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#11
10-01-2006, 06:11 PM
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Re: Positive media
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[ QUOTE ] We’ll see what the markets do tomorrow. [/ QUOTE ] The markets are going to tank tomorrow. There's no question about that. [/ QUOTE ] Tomorrow is the day to back the f'ing truck up and buy every share you can of Party Gaming, Sportsbook, etc. US market will never look worse than tomorrow and the emerging China consumer class is still looming as the real source of revenue for this sector. 
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#12
10-01-2006, 07:07 PM
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Re: Positive media
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This was well worth listening too. Terms like “unenforceable” and “little change” are very comforting. We’ll see what the markets do tomorrow. [/ QUOTE ] Terms like PartyGaming et. al. will "radically redraw business plans" and the online gaming stocks are going to "tank" on Monday after suffering a "complete disaster" resulting from this bill are very discomforting. Overall a very interesting and informative piece though.
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#14
10-01-2006, 09:37 PM
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Re: Positive media
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Terms like PartyGaming et. al. will "radically redraw business plans" and the online gaming stocks are going to "tank" on Monday after suffering a "complete disaster" resulting from this bill are very discomforting. [/ QUOTE ] No kidding. Anyone who had the foresight to short sell IG stocks last week is going to catch a windfall tomorrow. The market panicked when Carruthers and Dicks were each arrested. Tomorrow is going to be an ugly day on the London Stock Exchange.
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#15
10-02-2006, 12:22 AM
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Re: Positive media
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Not sure if this is the right place but this link is to a national UK business radio show "Jeff Randall’s Weekend Business" on the BBC (Radio 5) – it has a listen again feature and the item starts after about 3 minutes, there is some pretty basic info in it but I think you will like the tone and the one bit of listener feedback at the end of the item. It has only just been broadcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/progra...business.shtml It also has a Professor Kelly from Gaming Law Review who thinks it will be unenforceable/unworkable. [/ QUOTE ] transcript of relevant segment of this radio show... Jeff Randall(host): with us tonight is Charlie Pretzlik companies editor of the Financial Times ... now Charlie I know you'll be keeping a close eye on the shares of British gaming companies this week, they're all over the place whats going on? CP: Well I think we'll see them absolutely tank first thing tomorrow morning they've suffered a complete disaster these co.s - whats happened is that over the weekend the US Congress voted through some legislation that people thought was very unlikely to get through and that cracks down heavily on internet gambling, this will hit companies like Party Gaming, 888 holdings, Sporting Bet. Many of them do a lot of business in the states Party Gaming make 3/4 of their revenues there and I think we'll see business plans being radically redrawn across the sector and it will basically affect them very very badly. JR: Now this Party gaming it's not long been a publically quoted co. has it? - it recently floated it's shares, it must be a bit of a shock. CP: Well it's a bit of a shock in the sense that noone expected this legislation to go through, there were warnings in the prospectuses when these co.s were all floated that there were legal uncertainties to put it blandly in the US so people should have seen the risk, but nevertheless the stocks have been moving very very dramatically everytime there is a rumour of a clampdown. JR: Thanks for that Charlie. So the US Congress has this weekend backed a bill aimed at cracking down on internet gambling. If it becomes law it'll make it illegal for banks and credit card co.s to process payments to online gaming companies. It'll effectively stop gamblers in the US from betting online, even if the casino is based overseas. Five Lives Nicolai Gentchev has been looking into this, Nicolai I thought that online betting was already banned in the states so what will this new law do? NG: Well up until now there hasn't been any legislation passed in the modern era of the internet, so this debates been all about how to interpret a 45 year old law, the Federal Wire Act of 1961. That made it illegal to use wire communications to place bets across states in the US. That 60's law interpereted by some including the US DOJ as meaning that all online gambling is illegal but some US courts have ruled to the contrary. Now what this new bill does is to get rid of that ambiguity. We're no longer arguing over the meaning of a law drafted before anyone had thought of the internet, now any bank or credit card company that processes a payment to an internet gaming company will be breaking the law. JR: But these banks and credit card companies are just doing their business why is the Senate going after them? NG: Well it's hard to shutdown a website directly because of the very nature of the internet and there was some discussion a while ago about targetting ISP's the internet service providers, but that ran into opposition from both the ISP's and civil liberties campaigners - and remember in the US civil liberties campaigners can be very conservative and very influential. There hasn't been so much controversy since the idea has been to target the credit card companies so it's them that are being targetted specifically and one of the reasons for it as well is that it takes aim at the mechanism that most people