April 11th, 2009 by admin

Virus awakes, does a P2P update and drops a mysterious payload

The capabilities of IT boffins throughout the worlkd continued to be stretched this week by Conficker, a largely mysterious computer virus that has so far defied full understanding but is believed to have infected millions of PCs.

Speculation that the virus was powerful enough to disrupt the biggest networks through DDoS activity when it was activated reached a climax on April Fool’s Day (see previous InfoPowa report) but the sinister threat did not materialise.

IT experts continued to study and monitor the threat, and this week reported that there was a brief and mysterious spark from the virus, which apparently updated via peer-to-peer transactions between infected computers and dropped a mystery payload, according to anti-virus house Trend Micro in a statement.

Researchers are analysing the code of the software that is being dropped onto infected computers and suspect that it is a keystroke logger or some other program designed to steal sensitive data off the machine, said David Perry, global director of security education at Trend Micro.

The software appeared to be a .sys component hiding behind a rootkit, which is software that is designed to hide the fact that a computer has been compromised.

April 11th, 2009 by admin

Times may be tough, but the Italian betting market continues to deliver growing revenues, according to the latest numbers from the Italian regulator AAMS which announced this week that the latest quarterly statistics show that overall wagers rose 9.2 percent to Euros 13.2 billion.

Italian gaming company Lottomatica shares rose nearly 4 percent and those of SNAI were up more than 6 percent when the numbers were made public.

“The figures are still positive if not at the rate of last year…. but they are still growing,” a Milan analyst noted, referring to Lottomatica’s scratch-card concession.

Sports betting data is positive for Lottomatica, too partly because it is less exposed to horserace betting, which has suffered a decline since 2008.

SNAI benefited from the upward trend in overall bets, analysts say.

April 11th, 2009 by admin

The PokerStars Latin American Poker Tour Mexico, a live tourney by online poker company Poker Stars was disrupted and halted and then got banned by local Nuevo Vallarta bureaucrats late last year. The company was required to reorganize the main event to ensure that it will be fairly concluded to the 89 players who are still in action.
The firm arranged an online free roll for the survivors for a play down to a final table of nine. As generous gestures to the players, $50,000 was added to the original prize pool by Poker Stars.
Rory Cox, 26 from San Francisco started the game with a significant chip lead. He dominated the final table facing off Alex Brenes, Helen Prager, Victor Ramdin, Bolivar Palacios, Pavel Naydenov, Martha Herrera, Steven Thompson and Leonardo Emperador across the felt.
Most of his opponents were eliminated, and so Cox went into the heads up with his fellow American Helen Pragger with a five to one chip lead. Talented and spirited Prager, doubled up twice to catch Cox and at one stage which actually take the chip lead. But the leading didn’t last long, after two hours Cox was declared as a winner. Cox pocketed $15,000 from his original $2,500 main event buy-in, while Prager took home $11,000 as a second place.

April 3rd, 2009 by admin

Just when Europe looked like it would come to some agreement regarding more universal online gambling regulation standards, the European Union has voted to give individual member nations the right to decide on their own whether to regulate or not. And while it may not be such a bad thing to help get legislators on the same page (if only the U.S. could do something along those lines), to say that member nations are even in the same book is a little bit of a stretch.

It’s not that EU member nations are against regulating online gambling. Most of them already have laws in place making it a legal activity. The only catch is that most EU nations also have powerful, State-run gambling monopolies, whose interests are being protected by such legislation. The European Commission has long been pressuring leading EU nations to make legislative changes to foster a free online gaming marketplace - just as the case is with all goods and services amongst EU countries. And while this has worked to some extent (largely because of Commissioner Charlie McCreevy), protectionism is still rampant.

Certainly not helping the liberation of online gambling in Europe was the recent decision to give EU member nations the choice of regulating or not. One of the first organizations to express their disapproval was the Malta Remote Gaming Council, which is one of the premiere licensors and regulators of euro online casinos and all manner of betting sites operating in Europe.

As reported in the Time’s of Malta, a vote regarding British MEP, Macolm Harbour’s alternative report calling for EU internal regulation of online gambling, was defeated - no thanks due to a lack of awareness from Malta EU representatives. Despite the importance of the issue, especially for Malta, where over 4,000 residents currently work in the online gambling industry, two of the five MEP’s did not even show up to the session in which the vote was held.

The General Secretary of the Malta Remote Gaming Council, Alan Alden, said the Council was in shock that only three MEP’s voted in favor of the resolutions, and that just one MEP - Simon Busuttil - actually endorsed the resolution from the very beginning. Just how much this vote will adversely affect Malta remains to be seen. One thing is certain - It will be interesting to see who gets reelected and who doesn’t in Malta.

