Washington Post – Marylanders who host penny-ante poker games in their houses would no longer be breaking the law under a bill that advanced in the Maryland Senate on Tuesday. But then most Marylanders probably have no idea that hosting a friendly game of Texas hold ’em in the rec room is breaking the law, especially since the state has gone all in on casino gambling. Even some lawmakers didn’t know about an obscure provision that prohibits wagering on any game of chance or skill, even in the privacy of one’s home. “It’s illegal to get your Parcheesi game out…

Some in Pennsylvania have been pondering the idea of legalizing online gaming that would be offered from state-sanctioned sites, while at least one elected official now wants the act of playing online poker to be criminalized, according to an article on Philly.com. A state lawmaker is pushing a proposal that would make the “first violation a summary offense that carries a possible $300 fine and up to 90 days in jail”, while “a second violation would be a misdemeanor bringing a chance of a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail.” Those penalties apparently wouldn’t be for running…

ZD Net – The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac), the Australian government agency responsible for countering money laundering and the financing of terrorism, is able to track each conversion transaction from bitcoin into or out of Australian dollars. “Australia is very fortunate among its international counterparts, in that we are one of the few countries which currently collects all international funds transfers, into or out of Australia,” John Schmidt, CEO of Austrac, told Senate Estimates today. “At some point, a person will be purchasing bitcoin using Australian dollars, for example, and then, if they are dealing in substances…

Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing was one of the largest in history, reaching a staggering $425 million. It was hit by a single ticket, according to reports. The ticket was sold in Northern California, at Dixon Landing Chevron in Milpitas. There has been no word yet on who the winner is. The gas station will receive $1 million. The winning numbers drawn Wednesday night were: 1, 17, 35, 49, 54 and a Powerball of 34. According to the Associated Press, the nation’s biggest lottery prize was a $656 million dollar Mega Millions jackpot in 2012. The biggest Powerball jackpot was $590.5…

COIL – According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research “Social Gaming Market – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013-2019,” the global Social Gaming market is expected to reach a value of $17.40 billion by 2019, growing at a CAGR of 16.1 percent from 2013 to 2019. Growth in the usage of Internet and social networking sites has spurred the growth of the games over the Internet. The other factor being the growing demand of smartphones and tablet PCs. Asia Pacific was the largest contributor in social gaming market and accounted for a…

Kotaku – This can only be a bad thing. Virgin Gaming is a service that essentially allows users to sign up and place real world bets on online games. Seems like a complete recipe for disaster to me, but hey, I’m not judging. It’s an automatic service that does all the heavy lifting for you and automatically deposits the cash in the right player’s account. It’s probably worth noting that gambling in video games is a bit of an odd issue. Dan Golding looked into this subject fairly extensively last year and found that it was relatively easy for underage…