Several European Union nations haven’t heeded the warnings of European Commission concerning their online gambling policies. That means that these countries can be brought up before the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Some time ago the European Commission issued final warnings to a number of EU member nations as a consequence of their protectionist and restrictive gambling policies which didn’t let other countries access to their online gambling markets. The nations were given a limited time frame in order to make necessary changes in their policies. New Dutch policy could mean the Netherlands are ready to face the European Court of Justice.

In the past few months the online gambling matter has got out of control. Not only some European states ignore the Commission’s warnings, but they have made a move further passing more restrictive legislation. Two of the nations that continue passing new limits on the betting and casinos gambling industries are Germany and the Netherlands. Some other European states have ignored the Commission’s warning and maintain the monopoly, but Germany and the Netherlands are vigorously passing new legislation in spite of the countless concerns the Commission expressed concerning the problem.

Lately the Netherlands have blocked financial transactions with internet-based casinos on the banned online casinos list. This move is extremely similar to the North American legislation that isn’t presently implemented. Though, that doesn’t appear to be a concern for the state government or the Dutch banks that will make this latest effort to insulate effectively the Netherlands from other EU member nations’ online gambling companies.

According to Ticonderoga Ventures, Inc. the first Eastern European Casino Affiliate Convention will be held in Moscow, Russia on 7-8 June, 2008. It’s a business event on online advertising and marketing methods for the poker, casino, bingo and sportsbook industry for Eastern Europe.

Affiliate gaming managers have noticed that a higher percentage of Eastern European affiliates have a tendency to do better and they are most likely to be high revenue producing ‘Super affiliates’ than other areas affiliates.

In April more than 1100 delegates and above 600 affiliates took part in the Amsterdam Casino Affiliate Convention. The Casino Affiliate Convention has gained popularity becoming the largest conference and trade show for marketing in the online gaming industry.

To attend the Amsterdam conference and expo affiliates from Eastern Europe needed visas. It’s difficult for Eastern European citizens. Therefore, most delegates were unable to come. To meet the business needs of this region affiliates, Casino Affiliate Convention 2008 decided to hold the event in Moscow.
The CAC2008 site has all necessary information about traveling to Moscow.

The Casino Affiliate Convention keeps being the first event for exploring new markets for their affiliates and affiliate managers. Over and above the Russian market, on 20-21 November the second annual Asian affiliate conference will be held in Macau, PR China.

Moreover Casino Affiliate Convention 2008 will cover the most advanced marketing methods for the gaming market. They’ll also hold a conference for affiliates in the Forex market on 25-26 July in Las Vegas.

Perhaps, World Series of Poker, the biggest and most popular poker tournament worldwide, is ready to get big exposure from the latest online endorsement. Everest Poker, the well-liked internet-based poker room, lately issued a press release publicizing their deal with WSOP in order to brand the table felts and inner rung of final tables at WSOP, and expressed their opinion about the schedules of November 2008.

Jennifer Joyce, Everest Poker Chief Marketing Officer, has noted that the scheduling will give a better chance to greater amount of poker fans in Europe to see the most popular poker event in the globe. Taking into account that online betting of Everest Poker is mainly in Europe, the deal will not only give more exposure to WSOP, it’ll also allow more European gamblers to take part in WSOP internet satellite tournaments.

Without a doubt Everest Poker will also get a rush in exposure as the deal result. They are expected to reach a 200 million audience all over the world through WSOP’s massive television coverage.

Evidently, there’s a new scheduling format that is to spark interest in more people about poker. Everest Poker is certain to take this mission. They offer lots of incentives to new gamblers who open real account with them. They also let gamblers take part in fun games of “play money» to get to know more about the online poker formalities. They aren’t open to the United States, but they are a success with the global betting community in general. Everest was one of the first internet poker rooms that launched a multilingual platform for players all over the world.

Good news have come for the international internet gambling industry up to now one more court ruling grants internet betting sites freedom from the arrows and slings of brick and mortar casino gambling monopolies. This time, in Liege, Belgium, the French Tennis Federation was trying to sue 3 renowned online wagering sites, for what these sites claimed was the rascally betting patterns encouragement.

