News

As Casino Guardian reported at the beginning of August, gambling still has a heavy impact on people in the Pacific region, with levels of gambling-related harm remaining almost unchanged, in spite of the fact that overall gambling participation rates fall. The findings emerged as a result of the latest national gambling study held by the Auckland University of Technology and funded by the Ministry of health. At present times, the figures which were revealed at the time when the research results were announced remain pretty stable, with Māori and Pacific’s…

As the popularity of eSports and eSports betting is surging in the United States and around the globe, an increasing number of US colleges are offering eSports programs and scholarships. In the UK, despite the growing demand from students, universities still lag behind schools across the pond. Researchers at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming estimate that $6.7 billion is wagered globally on professional eSports every year. While this number encompasses the bets placed both legally and illegally, the legalized market is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. Betting on…

Three men aged 31 to 48 have been imprisoned in Chester Crown Court for stealing small amounts of cash from slot machines. The gang was targeting gaming machines in pubs across the country and never thought they would be caught. But they were spotted on CCTV and eventually arrested. The crime spree was described by the police as quite brazen, but it did not last long – from October 2017 to April 2018, Luke Partington, 35, Ian Parker, 31, and David Gordon, 48, conspired to steal from gaming machines across…

An online gambler from Halifax, who was sentenced to 28 months in jail for stealing more than £430,000 from his ill grandmother, will now pay back only £21,000. After the 70-year-old woman died in January, her three children were left with no inheritance and are now receiving a compensation of £7,000 each. Pensioner Sandra Gledhill’s life savings of £434,231 were blown for online gambling by her grandson, 30-year-old Darren Glendhill. While she was suffering from vascular dementia and living in a care home in Halifax, the gambling addict made approximately…

An online advertisement for a US lottery has been banned after a complainant noticed that rather than offering participation tickets, it allowed customers to bet on its outcome. The misleading ad has even made sensational headlines in some UK media publications where readers were told they could win the whopping £256 million super jackpot. The ad was distributed by LottoGo, a website for betting on lotteries, which is operated by Annexio Ltd, a company based in the Isle of Man. Gamblers were told they could wake up multi-millionaires by participating…

Gaming machines across New Zealand will be “paused” in an initiative aiming to raise awareness of the harmful effects of gambling. More than 70 pubs and clubs will join the Gambling Harm Awareness Week by “pausing their pokies” for an hour every day from September 3 through September 9. The majority of the adult population in New Zealand gambles in one way or another and according to the latest statistics, presented by non-profit organization Problem Gambling Foundation, 77 per cent of them participates in some form of gambling. More than…

Amidst strong criticism and scrutiny against slot machines in Australia, gaming manufacturers in the country revealed that every year, the pokies contribute AU$8.32 billion to the national economy. The data was made public during the Australasian Gaming Expo in Sydney last week and prompted berating from anti-gambling campaigners. The interesting results come as part of a new survey conducted on behalf of the Gaming Technologies Association, an Australian industry group that represents leading gaming manufacturers such as IGT Australia, Aristocrat Technologies, Scientific Games, Tabcorp, and Konami Australia. According to the…

Ireland’s Department of Finance is considering the renewed calls for doubling the betting tax in the budget, in order to get more money for funding gambling addiction services. John Halligan, an Independent Alliance Minister, has urged the country’s Government to make sure the betting tax is increased from 1% to 2%. According to him and other proponents of the measure, such an increase would bring an additional annual revenue of €50 million for the exchequer. Mr. Halligan noted that there must be a guarantee that the extra €50 million would…

Australian researchers and psychiatrists have said that video games which encourage players to purchase so-called “loot boxes”, saying that such special items were very much like addictive poker machines. Experts also warned that video games offering such items could be quite addictive and could lead to massive losses. Today, a Senate inquiry initiated by the Greens Party senator Jordon Steele-John is set to start in Melbourne after being unanimously passed in June. The inquiry has already resulted in written submissions from both proponents and opponents of this form of gambling,…

The fact that Glasgow City Council would not have the power to enforce new rules about the maximum stakes allowed at high-stake betting machines has been confirmed by a new report into the controversial fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs). Problem gambling has been one of the most-discussed issues in the sector, especially considering the fact that gambling addictions have sharply increased in certain parts of the country. As previously reported by Casino Guardian, Scotland, and the city of Glasgow in particular, have been considered one of the areas with the largest…