iGaming Business – Paris-based casual games developer Pretty Simple’s hidden-object adventure game title Criminal Case has been named as the ‘Game of the Year 2013’ by social network Facebook. According to the VentureBeat.com website, Criminal Case topped a list of 23 games that Facebook regarded as the best of 2013. Selected by Facebook staff, the list is based on user ratings, Facebook implementation, growth and overall quality. Criminal Case, which combines crime scene investigation with sharing mechanics, grew organically during the first half of the year, while content updates and additional cases also helped drive growth in the second half…

Orlando Business Journal – The heated debate on gambling will come down to one simple thing: Do the benefits of expanded gambling outweigh the social and economic risks? The big question: Will 38,000 new jobs statewide be a good enough benefit? That still is being determined by state leaders in Tallahassee as the Senate Committee on Gaming has been hearing public opinion on the topic of expanded gaming. The committee is expected to meet again on Jan. 13 for further discussions. The state has been referring to a study by Spectrum Gaming Group that looked at several factors of how…

Poker News – PayPal, a company that processes roughly eight million real-money transactions per day, has been linked with a suspect in the UltimateBet coverup. John Mehaffey of USPoker.com discovered that PayPal shares customer information with Iovation, an online fraud prevention company headed by CEO Greg Pierson. In May, Travis Makar, an UltimateBet whistle-blower, released these audiotapes that implicate UltimateBet founder and CEO Pierson along with Russ Hamilton in the cover-up of the infamous cheating scandal. According to PayPal’s private policy, Iovation is on a list of “non-exclusive examples of the actual third parties to whom we currently disclose your…

iGaming Business – The UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) has reported an increase in the average amount British households spent on gambling during 2012. In its Family Spending Report, the ONS said that an average of £3.20 (€3.80/5.25) was spent on gambling each week in 2012, an increase of 50p on the previous year. The gambling figure was more than the average British household amount spent a week on going to the cinema, concerts, theme parks, museums and the theatre combined. The report revealed that all areas in the UK lost money on gambling, apart from the north west…

The Hill – Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is not known for modesty. So it was fitting the recent announcement of his plans to push for a federal online gambling ban is making headlines. Adelson, who said his “moral standards” compelled him to act, is launching an advocacy group, the Coalition To Stop Internet Gambling, to portray the activity as a threat to vulnerable populations such as low-income players and minors. Not only is he wrong, but his proposed ban would cause harm to the very groups he claims to want to protect. Legalization of US online gambling is gaining…

Thailand Business News – Las Vegas has been the home of gambling, while other areas have cropped up across the globe, none have really seemed to quite capture the atmosphere and vibrancy that is in abundance in Las Vegas. However, that seems to fast becoming a distant memory thanks to the growth rate of Asia in the gambling sector. Tucked away in the administrative region of Macau are some highly influential casinos that see a dramatic, high volume turnover of approximately $38 billion in annual returns, which, according to the latest statistics, is six times bigger than what Las Vegas…

Sky News – The major parties have been accused of selling out problem gamblers after Labor agreed to help the federal government repeal the first national poker machine reform laws. Anti-gambling campaigner and Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie described the move as a ‘shocking betrayal’ of the Australian community. ‘Both parties don’t give a toss about problem gamblers and are beholden to their pokies industry political donors,’ Mr Wilkie said. ‘The Labor party is weak and uncaring, and no better than the Liberals, when it comes to gambling reform.’ Last year, the federal parliament passed watered-down measures aimed at curbing…

DoubleDown is opening up its metrics on social casino games, a bit. Today, it will disseminate a “social casino index” based on the game play data of six million monthly active users, showing where and how people play its games. For the most part, the report is just a science-y way of flaunting DoubleDown’s reach (and the company doubtless knows that trend-minded reporters are suckers for this sort of stuff). But John Clelland, global marketing VP at DoubleDown’s parent company, IGT, correctly highlighted one surprising factoid from the index. “We had this belief that men would make the highest bets,”…