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Thursday, September 13, 2007
bet on monday night football
bet on monday night footballNFL Monday Night Football Odds - Bet Monday Night Game LinesThe 2007 - 2008 NFL Season is here and that only means one thing for football bettors here in the world, another season of intense NFL Monday Night Football action is heating up.
It is time for all of us to watch the rest NFL Football players, wage war on NFL Primetime, NFL Monday Night Football. Watch rivalries square off on Monday night football, this is what makes any sport worth watching. These rivalries match up's has made the NFL Monday Night Football game, one of the bigger events in American sports.
Monday Night NFL sports betting -The most watched football game every week and very often the most important game of the NFL betting week, is Monday Night football. The entire world is watching the game, many sports bettors around the world are using it for a bailout game or trying to double up what they have already won on the Sunday night games, trying to really put the hurt on the book and sportsbooks are sweating out the results. Isn’t Monday Night Football great?
Monday Night College Football:Monday Night Football enjoyed success throughout its 36-year run, with the NFL using the national spotlight as a way of rewarding the best teams and biggest stars from the previous season. However, that process has come under fire, due to late-season contests involving promising teams whose fortunes had declined during the course of the season. Two examples came during the 1981 season, when neither of that season's Super Bowl teams—the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals—had played on Monday night, and 1999, when the St. Louis Rams won the Super Bowl after not having appeared in a Monday night game during the year. A third example was the 49ers and the Atlanta Falcons, after both making the playoffs in the 1998 season, meeting in the final MNF game of 1999 both with 4-11 records. Yet another example were the 2000 Baltimore Ravens and 2001 New England Patriots, who each the Super Bowl after going through the season without a single "MNF" appearance.
Franchises with the most Monday night appearances include the Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders, Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, and Miami Dolphins. The most common Monday Night Football pairings are Denver vs. Oakland and Dallas vs. Washington, with each matchup having been televised 14 times. Also Atlanta vs. New Orleans has been on the Monday night schedule for three years in a row.
Teams can make a maximum of three Monday night appearances per seasonMonday Night Football 2007Monday Night Football (MNF) is a live television broadcast of the National Football League. Originally airing on the network from 1970 to 2005, Monday Night Football was the second longest running prime time show on American broadcast network television (after CBS' 60 Minutes) and one of the highest-rated, particularly among male viewers. aired a total of 555 Monday night games.
Last spring, newspapers across the country were publishing articles almost daily about 's search for a new "Monday Night Football" announcer to join the veteran Al Michaels in the broadcast booth. With the N.B.A. playoffs in full swing and kickoff still four months away, this kind of publicity would have ordinarily been a testament to the strength and power of the N.F.L. and its top-rated weekly telecast. But, as the N.F.L. commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, knew too well, exactly the opposite was true.
Tagliabue had been feeling the heat from the networks that televise the league's games. In the last go-round, , CBS, Fox and ESPN anted up a record $17.6 billion over eight years, which, they quickly discovered, made it impossible for them to make money. During those negotiations two years ago, Dick Ebersol, president of Sports, had angrily ended his network's 33-year relationship with the league, saying that he "refused to put the livelihood of its employees at risk" by entering into such an imprudent deal. The continued ratings slump last year only hammered home his point. In March, following the worst season ever for "Monday Night Football," ratings-wise, convinced the programming guru Don Ohlmeyer to come out of retirement and retool the show he produced in its heyday. Now, if the newspapers were to be believed, the conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh was up for the announcer's job.
Tagliabue knew Ohlmeyer as the man who had taken 's entertainment division from dead last to the top of the TV universe, and he hoped that the Limbaugh reports were either a joke or a marketing ploy. But was refusing to confirm or deny the reports. He picked up the phone and called Ohlmeyer at his home in Beverly Hills to set up a meeting.
The two men sat down to breakfast a few days later at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles, where Tagliabue suggested Ohlmeyer consider the veteran ESPN reporters Tom Jackson and Robin Roberts for the job. But Ohlmeyer wasn't there to talk about announcers. Instead, he steered the conversation toward what he felt was the bigger issue and the reason he had decided to go back to producing football games at age 55. "This is a critical year for sports and television," Ohlmeyer remembers telling him. So-called reality shows like "Survivor" were about to transform viewers' expectations for entertainment on television. And a new pro football league, dreamed up by the wrestling impresario Vince McMahon and brought to by Ebersol, would begin play in 2001, promising to bring fans closer to the game than they had ever been before. If the N.F.L. wanted to stay ahead in this environment, Ohlmeyer said, it would have to change its ways.