March 30th, 2009 by admin

It was a practical choice for Cryptologic when they decided to merge their online poker with those of Boss Media last Wednesday.
This merge was already announced late last year. Because of their need for substantially reduce of costs while they aim to improve their liquidity for players, Cryptologic was motivated to merged with Boss Media. Boss Media’s International Poker Network is huge than the former six Cryptologic network sites. The timetable is set as follows:
• 17 March - Extreme Poker
• 18 March - Classic Poker, Opoker, DTD Poker and BetJacks
• 19 March – InterPoker and ParBet
Based on Boss Media’s poker software, in cooperation with St Minver they will provide a fully-managed poker solution.
Atul Bali, the President of GTECH’s New Media & Sports Betting Co. and a parent body for Boss Media declared, “With the addition of six new poker licensees including InterPoker and ParBet, we are significantly increasing the liquidity that can be offered to both the new licensees’ players, as well as our existing customers’ player base. We look forward to further developing our relationship with CryptoLogic and further increasing the size of the IPN over time.”
Brian Hadfield, President & CEO of CryptoLogic also agreed that GTECH and Boss Media are the right partners for CryptoLogic. They were excited to see that this transition happened right on the schedule and it was made possible because of the independence and commitment to innovation and technology.

March 27th, 2009 by admin

The Spanish group CMedia finalised a major acquisition deal this week that sees it taking over the giant free gaming site MediaGambling, and access to that enterprise’s more than 500 000 Spanish speaking players across Spain, France, Italy, Germany and Latin America.

MediaGambling was founded in Uruguay in 2002 by Maximiliano De Muro and Enrique Dubois, well-known Spanish internet entrepreneurs who also built and sold off major businesses such as Bingos.com (sold in 2008 to NetPlay TV), Wamba.com (sold in 2009 to Mio.tv) and SX Networks (sold in 2008 to a Spanish internet group). The company has over 600 representative brands such as PokerGratis.es, bingogratis.es, comojugarpoker.com, juegosdecasinogratis.com, juegomundo.com and o jeuxdepokergratuit.com, reports information portal Jamma.

Barcelona-based CMedia will add MediaGambling to its extensive and popular portfolio of online gambling websites such as aprenderpoker.net, forodepoker.es and comoapostar.com.

Christian Khoury, founder and CEO of CMedia 2007 SL, said that the acquisition “…is the response to the company’s objective of becoming a leader in the Spanish gambling world. For this purpose, MediaGambling´s faithful and solid traffic volume will join with CMedia offering us new markets in Spain, France, Italy, Germany and Latin America”.

Maximiliano De Muro, co-founder of MediaGambling commented: ”I am very proud that such an innovating company as CMedia, with so much potential, has chosen MediaGambling. [This] acquisition can only evidence the project’s great success. With the incorporation of MediaGambling, CMedia multiplies its network scope, achieving traffic volumes that approach a million unique users per month. Thus, it positions itself as leader in the Spanish gambling sector, and gains ground in other tongues.”

February 27th, 2009 by admin

A new independent survey of 1 065 children age 9-17 across Canada has revealed that too many of them still engage in risky Internet behaviour - especially on social networking sites.

Sponsored by Microsoft Canada and carried out by Youthography, the study provides insight into the way young people use the Internet. The results show that while the Internet is an overwhelmingly positive force in the lives of Canadian youth and most of them are aware of potential dangers, too many children and teens still engage in risky behaviour while online.

For the most part, youth rely on the Internet to communicate with friends and family, research information for homework and play games. They are concerned about Internet safety and more than three-quarters of them are very careful about the personal information they give out online.

A positive revelation is that parents are becoming more engaged in their children’s online activities, compared to previous findings, with 84 percent of respondents saying they have had a discussion with their parents about the potential dangers of risky online behaviour. 86 percent say their parents have taken measures to ensure they are safe online, such as locating the computer in visible locations like the family room or kitchen, rather than in a child’s room.

But the survey identified a number of key areas where Canadian youth continue to put themselves at risk, including:

Social Networking

* Youth post personal information for public view, such as a profile picture (39 percent), home town (16 percent), name of school (20 percent), relationship status (22 percent), and e-mail address (21 percent) to social networking sites. Sharing more than one of these pieces of data can allow predators to easily uncover someone’s real identity.

* 30 percent of youth have lied about their age on a social networking site; 15 percent have pretended to be someone they are not, and more than 30 percent have accepted a friend request from a stranger.

