online casino players can take their chance to win seats at the weekend’s World Poker Crown (WPC) tournament by taking part in a series of one-cent qualifiers hosted by PacificPoker.com.

The qualifiers will be held every hour, but they will be limited to a max of 500 participants and registration will start 30 minutes before the start of every event.

The WPC will start on April 26. It is believed to become one of the largest online tournaments in history. It has a buy-in of $1,050 and a three million dollar prize pool that includes one million dollar for the winner. The tournament is sponsored by 888.com.

Such pros like Dave Colclough, Julian Gardner and Michael Keiner and Shane Warne will take part in the tournament.

The finalists will play live in the final table in Barcelona from May 6 to 10.

The North Carolina Education Lottery is known to have transferred $98 million to public schools. The sum is the largest in the history of the lottery. So far this year, $114 million more has been raised that the previous year.

Having increased sales, they have managed to raise this amount of money for education. One portion of money should help reduce class sizes, other portions will go to college scholarships.

Up until now, North Carolina public schools have got $628 million from the lottery.

Live webcasts of major poker events and a unique collection of poker footage will soon be available for poker fans. The site has recently been launched by online casino PokerStars.com, but at the moment it is undergoing beta-testing and contains a video tutorial in which Canadian poker pro Daniel Negreanu gives an overview of the site. There, he explains in details how to to use and access the material. Having accessed the material, users will find there subgroups for major events, channels dedicated to each Team PokerStars.com professional player, live-play videos, instructional comments, interviews and behind-the-scenes action for each competitor, Online Action, Sweat the Hand and Fun Stuff categories. Besides, the site contains a searchable database of filters with videos categorizing a player, event or type of hand.

Registered users at PokerStars.tv can either e-mail video links to other players or personalize their favorites by creating their own video channel and selecting their preferences. The feeds from tournaments are available in English, German, Dutch, French, Italian and Spanish.

Lots of blackjack players are now taking part in a “21 Challenge Series”, christened 21, - a five-month blackjack tournament launched by online casino Bookmaker.

During the week the players are supposed to compete in a series of progressively higher-stakes tournaments winning seats for Sundays’ finals. Each week three winners are expected to compete for over $1,000 and a chance to advance to the main event in August.

Players, having deposited as little as $11, may win $21,000 in 21 weeks.

Other casino games and poker with a 20% bonus and a 10% 3x redeposit bonus for returning customers are also available at Bookmaker.

To get more information, visit online casino Bookmaker.

Street Fighter® II – your favorite character will face off against the evil Bison in a feature providing some of the highest payout on the Internet. The game is exclusive thanks to the best in the market 3D graphics.

Outstanding animation and enormous jackpots, unique settings and memorable characters are the features that Movie Mayhem will provide you with.

For those looking for a good game and a good sense of humor, there is nothing like Gnome and Dad’s Day In.

“CryptoLogic’s latest casino games showcase the player knowledge, creativity, and talent on our software team — and the innovation that will help our licensees attract and build player loyalty,” – said Justin Thouin, CryptoLogic’s Vice President, Product Management and Business Development.

Now Spanish residents are able to bet in Spain’s first sports betting shop (under the joint venture’s Victoria brand) opened last week. Before that Spaniards had to go online to bet on sporting events.

Gleaming with chrome and glass, Victoria’s new shop which is located above a Codere casino, Madrid, offers comfortable sofas and a bar. The shop, having a completely different look from the British bookie, has been made a more attractive destination for women. With the change of the image of a betting shop, people will gradually change the perception that betting is a male-only activity.

It must be noted that Madrid authorities have banned wagering on religion and politics. That’s why Madrid residents will bet on social events and TV competitions.

Opening of a sports betting shop in Madrid is just the beginning of the growth of the Spanish gambling market. British bookie William Hill and Spanish gambling firm Codere plan to open 70 sports betting shops – that is only across the Madrid area, the first of Spain’s 17 regions to grant licenses. They expect the Spanish betting market to grow to 39 billion euro, which is equal to $57.8 million, by 2010.

But the Victoria brand won’t be the only one presented in Spain. Last week Greece’s Inralot got a license. Then, Austrian firms Bwin and Betbull are planning to open a joint franchise as well, while Gala Coral has been in talks with potential Spanish partners for 6 months.

Existing casino operations in Russia will have to be moved to remote parts of the country such as the Primorie District, the Rostov and Krasnodar regions on the Black Sea, the Altai Republic, and the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad. Though the move was set to go into place before June of 2009, the plan may now be delayed. The reason for that is a great number of requests from the industry asking to extend the deadline to move.

The plan was passed by legislators in 2006. All this time it’s been next to impossible to persuade the legislators to change the deadline, but “the lobbying efforts of the casino industry may just get the extension they are looking for”.

A lot is being spoken about the idea of using the infrastructure from Sochi which is being built in anticipation of the 2014 Winter Olympics, for a new gambling zone.

The Florida lottery is offering new lottery games. One of the newest, but most popular games is the one in which tickets cost $20, and the winners of the game are announced on the pre-chosen day.

Nevertheless, this week people will be standing in line to buy tickets for the Lotto game, an old one, in which jackpot has risen to $32 million. It is said to be the state’s second largest jackpot this year. In February the jackpot grew to $37 million and was won. This time, the $32 million jackpot is to be drawn on Wednesday.

Last time nobody managed to match all six winning numbers for the Lotto game. 116 people matched 5 of the numbers. They will get $4781 each.

It has been suggested that Finnish poker players spend €50 million a year on poker sites, but the money run outside of the country. Discussions of the reform of gambling in the country has not taken place yet, thought they are being planned for the end of the year.

Veikkaus, the state-owned lottery and betting monopoly in Finland, could get some of the revenue for itself – “two thirds of €50 million could be attainable”. It’s just the matter of the review of Finnish policy.

To gamble one day in the casinos of Las Vegas is a dream of lots of people. So, it is Williams’ – professional snooker player.

Actually everything has been arranged for him to go to Las Vegas to watch his friend Joe Calzaghe take on Bernard Hopkins at the Thomas & Mack Centre on Saturday,  but Mark Williams was not able to go because of the opening of the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield.

Williams has already taken part in several poker tournaments over the last few years.