Issue N29, 2010
July 21, 2010
Industry Defends Disastrous Opening Day of New BC Casino
Many in the gambling industry have come to the defense of PlayNow.com, the recently launched online gambling site of the British Columbia Lottery Corporation. The site crashed on its opening day, after the system could not withstand the number of visitors who came to open an account and check out for themselves the new games and software on offer. So great was the demand, that within a few hours the site was forced to shut down temporarily. A number of glitches in the system were discovered, including ‘crossover data’ where players trying to access their own accounts were taken to other players’ accounts. Here, they were able to view important details, including an account balance. The British Columbia Lottery Corporation was quick to issue a statement that hackers were not responsible for these glitches.
However, gambling analysts said that these types of opening day disasters are not uncommon, especially in a new market such as the Canadian gambling market. “It’s just a case of getting the infrastructure right,” said the David Loveday, the Chief Executive of the British group Open Bet, which developed the software for PlayNow.com. “It’s not the first time this has happened in the industry. It’s unfortunate for all of us, it’s very hard to predict volumes.”
mFortune Mobile Casino Rolls out New Slot Game
Players familiar with the excellent variety of games available at mFortune mobile casino will be thrilled with the news that the site has rolled out a brand new slot game that promises to be just as exciting as the other titles. mFortune has added the popular Vegas Vegas slot game – a five reel, nine pay line offering that has been played around 80,000 times a day since it was launched in June of this year. mFortune is hoping that Vegas Vegas will become as popular as its biggest game to date, Pirate’s Treasure, which was played an incredible two million times in its first month at the mobile casino.
“We are constantly striving to develop and increase the variety of exciting and compelling games in our portfolio,” said Simon Wilson, the Managing Director of mFortune. “Vegas Vegas will present excellent opportunities for affiliates, who can reap the rewards of this latest addition to the suite of mobile slot games. We also are promoting our games with a TV and print advertising campaign, and we expect the number of users searching for mFortune online to increase dramatically, and for this to lead to greater conversion rates and loyal players.”
Players are being offered a free £5 bonus offer to try out the games at mFortune, and are able to keep the winnings as well.
William Hill May Move Telephone Betting Offshore
In a bid to keep up with its competitors, William Hill betting group has hinted that it was reviewing the option of relocating its telebetting operations overseas. Announcing its half yearly trading update, William Hill said that “poor racing results” had let to a drop of 33% in net telephone revenue. “The board has previously noted the challenge of competing with UK betting exchanges and Irish offshore telebetting operators, all of whom have benefited from significant tax and cost advantages over UK bookmakers. The situation is under active review,” said the group in a statement this week.
Nevertheless, “the worst ever Royal Ascot” and a “relatively weak Grand National”, were offset by excellent World Cup revenues, which saw the bookie retain “substantially more” than the £6 million it made from the 2006 World Cup tournament. Ralph Topping, Chief Executive for William Hill, promised to reveal the full benefits of the soccer tournament in the group’s interim statement next month.
No Suspicious Betting Among ESSA Members
The World Cup may have been the cause of illegal betting around the world, but the European Sports Security Association said that it picked up no suspicious betting activity among its own thirteen members. The group said that it used the highest levels of security to keep close check on its members, and said that if it had observed anything suspicious, it would not have hesitated to pass the information on to FIFA.
“This World Cup has proved that licensed, regulated bookmakers, through effective organization, investment and excellent communications with sports governing bodies, can defeat would-be match-fixers,” said Mike O’ Kane of ESSA. “We now look forward to building on this success by working with FIFA and other sports authorities in the future to keep corruption out of sport for good. The problem of match-fixing is a global one, and is often not related to betting at all. For these reasons we welcome and support the recent call by the IOC for concerted action to defeat it.”
The Early Warning System used by ESSA has picked up five alerts in the past two years, and all of them have been passed on to the government or sports bodies where relevant. Around 10,000 separate bets are monitored on average at different sites each week.