Issue N16, 2010

April 21, 2010

Leading UK Group Receives GamCare Accreditation

NetPlay TV, one of the United Kingdom’s leading gaming groups, proudly announced that its two brands, Super Casino and Challenge Jackpot, will now carry the GamCare certificate as a testament to their commitment to high standards of responsible gambling. After a rigorous process, it was found that NetPlay TV’s brands met all the standards set forth by GamCare’s stringent Player Protection Codes of Practice.

“We are delighted that NetPlay TV has been awarded this industry recognized award for social responsibility and player protection,” said the Chief Executive Officer of NetPlay TV, Martin Higgison. "NetPlay TV has always been focused on allowing players to gamble responsibly through its sites and doing its utmost to protect its players. This GamCare certification is testament to the high level of responsibility that NetPlay TV sets itself.”

“I am thrilled that GamCare, through the certification process, has contributed to enhance player protection systems for those gaming with NetPlay TV,” said the Chief Executive Officer of GamCare, Andy McLellan. “I am particularly delighted that, as part of their ongoing commitment to social responsibility, NetPlay TV displays GamCare's HelpLine contact details on screen, so that anyone wanting to stay in control has that information at their fingertips.”

Slot Game Strike Early at Online Casinos

The much awaited Thunderstruck II, which was due to be released to online casinos in May, has made an early debut at a few selected Microgaming powered online casino sites, it has been learned. Thunderstruck II is the sequel to the highly popular Thunderstruck game which was made famous by software giant Microgaming several years ago. As such, players in the industry were counting the days until the next game reached their favorite casinos and were thrilled to hear that it would be in the coming months.

This week, online casinos such as Jackpot City Casino announced that the five reel Thunderstruck II could now be found in their extensive game portfolios, fueling much excitement among slot fans. There are several reasons for players to be thrilled with the new game. For one, it boasts no less than 243 ways of winning, an exciting concept invented by Microgaming and found on several of its top slot games. In addition, Thunderstruck II does not skimp on bonus features and rewards players with lots of free spins, multipliers, expanding wilds and much, much more.

Canadian Province Nearing Itself to Legalized Online Poker

Several months after the Canadian province of Quebec announced that it would be seeking to create a legalized and regulated online poker site for its citizens to play at, British Columbia has come out with an announcement that it hopes to launch its own peer to peer site by September this year. The Provincial Minister responsible for gambling in British Columbia, Rich Coleman, told a local newspaper that the province had arrangements in place with others such as Quebec and the Maritimes to “do peer to peer poker” in order to make the sites feasible.

British Columbia came under fire last year after dropping its $120 a week limit imposed on BC Lottery Corp account holders and limiting spending to $10,000 instead. However, the province recognizes the huge potential there is to be had in directing some of the millions spent by Canadian online poker players at offshore sites and is set on channeling some of the money back into British Columbia. Coleman said that no gambling limits would be imposed on the new poker site as well. “With regard to spending limits, they're set by the individual - how much they feel they can spend,” he said.

Lucky Swedish Lottery Win Finally Tracked Down

Svenska Spel, the national lottery operator of Sweden, finally put a name to the winner of the record jackpot hit over the weekend. The prize for a whopping 214.6 million kroner (nearly $30 million) went unclaimed but Svenska Spel had a phone number for the winner. The group had been trying to reach the man’s home since Saturday and had nearly given up hope when nobody had answered the call by Monday evening.

“We have just come home from a trip and read in the newspapers that you were looking for the winner,” the man told Svenska Spel. “We then went online and checked the numbers, at which point we almost passed out; we lay down on the floor and tried to understand what had happened. Totally unbelievable.”

The man, who is 50 – 60 years of age and lives in Helsingborg in the south of the country, has two grown children and has been playing the lottery for six years. In all those years, he has not changed the line of numbers once.

When asked what he intends doing with so much money, the man said that he would definitely be cutting down on work hours and buying better tickets to see his favorite teams in ice hockey and football play live.

Casino News, April 2010