A Great Bluff…

Happy Holidays!!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!

As I will be visiting with family and friends over the holidays, I may not be able to update the site as often.  In any event, I’d just like to take this opportunity to wish each and everyone one of you a safe and enjoyable holiday season.

All the best for 2008,

CasinoCritic

aka FreddyB

United Tote teams with Phantom Fiber to offer mobile wagering

Youbet.com’s (NASDAQ:UBET) United Tote subsidiary has signed a multi-year agreement with Phantom Fiber Corporation (OTCBB: PHFB) to deliver a mobile phone wagering solution that is fully integrated with the totalizator systems used by UT customers. The mobile service, which can be delivered on a wide variety of cellular phones, will let players view race programs, place wagers, manage their accounts and view historical transactions.
The two companies plan to demonstrate a prototype of the new service at the upcoming Symposium on Racing and Gaming being conducted December 3-8 in Tucson under the auspices of the University of Arizona’s Race Track Industry program. The product is expected to be deployed by the end of the first quarter of 2008.

United Tote will deliver the mobile service alongside its current suite of pari-mutuel wagering products, including its award winning EnterBet™ wagering software. Wagers through the new mobile platform will be merged with host tote systems and subject to jurisdictional oversight. Phantom Fiber’s proprietary mobile platform supports more than 1,500 devices.

‘The alliance with Phantom Fiber furthers Youbet’s strategic effort to deliver on-demand pari-mutuel wagering services that rely on modern technology to connect with a whole new generation of customers,” said Jeff True, President of United Tote. “This step makes the wagering interface completely portable. So, it’s a logical extension given the evolution and growing popularity of mobile applications. We’re happy to be teamed with Phantom Fiber because they offer superior solutions across the broadest array of mobile devices.”

Jeff Halloran, Chairman and CEO of Phantom Fiber Corporation said that his company is excited about the opportunity to work with United Tote, a clear leader in technology development for racing. “This alliance will help to validate the mobile framework,” he said. “By taking advantage of Phantom Fiber’s technical edge – including rich, multimedia delivery and end-to-end secure data transactions – we expect to set new standards for mobile delivery in horse racing.”

About United Tote Company

United Tote designs, manufactures, and operates pari-mutuel wagering systems for more than 150 racing companies and numerous OTB facilities in North America and around the world. The company, established in 1959 and acquired by Youbet.com, Inc. in 2006, is recognized as the technology leader in open architecture network hub systems, terminal products and wagering applications. United Tote has hosted the Kentucky Derby for thirteen years supporting large onsite and merged handle increases. United Tote systems and terminals process more than $7 billion annually in global pari-mutuel handle. The company has proven its service and system capability by consistently setting performance records at America’s premier racing events. More information a can be found at www.unitedtote.com.

About Phantom Fiber Corporation

Phantom Fiber Corporation is a leading developer of wireless platform software that enables its customers to deliver high-performance applications across global communications networks to mobile users. Their wireless platform extends the rich multimedia content and user experience of existing Internet web sites securely and instantly to over 1,500 mobile devices including cellular phones and PDA’s. This platform is already deployed to most segments of the global gaming industry and can be used by enterprises seeking to implement high performance mobile applications in such markets as: remote video surveillance; banking and brokerage applications; as well as the logistics and distribution markets. For more information about Phantom FIber, please visit our web site at www.phantomfiber.com.

Online Giants Settle With US Government

In America, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have agreed to pay $31.5 million to settle a Government probe into their roles in promoting online gambling dating back a decade.
The settlements mark the latest development in a US crackdown on online gambling that also included the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).

According to the United States Department Of Justice, Microsoft’s settlement totals $21 million, including $4.5 million to the Government and a $7.5 million contribution to the International Center For Missing And Exploited Children.

Microsoft also agreed to fund a nine million dollar advertising campaign aimed at showing young web users that online gambling is illegal under US law.

Google agreed to pay three million dollars to settle similar charges while Yahoo’s bill came to $7.5 million in addition to a clause to fund an online public service campaign discouraging online gambling.

‘These sums add to the over $40 million in forfeitures and back taxes this office has already recovered in recent years from operators of these remote-control illegal gambling enterprises,’ said Catherine Hanaway from the Department Of Justice.

‘Honest taxpayers and gambling industry personnel who do follow the law suffer from those who promote illegal online behaviour.’

None of the companies admitted wrongdoing in settling allegations that they received payments from online gambling businesses for advertising. The three could have been prosecuted under the Federal Wire Wager Act, Federal wagering excise tax laws and various state statutes and municipal laws prohibiting gambling had they not settled.

Gambling software provider signs up anonymous Asian licensee

30 November 2007

Industry observers were speculating on the identity of a mystery Asian-facing online gambling licensee as the week closed, following a statement to the London stock exchange by industry software developer Playtech.

In the statement, Playtech revealed that it has signed up what it describes as a “significant” Asian-facing licensee – but could not release the identity of the mystery company due to “reasons of confidentiality”.

The statement did say that Playtech is to provide the unidentified operator with new Asian-focused peer-to-peer games, and claimed that the new licensee has a “strong and diversified presence in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The contract is “material to the future profitability” of the firm and Playtech announced that it is “expected to become earnings enhancing during the second quarter of 2008”.

Playtech CEO Mor Weizer said: “This is a significant new business win for Playtech and comes after lengthy contract formalities with the licensee.” He added that the scale of the operator and its large client base would make it a “very valuable addition” to the Playtech stable.

“The additional tools and features that we have developed for this operator will further strengthen Playtech’s market-leading position in the vast Asia-Pacific market,” Weizer said. “This licensee has deep-rooted experience and market reach and we foresee additional benefits for Playtech, particularly for our new Asia-facing games which we start rolling out over the next two quarters.”

We say our goodbyes to a Poker Legend…RIP Chip Reese

December 6, 2007Rumors started flying this morning carrying the sad news that poker legend Chip Reese had passed away. First reported by Daniel Negreanu, a friend of Reese, on his Full Contact Poker forum and picked up by 2+2 and other media sites, the news is still “technically” unconfirmed, but a false report by someone of Negreanu’s stature in the poker world would be inconceivable.

Reese was the youngest poker pro ever to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame after winning three WSOP Bracelets and countless major poker tournament cashes. His first WSOP bracelet came back in 1978 in the $1,000 Seven-Card Stud Split event and was followed in 1982 with a win in the $5,000 Limit Seven-Card Stud event. His most recent bracelet was for winning the inaugural $50,000 HORSE event in 2006, in which he and Andy Bloch set a record for a heads-up match at seven hours.

According to Wikipedia, Reese was born in 1951 in Centerville, Ohio, where he started playing poker at age five. He would go on to attend Dartmouth and then turn down an offer to attend Harvard, opting for Stanford Business School instead. After a tournament win of $40,000 in Vegas, he quit school and started playing poker professionally. Reese also wrote the seven-card stud section for the seminal poker strategy book, Doyle Brunson’s Super System.

RIP, Chip Reese. He was 56 years old.