iGaming News all over the world 12.06.2010

12.06.2010, No country can afford not to have casinos and gambling facilities / Cyprus Freezes Proposed Online Gambling Legislation / Asian Online Gambling 'Significant Part' of Market / Nevada casino winnings fall 5.7 % in April

No country can afford not to have casinos and gambling facilities
Macau, Exclusive Yogonet.com) .- Len Ainsworth, a leader and pioneer in international gaming and chairman of Ainsworth Game Technology, received this week G2E Asia Gaming Visionary Award at Macau’s trade show. He granted an exclusive interview to Yogonet.com, in which he talked about the award he received, and also about the current and future situation of the gaming industry worldwide. He then brought his opinion about the future of Ainsworth.

Mr Ainswoth, you have been honored here at the show, due to your lifetime achievements. What does it represent for you? I think it is a considerable honor and it represents recognition of my 60 years in which I’ve been at the business, and I think every time somebody gives you an honor it is greatly appreciated. It is a great compliment, of course, because there are a lot of people, but I suppose there are not many that are my age and have been in the industry as long as I have.

Have you ever imagined that the gaming industry would grow as much as it has grown right now? Well, I think the industry will continue to grow, because, as I said in my speech, no country can afford not to have casinos and gambling facilities. If they don’t regulate it, then what is going to happen is that the money is going to leave to other country. For example, Thailand does not accept gambling but neighboring Cambodia does. Now Thailand, or Japan, too, can accept that for a while, but they will surely have to change. And the same happens through all South America, North America, Canada, the whole world.

You have been a pioneer in the industry of gaming machines. Which is the future you see for the new technologies? Well, I think the machines will continue very much as they are now. There’s a lot of talk about server-based gaming and I think it has some specific applications, but I think they are more for the providers of server based games than for the providers of machines. And there is something that we can do with machines. I think server-based gaming will find it difficult to emulate; and there are certain limitations. We have many novelties all the time and the objective is to provide entertainment to the people. It’s all about entertainment.

Which is the future you see for Ainsworth, the company? Well, we think the industry will continue to grow. Conventional machines will continue to attract the majority of the business and we think that conventional machines have been overtaken by video machines, a 100% in Australia, and the same is happening in America. But we do have to differentiate between people that come a few days for holidays and people that go to casinos every day. So you have to consider the different markets. Because when you manufacture machines, you have to make different types of machines. You have to sell your equipment to the market, and that’s a very big job to do.

Exclusive Yogonet.com from Macau

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Cyprus Freezes Proposed Online Gambling Legislation
According to a recent report in the Cyprus Mail online news the bill to legalize internet gambling has been frozen by parliament. It was revealed that to date there has been no proper consultation with interested parties in the preparation of a law regulating electronic gambling. Chairperson of the House Legal Affairs Committee, Ionas Nicolaou, said, "Our aim is to complete examination of the bill by the first week of July so that it is sent to the European Commission, for approval." The concerned Nicolaou, stated, “Unfortunately today we found ourselves faced with a new problem which no one expected.” Non Government Organization, SAKOP, which has been stating for quite some time now that the regulated process for the preparation of the bill had not been followed by the government. The House Legal Affairs Committee has asked the state to complete the consultations within 15 days.

According to an EU directive, there must be a public consultation and an impact study on the repercussions of any proposed legislation before the preparation of any such bill. SAKOP is a group that deals with social problems and has been adamant about proper procedure, even filing a complaint with the Ombudswoman of Cyprus accusing Charilaos Stavrakis the Finance Minister of not following the Consultation Guide. The group also pointed out that no provisions have been made in the bill to help families whose members develop gambling problems.

SAKOP said that nothing had been done to show that studies were performed before discussion of the bill. "What we have determined is that the necessary consultation with all those involved was not carried out," SAKOP said that letters it sent to authorities, “were completely ignored.” Online gambling in Cyprus, is making over €2.5 billion a year and is regulated by the Betting Law, which was amended in 2007 to comply with EU legislation for the free provision of services across borders.

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Asian Online Gambling 'Significant Part' of Market
It comes as no surprise to anyone who watches the trends in gambling to hear that the online gambling industry is ready to explode in the Asian jurisdictions. The Global Gaming Asia conference, being held in one of the worlds most profitable gambling destinations, on the island of Macau near mainland China delegates have been receiving factual confirmation that that Asia will surpass the USA as the gambling capital of the world.

Chief of the American Gaming Association, Frank Fahrenkopf, stated at the conference, "The growth of the market in Asia has been incredible," and that recent survey statistics indicated that the industry in Asia had "unlimited" potential. Other AGA comments proposed that online gambling was likely to emerge as a "significant part" of the global market unaffected by the prohibition in the USA. Delegates at The Global Gaming Asia conference learned that Singapore and other Southeast Asian nations are now building up their gambling sectors.

Japan is the unknown factor in the debate as to which nation or area will dominate the gambling scene in Asia. Currently Asian countries are consolidating significant potential including Singapore, Australia, Cambodia, Malaysia and the Philippines but Japan with it's antiquated laws regarding online gambling and casinos is loosing ground and possibly huge revenues. There are no online Japanese casinos and internet gambling is prohibited in Japan. There are few measures taken to prevent players from accessing foreign casinos and because these operations are from offshore the Japanese government has no jurisdiction, so there is little they can do to prevent players from playing. It is estimated that over 10 million Japanese citizens regularly play at online casinos. The Chief Executive Officer of the Sands, Sheldon Adelson, commented at the opening of Marina Bay Casino in Macau, that the Japanese tend to “see gaming as a form of entertainment while Westerners would rather spend money on dining and going out with friends.”

There is a proposition to amend the law again to exclude electronic gambling from this list of services available.

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Nevada casino winnings fall 5.7 % in April
Casinos in Nevada won us$ 810.5 million in April, 5.7 % less than the same month last year, gambling regulators said this week. The state Gaming Control Board said tax collections based on those winnings were us$ 39.7 million in May, a 23.4 % decrease compared with the taxes paid in May 2009.

The steepest decreases came on the Boulder Strip, and in South and North Lake Tahoe. On the Boulder Strip, casino winnings dropped nearly 13 % to us$ 56.8 million. The area produced 7 % of statewide gambling revenue, compared with 8.8 % in April 2009.

Gambling revenue on the Las Vegas Strip dropped less than 1 % to us$ 437.3 million. But the Strip slightly increased its share of overall statewide gambling revenue during the month, taking in 54 % of Nevada's total compared with 51.3 % in April last year.

Only three areas - Carson Valley, Mesquite and Wendover in Elko County - showed any increase. The three areas made up a combined 4.1 % of the state's gambling revenues.

Gambling regulators said casino winnings dropped 4 % during the first 10 months of the fiscal year, which ends this month. Casinos statewide have won us$ 8.7 billion from July through April, compared with us$ 9.08 billion during the first 10 months of the prior fiscal year. Over that time, casino winnings on the Strip increased just over 0.5 %, to us$ 4.79 billion.

State officials said the taxes collected on gambling revenues in the first 11 months of the fiscal year were us$ 572.7 million, down 5.3 % from the us$ 604.6 million through the first 11 months of fiscal 2009.

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