Adult Content and Sexual Behaviour

* 1 in 4 males use search engines to find adult sexual content.

* More than 20 percent of youth visit sites that have pictures or videos showing violent acts, fighting, or racist content.

Cyberbullying

* 40 percent of youth have been bullied online, up from Microsoft’s research in 2004 where 25 percent of respondents reported being cyberbullied. 16 percent admit to being the bully and of those, 50 percent say they did it because they were bullied first.

* In general, 67 percent believe others bully online because they can do it without getting caught and 63 percent believe that the same kids who bully online usually bully in person.

Online Gaming

* 1 in 5 of those who play games in online communities has made contact (phone, email, in-person) with someone they have only ever met online gaming.

* 1 in 4 youth has been harassed when online gaming.

Online Behaviour

* Forty-five percent of teens and 27 percent of ‘tweens go to cyberspace to escape their problems, avoid family, deal with stress, relieve anxiety, deal with sadness or depression or feed their online addiction.

* Youth, especially ‘tweens are concerned about online safety, more so than drugs, alcohol, smoking, body image or sexually transmitted diseases.

“This is Microsoft Canada’s fourth iteration of online safety research and we believe this study offers one of the most comprehensive looks yet at the online activities of Canadian youth including gaming, cyberbullying and social networking,” said Gavin Thompson, Director of Corporate Citizenship, Microsoft Canada.

“There are many encouraging results in the research, including the fact that youth rank online safety as a very important issue and that a majority of youth are making smart choices online. Despite this good news, many youth still engage in risky online behaviour. Microsoft Canada has made online safety and security one of our highest priorities and we recognize that as a leader in our industry we have a responsibility to do all we can to make it a safer place - especially for our children.”

“It is important for parents to be involved in their children’s lives, which includes their on-line and videogame activities, as much as knowing about their friends, sports, music lessons and other things going on in their lives. It is also important to educate youth about the positives and the pitfalls of the cyberworld - but to do so, adults need to understand it first and to see how it has influenced their own activities, family values and work actions,” said Dr. Bruce Ballon, Head of the Adolescent Clinical Education Service (ACES) for Problem Gambling, Gaming and Internet Use at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

February 23rd, 2009 by admin

What appears to have been a palace coup in the affiliate business triggered an upsurge in online gambling forum activity Monday as the major shareholders involved posted their versions of what appeared to be a serious split between partners.

Already at the centre of a growing controversy over the CardSpike and Absolute Slots issues which themselves recently dredged up a wave of past complaints and bannings involving the affiliate community website, the latest very public arguments by the top executives at Casino Affiliate Programs, Affiliate Media Inc and Effective Media Group seem to be heading in only one direction - the courts - as accusation and counter accusation is posted.

Casino Affiliate Programs.com founder and claimed major shareholder Lou Fabiano, who posts under the nickname “Professor” has accused partner Warren Jolly of effectively taking over the company, removing his email privileges and signing passwords, syphoning money away from the corporate bank accounts and banning his posts from the company forum. He also lays the blame for most of CAP’s recent controversial decisions regarding CardSpike, a poker room which he claims is owned by Jolly.

The first broadside was fired Monday afternoon by Fabiano, who addressed the following communication to CAP programs and affiliates:

QUOTE:

Dear Certified Partners and CAP Members

It is with my deepest regret that I must send the following information today as a warning to anyone contemplating working with Warren Jolly or who has been a certified partner of CAP. Please read the letter I received below my statement so you understand why I feel forced to act now. Prior to reading that let me state:

1. I am the founder of CAP and majority shareholder in Affiliate Media Inc. I owned CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com long before I ever met Warren Jolly.

2. When House Winnings failed as a master affiliate for Tradal I was approached by Warren Jolly and his partner at House Winnings and asked if I would allow them to help monetize CAP and handle sales. Prior to that we did NOT charge a fee for programs to be listed at CAP [a point of public controversy- ed.] so there was little revenue coming in, but that wasnt my focus in creating this community.

3. Once I agreed to help out Warren and his partner, who were only 18 at the time and had no prior experience or degree, we formed Affiliate Programs Inc. which later became Affiliate Media Inc.

4. Warren Jolly was given a minority shareholder position and seat on the new company board. His task was to increase reveneus at CAP and join in the growth of that venture.

5. During the first few years with the new company Warren performed admirably and acted as a real asset to us and our industry. Unfortunately as time went on he become bolder and less receptive to any input regarding sales or operation of our retail division.

