According to a new casino gambling study, the number of gamblers in the UK rose by almost three quarters in the last year. The Gambling Commission report found that 73% of adults played at least one form of gambling.

The study by the commission showed that 73% of adults in the United Kingdom gambled in some form last year. The casino gambling figures are back at the level of 1999 and increased with 68% since the last survey. The British Gambling Prevalence survey was conducted among 7,756 adults aged over 16 years old and suggests that the number of problem gamblers rose to 0.9 percent (451,000 people) of the population as compared to 0.6 percent in 2007 and 1999. According to the survey 59% of all adults bought a National Lottery ticket in 2010, making it the most popular gambling activity. The number of lottery tickets sold was slightly lower in 2007 and slightly higher in 1999. Sports Betting was the only activity that decreased from 9% to 4%. Overall, 14% of adults used the Internet to gamble in the past year, while 81% said they gambled in the real world.

The casino gambling numbers were highest among those who are or have been married (75%) among whites (76%), those with completed GCSE (76%), those with the highest personal income (76%), and among persons living in the East Midlands (80%).

According to the study, pathological gamblers are more young men who smoke and have parents with gambling problems. Professor David Miers chairman of the research team said: “Any rate of problem gambling and risk of exposure is both a political and public health concern, and highlights the continuing need for targeted research, education, prevention and treatment. This national survey is welcome because it will be a useful tool in understanding who gambles and how they gamble and thus aid us in refining our thinking about ways of preventing people being affected by gambling-related harm, as well as helping to develop educational and research programmes aimed at tackling the problem.”

The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) has indicated that the new sponsor of the Premier League Darts will be 888.com. The 888.com Premier League Darts will begin next Thursday with 8 of the biggest stars in the sport in the O2 in London and will run for 15 consecutive Thursday evenings.

More than 80,000 fans are expected to visit the biggest stadiums in the UK during the 888.com Premier League Darts, which was won last year by Phil Taylor when he threw two historic nine-darters in the final against James Wade. Barry Hearn, chairman of the PDC said: “We are delighted to welcome 888.com back into darts as the title sponsor for the Premier League Darts. This tournament has emerged as the biggest indoor sporting event in the country in recent years and we look forward to welcoming a record number of fans to the country’s 15 biggest arenas. With television coverage being shown worldwide, the 888.com Premier League Darts will provide an ideal showcase for 888.com’s online casino and poker brands.”

The online casino gambling business used to be the sponsor of the first season in the Premier League Darts 2005, won by Phil Taylor. Adi Soffer-Te’eni, Managing Director of 888.com said: “We are extremely excited to have the opportunity to once again be involved with this event. Over the years the Premier League Darts has grown substantially and now with an international reach we feel it’s the perfect time to align our online gambling and darts brands again. The 888.com Premier League Darts, will feature some of the biggest names in darts, including defending champion Phil Taylor world champion Adrian Lewis, James Wade, Gary Anderson, Simon Whitlock, Raymond van Barneveld, Terry Jenkins and Mark Webster.

The soft porn company “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis is being sued for failure to repay a gambling debt of $2.5 million to a casino on the Las Vegas Strip. According to Francis, he does not owe any money and intends to fight the charges.

The case has been running for almost 3 years, but Francis says he never signed a casino marker. A casino marker is basically a declaration of debt to the casino which can be used as a check. Fransis accused Wynn Las Vegas hotel-casino of trying to cash the money 15 months after it was issued, even though they knew that his bank had closed the account. Francis said: “The moral of the story is, do not gamble at Wynn casinos or this will happen to you. Steve Wynn is not a man of his word.” Steve Wynn is the founder and CEO of Wynn Resorts, a casino gambling company with an similar named casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Jennifer Dunne, spokeswoman for Wynn Resorts had no comment and said that Wynn Resorts will not respond to pending cases.

Francis, the producer behind the successful soft porn empire that films young women as they show their breasts and are involved in sexual acts will face court on February 16. In 2007 Francis would have signed casino markers without being able to repay them. In Nevada, unpaid markers are seen as bad checks and Francis is therefore charged with theft and paying with a bad check. Francis’ attorney Dave Houston said the issues in the dispute are the amount and how Wynn tried to collect the amount. He said Francis hasn’t been given a complete accounting of what’s owed. According to the casino, the marker was given in exchange for a check which later proved to be from a closed bank account.

