Last week Raymond Lesniak, a New Jersey state senator, filed a federal lawsuit to permit sports betting in every state. As the recession’s impact in the United States grows, it appears the interest in legalizing sports betting is also on the rise. Currently, sports betting is legal in four states - Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon - but only offered in the first two. Lesniak is not alone in his quest.

Paris: France will open its gambling market to competition and begin to grant online betting licenses in 2010 as it seeks to stem illegal gambling and safeguard the billions of euros in tax revenue provided by the industry each year, the country's budget minister said Thursday. The minister, Eric Woerth, said the gambling market in France would be expanded to adapt "to Internet reality"...

Athens (Reuters) - UK-based fixed-odds betting company Stanleybet said on Friday a court ordered its outlet in Athens to be shut again while a higher tribunal considered its right to compete with Greek gambling monopoly OPAP. Stanleybet opened a store in the Greek capital and one in the northern city of Thessaloniki late last year, but Greek authorities shut them down for not having an operating licence and for violating a law that forbids online betting.

The new privatization report “All you have to know for the privatization of the two French monopolies – PMU for horse racing and Francaise des Jeux for the lotteries” will be continuously updated. This new process, of daily latest news gathering, proved to be a great success with our previous reports. GamblingAnalysts.eu will again give the maximum information to the buyers of the new privatization report on the French monopolies. The last privatization report on the Turkish Lottery had more than 90 pages.

The world's major sporting bodies have taken the first steps to set up a global body to combat sports betting corruption, which they have identified as a greater threat to sporting integrity than doping. So serious are concerns about match-fixing and gambling corruption in sport that the Sports Rights Owners Coalition (SROC), which includes the highest profile representatives of football, rugby and cricket, met in Brussels last week to deliver a report to the European Union designed to protect the future of sport.

The international financial crisis and the slowdown in local tourism did not change the plans of Amerian and Slots Machine, one of the best horse race-tracks in South America, that chose San Luis province for the construction of a new hotel. The novelty of this proposal is that it includes the development of a horse villa, with horse breeders. Of all the versions of thematic tourism, it seemed to be the less developed so far.

Ladbrokes has said it will continue its fight to legally provide sports betting services in Norway as it launched an appeal against the rejection of its Norwegian sports betting license application. The appeal comes after the Oslo City Court ruled last month that Ladbrokes was not allowed to offer its gambling services in competition with the Norwegian monopoly.

New York legislators want to tap casino gambling for greater revenues, but the requirements of passing a state constitutional amendment make the opening of new casinos unlikely anytime soon. So Governor David Paterson and some lawmakers are considering changing rules for existing video lottery machines and slots at racetracks. Current regulations require racinos to operate no more than sixteen hours a day, or one hundred twelve hours per week.

Gala Coral is streamlining its operations ahead of the likely impact of the economic downturn on casino, bingo and betting revenues, and has told staff that up to 200 jobs may be affected. Its five divisions will be pared back to three, with bingo and casino merging and Coral betting shops being bracketed with its Eurobet equivalents in Italy. Dominic Harrison, who replaced Neil Goulden as chief executive in September, said that while trading was satisfactory...

Stanleybet International, one of European leading cross-border sports betting operators and the substantive party behind the Gambelli case, has introduced the Fair Play for Sports Betting campaign, calling for fair, open and equal access to European markets for all EU-based sports betting operators. Launching it with an open letter to the President of the European Commission, Adrian Morris, Director of the Fair Play for Sports Betting campaign...

Online sportsbetting provider Betfair has files suit in the Federal Court of Australia challenging the validity of decisions by Racing New South Wales and Harness Racing New South Wales to impose a 1.5 % turnover fee on all wagering operators that cover thoroughbred and harness races in the state. Betfair alleges that the fee constitutes discriminatory conduct in interstate trade and commerce under Section 92 of the Australian Constitution.

The doubling of betting tax will put bookmakers out of business and lead to job losses, industry figures warned yesterday. Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan yesterday announced that the Government will double the current 1 per cent levy on bookies' turnover to 2 per cent, which will net the exchequer EUR 40 million. He is also proposing to cut the Horse and Greyhound Fund - which is linked to the betting tax and supports both racing codes - by 9 per cent next year, to EUR 55 million.