State residents of Illinois USA are now able to wager online.

Lawmakers in the State legislature decided that it was a good idea to let people in Illinois place there bets from the comfort of their own homes. Approving a bill which had already advanced through the Senate will let participants bet on horse races at online casinos.

Video gambling machines were legalized throughout the state just a few days previous to the passing of the new bill. The large majority of 87 to 27 passed the new rules.

In the state new online accounts can be established and real money betting can be placed from your own home computer.

Online gaming software developer, Entraction Holding AB, has released its interim financial report for the first quarter of 2009 showing a 52.2 percent increase.

Earnings after tax for the listed firm came in at $2.1 million while cash from operating activities improved to $4.3 million.

Entraction signed a letter of intent last month to sell its CasaGaming Limited online games operating subsidiary iGame Limited for $6 million allowing it to fully focus on supplying products and services to the Internet gaming sector.

Peter Astrom, Chief Executive Officer for Solna-based Entraction said: “The selling of the gaming operations is a milestone for Entraction and enables us to focus 100 percent on our supplier operation,”.

Illegal advertising of unlicensed gaming operations in France are now to be stopped.

Radio station Europe 1 has been airing high profile ads for operator BetClic attracting the criticism from the government.

Minister Eric Woerth said: “The current law is very clear and it needs to be applied. Those websites do not yet have the right to operate in France and the ban also applies to any advertising that they may wish to do.”

The Minister Eric Woerth has suggested the companies will refrain from using their advantage and not advertise for the time being.

BetClic ignored the Minister’s request to stop it’s ad campaign. Finally though making a joint statement with the radio station Europe 1 that they would suspend their advertising campaign.

Intralot, a Greek firm, has signed a one-year agreement to supply Hrvatska Lutrija, the Croatian state lottery, with a new interactive gaming system.

Intralot has announced that the contract will have an initial duration of one year and may then be extended.

This deal is the result of an international competitive bid which will allow Intralot to provide Hrvatsa Lutrija with its B-OnTM multi-channel gaming platform for online numerical betting games.

Intralot, a public listed company and the leading supplier of integrated gaming and transaction processing systems, sports betting management licensed gaming organizations all over the world is looking forward to working with Hrvatsa Lutrija so that they may provide Croatian players with new gaming experiences.

Government  from Denmark announced some serious plans to deregulate the online gambling market.

With this some serious plans to deregulate the online gambling market the current state monopoly, that goes by the name Danske Spil, will become a thing of the past.

State officials declared that the new plans will be put together in a single bill that will be proposed. The bill is expected to gain support from a majority of the Danish Parllament.

Countries like Australia, Belgium and Sweden seem to turn to stricter measures, while the United States and  Denmark are likely to take a more lenient approach.

The European Gaming and Betting Association is bolstering up their biting comments on the report issued by the Swedish Ministry of Finance over the gambling marketing in Sweden.

Sweden, it seems, has been in breach of EC law since 2006. From 2006 to January 2008, the European Commission has sent repeated notices regarding Sweden’s protectionist gaming legislature, which restricts cross-border poker services.

The EGBA claims the Nyren report is fundamentally flawed to begin with as it assumes Sweden is following the EC laws in the first place.

Sigrid Ligné, the EGBA Secretary General states said:  “none of the Nyren recommendations would help to ensure a level playing field for all European operators and meet the requirements of the EC Treaty. We urge the Commission to bring Sweden to the European Court of Justice.”

The Ante Up for Africa European celebrity charity poker tournament in Monaco setup by online poker giant PokerStars took place last night.

The Ante Up for Africa event is to raise money to aid crisis torn Darfur.

With a 4,000 Euro buy-in for the no limit hold’em event held in the glamorous Monte Carlo attracted stars poker players from all the world.

Daniel Negreanu, Joe Hachem and etc were flying the flag for the poker professionals along with an array of sports stars come poker players which included footballer Teddy Sheringham, Zara Phillips and more an more stars.

Also stars rapper Nelly, Christina Milian put their support behind the event.

Source gamblingonlinemagazine.com

Bwin has reported that gambling addiction has decreased in the past two decades.

The study focussed on the relationship between increasingly accessible gambling and its impact on problem gambling.

The results of the study make by Dr. Shaffer clearly dispute the commonly accepted hypothesis that the greater accessibility of online gambling would lead to increased incidences of problem gambling and support the fact that gamblers these days are far less compulsive than in previous years.

Dr Shaffer said: “The very first thing that we learned,”,  “was that the vast majority, the overwhelming majority, of gamblers online gamble in a very moderate and mild way. Preventing people from gambling online is likely to be ineffective in reducing problem gambling  but rather, education, public awareness programs and truth in advertising regulations will be more successful in helping to keep gambling safer.”

It is likely that the results of the new survey will provide key evidence in the current debate over the legalisation of online gambling in the US.

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D  Mass., announced that he will introduce the Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act as a standalone bill before the end of April. If passed, the bill could overturn the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which prohibits U.S. financial institutions from processing payments to online-gaming operators.

Frank’s bill would regulate and tax online gaming, including wagers made with online casinos, poker rooms and bookmakers. Pro-gaming advocates argue that regulation is the only effective way to protect minors and problem gamblers from online gaming. They also point out that regulating the industry could generate an estimated $50 billion in tax revenue over the next decade.

Swedish government has announced they plan to block online casinos from their residents.  This plan goes against what the people of Sweden want according to the latest news.  Residents are saying they do not want to be censored from online casinos that may be available in other parts of the world. 

In fact they have stated they do not think they should be blocked from allowing Swedish residents to play.

Their first act against the monopoly has been the advertising of consumer costs.  They are stating that with the monopoly of Swedish casinos the residents are paying high costs.

The Swedish government has talked about making a system more like UIGEA with internet filtering.

The government officials say a block is necessary on online casinos.  They want to be able to control any gambling problems.  T