Sin City Las Vegas has been voted the most stressful city by Forbes.com.

“Las Vegas has got its share of stressors,” says Kathleen Grace Santor M.Ed., Ed.S., a therapist and yoga instructor who founded the center and has studied stress for 15 years. “The 24-hour day requires employees to work 24 hours a day. They’re too busy, they have too much on their plate, and they’re always hurried.”

The Forbes.com piece points out that Las Vegas residents flood the Stress Management Center of Nevada daily looking for relief from their problems. Those problems include one of the worst real estate markets in the country and a recession that has taken a serious toll on the city with nearly 15 percent unemployment.

Forbes also suggests that Las Vegas residents exercise less than residents of any other city. In fact, 30 percent of those living in Vegas say they hadn’t exercised in the past month.

“Someone who exercises for 30 minutes a day is going to have a lower level of stress hormones in their bloodstream than someone who never does,” says Santos, who adds that the searing Las Vegas sun and biting desert winds inhibit outdoor exercise. “Right now nobody is going to go out walking. It’s not one of those nice places where it’s conducive to go for a walk and then come back and cook dinner.”

PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have been the two online poker industry power houses for the past four years, but there could finally be a chink in the honor showing according to PokerScout.com, a site that monitors Internet poker “real cash” traffic:

Whatever the cause, not even the Big Two are immune to the market malaise. PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker still maintain a combined market share of nearly 60%, but for the first time the combined traffic of the two sites is now in decline. PokerStars still maintains a small positive annual growth rate, but it is more than offset by Full Tilt Poker’s 8% drop.

The market malaise is liked a result of both a slow economy and an industry in flux that has had some difficulty maintaining adequate payment processing platforms due to current legislation.

The good news for poker is that we witnessed some growth in participation at this year’s World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Former top-60 player Daniel Koellerer and his manager, Manfred Nareyka, have been placed on two years’ probation because Koellerer’s personal website listed odds for matches and had links to sites for placing bets.

The Tennis Integrity Unit, the sport’s anti-corruption group, said Thursday that Koellerer and Nareyka “admitted” breaking rules about “facilitating betting.”

If found to violate anti-corruption rules in the next two years, Koellerer, a 27-year-old Austrian ranked 134th, would be fined about $19,000 and suspended for three months. Nareyka would be barred from access to tournaments for a year. Otherwise, the penalties would expire.
Koellerer was ranked 55th in 2009, when he reached the U.S. Open’s third round.

Matt Scuffham of Reuters on Thursday writes that the powerful online gambling firms of Sportingbet and 888, both publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange, must settle with U.S. law enforcement if they wish to enter the lucrative Stateside market should legislation pass this year allowing for Internet poker.

“The DoJ/U.S. issue needs to be resolved prior to anything happening,” a source close to one of the companies told Reuters.

Such a resolution would clear the way for the companies to re-enter the lucrative U.S. market assuming moves to overturn the 2006 legislation succeed. This essentially will make both online gambling firms more attractive to buyers.

Merger talks between PartyGaming and bwin only began after Party had agreed a $105 million settlement.

Norbert Teufelberger pointed to PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, which he says continue to operate in the U.S. illegally, but they have benefitted in huge ways since 2006.

“We pulled out, they didn’t. But we’ll see who was right in the end. We still believe we were correct and it’s pretty clear cut,” he tells eGaming Review.

Sportingbet is certainly a lucrative brand on the sports betting side.

KBC Peel Hunt’s Nick Batram said its position in Australia, where it is the country’s biggest bookmaker, would be of interest to traditional operators Ladbrokes (LAD.L) and William Hill (WMH.L), as well as to the combined Party/bwin entity.

“There are a lot of people out there who would like to buy Sportingbet. The value in that business is in its very strong market position in Australia. Bwin isn’t in Australia to any degree, while Ladbrokes and William Hill are not sizeable in Australia,” he said.
Liberum Capital analyst Richard Taylor agreed that Sportingbet was the “most attractive M&A play” in the sector.

Sportingbet shares have dropped by 10 percent since the start of the year, reflecting frustration it has yet to agree a U.S. settlement. 888 shares, meanwhile, have lost nearly two-thirds of their value.

The US government continues to focus their efforts on investigating payment processors that handle transactions for the gambling industry.

The UIGEA was implemented in June and it gave the US government the power to go after anyone that knowingly handles transactions for any of the offshore online gambling operators. While the UIGEA did not make online gambling illegal, it did make it illegal to knowingly process transactions related to online gambling within the US.

Ahmad Khawaja ran two payment processors that processed gambling transactions and just recently forfeited $13.3 million that was seized by the FBI in 2009. The agreement that was made by Khawaja and the US government will keep Khawaja from experiencing more legal troubles.

