BINGOLAD

Zynga Gaming Network Adds Konami, Two Other Game Makers

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:21:10 -0800

(Reuters) - Japan’s Konami Corp and two other game makers have joined Zynga’s new gaming network, potentially drawing players to the fledgling service that Zynga hopes will reduce its dependence on Facebook.

Konami is the first publicly traded games company to join the service, which was announced last week, in a sign that Zynga is gaining momentum finding publishing partners willing to share revenue with it. The service has now signed on six publishers.

The website, Zynga.com, became open to the public on Monday, allowing users to make personal profiles and play games.

The service is the online game company’s most aggressive move yet to create a presence outside of Facebook, where it makes 93 percent of its revenue. Zynga went public in a much anticipated initial public offering last December.

Rob Dyer, head of partner publishing at Zynga, told the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on Thursday that Konami is working on a new game that will be published on Zynga.com at a future date.

“We’re dedicated to creating the best destination for social games for players and developers alike,” Dyer said.

Zynga is offering companies technology, analytics and the chance to market games to Zynga’s 240 million monthly users.

Playdemic, another games company, will bring social games “Gourmet Ranch” and “Crossword Buddies” to the platform, while publisher Rebellion will make a new social game for Zynga, the companies said in a statement.

Zynga’s redesigned website will make it easier for users to begin playing games quickly, by offering features not available on Facebook such as access to live chatting and a message board where they can ask for help.

But the so-called Zynga Platform still retains close ties to Facebook, as users must log in with their Facebook IDs and players will use Facebook Credits, the social network’s payment system, to trade in the games’ virtual houses, tractors, costumes and other goods.

(Reporting by Liana B. Baker; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
Original Story: Zynga Gaming Network Adds Konami, Two Other Game Makers
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters

Jimmy Buffett could get casino license soon

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:05:31 -0800

Jimmy Buffett could get casino license soon

Greyhound Races Face Extinction at the Hands of Casinos They Fostered

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:29:11 -0800

By A. G. Sulzberger
Originally published in The New York Times

Council Bluffs, Iowa — Not many people attend the races here at Bluffs Run Greyhound Park anymore. Aside from a few dozen aging diehards cheering the dogs from the shabby grandstand, the gambling-inclined prefer to take their chances amid the bright lights and constant action of the casino downstairs.

But even though the races are losing millions of dollars each year, the owners are required by law to keep the greyhounds running six days a week.

After a decade in which more than half the greyhound tracks in the country have closed, many of the remaining operations have survived thanks to the model used at Bluffs Run. Over the years, the tracks, which were there first, won permission from states to add slot machines and poker tables under the condition that a chunk of the profits go to the dog races — essentially subsidizing one form of gambling with another.

Now, after years defending greyhound racing against attacks that it is inhumane, a growing number of track owners are, to the astonishment of opponents and the dismay of fans, joining the critics among the animal rights groups. Complaining that they are being forced to spend millions of dollars a year to subsidize a pastime that the public has all but abandoned, greyhound track owners in Iowa, Florida and Arizona have been lobbying for changes in the law that would allow them to cut the number of races, or even shut down their tracks, while keeping their far more lucrative gambling operations running.

Though the legislative outcome is in doubt in the short term, the effort has intensified the concern that the end may be near for a century-old pastime that many regard as a blue-collar incarnation of horse racing.

“There is no reason to continue spending money on a dying sport,” said Bo Guidry, general manager at the Horseshoe Council Bluffs casino complex, which includes Bluffs Run. Caesars Entertainment, which owns the operation and was required to spend $10 million last year on dog racing, has even offered to pay the state $49 million over the next seven years for the right to close the track.

The reversal is regarded as a betrayal by those who earn their paychecks — or lose them — at the greyhound tracks. Though many of the racing supporters acknowledge that the sport cannot survive financially on its own, they argue that operations like Bluffs Run should not be allowed to abandon dog racing for greater profits after using it as justification to expand into other forms of gambling.

“The racing end was used as a ticket to help them acquire those licenses,” said Gary Guccione, secretary-treasurer of the National Greyhound Association, which is based in Kansas, whose last track closed two years ago. “And now they’re trying to push racing out.”

For the animal rights groups opposed to racing, the unexpected alliance with track owners has broadened the case from a moral argument about the treatment of the dogs — which spend much of their lives in confinement, can suffer debilitating injuries while racing and are put up for adoption at the end of their careers — to a business-focused argument against government mandates.

“We’ve been fighting the racetrack owners for years, and to suddenly have them as allies takes some getting used to,” said Carey Theil, executive director of Grey2K USA, a nonprofit group focused on ending greyhound racing. “But in a lobbying effort it’s very helpful.”

There are now 22 tracks in 7 states, down from 49 tracks in 15 states a decade ago, according to Grey2K. Some tracks have gone out of business, others were shut down through legislation and most of the survivors rely on other gambling revenue.

In Florida, home to more than half of the remaining tracks, owners had expected legislation to pass this year that would allow them to cut back dog racing while keeping other gambling operations. A similar measure stalled last year despite bipartisan support, and it once again appears to have died in the Legislature.

Isadore Havenick is lobbying for that legislation on behalf of his family-owned company in Florida, which has run racetracks in the state for six decades. He said the races were losing millions of dollars. “The only time there’s a large crowd of people watching dogs is when people get up from the poker tables to smoke,” he said.

David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that the decline in interest in dog racing appears to be more intense than what has happened with horse racing. “All live racing is declining in popularity,” he said. “It’s just not as impulse-oriented, as convenience-oriented as most gambling is today.”

Bluffs Run opened in 1986, when the sport was still growing. But it has seen a steady drop in wagers on live races since the beginning, from $122 million that first year to $4.6 million in 2010, according to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission. (The state’s other dog track, in Dubuque, dropped from $64 million to $1.6 million in the same period.)

Built for 6,500 visitors — the crowds were so big on opening day that many were turned away — only about 70 regulars showed up at Bluffs Run one day last week. Most knew each other by name. They placed a total of $11,125 in bets on live races, a fraction of the $3,090,179 wagered that day at the casino downstairs.

