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Thursday is a landmark day for the Italian online gambling sector, with the government expected to gazette and bring into force new regulations further opening up the market to poker cash games and internet casino action.

It’s been three years since the Italian government adopted a more realistic and pragmatic approach to online gambling, introducing a strictly regulated domestic industry that has since burgeoned into one of the most lucrative and successful in Europe under the regulatory authority of the AAMS.

After some delays caused by litigation now settled, AAMS last month published the legal decree making the latest changes, which permit online poker satellites and tournaments with buy-ins maxed at 250 Euros. At least 90% of prize pools must be returned to winning players.

Operators pay a 20% tax on gross gaming receipts in the Italian market.

Iowa was in the gambling news again this week, but it was not in connection with the online gambling legislation currently before the state Senate. Allegations of misuse of funding were leveled at the Eastern Iowa Center for Problem Gambling by state auditor David Vaudt, who claimed that almost $90,000 in problem gambling funding derived from land casinos and the state lottery had been used inappropriately.

The spending under investigation diverted funds from the priorities of the centre, which should have been the treatment of addicted gamblers, but Vaudt found that over $38,000 went to staff in over-payments; almost $30,000 were spent on travel expenses for the centre’s director, Janet Meisenbach; unproved expenses gobbled up another $27,000 and the rest went on vacation payouts.

Associated Press reports that Meisenback has not reacted to the auditor’s report, and apparently has been less than cooperative so far, claiming that she was not aware of any audit of the funds under her management care. It is not yet known whether criminal charges will be filed.

The World Series of Poker Circuit event in Palm Beach, Florida, was the site of two historic occurrences.  The Palm Beach Kennel Club, a local dog-racing track, was the first non-casino facility to host a WSOP Circuit tournament.  The event ended with a historical milestone as well: John Riordan, a nineteen-year-old from Florida, became the youngest winner in WSOP Circuit history.

Riordan won US$210,180 at the no-limit Texas Holdem tournament.  The event, the first WSOP Circuit tournament held in Florida, carried a buy-in of US$1,600 and featured over seven hundred players, for a total prize pool exceeding US$1 million.

Florida law allows players to enter poker tournaments at eighteen, as opposed to most states, which specify a minimum age of twenty-one.  Riordan also became the first American under the age of twenty-one to win a WSOP-related event.  Annette Obrestad won the WSOP Europe Main Event in 2007 the day before her nineteenth birthday.

Although this WSOP Circuit win is Riordan’s first as a live player, he has accrued a substantial resume by playing online poker.  He started playing “play money” games at thirteen years old.  At age eighteen, he started playing “real money” games and worked his way up to playing high-stakes pot-limit Omaha.

Riordan will not be eligible to play in another major tournament in the US until 2013, which means he will not be allowed to participate in the WSOP Circuit National Championship event in Las Vegas this May.  The National Championship grants free entries to winners at all WSOP Circuit events and has a guaranteed prize pool of US$1 million.

The mobile betting operations of Paddy Power.com are set to get a significant boost with the imminent launch of a new UK television campaign with a comical take on smart phone usage. This third sally into television marketing by the gambling group was created by Big Al’s Creative Emporium, with media handling by M2m.

The campaign features two models rather sensually extolling the virtues of their smart phones to each other, who are interrupted by a third model with some factual information about using the Paddy Power mobile betting facility.

Paddy Power marketing manager Adam Perrin said: “This campaign reflects our position at the cutting edge of the betting industry and being the most modern bookmaker for punters to bet with while retaining Paddy Power’s established brand strengths for fun and irreverence.”

The gambling group’s previous campaign, also by Big Al’s, featured the controversial “blind football” creative, which certainly did not go unnoticed, perhaps for the wrong reasons . It was reportedly one of the most complained about TV ads in 2010, although the Advertising Standards Association rejected calls to ban it last summer despite receiving over a thousand complaints.

Paddy Power is currently searching for creative ideas via Ideabounty.com. The bookmaker is offering $3,500 to whoever comes up with a really good creative advertising idea.

A casino project in the U.S. state of Maine has been delayed indefinitely due to government bureaucracy, convoluted regulations and the objection of a competitor. Basically, it’s exactly the kind of thing you expect to happen.

Edward MacColl, a lawyer representing Scarborough Downs is challenging the proposed location of a new Oxford casino. The proposed casino would be run by Black Bear Entertainment, a competitor of Scarborough Downs. MacColl told the Maine Gambling Control Board telling that they can’t approve of Black Bear’s casino because the location would violate state law.