By the end of the two-hour meeting, Tagliabue had only one question: Would Ohlmeyer come to the N.F.L. owners' meeting in two weeks and tell them what he had just told him?
When the new "Monday Night Football" makes it regular-season debut tomorrow night, Ohlmeyer's innovations won't exactly leap out of the TV set. With great effort, he helped persuade the league to mount miniature cameras on the referees' caps and to allow more reporters to roam the sidelines and interview players coming on and off the field at halftime. The greatest change, however, will be the comedian in the broadcast booth, Dennis Miller, the first nonsports announcer ever to join a major sports telecast.
The criticism that greeted Miller's appointment shows what Ohlmeyer is up against. "I thought the game was the entertainment," sneered John Madden of Fox. The purists have a point: sports remains a staple of network TV, and the N.F.L. is the single biggest draw. But there is so much product on the air (by one calculation, 235 hours a day of sports programming pours into the typical American home) that it's impossible for even the mighty N.F.L. to maintain its dominance. More than that, sports is losing the golden demographic it once owned: young men. Forty-seven percent more of them tuned in to the Monday night telecast of McMahon's "Raw Is War" last year than to "Monday Night Football."
Sports had always been considered the ultimate formula -- the original "reality TV" that unlike every other type of show on television never needed reinventing. But the way that Don Ohlmeyer and Dick Ebersol are attacking the problem this year, even that notion is being challenged. As former proteges of Roone Arledge at -- and old friends themselves -- they have made their reputations as entertainment producers. And in their view, relative to what else is on television, sports has lost its spark. Viewers love the highlight reels, but persuading them to sit through an entire game is getting harder all the time.
How far will they be able to go? Ebersol has a completely unproved entity in the XFL, but his costs are low and he can get away with practically anything. Ohlmeyer's advantage is that he has the N.F.L., notoriously conservative and fiercely protective of its game but also far and away the pre-eminent brand in sports, and as tough and ruthless a competitor as Microsoft.
Don Ohlmeyer glides his black mercedes sedan through the crowded streets of Los Angeles toward Dodger Stadium. He's running late for the night game between the Dodgers and the Angels, but he is in no rush. The most important lesson Roone Arledge taught him, he says, is never to be at the mercy of the game.
Ohlmeyer is tall and bearlike, with a mouth that curls playfully at the corners as if to suggest that he always knows more than he's saying. He calls everyone, including his male friends, Honey, making a point of always seeming at ease. He made it through seven years as the West Coast president of wearing black cotton Nike sweatsuits (perfectly pressed) and black loafers, the same outfit he's wearing to the game.
As he settles into his regular third-row seat near first base, he admits that it was frustration with the limitations of sports broadcasting that drove him into the entertainment side of the business 17 years ago. "There was a sameness about it," he says. "People have seen thousands of games. How do you get them to watch my telecast?"
When Ohlmeyer joined Arledge at "Monday Night Football" in 1971, the show's second year, it was the only sports program in prime time. Initially, the network had been reluctant even to fork out the $8.5 million rights fee to put it on the air. But Arledge, then president of Sports, promised to make the show like nothing anybody had ever seen. He deployed three times as many cameras as other networks and provided coverage not just of the plays but also of the players themselves and of the crowd's reactions. The shots of stadium lights gleaming off the players' helmets, backed by the staccato voice of Howard Cosell, made even humdrum matchups seem like once-in-a-lifetime epics. John Lennon, Burt Reynolds, Gov. Ronald Reagan and Vice President Spiro Agnew made guest appearances. While other networks lambasted Arledge's "show biz" approach to football, the show became a juggernaut.
"Monday Night Football" not only defined how sports was packaged on television; it also changed forever the economics of the industry. The major sports leagues, suddenly aware of their value as prime-time fare, escalated their demands for fees. Though total ratings for many sports began to slip in the 1980's, with the advent of cable, the leagues ratcheted up their rates at every contract renegotiation.
Ohlmeyer began to feel the financial pressure as far back as 1977, when he left for the top job at Sports. While there, he hired some of the top broadcasters in the business, including Bob Costas and Bryant Gumbel. But always seeking larger audiences, he put on a Jets-Dolphins game in 1980 with no announcers at all. It rated well, thanks to the hype Ohlmeyer engineered, but he knew it was a one-time gimmick.