Even though the track is home to the most lucrative greyhound race in the nation, the Iowa Breeders Classic, with a $500,000 purse, twice as much money is bet on simulcast horse races as is bet on the live dog races. So when the local cable operator stopped broadcasting races and the local newspaper stopped running results, there was little surprise.

But to those sprinkled along the grandstand, where the stained carpet and old furnishings testify to the greyhounds’ second-rate status at the gambling complex, dog racing has a special charm. It rewards careful study, fosters community and — importantly for the large number of regulars who have fixed incomes — consumes money slowly.

Anger crept into their voices as they talked about Caesars Entertainment. They noted that casino gambling was legalized here explicitly to subsidize the dog racing. And they said the company, in the effort to get out of that deal and tear down the track, was undermining its own product.

Bob Hardison, a breeder and kennel operator who is president of the Iowa Greyhound Association, expressed satisfaction that the legislation appeared to have failed again this year but was worried that the efforts would continue. “They are spending millions of dollars trying to destroy greyhound racing not only in Iowa but around the country,” he said.

The scene downstairs suggested why. The space was rich with bright lights, fine furniture and the chatter of people hoping their luck was about to turn. Working a different slot machine with each hand, Angela Clover, 58, said she used to attend the greyhound races with her father, who is still a regular, but she had not returned for years. She said the slots were more of a rush.

Her 28-year-old son, Nick, nodded in agreement. “You really have to pay attention to the background and history of the dogs,” he said. “That’s a lot of work to do. You won’t see very many guys my age up there.”

Michigan woman still collecting food stamps after winning $1 million lottery

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:34:53 -0800

By Eric Pfeiffer

People love stories about someone winning the lottery and then giving the money away. They’re less likely to feel fondly about Amanda Clayton, who won $1 million in the Michigan State Lottery but is still collecting food stamps.

“I thought that they would cut me off, but since they didn’t, I thought maybe it was OK because I’m not working,” Clayton, 24, told Local 4 news in Detroit.

Back in December, a woman in Washington State fell under scrutiny when it was revealed she was receiving state economic benefits even though she lives in a $1 million waterfront home on Lake Washington.

Clayton, who says she owns two homes and a new car, receives $200 a month in food assistance from the state-issued Michigan Bridge Card, which is meant to benefit lower-income residents in the nation’s eigth most economically depressed state.

Twenty-five percent of Michigan’s residents receive some form of food assistance from the state. The state’s unemployment rate is 9.3 percent, more than a full point above the national average, but has dropped from a 10.4 percent peak in August.

And Clayton isn’t embarrassed about living off the state even though she now finds herself in the nation’s top tax bracket. “I mean I kinda do,” Clayton told Local 4 when asked if she had a “right” to the government welfare.

She certainly doesn’t the fit the mold of other lottery winners we have told you about here at the Sideshow, including the number of repeat winners of the Georgia State Lottery, many of whom chose to donate their initial winnings to charity or family members in need.

Clayton downplayed her wealth, saying she took the $1 million in a lump sump, which meant about half immediately went to taxes. “I feel that it’s OK because I mean, I have no income and I have bills to pay,” she said. “I have two houses.”

Her story has already caught attention locally, where state Republican Rep. Dale Zorn has sponsored a bill preventing individuals like Clayton from taking state financial assistance.

“Public assistance should be given to those who are in need of public assistance, not those who have found riches,” Zorn told Local 4. The bill, which has already passed the state House and has a sister bill in the Senate, would require the state to cross check the names of lottery winners over $1,000 to see if they are also receiving state financial benefits.

A Safe Bet: Online Gambling's Good for U.S.

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:54:03 -0800

By Patrick Basham
Adjunct Scholar
Center for Representative Government
Cato Institute

Federal prosecutors just dealt consumer freedom a terrible hand, shutting down the gambling website Bodog.com and indicting four company executives, including founder Calvin Ayre, for alleged illegal gambling that actually generated $100 million in customer winnings. Ironically the anti-Bodog crackdown comes as the push for sensible regulation of the online gambling industry is gathering serious political momentum.

In recent years, it’s become clear to a growing number of policymakers, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that the ban on online gambling is a failure. Many federal and state-level politicians want to legalize online gambling, which Congress made illegal in 2006.

The current prohibitionist law is really a protectionist measure designed to support specific domestic operators, such as the websites run by the horse betting industry. Stopping American online gambling is truly mission impossible, with a vast number of insurmountable challenges facing governments that endeavor to criminalize online gambling.

A great degree of surveillance is required to detect online illegality, and there are significant difficulties in locating, investigating, and prosecuting online offenders. In addition, the technological and human capital required to locate offenders is substantial, as are the costs of prosecution and incarceration. Along with the inefficient use of resources caused by prohibition, there’s the danger of unintentionally increasing the criminal element.

Two additional factors contribute to the inevitable failure of prohibition. First, online technology renders prohibition futile. As an international network, the Internet provides an instant detour around domestic prohibition.

Second, consumer demand for online gambling and the government’s demand for tax revenues will create enormous pressure for legalization in any jurisdiction, such as the U.S., that currently operates a domestic ban.

In 2008, the global online gambling market was valued at $20 billion annually, with 50 percent of that demand coming from the U.S.. If the domestic marketplace demands online gambling, which it clearly does, it will be supplied with or without government consent. This is especially true given service providers’ unrestrained access to overseas Internet sites in jurisdictions without online gambling restrictions.

Prohibitionists appear to ignore the fact that most gambling sites, like any reputable business, rely on customer loyalty to remain profitable. The necessity of maintaining a strong customer base would motivate legal American service providers to offer legitimate, reputable gambling sites.

Online gambling can be regulated effectively and without excessive cost, to standards that will provide strong protections for consumers and vulnerable players. The principal benefit of regulation to online players is the personal and legal security of funds, whereas currently players in unregulated environments have no legal recourse over matters such as suspected cheating and frozen assets.

