Bloomberg – When Li Yu wanted to take a gambling trip, she looked into Macau but found the hotels too expensive. So she booked a room on an overnight casino boat that sailed about an hour from Hong Kong into international waters before opening up its baccarat tables. “I don’t care about the food or other amenities, my sole purpose is to gamble,” said Li, a housewife from nearby Guangzhou who played into the early hours of the morning with about 70 others in the ship’s cramped casino. “It’s way cheaper than going to Macau.” Surging demand from mainland China…

iGaming Business is organizing a social gaming meetup for iGaming execs on 24 September that will bring together all those involved and interested in the sector for some networking and chat over some friendly drinks. The event will take place at Jewel Bar in central London where you will be able to meet up with executives, investors, developers and entrepreneurs within the social gaming space. In addition to the usual networking we will also have a speaker session focusing on the recent move to regulation of social gaming in Belgium and what this means for the industry. Our speaker will…

Press Release – Instead of the house edge and win odds being a well-guarded secret as with traditional fiat currency in both online casinos and brick-and-mortar casino establishments, BetCoin™ Bitcoin Entertainment Network offers complete transparency with win odds and house advantage for various casino games clearly stated, to make sure that players are not misled. There are no empty promises of sign-up “bonuses” that everyone can’t really cash out and there’s no need for any cheap marketing tricks – fully transparent provably fair casino games with a low house edge is the way to go. BetCoin™ Circle’s RTP is 98.35%:…

iGaming Business – Information services provider Experian has reported that online gamers have the lowest tolerance for identity verification checks – with players only prepared to spend an average of four minutes in the process before abandoning the online gaming transaction. The online gaming sector had the lowest time tolerance across all sectors studied, including retail transaction (five minutes) and transport (six minutes). Despite the low amount of time online gamers are willing to wait, the four-minute window is an increase from one minute in a 2011 study. Experian’s analysis also revealed 45% of UK adults have backed out of…

Las Vegas Review-Journal – Scientific Games Corp. said Tuesday that it will retain many of the top executives of slot machine manufacturer WMS Industries after completion of the $1.5 billion buyout. In a statement, the New York-based lottery systems provider said it would create two industry groups, gaming and lottery, with much of WMS falling into the gaming division. Current WMS President Ken Lochiatto will head the seven-person management team for the gaming division along with Scott Schweinfurth, the current chief financial officer of Scientific Games. WMS Chairman and CEO Brian Gamache will continue with Scientific Games as a consultant…

iGaming Business – Net Entertainment has vowed to take its battle with Swedish Tax Agency to the country’s Administrative Court after the authority rejected an appeal by the digital gaming supplier. In May, Net Entertainment launched an appeal after the regulator imposed additional taxes of SEK92.1 million (€10.6 million/$14 million) on the company following an audit of its operations from 2007 to 2010. The authority has now rejected the appeal, but Net Entertainment has pledged to fight on. “The Swedish Tax Agency stated in its decision that the transfer pricing that had been applied between the Swedish based parent company…

Press Release – Australian bingo fans will be pleased to hear that bingo.com.au, a bingo related site with a difference, has been launched on the Web. Bingo.com.au is not yet another bingo hall on the already saturated Aussie market, but rather an online bingo information clearing house. Bingo.com.au performs impartial investigations of Internet bingo sites which are geared toward Australian players. The reputable, licensed online bingo rooms are rated according to certain selected criteria, namely, game experience, customer support and promotional offers. The service is free and no registration or sign up is required to take advantage of the bingo…

The Age – Asian gambling houses believed to be behind Victoria’s match-fixing scandal are generating huge profits from an illegal betting market estimated by Interpol to top $500 billion a year. One of the world’s top sports investigators, Chris Eaton, said the money involved dwarfs the turnover from sport itself. He said the sport is under unprecedented attack from criminals and opportunists who conspire to manipulate the results of competitions around the world, to frequently win tens of millions of dollars a day. ”A vast majority of this money is being invested into the black and grey betting markets of…