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Bingo Day is looking to start this new year with a promotion that is almost too good to be true. This promotion will last for six months on a row, but is certainly worthwhile your time and effort as the reward is exotic, sunny and luxurious.    

Caribbean Bingo Cruise
The promotion we are talking about is the Bingo Cruise Promotion and this promotion will come to an end on June 30^th. Three lucky players will win tickets for the luxurious 7-day Bingo Cruise, a world-famous yearly recurring bingo spectacle. Last year 888ladies.com was kind enough to grant one of its roomies a set of tickets to this amazing event.

Win Tickets at Bingo Day
This year Bingo Day is the first to start a promotion for its bingo players to qualify for this amazing Caribbean adventure. The best news is that Bingo Day doesn’t just treat one roomie with a cruise ticket, but gives away 3 all-inclusive cruise packages worth a staggering £12,000!  

How to Win
In order to successfully compete in this bingo battle you have to play bingo as much as you can in the special Bingo Cruise games. For more information on the schedule of these games you can just take a quick peek in the Bingo Day lobby.

At the end of each month up until June 30^th the 20 top finishers of the month will join the Hall of Fame. Then when all monthly top 20 finishers have been determined, this group will battle it out in the final playoff at the end of June. The three best players will head to the port of Miami and hop on board of the Carnival Liberty to have the bingo cruise of a lifetime.

The French investment house Louis Dreyfus is preparing to buy a stake in Mangas Gaming, a 50-50, Paris-based Internet betting joint venture between Bains de Mer de Monaco and the holding company of French TV producer Stephane Courbit.

Louis Dreyfus will take part in a Mangas Gaming capital increase that will give it 25% ownership, while Courbit will reduce his stake to 25% and Bains de Mer de Monaco will keep its shareholding unchanged.

Mangas Gaming is now Europe’s third biggest internet betting group, after Austria’s Bwin and Gibraltar’s PartyGaming. The online gambling group, which owns BetClic, paid around $100 million for 60% of online poker company Everest Gaming on 16 December in a deal with parent group Gigamedia.

Earlier in the year, Mangas acquired Germany’s Bet-at-home and Scandinavian sports betting operator Expekt.

The company has over 4 million customers, 600 staff and a presence in 25 countries.

Louis Dreyfus notified the European Commission of its planned acquisition on 14 December and expects a decision by the middle of January.

Las Vegas Sands It has been an up and down year for US-based casino gaming stocks, and entering the final week of 2009, many stocks are looking to finish 2009 on a high note. One of those companies will be Las Vegas Sands, who will undoubtedly finish the year better than it began.

On January 2nd of this year, the US was dealing with one of the worst stock market crashes in history. Sands stock had dipped to $7.09 and many investors were concerned about the well being of the company.

Now, as the year closes, Sands stock has rebounded as well as can be expected with the economic conditions. Sands’ stock price is $15.33 entering the final week of trading this year.

Sands has been helped out this year by an initial public offering in Asia that raised over $3 billion. That money was used to restart projects in Singapore and Macau, and gave investors hope for the future of the company.

Other companies also enter the final week of 2009 looking to complete a nice turnaround. MGM Mirage stock is $9.50, and Wynn Resorts is trying to get over the $60 a share figure. Currently, Wynn stock is at $59.39. Wynn also had an Asian IPO earlier this Fall.

In America, a retired New York City policeman has won one million dollars after taking part in the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge on television and beating top professional player Daniel Negreanu head-to-head.

Fifty-three-year-old Mike Kosowski revealed that he took up poker out of boredom after retiring in 2004 and used a combination of good cards and the ability to read people to win the top prize.

“It’s unbelievable,’ Kosowski told the New York Post newspaper.

‘We’re still on an emotional high every day. Every day I wonder ‘Am I living a dream’.’

The retired detective was one of the first officers on the scene following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center eight years ago and was helping to evacuate survivors when the South Tower collapsed. He stated that he was thrown ten feet into the air and suffered burns to his neck and back.

The Staten Island man revealed that his wife, Francis, had encouraged him to pursue poker as a way to occupy his time and was happy for him to enter a 16,000-person online tournament on PokerStars.net in which he finished in fourth spot. That placing entitled Kosowski to submit a video to the programme’s producers explaining why he would make a good television contestant. He eventually asked to be an alternate and was flown with his wife to Los Angeles where the show was taped over the weekend of the couple’s anniversary.

“Playing against a pro is difficult because you know he knows the game inside and out,” said Kosowski.

“You can’t take as many risks as you would against some guy in Atlantic City.”

In the end, Kosowski was fortunate enough to get to play and won two consecutive four-person qualifier games in order to meet Negreanu heads-up. He revealed that he had researched his opponent by reading his book and watching Negreanu on television and had even figured out the Canadian’s ‘tell’.

“The only read I picked up on him was…you knew he didn’t have the best hand because he puts his hand behind the back of his head,” said Kosowski.

