New York Business Journal – New Jersey’s plan to legalize sports betting suffered a blow when a federal court ruled that the state’s law conflicts with federal law and, therefore, cannot move forward. According to a report by the Associated Press, a panel at the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals backed an earlier ruling that the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act precludes New Jersey from legalizing sports gambling, since that law only allows that activity in Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware. The National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, and the National Collegiate…

iGaming Business – Brian Wright, director of the Remote Gambling Association, has told iGaming Business that the only way of tackling match-fixing in sport is for public authorities, betting operators and sporting organisations to collaborate on a “concerted and coordinated” effort. Following a spate of recent high-profile allegations of match-fixing in sport, Wright said that the fight against such corruption should focus on the key areas of “education, prevention and good governance, monitoring, sanctions, cooperation and international coordination”. He added: “The global scale of match-fixing requires enhanced coordination of all the efforts undertaken by the relevant parties at both European…

iGaming Business – The Bulgarian State Gambling Commission has opted to issue the country’s first online sportsbetting licence to local operator vBulletin. According to the Casino Choice news website, vBulletin already holds two of three national licences for offline sports betting in Bulgaria, and currently operates the Eurobet.bg and Eurofootball.bg websites off a Malta licence. It will now pay a reported €20,000 ($27,000) for the new Bulgarian online licence. Eurofootball.bg has been prominent in the market since 2009, when it agreed a three-year deal with the Bulgarian Football Union to sponsor the country’s men’s, women’s and youth national football teams….

Daily Advertiser – The alleged financier and organiser of an international syndicate accused of rigging soccer matches has been arrested with 13 others in Singapore, only days after the Victorian Premier League arrests shocked Australian sport. Singaporean Dan Tan Seet Eng, 49, employed Wilson Raj Perumal, the alleged mastermind of Australian match-rigging, investigators told Fairfax Media. But investigators said the two men had a spectacular falling out over Mr Perumal’s gambling problems and Mr Tan had sent him to Europe in an attempt to set him up for arrest. That backfired when Mr Perumal became a supergrass under police protection…

Gambling 911 – Paddy Power, the United Kingdom’s third largest bookmaker, will begin working with LGBT charity Stonewall to get behind gay footballers. The betting firm just sent out rainbow-coloured laces to 134 football clubs asking them to  “show the world they’ve got the balls to support gay players” by wearing them in their boots this weekend. We love football but it needs a kick up the arse,” said Paddy Power on the bookmaker’s blog. “In most other areas of life people can be open about their sexuality and it’s time for football to take a stand and show players…

World Crunch – Between 2004 and 2005, Zheyun Ye knocked on the door of almost every professional soccer club in Belgium. By introducing himself as a timely investor, this Chinese expat managed to convince the board of the penniless Lierse SK club to accept a check worth 370,000 euros ($500,000). Except that Zheyun Ye was not investing in the hopes the team would do well. On the contrary, what he wanted was for the players to lose, so that he could hit the jackpot by betting against the club. Cliff Mardulier, who was Lierse SK’s goalkeeper at the time, described…