A law passed in 2004 prohibits a casino being built within 100 miles of an existing gambling facility, such as another casino, a slot parlor or a race track. According to MacColl, the proposed site for the new Black Bear casino is only 94 miles from Hollywood Slots in Bangor, Maine. MacColl is measuring using a straight line, but representatives from Black Bear Entertainment don’t agree with his as-the-crow-flies measurement. They say that the site is legal because, when traveling by common roads, the site is 125 miles from Hollywood Slots.

The dispute comes from the fact that (surprise, surprise) the law as it is written is unclear on how that distance is measured. According to MacColl, such measurements are usually done by a radius. According to Daniel Walker, a lawyer representing Black Bear Entertainment, “if they didn’t say radial miles, they must have meant road miles.”

To make matters even more convoluted, it appears that Scarborough Downs is also trying to circumvent that same law. They have proposed a location in Oxford that could not exist if Black Bear’s casino is built, because the two would be too close together. However, they are also proposing building a racino in Biddeford, Maine. If either the Black Bear casino or the Scarborough Downs casino is built in Oxford, that would be too close to also build the racino in Biddeford.

Oh, and there’s another regulatory hurdle. The proposed racino in Biddeford would be 11 miles away from the current racetrack. That same 2004 law says that the racetracks cannot be moved more than 5 miles in order to be converted into a racino.

Peter Martin, a spokesman for Black Bear Entertainment, says that he doesn’t believe Scarborough Downs even has a proposed casino site in Oxford. He believes it is all a bluff in an attempt to stop their project. “Is he (MacColl) saying to the Biddeford people that, at the moment, he’s ready to abandon the Biddeford referendum and try to find a site in Oxford County to apply up there?” he asked. “Is he applying for two now?”

John Morris, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, told the board that “the governor and governor’s office interpret mileage in this law to mean road miles.” The Gambling Control Board has decided that more research must be conducted before they vote on the issue. On Friday, they plan to meet at the Maine Department of Public Safety offices to determine which measurement, road miles or radial miles, should be used.

Tags: Black Bear Entertainment, casino expansion, Maine casino, Scarborough Downs

Swedish gaming software provider Net Entertainment released its full year results to 31 December 2010 this week. Eleven new licensee’s and ten new customers’ casinos were launched in 2010.

Key performance indicators for the full year period to 31 December 2010 include:

• Revenues of SEK 368.3 million (2009: SEK 300.1) million reflecting an increase of 22.7%

• Operating Profit up by 13.5% to SEK 368.3 million (2009: SEK 300.1 million)

• Profit after tax increased by 11.9% to SEK 120.5 million (2009: 107.7 million)

• Eleven new license agreements were signed, including Gioco Digitale/bwin.it, Interwetten, Intralot, Stan James and JAXX/Mybet, and ten new customers’ casinos were launched

Comments from Johan Öhman , President and CEO: “Our industry is going through significant change as many countries around the world are in the process of regulating online gaming which affect both operators and suppliers. As a systems supplier Net Entertainment has to invest in adapting its products and offerings to the requirements of each jurisdiction which is both complex and costly. Long term, it is our opinion that regulated markets will generate significant business opportunities as they fuel further market growth and stability.

“Overall, Net Entertainment is well positioned to benefit from the global market development for online gaming. We will therefore continue to invest in technology and personnel to meet regulatory requirements and re-enforce our organization which will have a short term impact on our profit margin.

“To capture the strategic opportunities we see on the market, the organization was increased with 49 employees during 2010. The organizational reinforcement is necessary partly for the development of a solution for mobile devices and a new platform with significantly increased capacity needed to meet future demands.

“We see a strong interest in our product and view the chances of closing several interesting deals during 2011 as very promising. We are also well positioned to benefit from the opportunities which arise from the regulation of our market. All in all we have an excellent position for continued strong development.”

Online gaming provider, 888 Holdings PLC has released its fourth quarter 2010 and twelve months ending 31 December 2010 results this week. The company confirmed that discussions were still ongoing with Ladbrokes, contrary to media speculation that talks had stalled.

888 also announced that an innovative PokerCam product release is imminent which will allow players real-time video streams in real-money poker games.

Furthermore, the trading performance of the Wink Bingo business, acquired in December 2009, has been strong and has exceeded the Board’s expectations.

