TWO COMPANIES PULL OUT OF TURKISH LOTTERY TENDER

Bidding for the national lottery privatisation contract just got less competitive According to a Turkish Press report the bidding for the Turkish lottery privatisation contract is now less competitive following the withdrawal of local group Dogan Holding and its Italian partner Lottomatica. Both companies had already met the government's preliminary requirements for bidders. Dogan advised the stock exchange that it's withdrawal was due to adverse market conditions, but little more is known beyond that. In a separate statement, Lottomatica, one of the world's largest commercial lottery operators and a market leader in the Italian gaming industry, announced that it has exited the Turkish process and that it had terminated the memorandum of understanding signed earlier with Dogan Holding to participate in the tender. The much delayed privatisation process for Turkey's state-owned national lottery is expected to begin in August after enactment of a bill on financial control. Along with several foreign companies, ...

DWAN AND ANTONIUS MIX IT UP FOR SESSION 17

Million dollar challenge now over the 20 percent complete mark Online poker aces Patrik Antonius and Tom 'durrr' Dwan got it together for another 890 hands Thursday, although the session count at Full Tilt Poker for the epic 50 000 hand online poker marathon appears to have jumped from 12 to 17 with little record of what happened in the brief period from session 12 to session 17. That said, InfoPowa will take Full Tilt at its word and report that session 17 saw the two online poker aces pass the 20 percent complete mark with a 890 hand session that brings total hands played thus far to 10 180, with Antonius still ahead although by a slightly lower margin at $79 277. This session saw some marked swings in pot size, including seven pots that reached $100 000; the two pretty evenly matched players have now wagered a total of $ ...

LOCK POKER LAUNCHES MAC OFFERING

An online poker site from Cake network, Lock Poker is offering their players new Mac poker software which is first on the network. This Mac based poker software has the same characteristic and game play with their PC version with Play and Real money games, including ring games, Satellites, MTT's and Sit 'n Go's. There are also other great features that players can enjoy like player to player chat, table resizing and multi- table play. CEO of Lock Poker Jennifer Larson says, “One of our mandates as a company is to provide a superior online poker experience. It only makes sense that we would extend our product to the Mac platform - as Apple is a leader in innovation and customer experience." With Lock Poker, players are allowed to experience the innovative download software without an application from the third party for a more stable and smoothly running game.

SHORT ELEVENTH SESSION IN DWAN CHALLENGE

Durrr get ahead again The eleventh session in the Tom 'durrr' Dwan million dollar challenge with Patrik Antonius (see previous InfoPowa reports) was short and, for Dwan, sweet. The two players met again online at Full Tilt Poker to play 154 hands over 20 minutes before Antonius called it a night. The statistical site MarketPulse, which has been recording the progress of the 50 000 hand contest, reported that nine days had passed since the last clash between the two, and that the latest [eleventh] session brought to 7 247 the hands player so far over the 11 sessions, with a total of 41 683 576 placed at risk by the two players. The biggest pot in session 11 was $123 977 picked up by Dwan when he flopped a set of jacks and Antonius missed all of his outs. Dwan is back in the lead in the challenge overall, which has now ...

ANTONIUS AND DWAN IN ANOTHER MILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE SESSION

In their 12th session its Antonius who gets ahead Patrik Antonius and Tom 'durrr' Dwan managed to put together a meaningful 12th session in the 50 000 hand Dwan million dollar challenge midweek, playing a rapidly fluctuating and thrilling 2 043 hand session over almost eight hours before calling it a night due to fatigue. Durrr was at one point handling action on seven tables simultaneously and with apparent aplomb. Biggest hand of the night, which generated a pot of $154 984, went to Antonius after a brief but intense round of action, and contributed handsomely to Antonius' final result, which saw him edge ahead of his opponent to finish with an overall $80 707 lead on Dwan in the $200/400 pot-limit Omaha challenge. The two poker aces have now completed 9 290 hands, or around 17 percent of the required 50 000 hands, with an average pot size of $4 077. ...