These payment processors were being used to process transactions at PokerStars, a popular online poker room, and other gaming sites. Since the UIGEA was implemented in June, the US government has focused entirely on payment processors instead of going after the operators.

South Korea has some of the strictest gambling laws in Asia, but it seems that online gambling is too difficult of a problem for them to take on.

Video gaming is immensely popular in South Korea among the youth, and it is well known that minors place bets against others on the outcome of the games. The Korean government has a policy that any licensed business that is found to be supplying illegal online gambling via their web site will lose their license to operate after the third offense. More than twenty licenses were revoked for illegal online gambling activities in 2010.

Online gambling is illegal in South Korea but it has been difficult for law enforcement to go after offshore gambling operators that accept Korean players. Their is only one land-based casino in South Korea that accepts the locals, while the majority of casinos cator directly to foreign visitors. Their was a major crackdown on online gambling in 2007, but legal experts believe that the government is no longer willing to invest any extra time or manpower on illegal gambling.

Cash-strapped governments are rolling the dice on online gambling, with Ontario joining B.C. and the Maritimes in setting up government-run online sites. Quebec is expected to announce one in September.

With up to $1 billion being bet on offshore Internet sites by Canadians, provincial governments want a piece of the pie.

Their justification is that they can aid charities, warn people on their sites about gambling addictions and, of course, pad government coffers.

The arguments in favour of state-sanctioned online gambling include the defensible position that it is better to have people lose their money at home to accountable governments that can use that money for the public good, rather than to some murky private company that only cares about its own profit.

Yet there is a much stronger ethical reason why governments should stay out of the online casino business. Once governments embrace online gambling, they sanction and legitimize one of the most problematic forms of gambling addiction.

Roughly one in five Internet gamblers have a problem — a rate three to four times higher than “land-based” gaming, according to a 2009 study by the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre.

The risk of problem gambling among people who gamble on the Internet is 37.9 per cent compared to 7.7 per cent for non-Internet gamblers.

Available 24 hours a day, with nobody to monitor intoxication levels or if the kids are using mom and dad’s credit card, online gambling is inherently more dangerous than VLTs, the so-called “crack cocaine” of gambling. Age verification systems notwithstanding, there are too many issues at stake for governments to ignore. This is not like the lottery ticket business.

According to Garry Smith, research co-ordinator for the Alberta Gambling Research Institute at the University of Alberta, “There’s potential in it for an increase in problem gambling, potential for the increase in youth gambling. It’s very hard to supervise people. They can do it at home. There’s no precautions out there. It would be difficult to stop money laundering using it, and (it) might just increase people’s overall gambling rate.”

People who might never otherwise visit an online site for reasons of security might be far more willing to go on a government site. If the government says it’s OK, it must be fine.

Alberta should avoid going down this road.

Alberta has the second-highest proportion of problem gamblers in Canada (2.2 per cent of the population), the third-highest proportion of moderate problem gamblers (1.7 per cent) and is average in the proportion of severe problem gamblers (0.4 per cent) compared to other provinces, according to a study by the Canadian Psychiatric Association.

This small percentage of the population generates 41 per cent of all gambling revenue, according to a University of Lethbridge study.

For a government to potentially take even more money from addictive people in the uncontrolled online environment.

Australian casino news sees the crime theme continue with this report that a major Aussie – Chinatown criminal syndicate has been busted. Casino chips, drugs, guns… you name it. Crown Casino has been attracting colourful and worldwide headlines of late, and this latest turn of events is no exception. Something fishy in Chinatown and in Crown’s VIP mahogany room. Pink Panther, Naked Gun and Heist to the scene…

A Crown Casino VIP high roller and a Chinatown restaurateur personality are accused of heading up a Melbourne crime syndicate targeted by police over the past 48 hours in a series of explosive raids, arrests and record-breaking asset seizures.

The alleged crime bosses of the multi-million dollar Melbourne drug ring that spent massive sums on property, gambling and overseas interests are set to appear in court after overnight out-of-sessions hearing.

Crown Casino high roller Thi Nho Le and husband Thanh Hai Pham, both 46, spent the night in police cells with 6 other alleged members of the syndicate.

Police allege it trafficked more than 30 kilograms of heroin in Melbourne and earned over $20 million in the past 9 months.

Named and known as the Le Syndicate after the family that allegedly controls it, Ms Le’s younger sister Thi Nho Em Le, her brother and their partners all faced a court hearing at St Kilda Road police complex early yesterday morning.

Thi Nho Em Le’s partner, businessman and restaurateur Kai Sin Mong, is also alleged to be a key player in the syndicate that police state has built a business empire including a Chinatown restaurant and a western-suburbs based petrol station.

The group is accused of manufacturing and distributing large amounts of heroin, from locations including a flat in Napier Street, Fitzroy, laundering money and loaning money to other drug cartels and gamblers.