6. He has repeatedly boosted the certifications fees far beyond any level he was authorized too. I had asked that a maximum increase of 20% per year be honored and he agreed verbally then went on to charge whatever he felt the client would bear [another point of public controversy - ed.]. This damaged many relationships we have or had with our certified partners. He stressed that we had every right to charge whatever he could get and [for Fabiano] to stay out of sales. I bit my lip and went on focusing on the things I enjoyed which were the community and member relations.

7. Last year Warren told me he wanted to open a poker room [a reference to the controversial CardSpike venture, which the two partners have previously denied owning - ed.]. I was opposed to the idea but he went ahead and signed a contract with a provider under a false name and informed me after the fact we were now in the poker business. He asked if I would manage the project and also handle a legitmate client that wanted to re-enter the casino business. I was hesitant, but was backed into a corner as we couldnt do these sort of things under the Affiliate Media banner as it would be a conflict of interest with what CAP did. That is why we formed Effective Media Group. I didnt see any workable alternative so I went along with Warren yet again. For this I owe everyone an apology. I should have put my foot down then and I didnt.

8. Moving forward its my intention to regain control of my comapny and to have Warren Jolly removed from any managemnt position within our company or restricted from doing any further damage to CAP or Affiliate Media Inc. When that occurs I will lower all certification fees to a more reasonable level and work towards repairing any damaged relationships we have with our present and former certified partners.

9. The staff at Affiliate Media is top notch and I do intend to retain everyone in their current postions. The only change I am seeking is to remove Warren Jolly from day to day management of our California Offices as I believe he has been mismanaging our affairs and has most likely been syphoning monies off without the knowledge of myself or the other shareholder.

10. The event team and the publishing arm of CAP are also top notch performers and will be retained and remain unchanged.

10. Please read what I receievd (sic) via email today which has prompted this action. Over the weekend Warren removed me from his skype contacts and phone mail and last week I was informed he was hiring an Admin named Greg to replace “The Professor” [Fabiano] in managing the community and our forums so I have to act now to prevent this rogue from effectively stealing my own company:

From: Gambling Ananymous (sic) [mailto:gamblinganomynous@hotmail.com]

Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 2:32 PM

To: editor@casinoaffiliateprograms.com

Subject: Warren Jolly

I speak on behalf of many here - we as a group of affiliate managers are disatisfied with your business partner’s actions over the past number of years and we hope to see you stand your ground and continue managing cap.

You should be aware that he’s been taking money from a number of affiliate programs, for ‘consutling services’ and puting it into several of his personal/company bank accounts. We can provide more information if need be to assist you with your case.

We thought you should also know that your ’so-called’ partner is going to announce stepping down from Effective Media this week, and he’s going to put the blame on the past months events on to you, including the cardspike fiasco.

The bottom line is that we will not allow warren to take over the cap business affairs.

UNQUOTE

The actual shareholding in the CAP, AFI and EMG groups is not entirely clear; some reports claim that Jolly and another partner called Raj Lahoti own 30 percent of the shares each, and Fabiano 40 percent, being the major shareholder.

However, de facto control appears for the present at least to rest in the hands of Jolly, who has been calling the shots on allegedly illegal bank withdrawals that may amount to as much as $2 million, changing bank passwords, appointing new staff and responsibilities and cutting off Fabiano’s communication channels within the company.

Fabiano told InfoPowa this week: ” Warren Jolly was the contract signator with Cake Poker for CardSpike.com. I was vehemently opposed to this but he acted anyway and I got swept into it with him as we do own equal shares in Effective Media Group and we do have a legitimate client in Absolute Slots.

“I also wanted to make it clear that the astronomical prices increases for CAP certification were done by Mr. Jolly without my authorization and despite my strict instructions that there be a cap of 20% yearly on any increases.

“He used the additional funds to buy himself a Mercedes S Class and His Brother a Porsche Carrera S along with numerous other investments which he has concealed under a variety of names and companies.

“My attorney and accountants will be performing a full audit to determine the exact amount stolen by Warren Jolly. In the mean time I think it’s imperative to let everyone know he is a rogue minority share holder in Affiliate Media Inc. and as Majority shareholder and founder I will be seeking legal assistance in removing him from our company.”

Banned from his own site, Fabiano took the fight to the public forums at Casinomeister and other sites, posting: “Warren not only wants to steal control of our company. Now he has stolen my voice. Problem is he can’t ban me everywhere. 95% of the negative stuff thats happened over the past few years was because I am physically located in Florida and our company offices are in California. Also I have a family to support and I was trying to avoid a long drawn out legal battle if I tried to rein Warren in.”

