The UK microgaming no deposit casinos and Gibraltar-based bookie group was the beneficiary of a WhichBingo player poll, revealed the bingo head honcho at Ladbrokes, Ruairi Boyle, who said: “It’s the most prestigious award in online bingo and we’re thrilled to win it. We’re already looking to 2010 to retain our title. New players, exciting innovations for existing roomies and more promotions, games and jackpots than anyone else are all in our sights.

“Our social networking app, our unique atmosphere where our roomies ‘own” the site and our commitment to new promotions have all combined to help us win this award.

“But we still feel as if we’re only just beginning and 2010 will be the year of huge change. We’re getting ready for ‘Session Bingo’ and with more TV planned, we’re just as excited as our players right now,” added Boyle.

The WhichBingo poll - now in its seventh year - attracted more votes than ever before across the entire online bingo community, the site reported.

Dusty ‘Leatherass’ Schmidt (28) is a well known high stakes grinder (and a mean golfer to boot) who was one of the early PokerStars Supernova Elites and is an instructor at StoxPoker. His bread and butter internet poker comes from middle stakes cash games in 5/10 and 10/20 with some 25/50 and very occasionally 50/100 action when the games are good.

Interviewed in a local park, where he used his laptop to play several online poker tables simultaneously, Schmidt explaining that he became obsessed with Internet poker after a heart attack four years ago left him bedridden for months.

Overcome with medical bills, Schmidt bet his last $1 000 on a hand and won back not only enough money to cover his bills, but enough to make a good living, too.

He told the Portland Mercury reporter that in the last three years, he has made over $1 million a year on Internet poker (and won an Aston Martin).

This (December) month, he decided to donate all of his December winnings to Transitions Project, a Portland homeless non-profit organisation. With the $20 000 he has won so far, Schmidt plans to help support three families by prepaying their rent.

There has been a level of fear circulating through the online casino gambling industry over the past several months because of the pending UIGEA enforcement regulations that were supposed to take effect on December 1st. With the delay though, the online casinos like Cherry Red decided to celebrate and encourage gamblers to sign up at the US-friendly sites. Cherry Red announced that new gamblers on the site can receive as much as $7,777 in bonus cash just for signing up for a new account on the site. The site has a low minimum deposit and a tiered welcome bonus payout system in place across a new player’s first several deposits.

The wagering requirements are simple and really just like any online casino gambling site- the deposit bonus must be used for wagering, and is not available for withdrawal – winnings from the bonus though are fair game! The site has a huge selection of games available to US players – from craps to roulette, card games, and of course slots too.

Although Jersey has proposed new plans to enact new e-gaming legislation throughout 2010, not everyone is pleased with this planned liberalization of the island’s economy. With the planned licensing of online casinos will also come the full brunt of the internet gambling industry; if Jersey plans to allow internet gambling sites to operate out of the island they will also open the doors to a full-fledged market where island citizens will have unprecedented access to internet gambling.

And additional concern is the standards in the online casino gambling industry; not every licensing jurisdiction is created equally and there are a lot of concerns and development that goes into efficiently and effectively licensing internet gambling sites. The sites licensed out of Jersery will have the power to operate nearly anywhere in the world where there is a legal gambling market, so it’s important that Jersey’s regulatory standards exceed the industry minimum – all of which will take a lot of development work for this planned project to succeed.

eCOGRA is a incredibly well respected standards organization in the global market (the UK and EU most specifically though) that works to uphold a set of minimum standards and practices to which all of the major online casinos and gambling groups adhere. eCOGRA accredits sites that are operating to the organization’s standards and also works to moderate situations such as the Grand Prive debacle that shook the foundation of the global affiliate online casino gambling industry.

According to the new information released about the situation, eCOGRA will work with all of the affected affiliates to open a line of communication with Grand Prive. Affiliates will have the opportunity to ask all of their hard-hitting questions. And perhaps most importantly for the online casino gambling affiliates, they will get paid what they’re owed as these negotiations conclude – that is one of the more pressing parts of the entire situation and eCOGRA has assured affected affiliates that Grand Prive is prepared to pay out all of the disputed funds.

Funnily enough, the new changes made within the Commission really haven’t sat well with some of the EU member-states…and it has nothing to do with the online casinos! The issue comes from the fact that there were only oh-so-many spots available and there were a lot of countries hoping to fill the spots with a representative from their country. French president Nicolas Sarkozy made matters quite a bit worse with his altogether un-PC comment noting that the UK was the underdog in the latest appointments. For the online casino gambling industry though, there is no telling how Barnier’s appointment will affect the fight for a free and open EU market.

Ostensibly, Barnier will also agree that the EU trade principles dictate strong action against the EU states operating an online casino gambling monopoly. In practice though, this could be entirely different because France is one of the countries that has only just begun to adhere to the Commission’s demands for an open market – in fact, the market isn’t even open yet.

Supporters of Issue 3, which will allow internet casinos in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo, have spent nearly $32 million since July, the Dispatch reports.

Penn National has and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert have teamed up to promote Issue 3. According to the Dispatch, they have split the cost of the campaign roughly evenly.

The opposition group, led by a Cleveland developer, has spent a little more than $5 million, according to the Dispatch.

And he believes others in the business community should be taking a similar approach.

“I feel very strongly about this, and it needs to be discussed,” said Wynn, founder and chief executive officer of the company that operates Wynn Las Vegas, Encore and a casino gambling in Macau. “I plan on speaking up every chance I get. Every businessperson ought to speak up or things are going to get much worse.”

