The Register – Facebook is planning to launch a mobile payments service that would allow its European users to store and exchange funds via the social network, sources claim. According to a report in the Financial Times, Facebook has filed an application with the central bank of Ireland to become an “e-money” institution under EU regulations and is “weeks away” from gaining approval. Should it succeed in acquiring that status, it would be free to act as a payment institution throughout Europe, thanks to a provision of EU law known as “passporting”. Just what CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to do…

Gambling 911 – Don’t tell this to the throngs of people who love Las Vegas but Sin City has just registered at number 10 on the SmartTravel “10 Most Disappointing Vacation Destinations” list. It could be worse we suppose. “Is there any place more depressing than the inside of a casino at three in the morning? Fluorescent lights, a thick haze of cigarette smoke, and the stink of desperation don’t really add up to a dream vacation,” SmartTravel’s Caroline Morse wrote in her review. “Whether you’re losing your money by gambling it away, paying for obscene amounts of food at…

St Louis Post Dispatch – An Illinois House committee is planning a daylong hearing on gambling expansion in the state. The Executive Committee will meet at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Bilandic Building in downtown Chicago. The morning session will focus on a plan by Rep. Bob Rita to create a large casino in Chicago, but none elsewhere. The session beginning at 1 p.m. will focus on Rita’s alternative to build a smaller Chicago gambling house and four scaled-back casinos in Winnebago, Vermilion and Lake counties, and in a south suburb of Chicago. The Blue Island Democrat has proposed alternative…

Card Player – Late last week, IGT announced that its “Powerbucks,” a multistate wide-area progressive jackpot link, will be deployed at Caesars Entertainment properties in approved jurisdictions, starting with the states of New Jersey and Nevada. In other words, the games will be linked between the Silver State and the Garden State, leading to potentially bigger prizes. Recent changes to Nevada gaming regulations allowed for this. “We’re excited to transform the jackpot experience,” IGT said in a statement. “With Powerbucks, IGT re-imagines casino gaming thrills by creating more winners, more often, across multiple states. We all win when players engage…

iGaming Business – Gaming industry entertainment solutions provider Amaya Gaming Group has announced that its Cadillac Jack subsidiary has entered into multiple agreements to ship approximately 1,100 gaming machines to new and existing customers in the US. The shipments include outright sales of gaming machines as well as upgrading existing revenue share-generating gaming machines. The majority of the units will be Class II machines but will also include the supply of Class III machines into Oklahoma and California. Installation of the machines is due to take place during the second quarter of 2014. David Baazov, chief executive officer of Amaya Gaming,…

iGaming Business – The new advertising regulations that are due to come in as part of the UK Gambling Bill will have a significant impact on football and sports clubs that have become heavily reliant on sponsorship income from Asian operators in the last few years, according to David Zeffman, Partner  at London law firm Olswang. In a column recently published on iGamingBusiness.com, David Zeffman writes that “with at least 15 of the 20 English Premier League football clubs sponsored by Asian gambling companies, the Gambling Commission’s approach to implementing the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill (“the Bill”) will inevitably…