By that point in his career, he had bought a house in Los Angeles and was commuting to New York every weekend in the fall to oversee the network's N.F.L. programming. His patience with sports was wearing thin. Soon he not only stopped flying in; he stopped watching the telecasts altogether. On Sundays, he would get up in the morning, hit the golf course around 10 and by 11:30 -- 2:30 in New York, the halftime show -- he would be making the turn at the Bel Air Country Club. "I'd call the studio and say, 'Tell Charlie Jones to stop talking so much and tell so-and-so to talk about why things happen, not what happens,"' he says. "They all thought I was watching."
So when Howard Katz, president of Sports, called him in December to ask if he would consider returning to "Monday Night Football," Ohlmeyer, happily retired and golfing every day, had to laugh. But the more he thought about the offer, the more enticing it became. "This was the show that had launched my career," he says. "Now I had the chance to go back and bring everything I'd learned in the interim to bear." In March, Ohlmeyer decided he would take the job on the condition that he be given complete freedom. Only after he got assurances from Katz and Robert Iger, president of , did he accept.
On his orders, the entire staff, except for his old golfing buddy Michaels, was dismissed. During the news conference announcing the moves, Ohlmeyer talked about wanting to bring "a sense of danger" and "unpredictability" back to the program, the same elements that would soon make reality TV the new craze. He began working obsessively from home, often waking up in the middle of the night to jot down ideas. To the extent that he can script a game, he will, and he hired a friend, the television writer and producer David Israel, to help him develop compelling story lines based around the players and matchups each week. "Great storytelling is the key element in any medium," he says.
Finding the right person for the booth took time, but the longer it dragged on, he realized, the more publicity the show got. "There would be days when we'd be playing golf and we'd go through 30 different possibilities, everything from President Clinton -- hey, he needs a job -- to guys who are in jail," Al Michaels says. Ohlmeyer had Billy Crystal, Chris Rock and Dennis Miller on his list, but he initially thought of the entertainers as hosts of a souped-up halftime show. In mid-May, Ohlmeyer received a call from Miller's agent telling him that Miller wanted to be in the booth. At that time, Rush Limbaugh was in fact the front-runner for the job; Ohlmeyer saw his divisiveness as a selling point. "People used to pay for the pleasure of throwing a brick through the TV at Howard," Ohlmeyer says.
But executives at , including Arledge, made it clear to Ohlmeyer that picking Limbaugh would be a mistake. Then there was Tagliabue. Ohlmeyer knew he had played it perfectly when they met for breakfast. But he still needed the league's favor when it came to getting the gametime access and scheduling preference he felt were necessary
Ohlmeyer figured Miller was "worth a meeting," and after a promising audition, he emerged as the favorite. The other top contender was more in the strident Cosell mold: Tony Kornheiser, a kvetching 52-year-old columnist for The Washington Post who had gained a surprisingly strong following for his show on ESPN Radio. But Ohlmeyer believed Miller's iconoclastic image would better appeal to the key young male demographic.
As a courtesy, he called Tagliabue the week before he made the hire and got his blessing. The flirtation with Limbaugh had been shrewd. By comparison, even a comedian was taken seriously by the N.F.L.
Michaels, too, enthusiastically endorsed the choice. "If he's as good as I think he can be," Michaels says, "this will be trendsetting."
Miller, whose weekly HBO show runs from January through August, the opposite of the N.F.L. season, is feeling the pressure. "I have shadow memories of 'Saturday Night Live,' the whole revival of a franchise," he says. "I don't know if I'm the guy to do this, but I'm a decent roll of the dice."
On April 18, 2005, the NFL announced that Monday Night Football would be televised on ESPN in 2006, ending a 36-year run on . and ESPN are both owned by the Walt Disney Company.
Starting in 2006, ESPN will begin airing the Monday night games and will get ESPN's Sunday night package.
The NFL's decision to swap the nights games are on cable and network TV is because Sunday nights now have the highest viewership of any night of the week. decided to stay with its successful prime time package of shows, headlined by Desperate Housewives, leaving with the Sunday night package. The Sunday night game now will be the "showcase" game of the week on the NFL schedule.
