Australia’s main online gambling licensing body has effectively washed its hands of the controversy over its licensees’ efforts to circumvent the nationwide ban on online in-play wagering. Australia’s Interactive Gambling Act 2001 restricts in-play wagering to telephone or in-person bets at retail venues. But recent months have seen a trio of online gambling companies licensed by Australia’s Northern Territory Racing Commission (NTRC) release mobile apps designed to get around these restrictions. The apps – William Hill’s Click to Call, Ladbrokes’ Quickcall and Bet365’s betCall – work by using a mobile device’s voice recognition technology to confirm online in-play wagers without…

Washington politicians are reportedly hatching a plan to impose a moratorium on further expansion of intrastate online gambling. GamblingCompliance scribe Chris Krafcik recently reported that US federal politicians were discussing plans to introduce legislation that would call for a study of the pros and cons of online gambling. While this study was being conducted, legislators would seek a moratorium on any states joining Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey in passing intrastate online gambling legislation. The plan is reportedly seen as a more viable alternative to the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA), the Sheldon Adelson-backed legislation that would make most…

Chris Krafcik of GamblingCompliance recently testified in front of the California Assembly Governmental Organization Committee on the current and future state of legal online gaming in the United States. The presentation by Krafcik, GC’s research director, included several predictions about legalized online gaming in the U.S. Krafcik called the current efforts in Pennsylvania, California and New York “Wave 2″ of online gaming expansion in the U.S., which he characterizes as the time period from now until 2017. Krafcik went on to name four potential contenders (Rhode Island, Connecticut, Illinois, and Ohio) for what he is calling Wave 3, the period between 2018 and…

With legal gambling surging nearly 5 percent in the last year, Alberta online betting experts says the new government needs to reconsider the former Tory regime’s plan to add an online casino to the province’s betting mix. New numbers from the province’s gaming and liquor commission show bettors stuffed nearly $25 billion into video slot and lottery machines during the last 12 months and contributed over $1.2 billion after expenses to government coffers after expenses. While the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission is now looking at proposals to create an Internet betting site that could add an estimated $150 million…

NYX Gaming Group has agreed a deal to provide its interactive gaming platform to the Golden Nugget Atlantic City in New Jersey. The Golden Nugget provides traditional land-based and online casino services in the US state, with the latter of these offerings to be expanded through the new partnership with NYX Gaming. Under the deal, NYX Gaming will provide the operator with its online gaming platform, a new website and enhanced mobile applications by December of this year. The partnership will begin with the Golden Nugget this summer launching games developed by NextGen Gaming, the content division of NYX Gaming,…

The weather isn’t the only thing heating up in D.C. this summer. The battle over state-based online gambling has reached a fever pitch. Until last week, Congress had been seemingly quiet on the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA; H.R. 707), the bill to ban Internet gambling. But then Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced a companion bill to RAWA (S. 1668). Behind closed doors, the push for Congress to vote on the bill before adjourning for summer recess has intensified and the tactics become more extreme. And as usual, Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson, one of RAWA’s…