However, the case was ephemeral, since the judge ruled the bookmakers in question (Betfair, Bwin, and Ladbrokes) hadn’t really done anything unlawful by accepting stakes on tennis events. Actually, the judge noted that licensed the EU online betting sites follow strict regulatory protocols which guarantee the sports betting integrity, particularly in the regions of fraud and the protection of underage children.

The FFT didn’t gain this case and they also had to pay €5,000 per case in order to recover legal fees. At this moment Bwin has also mounted a defamation suit against the French Tennis Federation, who in their original suite tried to accuse Bwin of being paradise for internet criminals.

The EGBA was pleased with the ruling, noting that such a ruling confirmed the original sentiment that nothing wrong had been done by the bookmakers. In general, the ruling is a big victory for the internet gambling industry all together, particularly in Europe, where definite State-run gambling monopolies have been criticized greatly. This case will certainly serve as warning to other institutions on persecuting lawfully regulated internet casinos and sportsbooks in order to protect their betting empires.

After a long and careful investigation, Bwin, the online casino and gambling group got e-money provider license. The Financial Services Authority of the UK granted the license. Bwin Interactive Entertainment makes history because it is the first group to get this license. Though, the company had to overcome a lot of obstacles before receiving the license. A strict and thorough investigation was conducted of the ownership structure of the online casino company together with system, management and infrastructure requirements review.

However, the online casino and gambling company isn’t satisfied by catering merely its own clientele. Now it is going to expand the business. At this time the license is getting a “passporting” that means that it’ll be used in other countries of Europe. This will allow Bwin to provide payment options and services like prepaid cards and credit cards, and co-operate with issuers like Visa and Mastercard. This expansion is sure to be in favour of their own online casino clients, who will get plenty of payment options they can choose from.

Bwin is pleased to be the first in its industry that could expand into the financial market. This move is certain to be a significant strategic step for the online casino and gambling group, and they believe it can open up lots of market options; they otherwise couldn’t enter. The online casino and gambling market is oversupplying slowly, and the company is on the continuous outlook for new possibilities. And, certainly, the financial sector is one of such opportunities.

Playtech, online gambling software developer, has recently reported a 97% rise in revenue for the first-quarter. Revenues grew to $39 million in the first quarter in comparison with $19.8 million in 2007. The Playtech Casino business went on growing, with revenues up to 79% annual to $27.2 million. Poker revenues grew 161 percent to $11 million in comparison with the same period of 2007.

Playtech stated that the revenue growth has continued in April, 9% growth over the average revenues per month in the first quarter of this year. The group is going to sign some new licensees this year that as expected keeps strengthening its revenue in future.

Mor Weizer, the chief executive, said, “The group goes on pursuing important business opportunities through all the regulated markets and the board is extremely confident concerning the Playtech trading performance for the year 2008 and beyond”.

888 Holdings Plc, the UK second-biggest online gaming company has lately declared that they began well the first quarter of this year with a 38% grow in internet gaming revenue and their revenue has shown growth in the second quarter, that are driven mostly by bingo and casino games.

Online gaming revenue, a main indicator, increased to $64,000,000 from $47m in the same quarter of the last year and rose 3% on the preceding quarter. In April, Gigi Levy, CEO said that the company expects to reach 30% growth in revenue for this year, with the help of its new bingo and sports betting sites.

Stan James is the latest gambling operator which has added skill games to their set of games. A multi-year deal announced by the bookmaker will allow online players to access popular games of GameAccount such as Gim Rummy, Blackjack and Backgammon by means of a Stan James betting account.

Now the GameAccount platform that offers multi-table tournaments and a total software upgrade with new navigation has become one of the most popular with top European sportsbooks and betting sites providing the player with everything from casino games, poker, sports betting to skill games.

In other British gambling news, Andrew Lyman, the UK Gambling Commission’s Director, has declared he’ll step down from his position in order to follow other interests in the internet gambling sector.

He has been heavily involved in the gambling sector licensing and regulatory aspects, that is usually everybody expects from the Director of the busiest gambling commissions worldwide. Lyman says he’s eager to being part of a group with more “commercial” interests. It’s clear that he means to make more money. Very clever man!