Moday Night Fottball News and SchedulesJoe Theismann will no longer be part of the network's "Monday Night Football" broadcast and will be replaced as an analyst by Ron Jaworski, the former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback.
Jaworski will join play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico and analyst Tony Kornheiser in the booth. Suzy Kolber and Michele Tafoya will handle sideline reporting.
Beginning in the 1970 NFL season, the National Football League began scheduling a weekly regular season game on Monday night before a national television audience. From 1970-2005, the television network carried these games, with the ESPN cable television network taking over beginning in September 2006.
MONDAY NIGHT MADNESS!!!
One of the leagues oldest and most revered rivalries returns to Monday Night Football. The Washington Redskins brought back Joe Gibbs to lead their team to victory. Meanwhile, in Dallas, the Cowboys look to legendary coach Bill Parcells to bring them back to the glory days of old. Both teams are starting the season at 1-1, and both are looking to make a statement on their first Monday Night game of the year. Join today !!!
Gibbs and Parcells, between the two of them, have five Super Bowl rings and seven Conference Championships. Unfortunately for their respective teams, neither Dallas nor Washington has seen much post season action as of late.
Parcells will look to his crafty, old veteran, QB Vinny Testerverde, to take the helm and air it out to his newest addition, WR Keyshawn Johnson. Johnson will likely be open against the smaller backs, especially underneath, as WRs Terry Glenn and Antonio Bryant will look to stretch the field and taking the safeties with them. Although RB Eddie George has lagged in production over the past years, look for George to step up and have a solid performance, now that his back-up has been put on the IR.
On the other side of the ball, the Dallas Defense will look to keep QB Patrick Ramsey in check. With starting QB Mark Brunell questionable, you can count on this defense to put his backup to the test. The Redskins have also become a rejuvenated team with their "new/old" coach back in charge. Gibbs, the Redskins most winningest coach, wants his Washington team to bounce back from a disappointing loss last weekend. RB Clinton Portis has proved to be a tremendous addition to the ranks, and should be a dominant factor in this week's game, assuming that Ramsey can get the passing game started by utilizing WR Ron Gardner. If Ramsey and Gardner get a good start, Portis should be able to take over.
With neither team playing stellar defense to start of the 2004-2005 campaign, look for both quarterbacks to air it out early. If they can stretch the defenses, their powerful running backs can set the tone for the ground game. Although, on the ground, Washington has the advantage....Dallas clearly owns long ball threat. Who will prevail and pull out the victory in front of a packed house at FedEx Field in Landover, MD??? Time will tell. I am not sure what to think of the new Monday Night Football crew. Individually, the announcers (Tirico, Kornheiser, Theismann) are good, but I am not sure how the team dynamic works. Joe Theismann, a former player, has decent insight, but tends to fall in love with the sound of his own voice and talk over his colleagues. How he mixes with Kornheiser (a favorite of mine as a columnist, radio personality and TV commentator) might not work and fall flat. Tony Kornheiser, as a judge on that reality ESPN wanna-be-a-Sportscneter anchor show, was way out of his element. But on radio, his extemporaneous comments were brilliant and often controversial. In fact, once he was suspended for an on-air comment.
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Friday, July 13, 2007
internet casino
The history of online gambling is not a long and mysterious one, although there have been a few scandals in its time. Rather, the history of online gambling is quite short (starting in the 1990's) and explosive. Internet betting has become a multi-billion dollar industry in a very short time - still continuing to grow in its fiscal rise. Online gambling happened so fast, that as it became a reality, the largest and most successful companies in the industry were just being formed - and scrambling to do so. The catalyst for this scramble happened in 1994, when the government of the Caribbean island, Antigua Barbuda, passed the law that enables online casinos to operate from their homeland to this day - the Free Trade and Processing Zone Act.
With the technological possibility of online gambling already in the air, this new law made it legal to license and operate online casinos from the Antigua Barbuda jurisdiction. Of those who saw this as the lucrative opportunity that it was - two brothers - Andrew and Mark Rivkin - formed the company Cryptologic, and began creating software solutions to safely handle financial transactions with unprecedented encryption designs. At the same time, both Microgaming and Starnet Communications were formed - all in the same year Antigua Barbuda passed its groundbreaking law.
