The Online Poker Tour together with some sponsors like Vegas Poker 247, Royal Card Club, Third Bullet, CD Poker, The 3D Poker and a mystery room that has yet to be found out  announced plans for 2007. It is going to be a New Year Bash with four trips to the Playboy Mansion and five trips to the Ultimate Poker Challenge given away. And that includes air travel, accommodation, food and drinks, VIP parties, etc.

To participate in this year’s offering, you can take part in free and $1.10 buy in January and February qualifying tournaments. The finals will be broadcast live on Rounder’s Radio.

Last year eight trips were won to the Playboy mansion, and two trips – to a celebrity poker tournament that was attended by Shannon Elizabeth, Tara Ried, Don Cheadle, Lakers’ owner Jerry Buss, plus poker pro’s such as Daniel Negreanu, Hoyt Corkins, Ted Forrest, and Gavin Smith.

A lot of thing change in our lives with the time. That concerns fashion, politics, families, other spheres, and of course gambling. Earlier people rather watched than played, as the bets like in Baccarat game were pretty high. Players easily wagered from $25 to $100 a time. That made the game not accessible for ordinary people.

With the invention of the online casino Baccarat game everything has changed. Thanks to much lower bets, ordinary people have got the opportunity to play their favorite game, especially mini-Baccarat. The game itself hasn’t changed: Player bets, Bank bets and Tie bets with the house edge 1.36%, 1.17% and 14.1% respectively.

The quantity of people playing Baccarat is really great. And many online casinos try to meet their needs by offering Baccarat with very low minimum bets.

Some European countries such as the UK and Italy have already taken some regulatory steps to deal with online casinos that seem to be illegal or indecent for their citizens. And their legislation has proved to be effective.

As, it has been reported by the leading Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak, some measures will be taken by the Turkish Government as well. The expansion of Penal Code Article 301 (online crime) is being planned now. As a result Turkey’s Security Agency will get the right to block any illegal from their point of view site. Moreover, Internet Service Providers will have to block them as well. Besides, some legal action will be taken against the owners of the offending sites in case they can be reached.

Many critics claim that this Act will hardly prove to be affective, since many find censoring offensive. And this is the thing the situation in Turkey may be compared with.

Nottingham Trent University initiated a gambling report, called “The Global Online Gambler Report”. The survey is commissioned by eCOGRA. It is believed to be the largest online gambling survey which results are promised to surprise anyone at the upcoming ICE exhibition on the 23rd of January.

Player protection, preferences, different gambling portals, their value, favorite games and responsible gambling are the things under the survey. “…We think it will be very revealing for both industry insiders and a wider public,” – said Andrew Beveridge, eCOGRA CEO. The reason to think so may be the amount of participants from all over the globe – 10,000. The figure helps to get a clear vision and interpretation of the online gambling industry from the players’ point of view.

The results of the survey, as the gambling research team at Nottingham Trent aided by the Las Vegas based University of Nevada believe, have been achieved by employing the leading minds in business and psychology.

Christmas Day tournament turned out to be very disappointing for OnGame’s PokerRoom.com players, since they found out that the prize they were fighting for was not $19,000 in cash bonus as they had been promised in numerous promotions of the site, but $2,000 HDTV.

The situation naturally caused a lot of frustration and complaints. What is surprising is that it took the management of PokerRoom.com several weeks to make a response.

Oskar Hornel, the founder, openly apologized for the situation and claimed that the site had paid back the affected players and added that all the necessary things had been done to prevent the situation similar to that in future.

The situation has been widely internet debated. Still, it remains unresolved for many. But it is obvious that the disability to correct the situation in time and the delayed response from the management haven’t done anything good for the site. There is an opinion that the site will definitely lose lots of clients.

Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act has had a huge negative impact on the operation of many casino companies.  “If (Internet gambling sites) have any kind of exposure in the United States, or if any of their executives are traveling in the United States, certainly they risk arrest and prosecution for violating the law,” said David G. Schwartz, Director of the UNLV Center for Gaming Research. As a result, lots of firms have stopped their operation in the USA. So has Pinnacle Sports. They have already announced that they are not accepting any bets from the USA.