One of the largest deals in the online gambling industry is about to be completed after shareholders of both PartyGaming and Bwin have approved the proposed merger.

PartyGaming was the first to announce the approval of its shareholders for the casino gambling merger via a press release. Thanks to the joint approval of the shareholders, the agreement will continue in the coming weeks as the online casino companies implement their plans agreed in the merger contract. According to the timeline of PartyGaming, the merger between the two casino companies will be fully completed in April this year. The new company will called “bwin.party digital entertainment”.

After the shareholders meeting of the two casino companies, CEO of PartyGaming Jim Ryan and CEO of Bwin Norbert Teufelberger expressed their views: “Today’s shareholder meetings were a key milestone in the overall process, putting the transformational merger of our two companies well on the way to Completion. We are delighted that both sets of shareholders have overwhelmingly recognised the strategic, operational and financial benefits of creating the world’s largest listed online gambling company.” According to the shareholder prospectus of PartyGaming, the merged company would created a business with net sales of € 696.2 million.

According to reports from Reuters, Greece will legalize their online casino gambling industry by the end of the year and give 50 gambling licenses to online casino operators.

Greece is a country with enormous debts that are almost impossible to solve. An employee of the Greek government has reported to Reuters that the country intends to repay its debts by legalising online casinos and internet gambling. Currently, the only casino gaming company that is allowed to offer online gambling to the Greek, is gambling monopoly OPAP. But according to the government employee, the Greek government will issue 50 Internet gambling licenses and allow more than a thousand low-stakes lottery video slot machines before the end of 2011 to repay the massive debt of the country.

According to the government employee, the government will soon submit a bill to legalize online gambling and raise the ban on video lottery slot machines. The reason for the change is to comply with EU legislation and to raise money under the terms of a of 110 billion Euro loan from the EU/ IMF. The representative of the Greek government said under condition of anonymity: “The bill is expected to be voted within the first quarter of the year.”

Lottery.co.uk has announced they have launched 0a mobile version of their online casino gambling site. The mobile version with the same url will automatically see when someone logs in with a smartphone on the site and will automatically adjust the size of the site to the screen.

The mobile casino gambling site is fully optimized for mobile phone users with a completely new game pages so that the gambling site is easier to use on mobile phones. The launch of Lottery.co.uk for the mobile phones marks the launch of the first major lottery site dedicated for mobile phones. The mobile online gambling site is more user friendly for players with a mobile phone, especially smartphones. Players can easily check their lottery results, and they can do that wherever they are. On the mobile lottery website a free games section is available where you can find different free games you can play to win real money, including mobile slotmachines.

Sam Brigades, Project Director at lottery.co.uk said: “Checking your lottery results is a casual activity and one you are likely to think of when not otherwise being entertained, like when travelling on a bus, standing in a queue or sitting in a waiting room. We’ve made those results readily obtainable and specially formatted to be read on smart phone screens along with the rest of the lottery.co.uk site. So now users won’t have to wait till they get home or to the office to see if they are a millionaire.”

One of the leading mobile online casino operators, the Probability Group has indicated that the company saw a significant growth in customers and betting activity in the third quarter of the fiscal year. December was a particularly good month in which customers made more deposits.

The number of customers that made a deposit into their online casino account from Probability in December was 35% higher as compared to last year. According to analysts from the online gambling industry, the cold and bad weather in Europe and North America is to blame for this increase, because people were trapped inside and as a result they looked for a casino gambling option on their mobile phone. Another reason for the increase is the success of smart-phones, thanks to super-advanced phones you can use your 3G network to play your favourite casino games anywhere. Charles Cohen, CEO of Probability said: “This was a record quarter for Probability. It seems that the snow helped, and our hunch is that customers were turning to their mobiles for entertainment when they found themselves stuck at home or elsewhere.”

