Online casino news including the English Poker Open

This year’s online casino news has generally been about our major online casino operators positioning themselves to take advantage of the expected relaxation of the American online gaming laws, but it would appear that some European governments are heading in the other direction. The latest country to pass laws to restrict online gambling and betting exchanges is Cyprus, and this has provoked an angry response from Betfair amongst others. Betfair is reported to generate as much as £14 million of its revenue in Cyprus and is now threatening legal action to limit the effect this measure is likely to have on its profitability. Certainly the news from Cyprus had a severe effect on the share price of Betfair last week. On another front, and again not particularly good news for one of our online casino operators was a statement from Bwin party that this year’s profits could well be hit by what they consider were too predictable results from the Euro 2012 football championships. As with most of the major online casino operators, their online sports gambling activities represent a significant portion of their business alongside their revenue from online casino games. Other casino news this month includes the English Poker Open, which is due to be held at the Fox Poker Club in Shaftesbury Avenue in London between the 18^th and 21^st September. This is of course a live poker tournament, but serious online casino poker players also have the opportunity to qualify through the online qualifying programme which started on the 4^th of this month. With a guaranteed £250,000 pot, this is a serious poker tournament which will undoubtedly attract the attention of live poker tournament players and experienced online poker enthusiasts. If you miss the online qualifiers, there will be a number of live qualifying events in early September.