From Gambling Online Magazine – A special EuroMillions raffle is to make 100 UK lottery players instant millionaires. Taking place on Friday 26 July alongside the main EuroMillions draw, the Millionaires Raffle will see 100 players win £1m each. UK players purchasing a ticket for the main draw will be able to buy a £2 ticket for the Raffle, which is being held on the same night. A similar raffle was held last summer ahead of the London Olympics, with 97 lucky players each scooping £1m – setting a record for the most millionaires created in one night via a…

Police from the southern Italian city of Potenza seized homes and assets worth €8 million across Italy in an illegal betting operation involving a ring, investigators said on Wednesday. Two people have been placed under house arrest and another seven ordered not to leave town. The police operation dubbed ‘game over’ reportedly uncovered a criminal gang which used rigged slot machines and computer games. The nine people involved in the investigation are charged with controlling illegal gambling and betting enterprises as well as money laundering. The gambling and betting joints across the southern Basilicata region allegedly offered customers rigged online…

Multi-million-dollar, high end casinos planned for Colombo have boosted Sri Lanka’s ambitious hopes of becoming Asia’s new gambling hot spot, but the projects still face political and religious opposition. The country legalized gambling in November 2010, with the aim of eventually luring cashed-up tourists to the island nation and boosting an economy battered by decades of ethnic war. The government granted approval to Sri Lanka’s John Keells group last week for a $850-million “mixed development” high end casinos, a euphemism for an entertainment hub that includes gambling. The green light was also given last month to the local partner of…

From iGaming Business – The French online gaming market generated €798m in gross gaming revenues in 2012, compared with €749m for Italy and €117m for Spain, which regulated its online gaming and betting market in June 2012, France’s igaming regulator ARJEL announced on Tuesday. Each country has its own iGaming specificities, online poker and casino dominate the Italian industry, Spaniards favour online sportsbetting while in France, a third of the country’s GGRs comes from online horseracing parimutuel, reflecting the historical strength of the activity and the main operator PMU. ARJEL also published the results of a survey of some 150,000…

Las Vegas Sands Corporation could delay development of a planned EuroVegas $22 billion resort complex in Spain. That is, unless the government lifts a ban on smoking inside casinos. This according to a wire service report. However, in a statement to Spanish media last week, the company said reports that the proposed development was not progressing were “inaccurate.” According to United Press International, Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson said construction on EuroVegas in Madrid will not start unless Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy amends laws that ban smoking in most public places. Lifting the ban is opposed by Spanish…

Natalie Chan collected bets, dealt cards and calculated payoffs. She was not a croupier working in a Macau casino — in fact, at 20, she was not even old enough to be on the gambling floor at the glitzy casinos just a short walk from campus. But she is learning the tricks of the trade through a program meant to train Macau residents to run the hotels and casinos that have made this city Asia’s answer to Las Vegas. Last summer, Ms. Chan completed a dealer training course on a mock casino floor, in a room equipped with roulette wheels,…