Canada was home to many important internet gambling developments at this time, including the formation of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which was formed to regulate online casinos and to enforce gaming fairness standards. Starnet Communications was also based from Canada, but was still obliged to operate offshore accounts in funding their eCash bankroll. Boss Media is another newly organized company claiming its stake in the industry at the time. However, it is Microgaming and Cryptologic who lead the way in gaming technology, with Cryptologic creating the first fully operational gaming platform, equipped with eCash depositing capabilities and real money account management. Before the end of 1996, Cryptologic releases its very first software package under their subsidiary, WagerLogic. And by October of the same year, InterCasino (one of the very first online casinos) is in full operation on the Web.
The Industry Takes off Running
Thus begins the multi-million dollar industry (soon to become multi-billion). Shortly after Cryptologic and InterCasino start gaining revenue from online gambling, Boss Media AB begins operating their game server from Antigua and Barbuda. Starnet Systems International simultaneously begins granting licenses to casino operators with their customized software packages. In return, Starnet requires the casinos to pay them a portion of their earnings, which the software manufacturer presumably uses to finance its own online betting site, WorldGaming.net. And in their quest to be "the first", Microgaming releases the first progressive online slot machine, Cash Splash.
Over the next year, online gambling takes off, and by the end of 1998 produces an annual revenue of $835 million. U.S. players make up a large portion of this revenue, which begins to draw attention from U.S. lawmakers. It is at this time that the Republican senator from Arizona, John Kyl drafts his first of several bills to ban online gaming. Called the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, the bill intends to make the selling of betting related services and goods to U.S. citizens illegal. It does not pass, however, and on-line wagering continues to thrive. Within the same year, both boss Media and Starnet successfully implement their gaming licenses to independent online casino operators.
Canada begins its own crackdown on the industry by raiding Starnet offices located in Vancouver. Royal Police claim that Starnet's email server is based in Canada, resulting in an illegal extension of betting activities, which the Canadian Criminal Code does not allow. Starnet was later fined $100,000 for its involvement in online gambling. Riding on the wave of this opposition, Senator Kyl revises his Prohibition Act, which fails to pass in the U.S. congress once again. (The bill is revised a third time by Virginian Republican Bob Goodlatte, but fails to gather a two-thirds majority rule in the U.S. House of Representatives) In the meantime, Australia grants the first and only online casino license to Lasseters, which to this day is running strong on the Web. The license is issued by the Northern Territory Government, which other territory governments in Australia begin modeling their own online gambling legislation after. However, by the year 2000, the Federal Government of Australia puts into effect the Interactive Gambling Moratorium Act, which prohibits any online casino or sportsbook formed after May of 2000 to operate from Australian soil. Lasseters is the only online casino to this day operating from Australia. (The Australian government later successfully passes a bill that U.S. congressmen were trying to pass themselves. Although several allotments were made to facilitate sports betting and horse racing, the Australian legislation banned online casinos and sportsbooks from offering services to Australian citizens.)
At this time, it is reported there are approximately 700 online casinos in operation, processing real money wagers in several currencies. Microgaming, Cryptologic, Playtech and Boss Media make big waves just before the millennium approaches, with Boss Media receiving share quotes on the Stockholm Exchange and releasing the first multi-player gaming interface, enabling real-time chat between gamblers playing the same game. Microgaming hires the renowned Price Waterhouse Coopers to audit its gaming software, insuring standard and fair payout percentages in addition to releasing its second progressive jackpot game, LotsaLoot online slot machines. Shortly thereafter, Microgaming releases yet another three more progressive gambling games: Super Jax video poker, Wow Pot, and Fruit Fiesta online slot machines. Cryptologic goes public as well, gaining a spot on the Nasdaq National Market. In four years since its inception, Cryptologic reports approximately 680,000 patrons have used its software to make betting related financial transactions. By 2001, the estimated number of patron who have gambled online nears eight million.
More Countries Enter the Game
Other countries paving a way for online gambling at this time include Argentina, which licenses its first online casino, as well as the UK territories, Isle of Man and Gibraltar, which both begin issuing licenses to internet sports betting websites. In Africa, Sun International Hotels makes a pact with Boss Media to use their software for an online version of the African-based brick 'n mortar casino.
