Malta-based one-stop-shop remote gaming experts, Cybergaming Consultants have decided to join London’s ICEi remote gaming expo, which runs between 22nd and 24th January 2008, for the second time.

Still another attempt to pass the Saipan gaming plan was defeated by the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation yesterday. Saipan lawmakers voted 10-5 to kill a fresh local bill that would have legalized certain forms of gaming on the island. House Local Bill 15-21, sponsored by Representatives Jesus SN Lizama and Oscar M. Babauta, proposed mainly to appropriate over USD 900,000 for Precinct II projects.

Hotel and leisure group Sun International will continue to expand its operations internationally and seek to maintain the competitive advantage it has established in its core businesses. Chairman Buddy Hawton said in the group’s annual report that gaming legislation, which restricts the granting of additional gaming licenses in South Africa, “is serving as the primary catalyst for the group to seek new opportunities internationally”.

The Pricipality of Liechtenstein might follow the role model of Gibraltar and offer remote gaming licenses. The head of the government, Otmar Hasler, recently announced that a consulation paper with the draft of a new Casino Act (Spielbankengesetz) will be completed by February 2008 and published soon afterwards. According to Hasler, the Casino Act will also cover remote gambling. Liechtenstein is a tiny, but sovereign state, situated between Austria and Switzerland. However, unlike Switzerland, Liechtenstein is a full member of the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement.

The Financial Times has reported a deal signed late last month between the United States and three fellow World Trade Organisation (WTO) nations seeking compensation in the wake of an online gambling dispute has been revealed as less meaningful than was first hoped. The dispute arose last year after the Americans lost a WTO dispute with Antigua and Barbuda over discriminatory legislation covering online gambling.

Major betting companies Expekt, Ladbrokes, Betsson and Unibet have launched a new Responsible Gambling Code in Norway in a move designed to counter a government initiative to ban its citizens from transferring funds to foreign online gaming companies. Under the proposed ban, Norwegian customers would be stopped from betting on football or cross-country skiing online but the new Code seeks to promote and strongly support responsible gambling in answer to one of the Government’s justifications for the proposals.

MGM Mirage opened its USD 1.25 billion joint venture resort in Macau on Dec. 18, adding the third new hotel-casino to the expanding market in 2007. Las Vegas Sands Corp. opened the USD 2.4 billion Venetian Macau in August. The new competition caused some speculators to re-evaluate their investments. "Supply concerns in the region have prompted divestitures," Gordon said. "Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands (have pulled) back from their record-setting highs.

Online gambling will be banned in Germany starting January 1 as part of an accord with states that preserves the country’s state monopoly for lotteries and most forms of betting. All 16 German state legislatures voted by mid-December to approve the new online-betting laws, which the states negotiated after the Federal Constitutional Court overturned earlier rules. The new rules ban any form of Web-based gambling or brokering of games over the Internet.

The United States has reached a deal with the European Union, Japan and Canada to keep its Internet gambling market closed to foreign companies, but is continuing talks with India, Antigua and Barbuda, Macau and Costa Rica, US trade officials said. "We are pleased to confirm that the United States has reached agreement ... with Canada, the EU and Japan," Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative’s office, said in a statement several hours after the EU had announced details of the deal it had reached with Washington.

A new trade pact shuts companies like Partygaming out of the US market for good and sends them looking for new markets in Europe and Asia. The odds seem to be stacked against Europe’s online betting sector. After being shut out of the US market last year, companies such as British Partygaming and Austrian Bwin were dealt another blow on December 17 when the European Commission announced a trade settlement with the US that scuppers their chances of re-entering that lucrative market.

Canberra - Oscar-winning Australian actor Russell Crowe has succeeded in a long-running fight to have gambling machines banned from the Sydney football club he co-owns in a bid to make it more family-friendly. Crowe and fellow owner, millionaire businessman Peter Holmes a Court, on Wednesday night succeeded in convincing skeptical board members of the South Sydney Rabbitohs to dump the club's 160 slot machines...

An opening ceremony started the construction process Calama’s casino, which will be the most important venue in Norte Grande, in Chile. A series of features addressed to satisfy the needs of the business, hotel, events, entertainment, tourism as well as to improve the quality of life of the community, is the aim of Latin Gaming, the operating company.