Such a decision could not but be very upsetting for Pinnacle Sports, as approximately 60-65% of their business came from the USA. In Schwartz’s opinion, the situation with Pinnacle Sports  may have ripple effects on the Internet sports betting industry, i.e. other firms could disappear or diminish their sizes, or visa versa, new people could come in and take the business. Schwartz claims: “A lot of the people who come to Vegas recreationally aren’t necessarily the serious sports bettors who are betting online. A pretty big percentage of them are people who are just coming in and placing futures bets for the Cubs to win the World Series or something like that; or, they just happen to be in Vegas for the weekend and they’re betting. I think most of the people who are betting online are fairly serious about it”.

So, Schwartz is pretty sure that the move will not decrease overall Internet gambling and won’t affect the sports betting industry in Las Vegas either.

Still, it must be added that some privately owned companies such as Sportsbook.com, formerly Sportingbet’s U.S. facing sportsbook, and Bodog which bought Betcorp and moved its offices to Antigua, are accepting U.S. bets.

PlayTech has recently signed an agreement with Sino Strategic International, China’s Leading gaming group, to provide Texas Hold’em Poker software in China. Being one of the leading online gambling software providers, PlayTech has also become the first major provider of Texas Hold’em Poker software in China.

This agreement is regarded to be a very important step for PlayTech’s development in Asia, its presence and brand name recognition, especially after passing the UIGEA in the USA.

Now PlayTech is planning to supply its games to more than 5,000 terminals, and that is not the limit.

A new gambling platform is going to be owned by established or upcoming casinos. The new product was released by Net Entertainment which did their best to design the system called CasinoModule™.

The product is believed to be a better version of the old roulette game. Specialists have worked hard to perfect the movements of the ball and the wheel, so they could sound realistic. The system will also offer some more gaming options such as slots, scratch tickets and a mini-slot. In general, the system incorporates itself easily into existing website structure and is run fully with the gaming brand.

To get more information on CasinoModule, go to casinomodule.com or netent.com.

As it is known, the Cricket World Cup 2007 will take place in Guyana. In this respect, as Samuel Hinds, the prime Minister of Guyana, claims facilitation of casino gambling for guests is being actively discussed.

There are some religious issues of some communities that should be taken into consideration. They are connected with theological grounds prohibiting gambling. So, the government is well prepared to take prudent measures to prevent the activity of some groups to be widespread.

Other issues that worry the government are gambling addictions, prostitution and increased money laundering. So, being well aware of dangers, the government is discussing mechanisms of their possible prevention and dealing with them.

By enforcing the Bill the Minister is given power to set up any administrative body for the administration of the casino legislation, control of prescription fees payable for the application and issuance of any license. He is also able to make regulations to establish a Gaming Authority regulating the issue only through specific types of licenses to allow casino gambling.

It should be noted, that in spite of the discussions, gambling exists in Guyana taking different forms like sweepstakes, lotteries and raffles.

A new gambling agreement is about to take place. The parties of the agreement are the Canadian gambling software developer CryptoLogic and Scandinavian online poker room Parbet.com. The company’s handover is to be completed by the 15th of January.

According to the agreement CryptoLogic intends to buy the brand and assets of Parbet.com for about € 9 million. The purchase includes the rights to the Parbet brand name, associated domain names, customer lists, databases, and players’ cash in deposits. Further they are planning to license all the Parbet assets, poker software, payment processing and multi-lingual customer support services to a private Maltese online gaming company. So, the latter will get the possibility to operate Parbet.com.

€9 million for the brand and the assets will be paid by CryptoLogic’s subsidiary WagerLogic. And if the performance of the company is enhanced within 6 months, it will add €4 million more. All that is said to be the part of the agreement.

The manipulations described are expected to increase CryptoLogic’s 2007 earnings for about $2 million.