is an alternative slots game. This is better known as the Riviera Riches which has a casino as its theme and proud gamblers displaying their riches. There are 15 paylines and five-reel slots with flashy images of beautiful women and trendy cars. There is a free spin feature where players get to earn as much as 12 free spins.

Interestingly, the Riviera Riches game comes with another bonus game. In this the players can select any number between 1 and 36 with which they get to play two rounds of roulette and can win huge amounts. You can play this game using both the Microgaming download and Flash formats. The Premier Roulette in the Diamond Edition, that has many players, allows these players to interact among themselves and view the wagers being placed by them. As a player, you can pick up any table you wish to play in depending on how long the game will last – whether 20, 40, or 60 seconds.

You may even choose an Avatar to represent yourself at the start of the game. This multiplayer roulette can also be played using the Microgaming Flash platform as well as the Microgaming Quickfire medium. The alternative slots called Hexaline contain a honeycomb grid having different colored hexagons. As soon as players win some blocks, these get exchanged with newer ones. When all wins have been taken care of, those players who have won three or more bonus symbols are transferred to the Gold Train. You will need to reach the End Bonus symbol by picking up hexagons from the left-hand side of the screen and transferring them to the right. This game is definitely more interesting from other regular slots that most players have become used to playing at online casinos.

Rockefeller Speaks Out

By taxing gambling that is taking place on the Internet, the United States Senator Jay Rockefeller hopes to improve the federal budget deficit.

Rockefeller is incidentally the Chairman of the Senate Commerce. He has earlier recommended that the President ought to have the authority to close down the Internet access for all the nation’s citizens if at any point of time a threat to national security is perceived. He finds the online gambling practice an illegal market. He feels these needs to be regulated at all costs so as to safeguard consumers and insure that part of their gambling money finds a way into the federal coffers. He feels that when online payment processing gets banned, the US casino players will find it very hard to gamble online.

What is of utmost importance is to tax online casinos and other various forms of online gambling. When you have gambling laws, the consumers are protected and so is the state’s sovereignty. A massive illegal market which specifically benefits companies lying overseas is completely disrupted. Protecting the state’s sovereignty possibly hints at the “opt-out” clause which according to many ought to be extended to those states not keen to allow online gambling.

July 1, 2011

New Microgaming Slots Launched By Royal Vegas Casinos

Filed under: Casino — Tags: , , — OCE News @ 5:11 pm

The Royal Vegas online casinos have recently come out with new slots powered by Microgaming software. You can now try out the three slot games on their online sites and can be assured of winning some great prizes and giveaways. The already popular Sterling Silver video has led to the Sterling Silver 3D slot games equipped with three-dimensional features making them even more exciting and thrilling. The appeal is visually more realistic making them appear more believable to the online gamblers. The Riviera Riches is the second of the newly launched slot games which has roulette as bonus features. The third happens to be Reel Play Poker: Jacks or Better that is a combination of slots and video poker. 

Online Gambling Gets Legal Approval at Rhode Island 

Online gambling is about to get legalized in Rhode Island which is the smallest of the US states. The general gambling bill underwent certain modifications and is likely to be placed for voting shortly. The owners of Twin Rivers, which is a Lincoln-based land casino, want to offer online gambling services to create new revenue paths and the entire proposal has been forwarded for a vote. There are many who are quite keen to see what is going to happen when the Congress lifts the existing limitations on online gambling operations. 

Official Launch of CasinoMastersGuide.Com 

CasinoMastersGuide.com was recently launched to provide authentic and reliable information about online casinos all over the globe. This website has content that can help you learn how to use online casinos correctly and guarantee maximum thrill to the players. Those playing casino games can now try their luck in many different types of casino games like poker, blackjack, roulette, video poker, and slots, but this may get confusing for a player. Therefore, to help out players, there are casino guides who contain useful reviews, news, and tip to enable players to avoid playing and wasting their time and money on fake casino websites. Online casinos are typically virtual casinos. To play here, players must have very high speed internet connectivity. Players must enter Random Number Generator which is the software that produces the results of every game a player plays in an online casino. This helps the players continue their game from the point where they left it. This software also helps update the player’s account in the bank. 

The online casino guide will help you to distinguish between diverse types of casinos online. There are sites where players need to download the software for free in order to play, whereas there are other sites which do not require software for playing. The former assures better graphics quality and great audio output with clear and explicit instructions about how to play the games and the rules that need to be followed. The latter needs internet plug-ins like Flash and Java to operate. Those with slow internet connectivity prefer playing in these online casinos. Software does not have to be installed by the online gaming enthusiasts because they can even locate those online casinos that provide both sets of options. The players are free to choose whatever they want without having to compromise on the game’s quality.

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