Bwin Interactive Entertainment AG said it lost a bid to have Germany's highest civil court halt the enforcement of a ruling barring it from offering sport bets and casino games in Germany over its www.bwin.com Web site. Bwin had asked the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, Germany, to halt enforcement of a September court ruling against the online broker while Bwin appeals, the Vienna-based company said in a statement. The shares fell 7.1 percent.

By decision of 3 March 2008 (file-no. VII-Kart 19/07 (V)) the First Cartel Division of the Court of Appeal of Düsseldorf (Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf) dismissed the motions of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate (Land Rheinland-Pfalz) and of Lotto Rheinland-Pfalz GmbH against a decision of the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) to prohibit their merger. In its ratio decidendi the Court of Appeal of Düsseldorf raises fundamental doubts as to the legality of a state monopoly and, referring to the European Commission's legal opinion on this matter, calls for a tender of the license so far granted to Lotto Rheinland-Pfalz GmbH.

Costa Rica achieved US to allow the provision of several services such as investigations, postcards and storage to local firms as an agreement to a negotiation initiated by limitations imposed by the US nation to games of chance and online bets. Minister of Foreign Trade, Marco Vinicio Ruiz, explained Tuesday that "We achieved what we wanted; and that is that a country that changes the rules of the game in the middle of a negotiation, must compensate the others".

Bingos, horse racetracks and its respective agencies, among other sectors, will be forced to do constant reports on possible suspicious transactions registered in its business, to the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF-Peru), a specialized entity registered in the Superintendence of Banking, Insurances and AFP (SBS). Companies will follow a control of their commercial operations, through a record of customers that make transactions equal or superior to USD 10,000.

The public prosecutor Martín Lapadú confirmed yesterday that last Friday he presented to the Argentine law a request to close the sports betting site Bwin. This judicial requirement would be effective in the following days. "Once it is closed, the webpage will not be operational", announced Lapadú. “The page does not have the proper authorization neither of the National Lottery nor the Gambling Institute of the City”, pointed Lapadú.

Turkish “Inteltek Internet Teknoloji Yatirim ve Daniflmanlik Ticaret A.fi.” (Inteltek) under the authority of the Turkish Youth and Sports Directorate and Spor Toto Organization, provides the infrastructure for the central betting system used by Spor Toto and Iddaa games and is also responsible for risk management. 55% of the company is owned by Turktell Biliflim Servisleri A.fi. (Turktell) and 45% by Greek Intralot. The company was established in 2004.

Online betting increases day after day in Spain, because 130,000 Internet users have turned this illegal practice into a business that already moves 650 million euros, although experts assure that the real “boom” of the sector is to come. At an European level, the UK is the Mecca of online gaming, an area to which US has declared war. According to data from Spanish Internet Betting Association (AEDAPI), Spain already has 130,000 users...

The International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) has called upon the member countries of the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property right Organization (WIPO) in Geneva to improve the legal protection of racing data and images. The IFHA made the call to government representatives at the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related rights...

UEFA President, Michel Platini, last week chaired an informal meeting between European football’s governing body and key representatives of the European betting industry to discuss ways of strengthening the Memorandum of Understanding between UEFA and betting operators. The meeting was attended by Betfair, the European Sports Security Association (ESSA), the European Lotteries and Verband Europäischer Wettunternehmer (VeWu).

The French Tennis Federation is taking legal action in Belgium in an attempt to ban online betting on the French Open at the end of May. The case will be heard in detail on April 11 in Liège, the European Union headquarters of the three major websites concerned. This is not the first time the federation has tried to counter internet betting. Last autumn it invited undercover police into the stands and corridors of the Paris Masters Series event at Bercy, to clamp down on suspicious betting activity.

Today, the I. Zivilsenat (first division for civil matters) at the Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court of Justice) dismissed in four cases action filed by state-run gambling providers (among others Westlotto) against private sports betting providers holding GDR and EU licences (among others bwin). In its press release, the BGH headlined: “Old cases of offering and operating sports bets do not constitute a violation of competition”. Initial press reports state that “the flood of law suits against providers of sports bets was thrown out on Thursday by the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH)”.

Milan (Thomson Financial) - The Italian government plans to launch by end-2008 a public tender for 329 horse race betting concessions, which were subject of a lengthy EU dispute, according to a report on the Agipronews internet site, citing economy ministry sources. Last September, Italy lost a European Court of Justice ruling over renewal of the concessions for the 2000-2005 period because it had not handed them out after a public tender, the report says.