The House of Representatives in Cyprus decided to lower the betting tax from 25% on all football bets and 10% on horse racing to a flat 10% rate on the net income.Â
The suggestion came from the Ministry of Finance that was worried on the rising of the illeagal betting systems available in the country.
The PartyGaming, leading global online betting, has launched its platform PartyBets.com a full service betting at fixed on horse races through an alliance with Sporting Index. The new service provides a comprehensive coverage of services for all races taking place in Great Britain and Ireland and the major international races, including bets to share initial bets antepost and special.
All services compilation quota fixed horserace betting and related services business associates are provided by PartyBets.com Spin Services, a newly created division within the Sporting Index. The launch of the service betting on races of PartyBets is supported by an innovative promotion that doubles winnings on the first and fifth bet for all new customers.
A spokesman PartyGaming said: “Operators of Sporting Index are well known to be among the best in the sector and have made the company a world leader acknowledged the spread betting. Unirci the Sporting Index to expand our services betting at fixed been a winning move. ”
Richard Glynn, director general of Sporting Index, said: “The Spin Services is designed to assist industry gambling and betting in all its business needs. We are pleased to enable PartyBets to offer its customers services for the excellent level of racing horses. “
Partygaming, owner of the PartyPartners Affiliate Programme released its Q3financial results, that show and increase with 24 % from the same period last year. This mounts up to 115.7million USD, thanks to a huge rise by their Casino business (promoted under the brand PartyCasino) that rose with 158 % and sports betting activities ( especially from the recently-acquired Gamebookers) that were bigger with 91%.
PartyGaming achieved average daily revenue of 1.26 mln usd during the third quarter period and suprisingly it “pointed out this was after a particularly strong first half in 2007 and said, for the year to date, the number of new player sign-ups was still 44 pct ahead of the same nine-month period in 2006.”
The gambling group, listed on the London Stock exchange, looked optimistic in the future – and the data confirm the estimated trend.
Mr. Peter Nyland, the director of the Swedish online betting firm Unibet, was arrested on the Amsterdam airport, when he was trying to fly to UK.
The Dutch authorites have claimed that they have a warrant from the French authorities that have accussed Mr. Nylande of breaking French laws that prohibit online gambling. This case has apparantely nothing in common with the recent decision against Unibet in the Dutch trial against De Lotto.
It is an application of the controversial European Arrest Warrant, under which people accused of a crime in one country can be arrested in another country without a prima facie case having been established.
According to BBC, French lottery monopoly Francaise des Jeux and horse racing betting monopoly PMU filed the proceedings against Unibet in 2006.
The moment of this new scandal is the worst possible for French authorities that want to comply with the European Commission recommandations and European Court of Justice decisions regarding online gambling in European Union. France could change its gambling laws soon.
Unibet has demanded Nylander’s immediate release. In a statement the company said it was “outraged by France’s total disregard of European Community law aiming to protect a domestic commercial gambling monopoly, which is being challenged by the European Commission. However disturbing French authorities’ methods are, for Unibet it is business as usual.”
The European Commission representative confirmed their concern over the story : “This is an issue which we have been informed about, we are worried about, and that in our view somebody might have been arrested who is innocent under (EU) law,” said Oliver Drewes.
Unibet is registered in Malta, operates out of Britain and is listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. It claims to have 1.8 million customers in 150 countries.
Update 25.10.2007 : After a hearing on 24 October 2007 in the afternoon, Unibet CEO Petter Nylander was released to the more comfortable surroundings of a local hotel, after agreeing not to leave the Netherlands. Nylander is expected to gop at the beginning of the next week in France to face the judge that issues the warrant. Th eFrench authorities were embarrased by the new situation and aid thatThe Financial Minsitry declared it “regretted the timing of Nylander’s arrest and hoped that the FDJ and the PMU would drop the complaints that started the case against his firm.”
After bwin impressive four-year $70 million shirt sponsorship deal with the famous Real Madrid Football Club, the company decided to take advantage of the brand development in Spain and, in partnership with Betbull, will start its first shops in the first quarter of 2008.
The duo bettinmg companies takes advantage of the new lax regulation from the spanish government regarding betting shops. The companies have announced that they will expand inall Spain later on.