Detective Acting Sergeant James Cole told the court that members did business at James Packers’ Crown Casino’s high-roller Mahogany Room, purchased a number of properties and businesses to conceal the proceeds of crime and sent money offshore to Vietnam, including a recent whopping $920,000 money transfer.

This was allegedly used to create a multi-million dollar property portfolio, which may have been kicked along by plans to purchase a United States $2.5 million hotel.

The mob aka triad were among 21 people arrested in a series of raids at properties in Melbourne’s western and inner-northern suburbs, including Fitzroy commission flats, after a painstaking 10-month investigation.

The Australian Crime Commission and Victoria Police operation, code-named Sethra, seized an estimated $3 million of heroin and about $20 million in houses and assets – a Victorian record.

All 8 accused, speaking through a Vietnamese interpreter during the out-of-sessions hearing, applied for bail, with most advising they had to care for their children or grandchildren.

Each alleged syndicate member, ages from 32 to 60, was deemed an unacceptable flight risk to say the least.

The court heard that the alleged drug ring operated partly out of the Napier Street commission flats, with Thi Nho Em Le, her brother Muoi Van Le and their partners sharing an apartment.

Detective Acting Sergeant Cole told the hearing that covert surveillance detected people regularly going there to purchase heroin.

One of the accused, Kim Thi Huynh, who lived in a nearby flat, allegedly used a minor (human – not bird breed) to pick up heroin that she then sold to street dealers.

Police allegedly recovered a modest $21,000 from the Le residence in Napier Street in yesterday’s raids.

They also are understood to have located $345,970 in cash, $54,500 in Crown Casino chips and 350 grams of heroin.

A raid earlier this month on a Carlton flat linked to the syndicate allegedly netted police around $595,000 in cash, $50,000 in Crown Casino chips and 1.66 kilograms of heroin.

This allegedly prompted Thi Nho Le and her sister to discuss selling the property without ever returning there, in a conversation captured on phone intercepts and relayed to the court.

Thi Nho Le and Thanh Hai Pham, of Keilor Downs, and Thi Nho Em Le, Kai Sin Mong, Muoi Van Le and Nea Thi Pham, of Fitzroy, all face charges relating to trafficking large commercial quantities of a “drug of dependence”.

Houng Vo, of Fitzroy, faces one charge of trafficking a large commercial quantity of a drug of dependence while Kim Thi Huynh faces a similar charge along with trafficking a drug of dependence to a child.

They will face Melbourne Magistrates Court, along with four other alleged members of the organisation who were charged with drug related offences in and bailed in.

The syndicate is 1 of many connected multimillion-dollar crime cells targeted by the ACC and police agencies in Melbourne and Sydney in the 7. It’s understood only a small amount of these crime fun and and games were covered in Network Nine hit ‘Underbelly’, next season tipped to cover Brisbane as well as the Gold Coast.

ACC national manager Richard Grant alleged that “this is a group that, not that long ago, we seized 5 blocks of heroin and $645,000 cash and this group didn’t miss a heartbeat”.

Victoria Police sources advised the operation was successful due to the powers and reach of the small but powerful ACC, which targets Australia’s most senior crime figures.

The $40 million in assets expected to be seized in Operation Sethra equates to almost half the ACC’s yearly budget! Go the bean counters.

The operation flowed from an earlier ACC inquiry into the movement of suspected drug money offshore via money remitters, international airline staff and bank transfers.

The 2005 inquiry, code-named Gordian-Katakan, confirmed that the majority of illicit drug shipments enter down under Australia undetected and are then distributed for massive profits, often sent offshore. The inquiry uncovered more than a dozen drug-trafficking cells operating down the east coast, netting hundreds of millions of dollars.

Victoria Police Detective Inspector Doug Potter said further arrests would be made.

“The syndicate that has been operating in Melbourne has international links and we will be following up a number of inquiries in regards to those links.”

Crown Casino powers that be have been cooperating with Police and the crime syndicate arrests are music to the ears of Crown. The Mahogany Room will not miss the alleged triad element.

A leak advised, “Crown loves their whales and high rolling VIPs, but not those engaged in criminal enterprises. Crown is focused on a total entertainment experience and undesirables are not welcome. It’s been out pleasure to assist Australian and international law enforcement agencies”.

Crown Casino is considering if they should upgrade their casino chips policy and procedures.

A responsible gambling organization is optimistic about Ontario government plans to get into the online gaming business.

“Internet gambling is already universally available, so the question is: What’s the safest way to provide it?” said John Kelly, CEO of the Responsible Gambling Council.

The council is a national organization working to prevent the development of gambling addiction.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation announced plans to develop an online gaming program last week. Kelly said his organization will consult with the government during the 18 months allotted for development of the program.