GAMBLING IS NO RELIABLE SOURCE

Just like Maryland, Delaware is holding the possibility of having budget deficits and looking for means to balance the books without giving up the needs of the people or worthwhile projects or programs. After years of debate, voters of Maryland have already approved the referendum that authorizes the playing of slot machines but with limited numbers only. However, the fruits of this venture can only be seen in few years more. Meanwhile, Delaware has already been enjoying the benefits of legal gambling for several years now. Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware has proposed a huge pay cuts and increased on tax for all state workers. He is also considering an extreme expansion of gambling which includes sports betting, riverfront entertainment and some table games like blackjack and poker. It is his objective to transform Delaware into a Vegas-like gaming tourist destination. This is an effort to balance the state budget and ...

Craps Casino Likes to Pay out Slots Also

It's not too often that you hear about the game of craps when you're reading up on the online gambling news. I know because I read a whole lot of online gambling news! That said, I was pleasantly surprised to come across the online casino, Craps.com, in my recent foray of scanning the news headlines. A Playtech Software powered site, Craps.com, is owned and managed by Playtech's leading online casino network, Imperial E-Club (Intercontinental Online Gaming), and boasts some of the most popular Playtech online casinos of today, including the long standing Casino Tropez, European player favorite Casino Europa and the Italian Stallion, Casino Bellini. And while you can certainly play online craps at all of these casinos, Craps.com was developed in celebration of this exciting games, which incidentally, can offer one of the lowest House Edges in the casino if played with the proper Craps Strategy. In fact, the casino started ...

International: Australian blacklist names gambling URLs

Wednesday, an anonymous source leaked a list of banned Web pages the Australian government plans to block access to. The list, which appeared on WikiLeaks.org, not only includes the URLs of child-pornography and terrorist websites, but also those of several online-gambling, legal pornography and Christian-church sites. Australia's capitol in Canberra, ACTThe list is reportedly the work of the Australian Communications and Media Authority and includes 2,395 URLs. The government agency compiled the list as a catalogue of sites it plans to block access to using Web-filtering software. The list was meant to be confidential, and the ACMA has since added WikiLeaks.org – a nonprofit, anonymous document repository for whistleblowers – to the blacklist. According to WikiLeaks.org, an “Internet filtering-software maker” provided the list. Betfair.com CEO Andrew Twaits was furious after learning that the list includes his company’s domain name. According to ComputerWorld.com, Twaits was unaware that the ACMA considered Betfair.com a Totalizator Agency ...

Fantasy Sports betting over the Internet with help

Internet gambling on Fantasy Sports, one of the notorious carve-outs in national US anti-online gambling legislation, is under the microscope in Maryland, where Delegate John Olszewski Jr., D-Baltimore County, presented a bill this week to a House committee to exempt fantasy sports from state gambling prohibitions. The state politician has a taste for modern communications, it seems, and presented humorous fantasy football commercials on YouTube to emphasise the growing popularity of the Internet-driven pastime. While fantasy sports are exempted from federal gambling restrictions, the issue is not specifically addressed in state law, reports Fox News. Olszewski's bill would not extend to popular college basketball office pools, which are illegal under state law. "We're just taking this (federal) language and inserting it into Maryland law," Olszewski said, giving a brief explanation of fantasy sports and showing members of the House Ways and Means committee in Maryland his personal fantasy football team, the "Outlaws." ...

66 tourneys in 22 events waited

Online poker website PokerStars.com is about to roll out one of its largest and most ambitions promotions yet - the $30 million Spring Championship of Online Poker, which has been designed to accommodate players at all levels and pockets and will take place April 2-12. In some cases, the guaranteed prize-pools are set to create new benchmarks in online poker - up to $5 000 000! To cater for all pockets, the 22 events on the schedule are each split into three, making a total of 66 tourneys. For example, the first event is a 6-max No-Limit Hold ‘em with re-buys event, with three separate buy-ins of $5.50, $55 and $550. The events will also be supported by satellite activity with low buy-ins. Dominating the schedule, and sure to achieve wide media coverage, are two High-Roller events, with the series ending on a Main Event on Sunday, April 12. PokerStars will offer ...