Simon Bold, Betbull Director, declared “The forthcoming year will see the fruition of many months of planning and fine tuning of our betting products and systems for the Spanish market.â€
On another note, bwin announced that it is interestied in buying 36% of the Austrian lottery Monopoly Bawag, that could cost approx. 200 millions euros.
The Italian Authority for State Monopolies (Amministrazione autonoma dei Monopoli di Stato) has announced that it might change again the regulatory framework for remote gambling and to allow credit cards usage on in the Italian licensed website.
The new laws could be introduced in 2008 and wants to stop money laundring activities.
It remains to be seen if that will be applied, but it seems that Italy has not learnt at all the lessons from the European Court in the cases Gambelii and Placanica.
The ban of the unibet.com cycling team in some competitions is Italy, Belgium and Spain because the had the main sponsor an online betting company in Malta the triggered the European Commission anger that thretaned these countries with legal actions.
“The Commission understands that the Green Cycle Associates cycling team, a Swedish company, has been refused entry to two races in the Belgian UCI,†a letter obtained by Reuters said.
According to The Guardian, EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy had earlier warned France over the same issue, and a Commission official told Reuters that Brussels would step up legal action against the French government in June over its enforcement of anti-betting laws governing cycling and all other sports.”There is clear evidence that France has breached EU internal market rules, following an analysis of the situation“, said the official,
“Sport clubs throughout Europe… are facing unfair sponsorship restrictions and also missing significant competition opportunities,” Konstantinos Maragkakis, spokesman for the European Gaming and Betting Association said.
Meanwhile, let’s have a look at the Giro D’Italia winner odds at Gamebookers
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Winner | ||||||
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1.30 | ||||||
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6.00 | ||||||
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7.00 | ||||||
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11.00 | ||||||
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15.00 | ||||||
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21.00 |
This is what a Bavarian court ( from Munich) has ruled in the lawsuit between the Bavarian Authorities and Bwin.
According to Forbes the court said that
“It is technically impossible to exclude only gamblers residing in Bavaria from using the company’s online offers. The Bavarian statedid not show a single comprehensible and convincing way that sports betting companies can technically implement the ban.”
The Bavarian authorities declared in September 2006 that 3 Internet betting companies should not accept wagers from the Bavarian users, since only the state-owned sports betting company is allowed to do that.
This is a very nice precedent established by the Bavarian court that shows a real understanding by the Internet from the judges. It is also a smart decision, not to go again in the Italian style that tried, without success to block the websites via Italian ISPs.
The Swedish online betting exchange, casino and poker operator Redbet Holding has announced last week the purchase of 98% of purchase a 98 per cent of Teletoto Ltd, the only state licensed National Gaming License for both retail bookmaking and online gaming in Lithuania.
Teletoto that has 20 betting shops and plans to go into online betting as well was acquired through a new share issue valued at €1.55 million.
Redbet CEO Jonas Sundvall declared :
“This acquisition provides Redbet with a strong position in the fast growing Baltic gambling market. The acquisition will also enable Redbet to locate certain operative functions to Lithuania in order to benefit from reduced operating costs. “
According with insiders, good news could come up for sports betting from the last meeting in Stuttgart between budget and financial speakers of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union. It seems that an agreement was reached to abolish the state monopoly on sports betting, but to allow the national lottery to continue its operations. The Union parties’ spokespersons have consequently followed the lead given by the CDU grouping in the Kiel state parliament, which presented draft legislation on the liberalization of the sports betting market in March 2007
The Union’s fiscal policymakers believe that the liberalisation of sports betting should be accompanied by the levying of a special incentive tax. It is to be ring-fenced on the basis of the player’s place of abode and will thus assure the federal states a source of revenue from sports betting. This will provide continued funding for mass sport, charities, culture and addiction prevention measures.
According with an official press realease by FLUXX, Rainer Jacken, Management Board spokesman said:
“It shows that common sense and economic realism are increasingly gaining ground in connection with the
planned State Treaty on gaming. We believe court rulings and political opinions are coming to acknowledge the grave concerns already voiced by the EU Commission. Nobody now wants to be made responsible for a sharp but
unnecessary slump in revenue and the impending legal chaos in both Germany and Europe.”