Another major benefit of allowing online gambling is that competition will be introduced into a highly regulated marketplace dominated by licensed providers who monopolize the gaming market. Increased competition results in a more efficient allocation of resources, as gambling providers attempt to maintain and attract new customers.

The Internet has revealed the potential of technology not only to dramatically increase existing gambling opportunities but also to introduce new ones. As such, the Internet offers potential consumers convenient and inexpensive access to their favorite gambling sites, introducing competition into an industry once dominated by highly restrictive licensing practices.

This form of gambling also encourages private sector businesses to develop network capacity and commerce. Not only will this increased competition result in a wider range of gambling activities, it will reduce cost to consumers. With legal online gambling, competition among operators would increase to such an extent that they will be forced by the marketplace, rather than by governments, to offer a reduced house advantage.

Banning online gambling in the domestic American market simply results in the establishment of Internet gaming sites overseas. As other jurisdictions identify the demand for online gambling, they have supplied this service to consumers.

For example, in 2009 there were 2,381 sites run by 493 companies licensed in 50 jurisdictions worldwide. Including unlicensed sites, the total rose to 6,000. Many of these sites were established in small nations with little or no regulatory oversight.

Gambling is one of the great successes of online commerce. The ill-advised indictments handed down against Calvin Ayre and his Bodog colleagues cannot alter that fact. The online gambling industry is merely another form of commerce where prohibition is the wrong option

Lobbyist: Casinos want fair online gambling

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:47:51 -0800

A top lobbyist says commercial casinos companies want a fair shot for everyone when it comes to online gambling - not a leg up over state lotteries, American Indian tribes and others jockeying to be first in line.

CEO Frank Fahrenkopf of the American Gaming Association said Wednesday the only way to make that happen is with a federal bill that explicitly legalizes online gaming while shutting down some 2,000 websites that currently offer illegal online gambling to Americans.

Fahrenkopf says any laws must treat all forms of legalized gambling equally.

Fahrenkopf’s comments came during the start of the Gaming Laboratories International Roundtable in Las Vegas.

Bally and Aristocrat strike deal for Net poker

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:54:00 -0800

By Howard Stutz

Slot machine makers Bally Technologies and Aristocrat Technologies will team up to capitalize on the potential for legalized Internet gaming in the U.S.

The companies jointly announced a deal to offer the same third-party poker networks as part of their business-to-business Internet gaming products for U.S. casino operators.

The transaction between Bally and the U.S. subsidiary of Aristocrat Technologies of Australia, said in a statement the companies will be able to move faster and more effectively by working together should online gaming — particularly online poker — be legalized in the U.S.

“By teaming up, Bally and Aristocrat can source and integrate with the strongest online poker product, specifically tailored for this market,” said Bally Chief Executive Officer Richard Haddrill.

Bally and Aristocrat applied to the Nevada Gaming Control Board for the required extension of their gaming licenses to act as interactive gaming suppliers.

Both companies offer Internet gaming platforms — Bally recently announced plans to acquire a European gaming company’s platform while Aristocrat collaborates with GameAccount Network.

The deal’s announcement comes a day after Shuffle Master Gaming said it is buying a European provider of online gaming products. Last year, International Game Technology bought an European online poker company.

The transactions are in anticipation of Internet gaming being legalized.

Shuffle Master CEO Gavin Isaacs said his company’s online strategy is to provide Internet casinos with products, rather than competing with them.

“What is evident is that online gaming is rapidly becoming a much bigger focus for both equipment manufacturers and operators alike,” said Janney Montgomery Scott gaming analyst Brian McGill.

Bally and Aristocrat plan to share their distinctive slot machine content for online use in America. The titles will be made available for free play until wagering is legalized.

Under the strategic alliance, Bally and Aristocrat will secure arrangements with leading poker providers, who will then be integrated into the companies’ online gaming platforms.

“Access to the proven slot content from both Bally and Aristocrat will allow gaming operators to create a compelling experience as legalized online gaming emerges in the United States,” Aristocrat CEO Jamie Odell said.

(Source: http://www.lvrj.com)

Virgin Gaming Selects Mazooma as Its U.S. Payments Partner

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:04:58 -0800

Virgin Gaming, which hosts online competitive gaming that awards real cash prizes, has signed an agreement with Toronto-based Mazooma that will enable Virgin’s players to tap their personal bank accounts for cash-based tournaments and head-to-head challenges.

Mazooma transactions eliminate the need for credit cards and are completed in real time. Virgin Gaming’s chief financial officer Harp Gahunia said this makes Mazooma a good fit with its target customer demographic. “Not all of our gamers have access to credit cards, but they do have bank accounts. Mazooma lets us reach this entirely new player base,” he said.

Mazooma, which launched its micropayment solution in August 2011, currently supports the 16 largest U.S. banks. The company is headquartered in Toronto with offices in Miami and Chicago.

“We’re excited to be working with Virgin Gaming, the most recognized brand in the skills-based gaming industry,” says Wilson Lee, president of Mazooma. “Our solution supports the unique requirements of cash-based competitive gaming play – an exciting industry poised for explosive growth.”

Virgin Gaming supports specific multiplayer PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games, which enables the company’s platform to directly verify game statistics. Participants must be at least 18 years old, and residents of 15 U.S. states are legally prohibited from participating in the cash games.

Zynga's Social Gaming Platform Launches in Beta

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:03:00 -0800

By Angela Moscaritolo
Via PCMag.com

Zynga has lifted the curtain on its new social gaming platform, Zynga.com.

The game maker on Monday launched a beta version of Zynga.com, dubbed “a new playground for social games.” Visitors to the site can currently play five games, including CastleVille, CityVille, Hidden Chronicles, Words with Friends, and Zynga Poker. On Tuesday morning, the site boasted that more than 1.5 million people were playing.

The move to launch a social game platform puts Zynga, in a sense, in competition with Facebook as a gaming destination. Up until now, Zynga’s browser games have only been available on the social network. Zynga said it launched the site to give players more ways to meet, connect and find games.