Poker fans in the US can watch Kosowski’s final hands on Sunday afternoon from five o’clock in the afternoon on Fox with the winner revealing that he will use his new-found wealth to pay off his mortgage while donating some money to charity.

“I just got lucky, you know, and I just played my game,” said Kosowski.

 

The top country for jackpots in 2009 was the United States of America.  In the land of the free, online casino players pocketed more than $50 million in payouts.

Next on the jackpot list are Canada, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. In 2009, there were more than 9,000 winners from these countries who pocketed approximately $100 million.

In positions six to ten are Greece, Australia, Germany, the Russian Federation, and South Africa.  Perhaps, the biggest surprise in this selection is the only representative from the continent of Africa. South Africa contribution to player payouts is minor compared to the top five but still merits a place in the top ten.

Leading the next ten, in positions 11 thru 14 are Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Japan. The remaining countries in the top 20 have collectively paid out only €8 million which is more than five times less than the USA alone.

The USA is still top of the charts despite UIGEA regulation and restrictions and Microgaming is still the preferred casino software provider with 14 of the top 20 most popular games.

The most popular games include Thunderstruck and Roulette but Mega Moolah is far and away the #1 choice in terms of jackpot winnings in 2009.

It’s good times at PartyGaming with a return to growth in the poker segment of its market. According to PartyGaming, revenue is in line with forecasts, while clean earnings before tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation were anticipated to be slightly ahead of the board’s expectations.

The company reports solid trading since September and the business has performed well in the fourth quarter showing revenue growth in all four of the company’s product verticals: bingo, poker, casino, and sports betting.

Jim Ryan, Chief Executive, said: "As indicated at the time of our third quarter key performance indicators, our business has continued to perform well across the board during the fourth quarter with a return to net revenue growth across all four of our key product verticals."

PartyCasino has grown with the addition of new games and higher jackpots and the bingo vertical has developed rapidly since the group bought Cashcade in July.

Sports betting has benefitted from a good run of results and improved risk management tools. The core vertical poker has also seen a return to growth.

The company also said pending gambling regulations in Italy and France represent significant revenue opportunities. Last month Partygaming launched an Italian online poker service with Fueps.

The company said Friday that it has agreed a new GBP35 million loan facility which it will use for general corporate purposes including mergers and acquisitions.

The European football governing body UEFA has announced that investigations into a possible case of corruption are in progress against a Bulgarian referee. Anton Genov has been named as the subject of the investigation after irregular betting patterns emerged regarding an international friendly last month, UEFA said on Wednesday.

“Following obvious irregular betting patterns on the Macedonia v Canada (friendly) on 14 November, and after interviewing the referee in question, UEFA has decided not to appoint Anton Genov to any European matches until further notice while more investigations are carried out,” UEFA announced in a statement.

In the match, four penalties were awarded, two to each side, during Macedonia’s 3-0 victory, according to Reuters news agency reports.

More clarity on the position of Ivobank has been achieved following a further statement from the online bank, advising that following a ‘strategic decision’ by the owners – the Indonesian billionaire family Sampoernas – the bank will be closing in an orderly manner.

Apparently the Sampoernas have decided to redeploy their resources to other investments, although banking sources yesterday hinted that the decision may have been spurred by the UK regulator the Financial Services Authority requiring the commitment of further funds to meet solvency levels.

Depositors and merchants will welcome the additional clarity following yesterday’s bald announcement that Ivobank was turning away new business without explaining why.

In the latest statement, the online bank said that its services will remain available to existing customers, and again reassured all concerned that account balances were safe and available for withdrawals, transfers or purchases at online sites.

Those of its merchants who have concerns should communicate via their usual contact points at Ivobank or to the bank’s regulatory chief, Ian Stevenson at Ian.Stevenson@ivobank.com, the statement advised.

The Sampoernas also own the Mansion online gambling group, but it is understood that this division of the company is not negatively affected by the Ivobank decision.

The closure comes close to the first anniversary of the bank’s launch last year.

Online gambling comes in many exciting and profitable forms: you can enter slots tournaments, blackjack tournaments, prize raffles, loyalty point competitions and a growing number of equally or even more entertaining fixtures.  

Different Forms of Gambling
If you’d like to get your Blackjack skills up to par then check out our handy Blackjack Trainer. If you like online slots tournaments then you must make your move at the upcoming Grand Slam of Slots. However, if you like something truly unique then continue reading about the new game going on at Wink Bingo.

Team Bingo
Online bingo is known to be a very social game, and with the new Team Bingo competition Wink Bingo puts this positive attribute to good use. When you start playing at Wink Bingo you automatically join a team of bingo roomies, which changes every two weeks to ensure a fair bingo battle.

Team Power at Wink Bingo
Every member of the team has to collect as many team bingo points as he or she possibly can in order to boost the team score. You can check out the score at the leader board on the Wink Bingo website, and the members of the team that comes out on top after two weeks will jointly share the grand prize of 170,000 bingo points.