A significant increase in the number of deposits through iPhone or Android phones was also seen. Probability, reported a growth of 27% in December despite the fact the mobile gaming service was launched just four months before. Probability has over 5 years experience, specializing in mobile casino gambling, with about 1 million customers in the UK and more than half billion transactions on their mobile gambling platform to date. Customers of Probability play slots, bingo, poker and casino games on more than 8,000 types of phones from the mid 90’s to the latest Nokias iPhone and iPad devices.

Macau is an enclave in China and the only place in the country where casino gambling is legally permitted. Since the founding of the city as a gambling city, business prospered and it seems that it will only get better with the newly built railway between Macau and mainland China.

The bank Citigroup predicted that the revenue for the gambling town of about 25% up with the new railway travel time between Macau and mainland China should reduce. The total travel time to return about four hours, that time is now run by a half hour per direction shortened. This means that gamblers will have three hours longer to play their favorite slot machines, table games and casino games. The additional travel option is just part of the recent progress that has led to increases in the revenue of the casinos, which are among the highest increases in the casino gambling industry. Last year, sales went up as much as 75% in some months.

While other gambling city’s including Atlantic City and Las Vegas suffered severe damage from the economic crisis, it appears Macau was hardly bothered by the global recession and also that 2011 will become another record year thanks to the new railway with the mainland. A survey of visitors to Macau which used the old line, showed that 35% of respondents would go to Macau more often if the travel time between Guangzhou South and Zhuhai North could be reduced from more than four hours to an hour and a half. According to Citigroup, the total revenue of the casino gambling in Macau this year will be more than 30 billion dollar, an improvement of 25% compared to the results of 2010. Citigroup also believes that the number of visitors in the casinos of Macau will increase with 20%.

The United Kingdom is the largest casino gambling area in Europe with some of the largest casino and sports betting operators worldwide. The Minister of Culture, Jeremy Hunt wants to change the gambling law so that all non UK online gambling sites are banned.

For years, the United Kingdom has been good for online casino operators, but potentially this good relationship will soon be over, if the plan of the government to change the online casino industry goes through. The reason for the change in gambling legislation is growing concern about the increase in gambling addiction in the United Kingdom. In 2005, the Gambling Legislation made it easier for online casino gambling sites to operate in the UK and now the law is accused of leaving the industry unregulated. Some of the biggest names in the casino gaming industry including William Hill and Ladbrokes, despite the liberal rules, left to Gibraltar to escape the higher taxes in the UK. Hunt is considering a ban on credit card payments to online casinos, such as the UIGEA in the U.S. which has shown not to work.

Hunt also plans for online gaming companies licensed in the UK to get so they can ensure that foreign companies may no longer advertise in their country. A possible ban on online casinos will be difficult to achieve in the EU, and if the companies can not advertise they will get less customers in the UK. The plan would require all foreign online gambling companies to get a gambling license in England, so the company can do nothing but comply with the law if they want to offer gambling in the UK. This would set up a system which would make companies comply with the advertising laws. While the British players almost spend £2.5 billion per year on Internet gambling sites, more than three quarters of that money goes to companies outside Britain.

It’s not the first time that a bid has been put on the online casino operator 888, a few weeks ago, Ladbrokes made a bid of 240 million pounds for the online casino software developer, but this bid was rejected.

888 has been declining offers from different online gaming companies for years such as the one from Ladbrokes last month. Ladbrokes had offered 240 million pounds for the London-listed company, a lot more than the 200 million pounds Playtech offered for the same company. 888 is one of the largest online casino software developers and operators in the world, and was once worth nearly 1 billion pounds, but due to the economic crisis, the value dropped tremendously in recent years. After a sharp decline in the value of the shares of 888, the current market value of the online casino company is worth around 169 million pounds. It is unlikely that 888 will accept the offer because they refuse offer after offer, and the latest offering is just another bid, but at a reduced price.

The fact that 888 is one of the largest online casino software developer and operator is the reason that Playtech, Ladbrokes and other companies show their interest to buy the Internet gambling business. The customer base of 888 is one of the largest in the industry, specifically with a dominant position in the British online gambling market. The offers will continue for 888 as long as they have a strong position in the market. The best idea for the online casino operator is to merge with other Internet gambling companies like Bwin and PartyGaming have done. From that merger the biggest online gambling company in the world arose which will be worth over £500 million.