From the year 2001 onward, online gambling is marked by bills, legislation and lawsuits. The United States still seeks to put an end to online gaming, whereas the United Kingdom does all it can to make it a legalized and profitable venture. In the U.S., two major anti-online gambling bills are passed. One of these bills updated the infamous Wire Act, although there is still varied interpretation of the law, questioning what exactly entails recreational/leisure gambling and sporting. The other bill prohibits U.S. based payment processors, such as credit card companies to facilitate transactions made at internet casinos. (Thus the reason there is such a wide selection of alternative payment methods on the internet these days). As a result of the growing power of anti-gambling lobbyists, the U.S. Congress effectively pressured large U.S. based search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, to cease advertising for on line betting companies. One such company, Casino City, countered by filing a lawsuit against the U.S. government, claiming its First Amendment rights to free speech were violated. However, the case was thrown out after several appeals. One positive movement in regards to online gambling in the U.S. is the state of Nevada's bid to permit online casinos to operate from within the state, effectively allowing Nevada residents to gamble on the Internet. The legislation is slow moving, but has succeeded in passing guidelines that would tax and license Nevada-based online casinos.
United Kingdom Leads the Way...
In England, there is less opposition at the time, with legislation being passed to effectively legalize online betting in the U.K. As far back as 2001, the British Channel Islands passed a bill that would legalize online betting, thereby putting protocol standards of licensing applications in place. Later that same year, the Gambling Review Report was released, which strongly suggested to legalize all types of internet gambling in the U.K. This, in turn, led to the drafting of the U.K. Gambling Bill, which is a comprehensive bill that would legalize online betting and allow for more land-based casinos and betting operations. Cultural Secretary, Tessa Jowell, has been a large factor in revising the bill, which would impose strict regulations and high standards to all related causes.
The approval of the UK Gambling Act in April of 2005 was a monumental occasion for the internet gambling industry. eCommerce Regulation and Online Gambling Enforcement (eCOGRA) helped advise in the penning of the UK Gambling Act, which becomes enforceable in the Fall of 2007. The Act called for the creation of the UK Gambling Commission, which now oversees all regulation enforcement in the areas of licensing online casinos, preventing underage/problem gambling and organized crime, and ensuring gaming fairness through software fairness accreditations and monthly payout percentage reports. In addition to issuing and monitoring operating licenses, the Commission issues codes of practice, investigates and prosecutes illegal offences and advises the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. No other global leader had hitherto adopted such comprehensive online gambling regulatory legislation. In fact, England now serves as the model for other countries interested in regulating the online gambling industry. In 2007, there are approximately over eighty international jurisdictions regulating online gambling in one form or another. While some countries fully embrace all sectors of the gaming industry, there are others who only allow certain types of internet betting, going so far as to license offshore online casinos, but not permitting their own residents to gamble online.
And then there was the United States...
And then there was the United States, indeed. A whole heap of controversy has come from the land of Liberty, where until 2006, allowed online gambling to remain in a middle grey area. Beginning in May of 2006, a string of arrests of online sports betting CEO's began, including those of World Wide Telesports, BetOnSports, and industry leading eWallet, Neteller. All the while, the U.S. imposes sanctions on offshore gaming companies, most of which are licensed by the small Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua opens a case with the World Trade Organization, who even after U.S. appeals, rules the U.S. government is propagating discriminatory policies by fostering online gambling carve outs, yet prohibiting other WTO members from providing the same services. Antigua's case draws international attention (even from the European Union) and opens the door for larger countries to take a stand against the U.S. as well.
Despite these happenings, the infamous Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is passed in October of 2006 - primarily at the hands of Senate Majority Leader, Senator Bill Frist, who sneakily attaches the bill to a "must-pass" non-debatable Port Security Bill in the wake of global terrorism. Frist claims that online gambling revenue is being used by offshore companies to fund terrorist activities, yet has no proof to back his claims. Critics of Frist claim that his motivations are tied into his own conservative southern Baptist religious and moralistic convictions, which apparently do not add up with many U.S. citizens, the Washington Ethics Committee, and Citizens for the Responsibility of Ethics in Washington, who cited Frist as the most corrupt politician in Washington DC. Despite Frist's claims that gambling is evil, he received nearly $50,000 in campaign contributions from land-based Harrah's Casinos, whose stock just so happened to raise nearly 20% when the UIGEA was passed (That amounts to a $1.7 billion increase in net worth for Harrah's). Furthermore, Frist received $21,800 in contributions from the tobacco industry and $29,550 from the liquor industry. Frist has also been documented for misappropriating his own charity funds ($456,000 worth) to members of his party.