“Zynga.com is a destination for social games built with the goal of bringing players more people to play with and more ways to play,” Zynga said in a statement on its Web site.

The company pointed out that its new site is “completely integrated” with Facebook, meaning players can carry their game progress from Facebook to Zynga.com, and play games with their existing friends. And, its platform will offer players ways to progress through games faster, Zynga said.

While the site launched with five games, Zynga said it would be adding more titles soon. Zynga is also working with several third-party developers to offer their games on the site as well.

Since the site is in beta, Zynga warned that users could experience some issues while they play. Zynga asked players to provide feedback about the site.

The site will suggest new “zFriends,” or Zynga friends, and show users which of their friends are online, and what games they’re playing. Player profiles will highlight users’ favorite games, top zFriends and recent activity. Players will also be able to chat with zFriends in real-time, without leaving a game board.

Zynga last week announced plans to launch the platform, taking the wraps off “Project Z,” which it tipped last October.

Bill allowing Atlantic City gambling on mobile devices moves forward in N.J. Assembly

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:06:00 -0800

Trenton, NJ — A bill allowing Atlantic City patrons to gamble using mobile devices moved one step forward in the Assembly today.

The measure (A2575) is aimed at younger customers who are adept at — and almost addicted to — using hand-held devices.

The bill, sponsored by Assemblymen John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester) and Ruben Ramos Jr. (D-Hudson), has support from casino executives but has raised concerns over how the devices will be regulated and kept out of the hands of minors.

“In order to remain attractive to visitors and competitive with neighboring states, it’s important that Atlantic City keep up with the latest innovations and trends,’’ Burzichelli said.

Nevada has had mobile gambling since 2005.

The bill unanimously passed the Assembly Regulatory Oversight and Gaming Committee today, but not without at least one legislator expressing skepticism.

Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Essex) said the bill leaves too many questions unanswered, particularly about where the devices would be permitted to be used and how regulators would be assured minors would not use them to gamble.

The mobile devices offer electronic versions of casino games. Patrons would only be able to play the games within the boundaries of a casino hotel, including the swimming pool and outdoor recreation areas.

Details of how and where the devices would be used would be addressed by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement and the Casino Control Commission. Caputo said there are no details about how the devices would be obtained and whether they would be permitted in private rooms where there would be no oversight by casino employees or state regulators.

Caputo said he voted to release the measure so he wouldn’t be considered an obstructionist, but said he will not support it when it goes to the full Assembly for a vote.

“Part of having legalized gambling is having the proper oversight and that’s what we should be trying to maintain,’’ he said.

It is not yet known when the full Assembly will vote on this bill.

Reprinted from: NJ.Com

US tries its luck easing online gambling stand

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:40:57 -0800

fishmark:

By Rob Lever
Via www.physorg.com/news

Despite a new crackdown on Internet gambling this week, the US government appears to be easing its stand on many forms of online betting, prompting states to swing into action to tap a new revenue source.

The turnabout by Washington came quietly in December when the Justice Department released an opinion stating that only sports betting should be prohibited under a 1961 federal law known as the Wire Act.

This opens the door to online poker, which is hugely popular on the Internet, and possibly other casino games along with state lotteries, say analysts.

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Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:50:22 -0800

Zynga Uses Facebook To Launch A New Platform For Its Games And For Other Developers

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:16:36 -0800

By Eric Eldon
Via TechCrunch

Is Zynga going to leave Facebook to start its own site for gamers? Whispers about such an attempt have circulated for years, and today we have an answer: yes and no. Yes, Zynga is starting its own site for games. But no, it’s not leaving Facebook.

At least not for the foreseeable future. Instead, it’s launching a new platform designed to house both its own games and ones from other developers. And, you log in with your Facebook identity, and you pay using Facebook Credits.

The site, available at Zynga.com, is a social gamer’s dream. The types of social channels that Zynga has been testing and refining are all in place. And then some. Instead of just pulling in your Facebook friends, it includes ways to become friends with other people on the site who you’re not connected to on Facebook. People who you want to play with, anyway, that it calls zFriends.

All of your gaming friends appear in the social channels. The social stream shows all of the activity of your friends on these games. User profiles expand on Facebook ones to let people see which games you play, how you rank on various leaderboards, your recent activity and other standard features tailored for games. Live chat lets you talk to other players.

And, more subtly, Zynga sorts through all of your activity on your games and figures out the most meaningful ones to share back to Facebook.

The first five games launching on the site are its biggest and newest hits from social and mobile: CastleVille, Words With Friends, CityVille, Hidden Chronicles and Zynga Poker. Progress comes with you. It’s not just Zynga games, though. It will soon begin adding games from other developers, starting with titles from Mob Science, Row Sham Bow and Ca Va. These games will appear exactly the same as Zynga’s.

Which leads to an obvious question for any social game developer. What’s the revenue split? Facebook is already taking a 30 percent cut via Credits. I asked chief operating officer John Schappert about terms with the third party developers (or is that fourth parties?), and he only said that they’re negotiated and private. So, what you’re looking at is a publishing model where Zynga gets an additional cut. That might make some developers think twice about bringing their games on, but Zynga has some carrots to lure them in anyway.

One is simply its size. The company now has 56.6 million daily active users and 246.9 million monthly active users, according to AppData, and it can push them all toward this site. And with all of these users on the site, other parties could have a much better shot at breaking through to them. Right now, developers have to try to cut through the photos, videos, links and other information on Facebook.

Zynga goes further to make the user-developer relationship meaningful, by pairing the right users with each other. It looks at data about each user, like what types of games they play — FarmVille or Words With Friends or what have you — and suggest that they become zFriends. What the company has discovered, chief technology officer Cadir Lee tells me, is that users don’t really care about the total size of a game. They just want to find the right people to play with. He says that based on the data they’ve compiled over the years of building their own games, the more people any one user is connected to, the more likely they are to engage more.

“You get some impact from one-way interaction, but much much higher with reciprocal actions. You establish a pattern of interacting.” Citing FarmVille, he notes that “if I came to your farm and fertilized your crops, you’re more likely to come and fertilize mine.” For some reason, he says, six seems to be a particularly golden number of connections — more people than that and you’re still getting engagement increases, but just not as much.

