With the U.S. Senate scheduled to reconvene next week, opponents of a measure that would severely restrict Internet gambling by Americans are on high alert.

Groups monitoring the legislation include privacy advocates, Texas hold ‘em sit-n-go tournament junkies and diehard Let It Ride loyalists.

It’s a disparate collection united by a single philosophy - allowing the federal government to forbid people from gambling on their computers would be the most un-American of activities.

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Richard Lee, who finished 6th in the WSOP Main Event and won $2.8 million is the target of the San Antonio police who believe he is at the heart of an illegal online gambling bookmaking operation.

Bodog Poker can breathe a sigh of relief that they only chose to sponsor Jamie Gold, currently being sued for half his winnings and in the middle of his own scandal. Read Bodog about Jamie Gold

Richard Lee looks like he is in a lot more trouble than Jamie Gold, however. Vice detectives from San Antonio have been gathering evidence on Lee for months, and seized gambling receipts for over half a million dollars in winnings.

Several houses were raided but Richard Lee’s is regarded as the “nerve center” of the online gambling website that was very stupidly run out of America, where that is expressly forbidden.

Police are in the process of seizing many valuable possessions, and one has to wonder whether they will take the $2.8 million Lee won at the World Series Of Poker as well.

Everything comes in threes, doesn’t it? So, one wonders what the next 2006 WSOP Main Event scandal will be…

from online-gambling-insider.com

FanSpot.com has been launched this week by the company who is extending their business ventures from publishing sports pricing guides for trading cards, to an online networking site for sports fans.

The company, which is based in Dallas, started the site to have a place where sports fans can go to blog, create home pages, and make lists of friends. Also the members can create enemy lists, which for people who are fans of rival teams.

The idea has been in the works since September, and since “Beckett Baseball Card Monthly” has over 725,000 customers, it seems to be the next step for these people to go online to have discussions with each other.

The focus of the web site is to bring all of the water cooler chatter and sports bar dialogue to the internet.

Several other companies have launched similar web sites this summer including, YourSportsFan.com, PicksPal.com, and SportsMates.com. None, however, have the reputation of the Beckett empire.

casinogamblingweb.com

The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), a leading trade group in Washington D.C., is fighting against the proposed law that would block electronic transfers between U.S. gamblers and Internet casinos.

The banking association is the highest-profile group to date that has come out against the Internet gaming ban, joining the San Francisco-based Poker Players Alliance, which has 100,000 members.

The lobbying group represents 5,000 community banks all over the U.S., said that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for banks to monitor electronic payments from gamblers to the Internet, because the wire transfers are not coded to show what type of business is doing the billing.

“ICBA recognizes the concerns that some of your colleagues have raised about Internet gambling,” a spokesman for ICBA said. “We urge Congress to recognize that the nation’s banks have already taken on major responsibilities to help detect and prevent terrorist financing and illegal money laundering. Attempting to monitor and block gambling transactions, particularly given the limits of the current payment technology, could detract from those efforts.”

The association said that smaller banks simply do not have the capability to stop gamblers from using paper-checks to move money into gambling accounts. The proposed law might require them to do so, however.

According to the ICBA, unlike credit card transactions, which include a code that identifies the type of business receiving payment, uncoded transactions — electronic payments and personal checks — don’t provide this information.

The proposed law is frustrating not only to bankers, but to those involved in the industry of online gaming too.

“I wish they were just trying to regulate us or tax us,” Michael Bolcerek, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance said, of the U.S. government.

onlinecasinocrawler.com

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Major online casino operator 888.com has followed up on the success of previous sports-linked new slots by releasing two more themed video slot games developed by the in-group software company Random-Logic.

The games, Top Spin Snooker and Goals of Gold, are available on the downloadable Casino-on-Net software program.

Top Spin Snooker lets players get involved in the excitement of the 888.com-sponsored World Snooker Championship, whilst Goals of Gold transports players straight into an action-packed football game. Both video slots feature quality graphics and exciting bonus rounds.

Mike Herea, promotions department manager for 888.com, said that the four original video slot games launched by his company had received such a good response that management had decided to provide more on the same themed concept of video slots with sporting themes. “We’ve combined these two already great pastimes and created video slot games without comparison,” Herea claimed.

Betting amounts on the two new video slots range from 5 cents to $10 per line, with up to nine active paylines per game.

online-casinos.com

NEW YORK (Reuters)SpiralFrog, a new online music service, on Tuesday said it reached an agreement with Universal Music Group to offer free downloads of its songs and is trying to reach similar deals with other record labels.

The service, to be launched in December, experiments with a new business model that is funded entirely by advertising, as opposed to the pay-per-song model of Apple Computer Inc.’s market-leading iTunes music store.

New York-based SpiralFrog said it intends to share advertising income with its partners.

This means consumers can log on to spiralfrog.com and download songs from Universal’s roster, which includes U2, Gwen Stefani and The Roots, in the Windows Media format for their computers and compatible music players.

The Sands Casino online has been in the news a good deal over the past few days for the huge Cryptologic jackpots that they are giving out, the latest was worth almost a half of a million dollars.

The Rags to Riches progressive slot was won at The Sands yesterday and it paid out a wopping $404,273, just ten thousand dollars less than their previous payout record of $414,119.

Karen from Virginia won the jackpot at Rags to Riches, but the bigger news may be the massively growing jackpot at The Sands’ Millionaire’s Club progressive slot game. Yesterday we reported that jackpot had reached a world record $4 million dollars, today it is standing strong at nearly $4.2 Million.

The Sands Casino online is one of the very few online casinos that uses the Cryptologic software. InterCasino is another casino that uses Cryptologic which features incredible lobby graphics, the most amazing Marvel Comic slots in the world and a payout rate of 97.5%.

CasinoGamblingWeb.com

A man in England might collect over 3/4 million dollars for winning a series of bets placed ten years ago on whether or not his child would become a professional athlete. The son is now 16 years of age and has a tremendous shot at becoming a professional athlete for England.

Gary Nichols, who is now 45 years old, placed a $285 wager about 10 years ago that his son would eventually become a professional soccer player for England.

Mr. Nichols plans to give all of the winnings to his son as a gift for his tremendous hard work and perserverance over the years. Rupert Adams, spokesman for bookmakers where Mr. Nichols placed the bet said this, “The boy darn sure looks to have a cracking chance!”

CasinoGamblingWeb.com

Bodog.com the online gambling giant that sponsored Jamie Gold has issued a statement regarding the lawsuit filed against him by Bruce Crispin Leyser.

Jamie Gold won the 2006 WSOP Main Event and the $12 million first prize, but Lesyer has sued him for half those winnings.

Bodog Poker announced the following:

“We made the final decision to include Jamie Gold on Team Bodog in the World Series Of Poker due to his aid in setting up our celebrity team, his successful tournament background, and his master-student relationship with Johnny Chan. We are unaware of any side deal he may have made in obtaining these celebrities.”

Gold ingratiated himself with Bodog claiming to be a successful former talent agent who could find celebrities for the team. He then asked Leyser to help him set up the team after he failed to snag a single celebrity sign-up on his own steam, and apparently left voicemials saying that in exchange for that help he would split is WSOP Main Event winnings with Leyser. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen.

The funniest part of Bodog’s statement is where they say that Gold had a “master-student relationship with Johnny Chan.” Read some of Gold’s interviews and it becomes clear that Chan was hardly a mentor and their relationship became far deeper once it was apparent that Gold was going to win the main event.

online-gambling-insider.com