Estimates suggest that Americans still account for over 80% of online poker players and that they participate in more than 55% of online gambling activities.

Nevada, Louisiana, Michigan and Illinois currently prohibit online gambling and many other state legislatures say that they intend to introduce similar legislation.

California, Massachusetts, South Dakota and Utah forbid certain forms of online gambling.

Thirty years ago, Atlantic City was just another seaside resort with a famous boardwalk and a pier but on May 26, 1978 it became a town with dazzling promises. 

Recent fears of a declining economy, higher gas prices, nearby competition and smoking restrictions have not deterred investors however and they are positioning their bets on building 10,000 more hotel rooms in order to make Atlantic City not just a fun day for day trippers that arrive with a roll of quarters but also for visitors looking for a great destination resort.

“We have been advised that the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is conducting a widespread investigation of internet gambling, including poker. Although we do not believe we have done anything illegal, we do not wish to be associated with anything that might be considered illegal by the United States government.”

PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have now stopped offering ePassporte as a payment option on their sites but according to anecdotal evidence on various forums, ePassporte is allowing players to withdraw money from their accounts.

Now that ePassporte is no longer processing online gambling transactions, American players have very few deposit and withdrawal options.

PokerEChecks.com, which powers the Instant eCheck option at PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker has jumped into the fight however and is now strongly promoting its own service with ads like, “Poker Echecks are a great alternative to ePassporte and are fast, reliable and safe”.

Instant eChecks can’t be used for withdrawals however so the only way for most players American players to get their cash now will be by check.

ACDL says on its website that it plans to develop “a five-star coastal paradise consisting of casinos, five stunning resorts, and a gorgeous 200-acre golf course set on the white-sand beaches of Vung Tau Province”.

Although gambling is officially banned in Vietnam and is regarded as a “social evil”,  it does allow tourists to visit a casino in the port of Haiphong.

Growth was shown at 14% and it’s perhaps not surprising to discover that U.S. internet users are also looking hard for an online casino fix.

According to ZDNet the top search engine being used by U.S. citizens is Google with 68% of the search engine results whilst Yahoo finished with 18% of the traffic. Next in line was MSN with 12% and then AOL with a little over 4% and lastly Ask.com getting 2.4% of the search engine traffic in the U.S.

Approximately 68% of U.S. online search engine users only click on the first page of search results which is a very a important fact in the internet supremacy war and is the very reason why it is so important to get on the top list of search engines.

ZDNet estimated that  Web 2.0 will gain $4.6 billion by the year 2013 and one thing is for sure and that’s that online gambling won’t be loosing ground anytime soon!

David Clainer, senior vice president for Absolute Poker commented, “With nearly one million hands dealt since the last hit on July 3rd, our Bad Beat Jackpot had climbed to over $464 000. Online poker players flooded the site in record numbers for a shot at winning an unfathomable amount of cash just by losing a hand. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”.

After toasting his win at Sportingbet’s London offices, the young office assistant and his entourage were taken out to dine after which he and his very happy fiancée went on a huge shopping spree.

Mr. K. Vasileiadis staked a relatively small amount ($40) on the Super Seven’s online slot machine and won the massive jackpot of $1,500,000 !

This win was the largest online casino win in Greece ever and the biggest casino win at Sportingbet!

“Cisco is capitalizing on the casino market’s transition from analog to digital video equipment”, says Howard Lock who is the director of transportation and hospitality for Cisco’s Internet business group.

In addition to added surveillance, Harrah’s will use Cisco’s Digital Media System for digital signs and while it’s not clear exactly how Harrah’s will use this, the technology appears to offer a number of innovative techniques that are right out of tomorrow’s science fiction.

Harrah’s will also use Cisco’s ‘TelePresence’ video conferencing in several locations in order to improve the service in its guest rooms and also offer a much simpler check-in and check-out process.

A memorandum attached to the ‘National Gambling Amendment Bill’ said that “the interactive gambling industry is currently unregulated and generally plagued by crime. This situation has resulted in a considerable loss of revenue to the national treasury and compromises the country’s reputation as a responsible global citizen”.

The new bill aims to address the negative socio-economic effects that are associated with gambling and will deal specifically with the issues of problem gambling, player protection, licensing, taxation and advertising.

The bill also allows for an electronic monitoring system to help root out potentially addictive behavior and to restrict credit advances to those players.

President Thabo Mbeki must still sign the bill into law before it comes into effect.

The upgraded ‘PartyPoints’ program now gives players the chance to earn points at up to 400 percent of the standard rate and there’s also the chance to hit a private level beyond that.

Points can be earned on any of the PartyGaming brands including PartyPoker, PartyCasino, PartyBets, Gamebookers.com, PartyBingo and PartyGammon and exchanged for cash and tournament entries.