Poker Fuse – Upstart social poker site, Sponge Poker, has taken to crowd funding with hopes to raise money to help increase its market share. Citing themselves as “the most realistic” poker game online, CEO Alex Kim and his team are hoping that their patent-pending interface, along with some incentives, can help them raise money to bring new players to their new platform. Sponge Poker’s hook is their unique take on the traditional online poker interface. Players can “see” each others “actions” in real time during the hand, potentially giving off betting/folding tells or even generating false tells. According to…

Poker Fuse – This week, Infiniti Poker is providing a bitcoin incentive to potential beta testers. The test is designed to prove their financial and Prestige Club Point accounting systems “to ensure accuracy, efficiency and effectiveness.” In an exclusive interview with pokerfuse last year, CEO Michael Hajduk said that Infiniti Poker is “all about connections, charity connections, meeting people, seeing old friends.” He says he is not attempting to rival PokerStars, but to create “the new paradigm of online gaming” and a platform “more exciting than PokerStars.” He wants to create a poker room that recreates the social experience of…

This year internet gambling is expected to be the hot topic as the world’s biggest gaming convention kicks off in Las Vegas, with thousands of people are in town to attend the Global Gaming Expo (G2E). Hundreds of gaming manufacturers will showcase their innovative Internet gaming, or iGaming, technology this week. They say iGaming represents the future of this industry. Governor Brian Sandoval (Nevada-R) signed historic legislation this year, clearing the way for Internet betting sites to operate in Nevada. Two sites are already running. Two more states – New Jersey and Delaware – have also legalized online poker. Other…

Wall Street Journal – The arrival of students on the University of Macau’s new $1.3 billion campus this year will mark the Chinese gambling capital’s first visible success in using casino wealth to benefit the city’s 600,000 people. Since China opened the former Portuguese colony to foreign casino operators in 2002, Macau has been transformed from a charming, somewhat rundown backwater with a smattering of gambling houses into a glittering, player’s Mecca with 35 casinos crammed into 11.5 square miles. As a result, Macau’s economy has grown an average of 14% a year in the past decade, making it the…

The Guardian – Gambling addiction was a contributing factor in nearly 130 suicides in Victoria over the past decade, according to figures released by the Victorian coroner. The report identified 128 gambling-related suicides between January 2000 and December 2012. Almost all – 126 – were of people with a gambling addiction, while two were of people who were adversely affected by a partner’s problem gambling. Men accounted for 84% of the suicide toll, with the figure peaking for those aged between 30 and 39. While the coroner could not identify the type of gambling engaged in by 105 of the…

L.A. Times – Los Angeles police arrested 23 people on misdemeanor charges in a raid on a Van Nuys Internet cafe suspected of hosting an illegal gambling operation, the LAPD said Friday. Officers from the Van Nuys vice unit served a search warrant Thursday at the Talk & Win Internet cafe on Sherman Way after getting an anonymous tip that gambling was taking place there, the LAPD said in a statement. Officers seized 42 computers and $9,200 in cash, and arrested 20 people on suspicion of gambling at an illegal facility and three on suspicion of possession of a gambling…