Casino.org – With just weeks to go until the world’s greatest sporting tournament kicks off in Brazil, FIFA, the international governing body of football, has called on gaming operators across the globe to help them stamp out corruption and match-fixing at the World Cup. FIFA uses the “Early Warning System” (EWS), technology that is proficient in monitoring and analyzing the global betting markets, but the system also relies on the cooperation of betting firms around the world to report any suspicious betting activity they uncover. Gambling partners share suspicious patterns with EWS via a secure communications platform, while the system…

Want China Times – After years of smooth sailing, casino-related stocks on the Hong Kong market have finally seen their wild party coming to an end, with the eight major casino stocks seeing their market value nosedive by HK$191.5 billion (US$24.7 billion) this year as of May 12, reports Guangzhou’s 21st Century Business Herald. What triggered the crash was concerted action between China’s central government and the Macao government in cracking down on underground gambling of Chinese mainlanders at Macao casinos. High rollers from mainland China account for two thirds of the region’s gambling income, and Macau has become a…

CNN – While Japan’s economy continues to falter, lawmakers are betting big that the casino industry can swoop in and lift it out of the doldrums. Gambling is currently illegal in Japan, though many play pachinko, a quintessentially Japanese game often likened to pinball. While cash prizes are forbidden, many pachinko parlors work on a gray economy where prizes are exchanged — off-premises — for hard currency. This week, a major conference focusing on the future of the industry opened in Tokyo. It comes at a time when key legislation is being pushed through Japan’s parliament that could pave the…

Euro Sport – Australia’s National Rugby League will investigate allegations that one of its top officials knew about Canterbury Bulldogs forward Ryan Tandy’s gambling problems but failed to take action before the player was convicted of match-fixing. Tandy, banned from the NRL for life after attempting to fix a 2010 match, was found dead last week at his parents’ house in eastern New South Wales state having suffered an apparent drug overdose. State media reported this week that the NRL’s head of football Todd Greenberg was made aware of Tandy’s gambling problems when he was chief executive of the Sydney-based…

Bangkok Post – A Japanese gambler is taking on tax authorities by claiming his bad bets on horse races were a deductible business expense, a report said Wednesday. The man, a civil servant in Hokkaido, won a whopping 7.84 billion yen ($76.9 million) over six years to 2010, but lost 7.27 billion yen in the process, according to the English edition of the Asahi Shimbun. He declared the balance of 570 million yen as “miscellaneous income,” arguing that because his other winnings were cancelled out by his losses, the losing stubbs represented a legitimate cost of his business, the paper…

Gaming Intelligence – Survey results released this week by the UK Gambling Commission reveal a small rise in gambling participation levels, with 56 per cent of respondents having participated in at least one form of gambling in the previous four weeks, up from 55 per cent of respondents in March 2013. Land-based gambling continues to account for the lion’s share of activity, with 71 per cent of those gambling in the past four weeks doing so offline, while 16 per cent of respondents said that they gambled online, up from 15 per cent a year ago. Excluding people who only…