The basic idea of this site is not surprising. But the Facebook integration and the inclusion of third parties makes this unique. Going forward, there are two big things to think about. Mobile — Zynga could push its own network to mobile devices and create something far better than, say, Apple’s Game Center. The other, of course, is about Facebook. Zynga is locked into exclusively using it as the core identity and payment service, because of a deal that Facebook forced Zynga to sign years ago. But that won’t last forever. Zynga could one day introduce identity services from any number of other platforms, like Twitter, Google+, and anything else. This launch, then, could be a step in that direction.

How Temple Run Became More Popular Than Zynga Games

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:42:29 -0800

By Brian X. Chen

Via The New York Times Bits Blog

A team of three software developers made a single iPhone game that has become as addictive as all of Zynga’s mobile games combined. Temple Run, a free game in the App Store, has become a smash hit, with over 40 million downloads since its release in August.

The game’s addictiveness can be measured by the number of people who play it at least once a day: 13 million, according to Imangi Studios, the maker of the game. That’s almost as much as the 15 million people who play a Zynga mobile game at least once a day, a number that Zynga shared in its latest earnings report. Zynga’s mobile division includes all of its smartphone games, including FarmVille, Words With Friends and Zynga Poker on both iOS and Android, so the popularity of Temple Run as a single game just for the iPhone is a significant feat.

“We’ve been trying to figure it out for a while because you never know what’s going to take off,” said Natalia Luckyanova, co-founder of Imangi. “The game hits lots of good points. People play it and right away they play it again. They want to beat their high score so it kind of sucks you in like that.”

What’s the value of giving a game away and getting a lot of people to play it? Temple Run gives the option for players to spend real money on virtual coins to buy extra goodies inside the game, like power-ups for the character or different wallpapers for the background. In the App Store, Temple Run is currently No. 14 in the Top Grossing chart — Apple’s list of apps that are generating the most money. Ms. Luckyanova, however, declined to disclose the amount of money Temple Run has earned.

For Imangi, climbing to the top was a challenge. Temple Run is its eighth game; the company’s previous titles were not nearly as successful. And with more than 600,000 apps crowding the App Store, it’s become even more difficult for software makers to be noticed, Ms. Luckyanova said.

Temple Run wasn’t immediately a hit. Imangi originally released it as a $1 download in the App Store, and after some initial success, the game started losing traction. Then the company made the game free, promoted it on FreeApp a Day, a Web site that features free games, and saw a surge in downloads. Since then, the game has been climbing in popularity.

For independent programmers, success comes with risks. There is always the possibility that a big company can produce a clone of an indie game and market it much more aggressively. Take the iOS game Tiny Tower, for instance. After Tiny Tower became a best seller, Zynga released Dream Heights, a game that looks just like it. Ms. Luckyanova said it was not a matter of if, but when, Zynga and other game makers would make a clone of Temple Run.

But that’s all part of the bigger game, she said.

“The clones are definitely going to come,” Ms. Luckyanova said. “In the games industry everyone is kind of inspired by everybody else. If they’re going to be a direct ripoff, then I’m sure it’s something we’ll have to deal with eventually.”

They Were Kings: The Feds Attack the Internet Poker Industry

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:36:56 -0800

By Chris Parker
SF Weekly

When you’ve turned nothing into something once already, you tend to feel you can do it again. You have faith that your luck will turn. Perhaps it’s delusion. But for a professional poker player, self-confidence is essential.

So it is for Walter Wright, who now finds himself in Costa Rica. He left his wife and two children behind to redeem their failing finances by doing something that’s now illegal in the U.S. — playing poker online.

Wright’s life began to change in 2005 when he followed his then-girlfriend from New Orleans to Virginia, where she was beginning law school at Washington and Lee University. He’d played strategy and role-playing videogames as a kid in Houston, Texas, and later began to obsess over chess. That’s when he noticed his chess buddies were growing increasingly dedicated to online poker and raving about the returns. Wright became engrossed.

He started as most do, playing what’s known the “cash game.” It’s simple poker — win by pushing your advantage when the cards are good, and bluffing when they’re not. If you know the odds, bet wisely and seek out tables with lesser players, within a year or two you can be making a grand a week or more. Five to 10 times more.

Wright started at low stakes Texas Hold’em with table limits of just 25 and 50 cents. The beauty of playing online is that he could work eight tables at once. It wasn’t the best of money; PokerStars.com was taking its own cut from the pots, which were generally capped at $2 to $3. But as a volume player, he also received rewards points redeemable for things like Amazon gift certificates, which he used to buy food in bulk.

“I was grinding my face off,” he recalls.

As he honed his feel for the odds and what his opponents were holding, he moved up to sit-n-go games, which are essentially small-scale tournaments that can be finished in an hour. It took time, but he began to see more money than he ever witnessed as a waiter in New Orleans.

He made $17,000 that first year and quit his job. He made $28,000 the next, and $55,000 the year after.

Four years ago, when his wife got a job in the Las Vegas public defender’s office, the Wrights shipped off to Nevada. Walter dabbled in casino poker, where the stakes are higher. But it also required a bigger bankroll, and presented wider swings of fortune. He wasn’t ready.

“I made some money to, like, get some new tires on the car. Make some money and pay a bill…. I was getting a little frustrated with that.”

That’s when he discovered multi-table tournaments online. They’re like sit-n-gos but feature as many as 200,000 participants in a single tourney — and much bigger pots.

It was easier than playing head-to-head in cash games, since the competition was generally worse. His strategy was to play dozens of tournaments a night, primarily on PokerStars, moving conservatively through the early rounds as the lesser players fell away, then amping up his aggressiveness as the field whittled down.

It was still a grinding way to make a living, sometimes requiring Wright to stare at a computer for 24 hours straight. But he’d spent his teens pulling World of Warcraft all-nighters. And now, instead of making bank with tiny pot after tiny pot, he could bring home as much as $15,000 in a single session.