As for the bill's author, Virginia House Congressman, Bob Goodlatte, critics find it interesting there are several carve outs for online gambling, including lotteries, horse racing and fantasy sports betting. Even more interesting is how Goodlatte received $10,000 in campaign contributions from the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (which would strongly benefit from internet betting on land-based horseracing events), $27,000 from Philip Morris and $41,700 from the liquor industry. Goodlatte claims that online gambling puts underage and problem gamblers at risk, yet has no provisions protecting children from buying online lottery tickets in his legislation.
All of this becomes too much to take for the nearly 30,000,000 U.S. citizens who disagree with the prohibition, as well as many U.S. politicians - many of which did not even know Frist had attached the UIGEA to the Port Security Bill. One such politician is House Financial Services Committee Chairman, Barney Frank, who refers to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act as the "stupidest law ever passed". Frank gets support from colleagues, including the European Union, and draws up the first draft of the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (IGREA) in April, 2007 - two months prior to when the UIGEA is scheduled to go into enforcement. Meanwhile, Nevada Congresswoman, Shelley Berkley pushes to implement a comprehensive study of the U.S. facing online gambling industry, which could very well be used to dictate regulatory legislation of further IGREA drafts. As the UK as proven, there is plenty of evidence showing technological advancements in underage and problem gambling prevention, protection of minors and fair gaming software. The IGREA still awaits its fate at this time.
As for the future and continuing history of online gambling, it looks fertile and conducive to more growth and technological advancement. The pioneer software companies, such as Microgaming and Cryptologic, continue to pave the way for internet wagering. More and more start-up software companies and online casinos are populating the internet, staking a claim in the multi-billion dollar industry. From country to country, online wagering legislation is still being drawn up, ever changing the way internet gambling is regulated. However, one thing is for certain: So long as operators and players maintain ethical and responsible standards, the industry is here to stay.
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Wednesday, November 15, 2006
internet gambling
Canada was home to many important internet gambling developments at this time, including the formation of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which was formed to regulate online casinos and to enforce gaming fairness standards. Starnet Communications was also based from Canada, but was still obliged to operate offshore accounts in funding their eCash bankroll. Boss Media is another newly organized company claiming its stake in the industry at the time. However, it is Microgaming and Cryptologic who lead the way in gaming technology, with Cryptologic creating the first fully operational gaming platform, equipped with eCash depositing capabilities and real money account management. Before the end of 1996, Cryptologic releases its very first software package under their subsidiary, WagerLogic. And by October of the same year, InterCasino (one of the very first online casinos) is in full operation on the Web.
The Industry Takes off RunningThus begins the multi-million dollar industry (soon to become multi-billion). Shortly after Cryptologic and InterCasino start gaining revenue from online gambling, Boss Media AB begins operating their game server from Antigua and Barbuda. Starnet Systems International simultaneously begins granting licenses to casino operators with their customized software packages. In return, Starnet requires the casinos to pay them a portion of their earnings, which the software manufacturer presumably uses to finance its own online betting site, WorldGaming.net. And in their quest to be "the first", Microgaming releases the first progressive online slot machine, Cash Splash.
Over the next year, online gambling takes off, and by the end of 1998 produces an annual revenue of $835 million. U.S. players make up a large portion of this revenue, which begins to draw attention from U.S. lawmakers. It is at this time that the Republican senator from Arizona, John Kyl drafts his first of several bills to ban online gaming. Called the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, the bill intends to make the selling of betting related services and goods to U.S. citizens illegal. It does not pass, however, and on-line wagering continues to thrive. Within the same year, both boss Media and Starnet successfully implement their gaming licenses to independent online casino operators.
Canada begins its own crackdown on the industry by raiding Starnet offices located in Vancouver. Royal Police claim that Starnet's email server is based in Canada, resulting in an illegal extension of betting activities, which the Canadian Criminal Code does not allow. Starnet was later fined $100,000 for its involvement in online gambling. Riding on the wave of this opposition, Senator Kyl revises his Prohibition Act, which fails to pass in the U.S. congress once again. (The bill is revised a third time by Virginian Republican Bob Goodlatte, but fails to gather a two-thirds majority rule in the U.S. House of Representatives) In the meantime, Australia grants the first and only online casino license to Lasseters, which to this day is running strong on the Web. The license is issued by the Northern Territory Government, which other territory governments in Australia begin modeling their own online gambling legislation after. However, by the year 2000, the Federal Government of Australia puts into effect the Interactive Gambling Moratorium Act, which prohibits any online casino or sportsbook formed after May of 2000 to operate from Australian soil. Lasseters is the only online casino to this day operating from Australia. (The Australian government later successfully passes a bill that U.S. congressmen were trying to pass themselves. Although several allotments were made to facilitate sports betting and horse racing, the Australian legislation banned online casinos and sportsbooks from offering services to Australian citizens.)
