
Norwegian Culture Minister Thorhild Widvey is seeking to liberalize Norway’s online gambling laws.
Norway’s ambition to legalize online gambling has moved one action closer: the country’s Culture Committee has required an effect evaluation on dramatic legislation proposals that may completely open up industry. The committee will closely examine the experiences of other countries, such as for example Sweden, Denmark and the UK, before drafting its own legislation that the government hopes to implement the following year.
Norway currently has some of the gambling controls that are tightest in European countries. Online gambling is basically unlawful in the united kingdom, with just two companies that are state-owned to supply restricted games of possiblity platinum quick hits slot machine to its citizens, Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto. Norsk Tipping provides games like lotteries, keno and some sports betting, and falls under the jurisdiction of this Ministry of Culture and Church affairs, which ensures that players are only permitted to place bets at certain times of the time and imposes restrictions regarding the amount players are allowed to bet. Norsk Riksoto, meanwhile, provides parimutuel betting exclusively for horseracing.
Nothing to Bank On
In 2010, the government passed a law that banned Norwegian banks from processing all types of gambling transactions, online and live, maybe not just within Norway, but all over the world, basically barring Norwegians from utilizing their credit cards to gamble in overseas jurisdictions, even where such practices are legal. That means that, currently, Norwegian people to Las Vegas, for instance, may battle to spend their hotel bills because the hotels offer gambling.
Presumably this law was introduced because Norwegians who fancy a wager regularly embark on gambling trips abroad. As such, the Norwegian Poker Championships is an itinerant event that has been held, over the years, in such diverse places as Stockholm and Dublin, as poker tournaments are illegal and you can find no casinos in the mother country.
All of whom cut their teeth playing on illegal offshore sites, along with thousands of other Norwegians despite this, Norway has somehow been able to maintain a thriving poker community, one that has produced numerous poker champions over the years, from Annette Obrestad to Johnny Lodden to Andreas Hoivold.
Thawing of Attitudes
Norway’s desire to manage and willingness to toss its borders open to licensed foreign gambling that is online, then, is a major overhaul and, while the exact nature for the legislation is yet to be drafted, it also appears to be an admission that prohibition isn’t working. Truly, there has been a thawing of attitudes within the government, particularly towards poker.
A recent report, the survey that is biggest ever conducted in the Sweden, concluded that poker ended up being certainly one of the ‘safest’ gambling games, scoring at a relatively low risk element for problem gambling. Another report estimated that offshore operators are using $120 million to $170 million in gross video gaming revenue from Norwegian citizens each year, a sum that might be taxed by the government in a regulated market.
And Norway, this indicates, is additionally waking up to the slightly embarrassing state of affairs that will require its poker players that are best to travel abroad every year to attend the Norwegian Poker Championships.
‘I wish we can have a framework that is regulatory invest time for a Norway Championship of Poker to be held in Norway in 2015,’ Culture Minister Thorhild Widvey stated recently.
Ultimate Gaming Severs New Jersey On Line Ties
Ultimate Gaming has accused the Trump Taj Mahal of ‘multiple breaches’ that led to your end of their partnership; the online operator shut down its NJ operations this weekend. (Image: Ultimate Gaming)
Ultimate Gaming never took off in New Jersey, trailing far behind offerings by companies like partypoker (partnered with the Borgata) plus the Caesars/888 partnership. Now, with their land-based partner Trump Taj Mahal likely to close later this year, Ultimate has become the first gaming that is online to bow from the New Jersey market.
The shutdown of this Ultimate Gaming internet sites, including a reasonably popular casino item and a struggling poker room, took place at 11:59 pm EDT on Sunday night. That followed a Friday announcement that the company had terminated its relationship with Trump Taj Mahal Associates, following ‘multiple breaches’ of contract by the casino company.
‘We are grateful to the State of nj-new jersey as well as the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement for allowing us to be one of the first companies to bring gaming that is online the citizens of New Jersey and appreciate their leadership as one of the first states to allow online gaming,’ said Ultimate Gaming Chairman Tom Breitling.
Ultimate and Trump Had relationship that is tenuous
Trump Entertainment Resorts, that is the parent business that operates the Taj Mahal, has not commented on the Ultimate shutdown. But, the closing of the Ultimate sites comes after a tumultuous relationship between the Web gambling company and also the Atlantic City casino.
In the most successful Atlantic City partnerships, brick-and-mortar casinos have worked with their online software providers to help market and promote the sites. Ultimate Gaming received few such advantages from the Taj Mahal, making Ultimate to mostly market the website on their own.