Using the CAP forum at http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.c…347#post198347, Jolly blasted back at Fabiano’s original emailed accusations: “I’m sure many of you have seen the recent post made by the Professor (Louis Fabiano), which came as a shock to all of the staff and shareholders at CAP. It is a move out of sheer desperation to shift the blame over all of these years for heinous actions that were NEVER approved or favored by the rest of the CAP team. Many of the respectable industry leaders were waiting for this man to fall off the deep end and he finally did. Do not believe or fall for the lies.

We will soon be posting the REAL truth (surely you can understand the legal implications here of making emotional, hot-headed posts…which coincidentially enough you will not see anymore!). In the meanwhile, now that the Professor has been banned for his lies, expect to see a LOT of positive change here at CAP. I will post updates as soon as possible on both matters.”

In answer to questions from other Casinomeister posters regarding CardSpike, Fabiano posted: “Warren is full owner of Cardspike. He always was. EMG was retained as a consultant for Cardspike and again due to the situation I had little choice but to do what was necessary to try to protect CAP and AMI.”

Much will now depend on who - if either one - the affiliates and the major affiliate programs certified by AFI and CAP will continue to support with their business, and the questions of control, authority and ownership look destined to be resolved through legal action rather than the court of public opinion, which has been the main battleground thus far.

January 29th, 2009 by admin

Visionary i-Gaming, a relative newcomer to the live dealer technology sector headed by Martin Reiner, a former executive of VueTec, has inked a deal with new operator Black Orchid Casino.com its Live Turnkey Online Casino package. The new licensing agreement comes one week before Visionary iGaming will debut its live gaming solutions at the International Gaming Expo in London.

Martin Reiner, CEO of Visionary iGaming, said, “We’re excited to partner with Black Orchid Casino.com and we expect that the casino’s marketing team will build a strong live online casino brand in Europe.

“The upcoming expo will be the first opportunity for gaming professionals to publicly see Visionary iGaming’s live online casino games and advanced back office system.,” Reiner added. “We’re excited to introduce the online gaming community to what we feel will be version 2.0 of live online casino games and the business solutions for distributing them.”

In terms of the agreement, Visionary iGaming Visionary iGaming will provide Black Orchid Casino.com with Flash based live casino games, along with 60 RNG table, slots and video poker games.

A Black Orchid Casino.com company spokesman commented: “Visionary iGaming was able to offer the most engaging online casino player experience coupled with a completely turnkey solution encompassing everything from web hosting to a comprehensive back office with integrated payment solutions. ViG is able to provide us with everything we need to launch our brand quickly and easily which allows us to focus all of our attention on client management, not IT.”

January 16th, 2009 by admin

“It hasn’t sunk in yet. It feels unbelievable, surreal. I can’t believe it’s happening,” was the reaction from 22-year-old Canadian poker pro Poorya Nazari over the weekend, immediately after winning the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main prize of $3 million after coming out tops on a roster of globally respected poker aces. Nazari’s win includes a sponsored seat in the European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monte Carlo later this (2009) year, which will be his first trip to Europe.

And the Richmond Hill, Canada player did it all on $33 - he qualified for the PCA through a $33 rebuy turbo tournament - a series of aggressive, quick-paced Internet games. 746 of the players who started in the main event this year had won their seats online at Pokerstars qualifiers.

The 22 year-old biochemistry graduate was one of 1 347 entrants in the $10 000 buy-in, NLHE event - an entry field that broke the records for a poker tournament held outside the United States and created a total prize pool of more than $12.5 million.

Played at the spectacular Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, this year’s PAC saw every final table player - Nazari, Tony Gregg, Benny Spindler, Alexandre Gomes, Pieter Tielen, Dustin Dirksen, Daniel Heimiller and Kevin Saul - collect six figure or bigger prizes.

Team PokerStars Pro and 2008 WSOP bracelet winner Alexandre Gomes started the final table action as the chip leader, with Nazari in second lead. Gomes subsequently busted out in fourth place in the first few hours of aggressive, adventurous play. The game slowed somewhat following the first burst of activity, and it was a further four and a half hours of tough, gruelling poker before the heads up was decided.

Nazari faced Tony Gregg in the final minutes of a highly entertaining tournament, with the young Canadian holding a massive chip advantage of 17.7 million chips against Gregg’s 9.2 million. It was all over in a mere four hands. Gregg collected $1.7 million for his second placing, with third placed Benny Spindler taking home $1.1 million.

Nazari graduated in biochemistry from McMaster University only late last year, but he has been playing poker successfully for some time and is especially adept in the Internet environment, playing at Poker Stars.com and winning enough for the game to be his main source of income for several years.