He said the Toronto-based council has a list of methods that, if implemented in the new online system, will help prevent problem gambling.

“We’ve done a study on different kinds of safeguards used on Internet gambling sites around the world,” he said.

“There are safeguards that you can build into technology that are harder to do in a land-based casino.”

He said one standard practice used to curb problem gambling can be better implemented online.

Gamblers volunteer to be put on an exclusion list, essentially banning themselves from all casinos in Ontario, but Kelly said the procedure isn’t always effective in casinos.

“There are thousands of people going in, so you can’t always see the person,” he said. “But imagine if it’s technological. If you have an account and a card and you try to get back in, the capability of the organization to keep you out after you’ve excluded yourself is much greater.”

He said another preventive measure advocated by problem gambling organizations is called precommitment. A gambler decides in advance how much they’re prepared to lose to avoid overspending at a table or slot machine.

Kelly said an online version of this method would be more effective.

“The system will notify you when you’ve approaching your limit and then shut down your account once you’ve reached it,” he said. “It’s sort of like Visa. If you’re cut off Visa, then you’re out. There’s no way to use your card — it’s electronic.”

Ontario Lottery and Gaming claims Ontarians spend around $400 million annually on mostly offshore online gambling sites.

Kelly said a government-regulated site is a necessary alternative to the online venues currently available.

“In some countries, all you do is pay $125 and then open a gambling site,” he said. “You could be gambling on a website and have no idea where you’re gambling. You could be in Costa Rica or eastern Europe.”

Kelly said any system will need effective controls because the risk of becoming a problem gambler online is high.

“Second only to betting with a bookie,” he said.

“We did a study in 2005 that found 3.5% of people in Ontario gamble online.”

John Pliniussen, associate professor of Internet marketing at Queen’s University, said a move to online gambling is essential if the OLG wishes to survive in the current e-commerce culture.

“If we agree that government should be involved in gambling, then this is the necessary venture,” he said. “It’s time to stay involved if they want to stay in the business.”

Pliniussen said the current development phase of the website will be crucial to OLG’s future success.

“As soon as you decide to move online, you’re competing in a different world,” he said. “The key is to focus on making the site unique. They need to be thinking: ‘What can we do that’s going to make people say wow?’ ”

Queen’s University Chaplain Brian Yealland speaks for Gambling Watch Network Ontario. He said he fears the government’s plans will bring the province into a complicated situation.

“If I was premier, it wouldn’t be my favourite file,” Yealland said. “It’s a funny relationship for a government to have with it’s citizens.

“It digs everybody in deeper.”

Yealland said the provincial government doesn’t have a choice. “There’s a lot of money coming from people who are in trouble,” he said. “It’s either going to go offshore or into our coffer.

“This just puts the government on the gravy train.”

“The Hanson report commissioned by Christie to consider an overall plan for the state’s gaming business does not deal with sports betting. There is a huge market for sports betting; a lot of money is bet illegally on the Super Bowl alone. It would appear that public opposition to legalization is fading and obstacles can be overcome. The activity is already there, and it is pure logic that we take advantage. State Sen Ray Lesniak, D-Union, may lead the way.”

Former NJ Governor Brendan T. Byrne:

“This is a heck of an endorsement for state-regulated sports betting (in New Jersey),” remarked Joe Brennan, Jr, whose trade organization is working with other political figures in the state to get sports betting legalized, including online.

Byrne’s remarks come as New Jersey’s current Governor, Chris Christie, is working to take over Atlantic City and make it “more consumer friendly”. Christie opted out of a lawsuit filed by Brennan’s group, The Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association that looks to change existing laws that prohibit sports betting in the state. Skeptics believe Christie had no other choice with the NFL offering the Super Bowl to the state in 2014. The National Football League is staunchly against legalized sports betting.

iMEGA commissioned an economic development study by Econsult, a Philadelphia-based firm, to provide a conservative baseline projection of the economic benefits for an in-state only system, as well as a baseline should New Jersey establish itself as the hub for the industry nationally and internationally.

With the creation of an intra-state Internet gambling system, Econsult estimated that New Jersey could see the creation of up to 1,900 job, $250 million in annual gross gaming revenue and up to $55 million in annual state gaming taxes. Projecting outward, Econsult estimated that conservatively, New Jersey stands to realize the creation of up to 57,000 jobs, $7 billion in annual gross gaming revenue and up to $472 in annual state gaming taxes should it establish itself as the dominant hub for the industry.

“This industry has to offer more than just an opportunity for the state and operators to take revenue out of the population,” said Brennan. “It can have a more direct, positive affect than just increased tax revenues for the state to utilize for services. Being an engine for real job creation and attracting investment, and the opportunity to be the global hub for a high-tech industry is a much more meaningful opportunity for legislators to consider.”