But he plans to do more than talk. Wynn said he may establish a political action organization within Wynn Resorts that will empower his Strip casino’s 14,000 employees.

At Mirage Resorts, Wynn built a political arm in the 1990s that registered voters, provided campaign feedback to the company’s employees, and helped favored candidates with grass-roots organizational materials.

“I’m going to get real active in the next election,” Wynn said of the 2010 midterm campaign.

Two rival casino executives, MGM Mirage Chairman and CEO Jim Murren, and Harrah’s Entertainment Senior Vice President Jan Jones, said they don’t question Wynn’s right to speak out. But they disagree with his opinion of President Barack Obama. Wynn, they said, is not expressing the universal opinion of casino gambling operators.

“(Wynn is) very well-known and he’s a provocative speaker,” Murren said. “He is a celebrity and he enjoys doing that. He does not speak for the industry nor does he speak for (MGM Mirage).”

Wynn believes the president has not focused attention on job creation, and he said Monday the administration’s policies will “punish” businesses.

“It’s a misdirected agenda. It’s socialism lite,” Wynn said. “All the things being talked about do nothing toward creating jobs. Eventually, this is going to start to dawn on the American people.”

In addition to Obama, Wynn was critical of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

However, Wynn, who is a Republican, said Monday that he supports the re-election of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

“My friend of 40 years will protect Americans from this kind of foolishness,” Wynn said. “I don’t believe Harry will let that happen. Remember, Harry is a conservative Democrat from Searchlight.”

Wynn appeared several times last week on cable television news shows to discuss the economy. He also participated in a round-table discussion with two Midwestern governors and an economist on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace.

On Monday, Wynn clarified comments he made on the Fox show about government having never created jobs. However, he said public works jobs, such as the building of Hoover Dam in the 1930s, are not enough to bring America out of the recession. Jobs, such as those in the service sector created by the casino industry and private business, are more important than government employment programs.

“If the government hires everybody, that’s communism,” Wynn said. “We know that destroys initiative.”

Wynn said the administration and Congress need to come up with policies that are favorable to business and that fuel capitalism and job growth, not attack it.

“These macroeconomists don’t understand what happens in each community,” Wynn said. “When people have a job, they feel better about themselves, buy houses, pay taxes and become consumers. People without jobs don’t have consumer confidence.”

Between its Strip and Macau casinos, Wynn Resorts employs 20,000 workers. The company hired 5,000 people in December when Encore opened. The sagging economy forced Wynn to make cutbacks at his two Strip resorts, although he said mass layoffs did not take place.

Wynn is fresh off an initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that raised $1.87 billion for Wynn Resorts. The company is opening a second resort in Macau in the spring at a cost of $675 million.

Last week, Wynn completed a high-profile deal that will bring country music star Garth Brooks into Encore’s showroom over the next five years.

The consensus appears to have been that the chances for both Barney Frank’s and Robert Menendez’s online gambling bills passing are slim.

“Most think Congress has too much on its plate with health care reform, budget deficits and the brewing climate change mitigation fight to consider any gambling measures next year,” the newspaper reports. “In addition, some suggest lawmakers won’t want to choose sides on gambling issues in an election year.”

Of those polled, only one considered passage in the next year of Barney Frank’s bill “somewhat likely,” with most considering it “somewhat unlikely” or “very unlikely.”

Senator Robert Menendez’s less ambitious proposal to legalise, regulate and tax games of skill such as poker fared a little better, with five of the experts opining that it would be “somewhat likely” to pass in the next 12 months, but most say it’s unlikely.

Jan Jones, senior vice president of communications and government relations at Harrah’s Entertainment, was definitely pessimistic, telling the Las Vegas Sun that Frank’s bill has no chance of passage next year or maybe ever, despite the formation of an interactive division by her company. She too felt that the Menendez’s bill has a better chance, something that would benefit Harrah’s, which owns the World Series of Poker.

The newspaper reports that Americans are estimated to have wagered $5.9 billion online in 2008 despite the UIGEA, and most of the AGA experts think the market will grow to between $8 billion and $20 billion within five years.

“Many are skeptical that the United States would lure companies operating offshore because of lower tax rates and operating costs elsewhere,” the article notes.

On a more optimistic note, Michael Waxman, a spokesman for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, told the newspaper that the level of online play has been underestimated and that lawmakers will soon realise how tax revenue generated by online gaming can help fill numerous budget holes.

Waxman added that Frank’s legislation has support from 63 co-sponsors so he’s not counting out the possibility that the issue would be aired next year.

The new program is being launched out of Tasmania and “Gambling Help Online” is an internet-based option for seeking help. The idea being that problem gamblers who are used to the anonymity of the online casinos may be more likely to seek help through the internet for their problem gambling tendencies. The service is targeted at Tasmanians with gambling problems and there is a strong hope that the launch of this service will squash some of the controversy that has sprung up throughout Australia concerning Tasmania’s plans to greatly expand the influence of internet gambling on the island.

Tasmania is looking at some rapid growth in the online casino gambling industry over the next year if the planned one-time licensing fee of $250,000 stays true. Internet gambling companies pay as much as 13 percent in tax revenue to the licensing authorities in some countries and there is an expectation that Tasmania’s licensing offer will cause a lot of gambling companies to flock to the Australian state. With increased access and influence of internet gambling on the daily life of Tasmanians there is a hope that the new gambling help site will keep problem gambling numbers from increasingly.