Wright’s first year of online tournaments brought in $100,000. A year later, his earnings had doubled, thanks to more than $100,000 he won by reaching the final table at the 7th World Series of Poker event in the summer of 2009.

But the money was coming a bit too easily. “We never really learned to manage money because nobody in our family has ever had any,” he says. “So we didn’t manage it well…. My mindset became, ‘How much money do you need? I’ll make more.’ Rather than ‘We need to cut down on expenses,’ it was ‘Don’t worry, I’ll shoot for this goal.’”

Wright found himself retreating more and more into the casinos, especially when he and his wife would fight. He was becoming a classic workaholic, and he didn’t enjoy the soul-sapping casino atmosphere. He was equally worried about the effect of Las Vegas on their kids.

Last year he convinced his wife to move to Asheville, N.C., to be closer to her parents. The plan was for her to take the year off, care for their newborn daughter, and study for the North Carolina bar. Wright would support them by playing online.

Most of their bank account was consumed by the move, but he had few worries. Why should he? He could always make more.

They moved on April 1, 2011. Two weeks later, the federal government took his job.

In the poker world, April 15, 2011, is known as Black Friday. That’s the day the U.S. Department of Justice seized the assets and shut down the three biggest companies serving the American market — PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker (which also operated Ultimate Bet) — and charged them with bank fraud, money-laundering and illegal gambling.

Wright was luckier than most. Only a few thousand dollars in his PokerStars account was frozen by the feds. Others saw tens of thousands confiscated in the raids.

But he was now stuck in North Carolina, out of a job, living with his in-laws, and with no way to provide for a family of four. Their financial troubles accelerated. When the first opportunity came for his wife to take the bar, they didn’t have the money to pay for the test.

Hardly anyone noticed when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act passed in 2006. Moralists and casinos trying to protect their turf had been pushing it for years without luck. That’s when Sens. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and John Kyl (R-Ariz.) had the bright idea to stuff it in a port security bill as a last-minute amendment.

In true Washington fashion, most legislators never read the final bill. Many didn’t even know an anti-gambling measure was in it. But in one secretive stroke, the two senators had declared war on poker.

It didn’t actually outlaw online play. Kyl and Frist preferred their attack on the American pastime to remain surreptitious. Going after individual players would have meant a huge backlash. Instead, they targeted the financial institutions that handled the sites’ money, making it illegal to deal in gambling proceeds.

Party Poker, the world’s largest site, cashed in its chips. It agreed to pay a $105 million fine and leave the American market in exchange for not being prosecuted.

That left the world’s most lucrative market up for grabs. PokerStars and Full Tilt, also-rans at the time, were quite willing to step into the breach, despite the legal risks.

Why not? PokerStars, based on the Isle of Man, and Full Tilt, headquartered in the UK’s Channel Islands, figured they were outside the reach of U.S. prosecutors. It wasn’t long before the two companies had cornered some 70 percent of the American market with revenues of nearly $2 billion a year.

But since the feds were squeezing banks and credit card companies, finding payment processors to handle their money grew increasingly difficult.

“By early 2007, suddenly the payment options are becoming much more tricky for PokerStars and Full Tilt,” says Melinda Sarafa, a New York lawyer who’s represented gamblers. “That’s where they’re starting to look into alternative providers.”

The feds’ squeeze was working. By 2009, an audit of Absolute Poker revealed that almost one-third of its revenue went to disguising the money trail.

Says Sarafa: “The allegation is that the companies tried to find banks that were essentially in distress, providing them with a very lucrative lifeline, and that the transactions were disguised as other types of transactions so it wouldn’t raise regulatory eyebrows.”

Some in Congress tried to fight back, realizing that playing a few hands of poker after work wasn’t exactly the height of fiendishness. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) authored a bill to legalize online games. But while that measure was winding through the House, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York was pressing ahead. In 2009, it filed charges against Allied Systems and Account Services for processing poker money. The feds seized $34 million owed to 27,000 players.

The sites reimbursed their customers and rolled on. PokerStars and Full Tilt discovered that SunFirst, a struggling Utah bank, was willing to handle the payments in exchange for fees and an investment.

But the feds killed that deal a year later. They also quashed Full Tilt’s attempts to make similar arrangements with two Illinois banks.

Full Tilt’s problems were especially multiplying. Believing their revenue stream would soar eternally, its owners had pulled $444 million in profit from the business over the previous four years. But when the feds began seizing their payment processors’ funds, the company had no war chest to cover the losses.

By last March, its customers held $390 million in their accounts. But Full Tilt only had $60 million in the bank to cover those accounts. When the feds seized its assets a month later, American players alone were owed $150 million. The feds accused the company of running a “global Ponzi scheme.”

On that Black Friday, the Justice Department killed a $2.5 billion industry.

Four summers ago, Maxwell Fritz was making minimum wage serving cotton candy and curly fries at a Portland amusement park. He’d just finished his first year at Princeton, where he was studying to become a math teacher.

Fritz had played online casually with friends back in high school. He’d managed to turn a few hundred dollars’ profit, which planted the seed for next summer’s job. It had to pay better than minimum wage.

He made $10,000 after school let out, so he continued during the school year. Over an 18-month period, while still attending Princeton and working his teaching internship, Fritz managed to take home $100,000. Over the next six months, he would grab another $200,000.

Then Black Friday hit. Suddenly, Fritz had not only lost his income, but $65,000 was seized from his Full Tilt account.

He was among the fortunate to recover quickly. A fellow player provided a reference that allowed him to move from one kind of gambling to another: Wall Street.

“I figured if gambling online is illegal, I might as well go to legalized gambling in the form of the stock market,” Fritz laughs. A friend had gone to a Wall Street firm and “just blew the doors off, and he said what he learned in poker really helped him. They were like, ‘Well, we need to hire more poker players.’”

For Michael LaTour, the game was a way out of unemployment. The Syracuse man landed a job out of college selling mortgages and personal loans for American General Financial. But a year later, spectacularly inept bets by American’s parent company, AIG, put him back on his ass.

