The dice are rolling hot on the tables of what was once a sleepy Portuguese colony. With millions of mainland Chinese high rollers arriving every year, developers in Macau are racing to turn the former enclave into Asia's glittering gambling capital. The stakes are high. At the baccarat table of one casino, a middle-aged Chinese woman shrugs off the loss of GBP 6,000 on a single game, tipping her cigarette ash and restacking her chips. She gets busy again. There is a slight smell of sweat in the air.

Casino owner Damian Aspinall, son of the late John Aspinall, is holding talks with the Gambling Commission about launching a chain of upmarket poker clubs. The multi-millionaire parttime conservationist, who is married to TV presenter Donna Air, is in partnership with James Packer, the son of the late Australian media tycoon and famed gambler Kerry Packer. Aspinall, 46, and Packer, 39, have plans to develop venues with between 40 and 50 poker tables at each.

The game may soon be up for Christchurch Casino's six year-old online gambling division, after the US Senate approved a bill designed to prevent credit card companies from processing payments to internet gambling websites. Online gambling websites would also be prohibited from accepting US payments, under the bill, which is expected to be signed into law by President Bush.

Plans to turn Britain into a “world leader” in internet gambling have been drawn up by ministers, according to internal Whitehall documents. In stark contrast to America, where online gambling has in effect been outlawed, ministers want to attract offshore companies to Britain. New legislation will lift the current ban on online gaming businesses in Britain from next year. But documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that a government charm offensive is well under way.

The internet gambling sector is up the creek. A law passed by right-wing Republican presidential hopeful Bill Frist in the US last weekend caught the industry on the hop. Pandering to the religious wing of the Republican party, Frist's ruling effectively makes it illegal for online gambling firms to take credit-card money from US citizens. It sent shares crashing though the floor. For shareholders, it is catastrophic.

Boss Media, the Sweden-headquartered creator of e-gaming software, is preparing to make a big impression at January’s ICEi exhibition where it will occupy the biggest stand in the show’s history. The Boss Media presence comprises slightly over 90 square metres (974sq.ft.), a 12.5 per cent increase on its 2006 showing when it was also the largest ICEi exhibitor.

Last Friday, 29 September 2006, U.S. Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act whose draft had been introduced in 2005. The quick adoption was made possible by a procedural artifice. The bill was added as title VIII to the SAFE Port Act, a security act aimed at enhancing U.S. port security, by the Committee of Conference, hence passing the legislative procedure without changes or further amendments. The U.S. President is expected to sign the bill into law within the next days. The new act is meant to hamper payments of U.S. citizens with regard to Internet gambling which is unlawful according to the U.S. legal conception.

Moscow (Itar-Tass) - Russia will set up not more than four zones where gambling houses may run their businesses, speaker of the State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament Boris Gryzlov said Wednesday after a meeting between the house factions' leaders and the Russian president earlier in the day. It is envisioned by amendments to the law on gambling, submitted by the Russian president to the State Duma. These areas will not be residential, Gryzlov said.

London (Reuters) - Malaysian casino and leisure group Genting Bhd said on Thursday it had increased its stake in Britain's Stanley Leisure to 43.96 percent. Genting, which agreed last month to buy Stanley Leisure in a deal which values the country's biggest casino operator at 639 million pounds, said it bought a further 5.5 million shares -- 7.74 percent stake -- in Stanley Leisure at its offer price of 860 pence apiece.

As the dust settled Tuesday around the massive buyout offer for Harrah's Entertainment, analysts speculated that nothing would change for the world's largest casino operator until company directors decide what to do with the USD 15 billion proposal. Texas Pacific Group and Apollo Management have offered to buy all Harrah's Entertainment's stock for USD 81 a share. Even if the bid is accepted, one gaming analyst thought it was possible that the Harrah's management team could remain in place to operate the company.

At the Spanish trade show FER Interazar in Madrid from 27 to 29 September MERKUR GAMING exhibited again a multitude of attractive AWP machines and entertainment innovations. In addition, there was a certain reason to celebrate: the two companies Sente S.A. and Gauselmann can now look back to a decade of successful joint marketing, development and selling of AWP machines in Spain.

The Court of Appeal of Munich (Oberlandesgericht München), in its decision of 26 September 2006 (case-no. 5 St RR 115/05), affirmed that transmitting sporting bets does not incur a penalty. Criminal prosecution for illegal gambling in accordance with Art. 284 German Criminal Code was excluded for reasons of Community law as well as of constitutional law. This final judgement of appeal, which affirmed a sentence of acquittal by the County Court of Landshut (Amtsgericht Landshut), has an important effect on the legal situation in Bavaria.