Before leaving, Lyman is going to spend his time on internal project work (nobody knows exactly what is it). It is known this work differs from his usual Director’s duties. Jenny Williams, CEO of the UK Gambling Commission, noted that the Commission is sorry that Lyman goes, but the fact that he’ll go on working in the gambling industry and continue assisting to promote liable gambling practices among bookmakers and casinos.

A lot of modern online gambling casinos and portals propagate sifting through the bias but it can at times be a difficult task if you’re not in the know how you can spot it. There’s some bias after you have sorted out the good one from the bad, since only one internet casino can have the position ?1.

Though, when everything is done, the top gambling portals will just list trustworthy, fair and safe online casinos on the sites. The ?1 casino depends on lots of factors, and it frequently concerns the willingness of internet casino operators to support demands imposed by the online gambling portal.

When Cryptologic Software bought the famous UK casino portal, Casino.co.uk, everybody thought this portal would surely serve Cryptlogic casinos. But we were mistaken. Actually, here more Playtech casinos are promoted than Cryptologic ones, although the top Cryptologic’s online casino, Inter Casino, is listed in the ?1 position.

Be honest, we cannot criticize this, since 1) Inter Casino is certain to be an outstanding online casino and 2) All the Playtech’s casinos haven’t deal with the US market. They get most of their business from the European and UK online gambling markets. Moreover, Playtech is also a perfect software platform.

The main reason why I raise all this in the 1st place is as late Cryptologic announcement of the earn-out agreement of acquiring the portal surpassed everybody’s expectations. Therefore, Cryptologic will invest more in the portal and it plans to ease more expansion and growth. It’d be exciting to see where this intention leads as there is more money there.

888.com is the biggest and most trusted online casino and poker room on the website. Everybody can enjoy the best choice of online gambling games here. It is also one of the top leading entertainment and gaming companies in the world.
Some days ago the 888.com launched World Poker Crown with more than 2 thousand players all of them are competing for the biggest guaranteed prize of $3 million with $1 million for first place.

A great deal of players joined online in order to watch for eleven hours as the amount decreased to 10 players. Then 888.com paused on the tournament and it’s sending the final 10 gamblers to the World Poker Crown $3 million guaranteed offline final table that will be held in Barcelona in 10 days!

The 10 players are from Canada, Germany Italy, Holland, and Poland. They ear given an unbelievable VIP journey to Spain and an opportunity to win the largest prize of $3 million that has ever been offered by 888.com, and the World Poker Crown. The offline final table is held from 6th to 10th May and the winning players will get: all flights and transfers to Barcelona, helicopter transfer to the Peralada Castle Resort, accommodation for 3 nights in the 5 star Peralada Hotel and luxury hospitality at the events.

Gigi Levy, 888.com CEO, said ” 888 is all about ‘Enjoying The Game’ “. He considers that the best way to allow people to ‘Enjoy the game’ is to send the best players to this World Poker Crown $3 million Guaranteed final table where somebody will get the crown and will bring home $1 million.

If you are a poker fan and feel you are quite good at it however you’ve never won, maybe you aren’t merely sitting at the right game. To learn to find the right game is the main thing to win at poker and be a lasting success.

To win at the poker table, you should find the beatable games.

But it’s simpler to say than to do, especially if you don’t have enough money for serious pots. In this case you’d better play a low-stakes poker against recreational gambler whose skills are below or just similar yours. These opponent players like playing a hand through with no folding at the 1st flop of a Holdem game. But, remember if you’re playing in a land casino, the poker room will take a rake and it can hurt.

$2/$4 limit Texas Holdem games are spread in the largest part of casinos and the rake is usually at 10 percent or $4 maximum per hand. If the pot is $40, a $4 rake means the difference between to step away or to play another round.

Recreational players don’t often remember about the rake since it isn’t often advertised. Or if they’re beginners, they may be unaware of such a thing as a rake.

The rake is annoying thing in a poker play. If you feel like minimizing the rake effect on your winnings, play a little higher limit or no limit. If you doubt that you are good enough to play a higher spread game, play online poker at site offering ‘play money’. You can practice there and learn how to bluff or beat.