That left the business in a tough spot, which especially revealed up in its poker figures. Ultimate Poker never ever found much success in New Jersey, with the poker room ranking at or near the bottom of sites in the state, with regards to both revenue and traffic throughout its existence. The organization’s casino product (UCasino) fared better, bringing in over $4.4 million in revenue through August this season. However, that nevertheless lagged behind one other Internet gaming operations in Atlantic City.
Player Funds Can Be Withdrawn
Players still have several days in which to access their Ultimate Gaming accounts and withdraw funds. After September 28, Ultimate will begin automatically processing refunds to players at their addresses that are registered.
‘We are working closely with the Division of Gaming Enforcement to ensure a transition that is smooth our online gaming customers as we wind down our brand New Jersey operations,’ Breitling said.
The Trump Taj Mahal is currently undergoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, plus it’s likely that Ultimate Gaming will be concerned in those proceedings moving forward. Fertitta Acquisition, business connected with Ultimate Gaming owner Station Casinos, is listed as a creditor owed nearly $1.5 million from the casino.
The news headlines won’t affect Ultimate’s operations in Nevada, where they operate Ultimate Poker. That site currently ranks second with regards to traffic in the Nevada on-line poker market, and Breitling says more improvements are coming to their computer software package there.
Ultimate isn’t the company that is only New Jersey that could be affected by troubles at Atlantic City casinos. Betfair was formerly partnered with Trump Plaza, which shut its doors earlier this month. While the Department of Gaming Enforcement has temporarily allowed Betfair to operate without having a brick-and-mortar partner, this indicates unlikely that such an arrangement will be allowed to continue indefinitely.
EU Match-Fixing Treaty Garners 15 Country Support
Fifteen European nations have agreed to sign a treaty that is targeted at fighting the problem that is all-too-common of. (Image: edition.cnn.com)
A EU that is new match-fixing to be signed by 15 European nations will address an important sports issue which has proceeded to plague league after league throughout the world. Match-fixing is a scourge that hurts fans, sports competitions, and gamblers that are honest bookmakers alike.
That’s why fighting match-fixers has become such a hot button issue in the world of sports in the past few years, with governments and bookmakers teaming up with organizations like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee in an attempt to stamp it out.
Now, these 15 nations in Europe have agreed to come together in purchase to stop and punish match-fixing all over the world. Final Thursday at the Conference of European Ministers of Sport in Switzerland, the nations signed the Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, pledging to greatly help promote integrity in activities inside their nations.
EU Nations Sign Convention
The signatories include several major nations that are european. The nations within the convention were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, the Russian Federation, Serbia and Switzerland.
These countries have agreed to increase the flow of information and improve cooperation between national and international bodies, including sports books, leagues and competitions, and governments by signing the convention. Sports regulators that are betting operators will be expected to simply take more steps to combat fraud, while governments are expected to use legislation as well as other measures to protect the integrity of matches.
‘This convention is a major step forward for integrity, ethics and transparency in sport,’ said Thorborn Jagland, the Council of European countries’s Secretary General.
The European Commission called the treaty a ‘new milestone’ in the battle against match-fixing. The human anatomy played a role that is critical helping bring together the meeting during the last two years.
‘Match-fixing is a problem that is cross-border action at European degree is essential whenever we are to combat this scourge,’ said Androulla Vassiliou, the European Commissioner for sport.
Sports Betting Groups Approve Treaty, With Reservations
Reaction from sports betting businesses was also largely good. Groups including the Gaming that is european& Association (EGBA) and the Remote Gambling Association (RGA) arrived on the scene in support of the convention, also when they may have had some reservations.
‘It is our hope that [the convention] will further set the tone for a more effective cooperation between all stakeholders to eliminate match repairing,’ said EGBA secretary general Maarten Haijer. ‘However, we are award that the CJEU [the Court of Justice of the European Union) has rightly been asked to provide its opinion on the compatibility regarding the concept of ‘illegal recreations betting’ with EU legislation, and consider that the application of at the very least this supply should be postponed before the CJEU has supplied legal clarity.’
RGA chief executive Clive Hawkswood stated that bookmakers worked hard to ensure no bet that is particular had been banned in the convention.
‘The regulated sector that is betting difficult to explain why measures with this sort would not make any material difference to the integrity of sport,’ Hawkswood stated. ‘What we have now is just a relatively balanced and workable framework, which rightly seeks to reflect the selection of existing national regulatory frameworks as opposed to replace them.’
The convention was set to enter into effect 3 months after it received at the very least five signatories, at minimum three of which were EU Member States. Since that threshold had been reached on Thursday, the meeting will begin January 1, 2015. Other nations can be a part still associated with the convention; while the treaty is designed to fight against corruption worldwide, nations do not have to be in European countries to sign on.