Fiscal Results Include:

Q4/2010 Key Performance Indicators (Compared to Q3/2010):

• An 18% increase in group total operating Income to $ 71 million.
• A B2C total operating income of $60 million which reflects a 17% increase. The result attributed to a boost in growth in Casino, Poker and Bingo.
• Casino $31 million, 17% increase
• Bingo $14 million, 13% increase
• Poker $11 million, 28% increase
• Emerging Offering at $4 million, 12%
• B2B reflects a 21% increase of $11 million.
• Number of active customers B2C Casino and Poker at 283,000, a 71% increase driven by product improvement and successful marketing
• Casino at 124,000 up 69%
• Poker at 201,000 up 74%

2010 Year On Year Key Performance Indicators (compared to 2009) include:

• A 6% increase in group total operating income in 2010 to $262 million (2009: $247 million).
• Total Operating Income B2C in 2010 at $222 million (2009: $195 million) reflecting a 13% increase
• Casino at $117 million (2009: $119 million) down 1%
• Poker at $38 million (2009: $52 million) down 26%
• Bingo at $50 million (2009: $11 million) indicates a 370% increase
• Total Operating Income B2C Emerging Offering at US$16 million (2009: US$15 million) reflects a 12% increase
• Total Operating Income B2B in 2010 at $40 million, reflecting a decline of 21%
• As at 31 December 2010, 888 reports a 23% increase in Casino, Poker and Sport real money registered customer accounts to 8.7 million.

Gigi Levy, Chief Executive Officer, 888 Holdings Plc said:

“We are very pleased with the results delivered during the last quarter of 2010 – especially the record 18% quarterly sequential growth. Our marketing activities have driven record numbers of players to our sites, and growth was achieved across our business lines. We are particularly encouraged by our Poker business, which showed 28% sequential growth.

2011 has started well and given that our various business initiatives are progressing as planned we expect to grow the business further during the year.”

Cambodian internet casino operators, who have been making a good living offering punters live dealer online gambling over the internet, have been feeling the heat this week as police hammer their premises in a series of raids.

Cafes in the north eastern part of the country, which offer online gambling services via live broadcasts from land-based casinos and dens elsewhere in Cambodia, have been especially hard-hit.

Police raids have resulted in the imposition of heavy fines and cafe closures, and the drive is having a salutary effect on other internet cafe owners, reports the local media. Reports indicate that operators are running scared and have shut up shop until the environment calms.

Many of these internet cafes are reportedly positioned close to educational centres in order to attract student business.

The police have yet to make a statement, but it is understood that heavy fines have already been paid.

Real Time Gaming has just released a new Dracula-themed online slot called ‘Count Spectacular’ with Expanding Wilds, Scatters, Free Spins and a 50,000 coin jackpot.

Dracula Slot
Although a Dracula-themed online slot would probably do a lot better somewhere in the middle of October, this scary slot has just been released at the top-rated RTG casinos like Cherry Red Casino.

Nice Animations
The timing of this release might be a little off; the graphics, sound effects and animations on Count Spectacular definitely aren’t. Whenever the Count himself appears on a reel, lightning flashes and you hear the Count’s evil laugh as he takes over the reel acting as an Expanding Wild.

The Bonus Round
Other symbols on Count Spectacular are the Scared Lady, the Coffin, a Bat, and the Castle. The Castle is the Scatter symbol and when you hit the Count on reels 1 and five, you are taken to the Bonus Round in which you may choose between 12 Free Spins or 4 Re-Spins.

$250k Maximum Payout
This new Real Time Gaming slot has two jackpots, a major and a minor one. The maximum win is 50,000 times your bet per line, and with a maximum bet of $5 per line this mounts up to $250,000.

What is bankroll management?

Bankroll management are thoughts and rules you should keep in mind while playing any kind of poker (or any other game) for real money. Although it does not concern game strategy itself or ideas how to directly increase your profits it will help you with an equally important task – not to go broke.

As with almost every theoretical approach, especially the ones regarding poker, there are countless examples showing that even if you are unfamiliar with the theories you can be a successful player. However, examples of players who are unfamiliar and losing are much more frequent. If you don’t want to be one of them, read on.

Swings

Swings are a mathematical fact that cannot be avoided in any game that has at least some amount of luck involved in it. Even the best pros suffer from losing streaks from time to time and even the biggest fish in the game happens to win on an occasion. It is the existence of swings that makes thoughts of bankroll management a valuable asset. The best thing you can do is to learn to deal with them. Assess the decisions, not the results. If you lose a pre-flop Holdem all-in with AA – there’s obviously nothing you can do about that. It is important, however, to always keep an open mind. If there’s a leak in your game the worst thing you can do is to believe you are not responsible for it and keep repeating it. Always analyse your game and question your decisions. Besides improving your game and controlling the size and frequency of swings that befall you, it is an important aspect of increasing your bankroll.

What is bankroll?

Firstly, we need to define what bankroll is. For the purpose of this article we will define bankroll as the amount of money you have put aside with the intention to play poker with. This usually means the sum of money you currently have at your account plus an amount you are willing to deposit in case of losing streaks.

We will assume that not losing your bankroll and increasing it have the same priority. These may seem mutually exclusive but it merely means that we will try to avoid the choices which, although profitable, come with a high risk of decimating your bankroll.