At this time, it is reported there are approximately 700 online casinos in operation, processing real money wagers in several currencies. Microgaming, Cryptologic, Playtech and Boss Media make big waves just before the millennium approaches, with Boss Media receiving share quotes on the Stockholm Exchange and releasing the first multi-player gaming interface, enabling real-time chat between gamblers playing the same game. Microgaming hires the renowned Price Waterhouse Coopers to audit its gaming software, insuring standard and fair payout percentages in addition to releasing its second progressive jackpot game, LotsaLoot online slot machines. Shortly thereafter, Microgaming releases yet another three more progressive gambling games: Super Jax video poker, Wow Pot, and Fruit Fiesta online slot machines. Cryptologic goes public as well, gaining a spot on the Nasdaq National Market. In four years since its inception, Cryptologic reports approximately 680,000 patrons have used its software to make betting related financial transactions. By 2001, the estimated number of patron who have gambled online nears eight million.
More Countries Enter the GameOther countries paving a way for online gambling at this time include Argentina, which licenses its first online casino, as well as the UK territories, Isle of Man and Gibraltar, which both begin issuing licenses to internet sports betting websites. In Africa, Sun International Hotels makes a pact with Boss Media to use their software for an online version of the African-based brick 'n mortar casino.
From the year 2001 onward, online gambling is marked by bills, legislation and lawsuits. The United States still seeks to put an end to online gaming, whereas the United Kingdom does all it can to make it a legalized and profitable venture. In the U.S., two major anti-online gambling bills are passed. One of these bills updated the infamous Wire Act, although there is still varied interpretation of the law, questioning what exactly entails recreational/leisure gambling and sporting. The other bill prohibits U.S. based payment processors, such as credit card companies to facilitate transactions made at internet casinos. (Thus the reason there is such a wide selection of alternative payment methods on the internet these days). As a result of the growing power of anti-gambling lobbyists, the U.S. Congress effectively pressured large U.S. based search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, to cease advertising for on line betting companies. One such company, Casino City, countered by filing a lawsuit against the U.S. government, claiming its First Amendment rights to free speech were violated. However, the case was thrown out after several appeals. One positive movement in regards to online gambling in the U.S. is the state of Nevada's bid to permit online casinos to operate from within the state, effectively allowing Nevada residents to gamble on the Internet. The legislation is slow moving, but has succeeded in passing guidelines that would tax and license Nevada-based online casinos.
In England, there is less opposition at the time, with legislation being passed to effectively legalize online betting in the U.K. As far back as 2001, the British Channel Islands passed a bill that would legalize online betting, thereby putting protocol standards of licensing applications in place. Later that same year, the Gambling Review Report was released, which strongly suggested to legalize all types of internet gambling in the U.K. This, in turn, led to the drafting of the U.K. Gambling Bill, which is a comprehensive bill that would legalize online betting and allow for more land-based casinos and betting operations. Cultural Secretary, Tessa Jowell, has been a large factor in revising the bill, which would impose strict regulations and high standards to all related causes.
As for the future and continuing history of online gambling, it looks fertile and conducive to more growth and technological advancement. The pioneer software companies, such as Microgaming and Cryptologic, continue to pave the way for internet wagering. More and more start-up software companies and online casinos are populating the internet, staking a claim in the billion dollar industry. From country to country, online wagering legislation is still being drawn up, ever changing the way internet gambling is regulated. However, one thing is for certain: So long as operators and players maintain ethical and responsible standards, the industry is here to stay. Gambling's History. Gambling is as at least as old as Christianity (that is, ... For years, one barrier to the growth of Internet gambling has been strong Amongst the latest addition to the list of gambling concepts is internet gambling. Although the history of internet is not really long but even in the short Brief History of Internet Gambling. A look at the history of gambling in the United States shows that it has evolved in waves, with public sentiment
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