“There weren’t many jobs out there, and I’d been on unemployment for a while,” LaTour says. “I saw some people being successful at poker, and I decided if I was ever going to seriously take a shot at it, now would be the time to do so.”

He played for two years, earning $50,000 in 2010. He was doing much better last year, averaging $10,000 a month, until the feds came calling in April. Suddenly, the $35,000 in his PokerStars account was seized.

“The days after it was really a panic,” he says. “Nobody knew what was going on. It’s been draining emotionally.”

If he and his girlfriend hadn’t bought a house, LaTour might have gone to Canada. Instead, he’s taken the Syracuse police officer exam, but the academy doesn’t offer classes until April. Two years after pulling himself off unemployment by his wits, he’s back to searching for a job.

“This isn’t something I wanted to do my entire life,” he says, “but the money was out there, and it made more sense than any entry-level job just because of the potential to win such huge amounts of money.”

Players weren’t the only ones thrown out of work. The feds blew up an entire industry. In 2003, Michael Minkoff started a business that handled the shipping of poker books and videos sold on websites. His Las Vegas company also did freelance video production. It was a modest affair, employing three people and a passel of part time help.

Then came the stealth attack by Frist and Kyl in 2006. Sites began closing and paring costs, hurling little guys like Minkoff to the side of the road. Black Friday nearly finished him. At his height, he was moving over a thousand books a month. Nowadays, he’s selling less than 50, hardly enough to employ himself part-time.

The feds caused an even bigger blow to the television industry. The list of cancelled shows since April is long. Poker After Dark, the 4-year-old late-night show on NBC, was cancelled abruptly after the feds called its sponsor, Full Tilt, a “Ponzi scheme.” High Stakes Poker ended a six-year run on the Game Show Network in December. The National Heads-Up Poker Championship, also on NBC, collapsed in October after seven years. In April, Fox pulled PokerStars Big Game and PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge prior to their second seasons.

According to Kantar Media, Full Tilt and PokerStars spent $26 million in TV advertising last year; PokerStars spent another $8.3 million on web and magazine ads. In one fell swoop, the feds made it disappear.

Though they wiped out the major American sites, a few remain, notably Bovada and Merge Gaming Network.

The volume is much lower, and it’s difficult to get paid. All have severe restrictions on how much and how often you can withdraw from your account. Merge only allows players to withdraw up to $2,500 once every six to eight weeks. And many are finding it difficult to add money to their accounts, since credit card companies will often reject the transaction.

After Black Friday, Walter Wright started playing on Merge to salve nerves made raw by an empty wallet and a squealing baby. He and his wife went to Florida for a live World Poker Tour event, but he didn’t play well. When they returned to North Carolina, they didn’t even have enough money to get their dogs out of the kennel.

With their marriage stretched to its breaking point, Wright went to Costa Rica just before Thanksgiving. A friend agreed to front him a roll, pay his airfare, and cover his rent for a few months.

Costa Rica has become a magnet for Americans. Wright lives in an apartment complex with other online players. The country’s tourist-friendly economy makes it a logical landing spot for those like Wright, whose DUI bars him from entering Canada. Since Black Friday, companies like Poker Refugees have sprung up to help players get visas, bank accounts, and apartments in Costa Rica.

But there remains a larger question: Why are the feds chasing honest, taxpaying citizens out of the country? Especially for something as benign as playing cards?

Congressman Barney Frank denounced the crackdown as an “incredible waste of resources,” wondering why the feds felt compelled to protect people from “the scourge of inside straights.”

After all, for most of the country’s estimated 2 million online players, poker is little more than leisure recreation. And those who made their living from it seemed to personify the American spirit, providing for families by creating livelihoods from the wits.

There’s also the question of why conservatives like Frist and Kyl would push a law so lush with the dreaded nanny state overtones. “I believe in a smaller, more conservative role for government than telling me which card games I can play on my computer,” says Fritz.

Frist declined to comment for his motives. Kyl didn’t respond to repeated interview requests.

Most players cynically dismiss the senators’ move as a strong arm play. The feds want their protection money — i.e., taxes — and won’t let the ride continue until someone pays up. But since government moves in slow motion, it’s left a multi-billion industry to rot from atrophy. Any remedy will likely take years.

“It’s really frustrating to me,” says LaTour. “It just seems they weren’t seeing any of that money that was going out there so they want to set it up so they can tax it. But the longer this takes, the more there will be people like me who just give up on it and move on with our lives to find another way of making a living. I’ve pretty much stopped waiting around.”

A solution seems simple. Since everything’s handled electronically, Internet poker offers the possibility of instant taxation of winnings. And the feds could easily force sites operating in the U.S. to pay American taxes for the privilege of doing business here.

Yet the mom-and-pop poker enthusiast doesn’t employ a battery of lobbyists on Capitol Hill. And even if she did, she’d still be confronted by anti-gambling moralists.

“We’re a pretty small minority,” says Wright. “We don’t have a big voice. We need to be louder. But we’re talking American politics. We know it’s going to take longer than it should, they’re going to find a way to screw people, and they’re probably going to make the taxing situation really complicated.”

Vanessa Peng is a vivacious, engaging young woman from Singapore. She came to the U.S. with her newly remarried mother when she was 8, settling in Rock Hill, S.C.

It was a culture shock to say the least. She and her brother found comfort playing video games as they slowly assimilated, and the seed of competition was sowed. She would eventually study law in little Lexington, Va. Her eureka moment came when she watched a friend play poker online. “I was completely fascinated,” Peng says.

It wasn’t until her third year of law school that she found the time to dive in. She started with $25 in her account and played the penny tables, slowly learning the game. She was thrilled by the competition and the mental challenge.

“The thing about living in a very, very small town is you get bored pretty quickly,” says Peng. “Since I didn’t have much of a social life in that little town, I was able to play a lot of poker in that six months. By the time graduation came I was supposed to be studying for the bar and that good stuff, but I was so wrapped up in poker, that was kind of what took over my life. On top of everything else, the legal market had sort of crashed at this point.”