Luck & skill

Poker is a game of skill. Poker is a game of luck. You may have heard both statements and may have even been a witness to lengthy discussions about which of them is true. As a matter of fact, they both are. Imagine two chess programs playing against each other. If one of them beats the other in every aspect of the game it will win 100% of the time. On the other hand, imagine two players guessing the result of a (perfectly random) dice roll. None of them is getting ‘the upper hand’ in this game, since there is no skill to master. They will both win and lose and there is nothing they can do to affect it.

Now imagine yourself playing poker. The game lies somewhere in between of the two aforementioned extremes. The good news is, however, that the ratio of skill/luck in the game can be affected.

Introducing variance (and expected value)

The quantity that we will use to describe the amount of luck involved in the game is called variance. Variance is high when the possible results differ greatly from the average result. Rather than bothering with a mathematical definition we are going to present several examples that illustrate its meaning. Imagine a coin flipping game with different rules:

Version 1: You win 3$ regardless of the coinflip’s result.
Version 2: You lose 10$ if the result is heads but win 20$ if the result is tails.
Version 3: You lose 100$ if the result is heads but win 98$ if the result is tails.

In the first game the variance is zero – all the possible results (i.e. the only one) are equal to the average result. In the second game the variance is non-zero, since the possible results differ from the expected value. In the third game the variance is the highest. The expected value is the lowest in the third game (−1$), followed by the first (3$) and the second (5$).

Risk aversion and game selection Which of the previous games should you choose? Obviously, if your bankroll is very large you should aim for the games that offer the highest possible expected value (game #2). However, the smaller your bankroll the higher the chance that it could be decimated even though the expected value of the game is positive. As an example, let’s suppose your bankroll is 30$ and you are playing game #2. If you lose three times in a row (which is likely to happen to one out of 8 players) you are broke and can no longer play the game. Playing game #1 seems like a better choice – although your bankroll will be only 39$ after three games (30+3×3), which is less than the expected value of playing three games of game #2 (30+3×5=45), you can be certain you will not go broke and can continue playing.

The third game is the worst choice by both criteria – not only is the variance significantly higher than in the other two games, but it also has a negative expected value. Don’t be fooled by the highest possible win. Even if your bankroll is large it will suffer in the course of time. This example resembles to many casino games like slot machines, roulette or lotteries. If you are aiming to be a profiting gambler, you should avoid these games at all costs.

Stakes, Style and Game

How do these theories apply to poker? There are three major aspects that affect the variance in poker – the bankroll/stakes ratio, game type and game style.

Stakes – this is the most obvious aspect. The size of your bankroll is always measured in multiples of stakes that are played (buyins, big blinds,…). If your bankroll is 30$ and you play a single 30$ SNG, the chance of going broke is very high – it is enough to lose the first game. On the other hand, if you play 1$ SNG, you would need to lose 30 games in a row to go broke, which is obviously far less likely to occur. Thus in order to decrease the chance of going broke and to avoid large swings choose lower stakes over the higher ones.

Style – there are countless ways to play poker and plenty of various strategies that can be applied. One of the basic characteristics of the game style is usually labelled as either conservative or aggressive. Conservative style prefers stricter pre-flop hand selection and often smaller pots. As a result, a conservative player usually wins a high percentage of small pots. On the other hand, aggressive style includes wide range of hands and, as the name suggests, sticking a lot of raises, re-raises and, inevitably, bluffs.

Consequently, an aggressive player loses a lot of small pots when the bluffs are unsuccessful but wins some huge pots when his loose table image pays off. This division is very basic and can easily be disputed. Nevertheless, it illustrates that your game style does affect the size and frequency of your bankroll swings and you should keep that in mind if your bankroll gets too small. If your bankroll is relatively large (compared to the stakes played) you are free to apply any style of play.

However, if your bankroll gets small, you need to avoid plays that jeopardize your bankroll. Risk aversion can potentially decrease the profitability of your play but cannot do the opposite. If this is the case (depending on the actual game style), you should move to lower stakes rather than playing higher stakes with lower or negative expectation.

Game – this is a non-variant parameter given by rules of a game. For example – in Holdem the range of winning percentages of individual hands is generally higher than in Omaha. In Holdem, AA is guaranteed to have 80% pre-flop, while 50-70% winning percentage is very common. In Omaha, AAKK usually does not have more than 75% and two random hands are likely to have 50-60% pre-flop odds. The smaller the winning percentages, the higher the amount of luck in every hand and therefore higher swings. Limit is also very important. No limit games allow huge pots and inevitably large swings. Fixed limit games have smaller average and maximum pots and hence smaller variance.