use to win and lose money online, if you like the lifeblood of the gambling industry. JR: Right, well it all sounds a bit hairy, are individual punters either in the states or in the UK going to end up in the slammer? NG: Well listeners who like to have an online flutter can sleep easy tonight because they are not going to face any prosecutions. One of the interesting questions this raises is whats going to happen to this industry? If you look back to the era of prohibition, and thats the thing that the US gambling companies and opponents of this law keep pointing to, by making alcohol illegal it meant that people were driven to give money effectively to the mafia. Now you've got over 2000 gambling websites around the world today, many of them may decide to shut up shop as a result of this legislation but if individuals aren't facing any sanction for gambling online, they're going to look for ways to find sites that are willing to break the law, and if you ask if this is going to happen with internet gambling it's the same sort of thing as with prohibition. I think that's a pretty safe bet. JR: Thanks for that Nicolai - we can now talk to professor Joseph Kelly. He's the co-editor of the industry magazine "Gaming Law Review" Professor welcome to the show. JK: Thank you very much. JR: Tell me the house of representatives and the senate have backed this now it just needs President Bush to sign it into law. How much of an influence will the forthcoming congressional elections have had on this decision? JK: O I don't think that much. There is some talk of the Christian right through one of it's spokesmen who is now in disgrace having stopped the bills in the past because of carveouts saying that these bills did not prohibit all internet gambling they carved out exceptions for the interstate horseracing industry and therefore expanded gambling, but I don't think it's going to have much impact on the fall elections. Interestingly it was sneaked into the port bill the last possible day of the session before the elections and it's about a 30 page bill. Interestingly as one of the other speakers said it will have no impact on the punter. Only one person has been proscecuted in the US for internet gambling as a punter, although the state of Washington has said that if you are a gambler you are committing a class C felony which is the same as sexual assault. But nobody is going to prosecute anyone under this. I agree that the stocks may indeed go down tomorrow but I don't think that it's going to have that much of a long range effect, because I don't think that they can stop financial transaction providers from providing access. The credit card companies have pretty much got out of internet gambling now. The real issue here is can you stop the electronic cash financial transaction providers? and all of them with the exception of PayPal are located outside of the US. One other comment, the Justice Department said really there's no need for any bill because all interactive internet gambling is already illegal, but our Judge made Law has said that the Wire Act referred to earlier by one of the speakers prohibits only sports betting and there is a shade of grey about all other forms of gaming. But I think in the long range the impact of this bill will be highly inneffectual. JR: What I don't understand Professor Kelly is this: That I've been to the states many times, you can have a bet in a casino, you can have a bet at a racetrack. Why are they going after online gambling? JK: Well the conspiracy theory that the big casinos don't want this is not true. The American Gaming Assoc. which is a trade organisation of casinos has said "Lets study this thing and decide whether it indeed can be regulated and taxed." and they have moved from a position of mildly hostile toward maybe neutral plus. We have something that you don't have in the UK the "religious right" the type of people who would like to begin dating things at "the earth was created in 4004BC at 9am Greenwich time. JR: We do have them Prof Kelly theres just not many of them. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] JK: LOL OK - and these individuals are very very powerful in congress. and of course we have plenty of gaming as you have pointed out. Many states have lotteries, many states have casinos, but these states often mandate that the casinos be connected with water for some unknown reason. They are located on barges that cannot possibly float... JR: Very American [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] JK: LOL - but the UK I think will not enforce this and the only way an online casino owner might be in jeapordy is if he or she is silly enough to travel to the US. NG: Prof Kelly we've seen a couple of British executives being arrested, do you think this will now embolden the US authorities with this clearerlegal footing to perhaps arrest yet more? JK: Well if they're sily enough to come to the US then yes, but really David Carruthers the real issue here was they were going after somebody else, a notoriously unsavoury character. Carruthers is barely mentioned in the inditement. and the Peter Dicks case was so silly that the NY Governor refused to extradite him to Louisiana, a place he hadn't been for over 20 years. But still if you are a UK gaming executive that accepts customers from the US I would not advise travelling to the US for the forseeable future. JR: Prof Kelly many thanks for joining us, much appreciated. A text here from Gillian on this very subject she says "What I want to know is why the govt. (thats the UK Govt) is so silent on the issue of the US ban on online gambling. Britain has spent the last 5 years legislating online gambling and encouraging responsible operators to locate here. When they have done so, floated on our stock exchanges, and pay UK tax should they not get some representation from the UK Govt. when their business is destroyed overnight by the US Senate?" Well good point Gillian.
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