She found a job working with a divorce attorney in Chicago, but discovered she didn’t have the stomach for it. Then she failed the bar. Peng saw it as a sign.

“I was able to take a step back and really reexamine my life. Around that time poker was going really well for me. I had my first five-figure month and I just really started re-evaluating, thinking maybe this is what I was meant to do.”

She made $40,000 that first year. By 2010, she was pulling in six figures annually.

When Black Friday hit, Peng was one of the top money-makers on Ultimate Bet, with $30,000 in her account. She’d also just won $12,000 in a Full Tilt tournament. All told, she saw $80,000 frozen in the crackdown.

Peng was better situated than most to weather the storm. She and her boyfriend — who also plays — moved to Windsor, Ontario. The Canadian town sits just across the river from Detroit, allowing her to play online while still traveling to live tournaments.

Nearly a year after the feds froze her money, Peng hasn’t seen a penny of it.

Within a month of the federal crackdown, PokerStars returned $100 million to U.S. players, and continued to operate internationally.

Full Tilt was cleared to offer returns but never did, since it doesn’t have the money. It owes $150 million to American players alone. In September, the feds accused owners Howard Lederer and Chris “Jesus” Ferguson of running a “global Ponzi scheme.”

“Banks fail for not having sufficient revenue to cover customer deposits all the time,” the company’s lawyer, Jeff Ifrah, said at the time. “No one refers to such failures as Ponzi schemes. And there was no Ponzi scheme here.” The court battle rages on.

In the fall of 2011, the French company Group Bernard Tapie stepped in to buy Full Tilt for $80 million, promising to pay off the debts to international players. The feds have assumed responsibility for paying American players, though they’ve yet to announce a timetable for repayment.

Absolute Poker — originally formed by four frat brothers at the University of Montana — wasn’t liquid enough to continue either. None of its players has been reimbursed.

In December, Absolute Poker co-owner Brent Beckley pleaded guilty to lying to banks about the nature of his transactions. He’s expected to receive 12 to 18 months in jail.

His accomplice, Ira Rubin, ran a payment processing company in Costa Rica that disguised gambling proceeds through fake merchants and suppliers. He pleaded guilty in January and is expected to receive up to two years.

Rumors have been circulating that Absolute Poker will be repay players soon, though payoffs may be as little as 25 cents on the dollar.

“If you had a state-regulated system that wouldn’t happen,” says Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). He’s also pushing a law to legalize online poker. “This is one of those rare congressional bills that’s not a Republican-Democrat issue. There are people for it and against it on both sides, but there are much more people for it. If it came up on the floor of the Senate on a majority vote wins, it would pass. Whether it has 60 votes, I just can’t tell you.”

The general sentiment, from players to politicians, is that something will get done … eventually.

In the meantime, poker has gathered some powerful advocates. Casinos that once guarded their turf are hoping to get in on the online action. They’re pushing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to get something done, but the prospect of new revenue sources is anathema to many Republicans. They squashed Reid’s attempt to pass online poker regulation in 2010.

It may come down to the states legalizing it within their borders (much like medical marijuana), and daring the feds to step in. Nevada has already begun issuing online gambling licenses. Washington, D.C., passed a plan for running its own online poker site. And in December, the Justice Department reversed its longstanding view that the 1961 Wire Act banned online gaming, a move many experts see as opening the door to state-regulated poker.

Yet for the moment, the future remains cloudy. Maybe one day players will be able to provide for their families. Until then, they’re out of luck.

Source: SF Weekly

Zynga CEO Suggests Firm May Partner In Gambling Venture

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:20:00 -0800

By John Letzing
Dow Jones Newswires

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)—Zynga Inc. (ZNGA) Chief Executive Mark Pincus said Wednesday he sees “mind blowing” possibilities for weaving real-money gambling into social games pending regulatory changes in the U.S., and suggested the company may partner with a traditional casino company before the end of this year.

Pincus, speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, said his San Francisco-based company sees a great deal of opportunity “to start to bring this gambling element into more than just casino games.”

“The amount of innovation you’re going to see around gambling as an entertainment mechanic is going to be mind blowing,” he said.

Zynga’s CEO suggested the company may partner with traditional casino firms such as Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN)—where Pincus mentioned he once won enough money in a single sitting to buy himself a “fancy watch.”

“We’re definitely talking to all of the players that you would suspect,” Pincus said, adding, “We have incredible respect and admiration for brands and groups like the Wynn… I would expect that you’ll see a lot of these players kind of figure out their go-to-market partnerships for sure before the end of this year.”

Pincus’s comments come as several states consider allowing online gambling, and large casino companies press the federal government to allow online poker networks.

Pincus noted that real money gaming would be a natural fit for Zynga, which already draws tens of millions of players to its Zynga Poker game.

Unlike current games such as Zynga Poker, real money gambling games would involve more than just virtual currency that cannot be converted into cash.

themedbathrooms: This is definitely the best way to tell your...

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:40:20 -0800

themedbathrooms:

This is definitely the best way to tell your family and friends that you have a gambling addiction and indigestion.

Monkees star Davy Jones dies at age 66

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:02:00 -0800

By Ann Oldenburg

No doubt you’re humming Daydream Believer or Last Train to Clarksville as you read this.

The lead singer of The Monkees, Davy Jones, has died.

His rep tells TMZ that he died after suffering a heart attack this morning in Florida. Jones was 66.

TMZ confirmed Jones’ death with an official from the medical examiner’s office for Martin County, Fla.

Jones is survived by his wife, Jessica, and four daughters from previous marriages.

Jones joined The Monkees in 1965, with Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork.

Cat Winning Gambling Shell Game

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:41:01 -0800

Cat Winning Gambling Shell Game

auctionexclusive: Antique slot machine. Late 19th century....

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:48:43 -0800

auctionexclusive:

Antique slot machine. Late 19th century. Overall wood frame with copper colored paint. Applied scrolling leaf details to body. Ballerinas at center. It still works!