This news is coming out of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) in the Northern part of France. I’m searching the news in French and English newspapers to find out what went down. But it seems that last night four men rushed into a casino in Dunkirk (which is actual Dunkerque if you’re looking for this info from French sources), shot their guns into the air, physically assaulted the casino staff and made off with about 7,000 Euros and made off in a vehicle driven by the getaway guy. So the thieves grabbed about $12,000 which would need to be split five ways. Not the biggest take in the world. The robbers tried to get the money in the casinos safes but the safes had a time lock so the staff in the casino didn’t have the ability to unlock them.

The casino was not very busy when the men, who wore balaclavas to cover their faces, burst in. There were about 20 staff and around 50 customers in the casino and although the robbers assaulted some of the staff in an effort to get more funds, none of the gamblers were harmed. The French police have already made arrests in connection with the robbery and are looking to see if there are connections between in and other similar casino robberies in the area. This robbery took place just a day after the attack of the Casino de Saint Armand Les Eaux where the thieves got away with over 100,000 Euros.

The easy access to casinos in the area and current rash of robberies is causing casino owners to raise the issue of being able to place armed guards in the casino.

So I come back after a nice long weekend to find the news focused on Canada and the British Columbia Gambling Corporation – Again.

So, a quick recap for those who haven’t been keeping up with the gambling scene in Canada (that’s my job, not yours. Unless you live in Canada). Last year, British Columbia decided to raise money from gambling not by the usual lottery or by licensing and taxing casinos that operated within their boundaries. Well, actually, they were already doing that. Instead the British Columbia Lottery Corporation asked to raise the bar by running their own online casino. Now some of us saw a potential problem with this since the BCLC is part of the government that oversees casinos operation in Canada.

And there were problems from the beginning. The new BCLC casino launched with software that somehow exposed personal player information to other players and was shut down the first day. It finally relaunched and eventually seemed to be providing the gambling experience that people expected.

But now we’re hearing that there may be ongoing problems within the BCLC that the government would have known about before it even approved the online casino operation. Back in 2007, they knew that the BCLC was having trouble monitoring and reporting suspicious transactions in existing British Columbia casinos to the police so that those transactions could be investigated. But the BCLC was still allowed to open its own casino.

Now, the BCLC has been fined $670,000 for failure to report large cash transactions as large as 1.2 million dollars. The casinos are responsible for reporting these transactions to the BCLC and the BCLC is supposed to report them to the police. It seems that the casinos have been following through on their part but the BCLC has dropped the ball. And some are saying that there needs to be an independent investigation into the BCLC to find out just what’s going on in there.

It should come as “snow” surprise but online gambling sites are busier on snowy days than they are on comfy warm days. After all, it only makes sense that we’d want to stay inside and play on the computer when it’s cold outside. And baby, lately it’s been cold outside. Which is good news in the online gambling industry.

But apparently what makes common sense isn’t enough for mobile gaming service specialists (yes, it seems that is a real job.) So the mobile gaming service specialists over at Probability plc have done a study on snowy days and gambling activity. Maybe they were snowed in and had some time on their hands. This sort of study might be the equivalent of playing endless rounds of Solitaire for probability specialists.

Well, they can up with some not astounding findings. Snow days turned out to be the busiest online gambling days. Want some numbers? That’s okay, that’s what probability specialists are for. There was an average increase of 15% on days with snow over days without. Oh, and guess what, it isn’t just in play time. There was an increase of 35% on deposits on snowy days. How about an increase of 22% new players. And technology is having an impact since more players were using their iphones and smart phones to make deposits.

Now, the gambling industry must be considering it’s only January and we have a number of weeks of winter ahead. But don’t be surprised if you hear the people who run the online casinos walking around singing “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

It’s one of the ongoing debates in the United States. There has been legislation introduced to legalize some aspects of online gambling, particularly online poker, but no one has been able to get that level of legislation passed on a national level. But individual states are able to set legislation within their borders and that’s what they’ve been doing. Which means that national legislation may be left playing a game of catch up.

In Iowa, the legislature is considering legalizing online gambling to some extent in an attempt to find ways to help state residents who may have gambling problems. They know that residents in the state are already gambling online. After all, there isn’t a whole lot to do in Iowa. If online gambling is illegal, then residents will still gamble online. And in Florida, attempts are underway to legalize online poker of not other forms of gambling. There are a lot of online gamblers in Florida. I think they’re retirees from Iowa. But again, having legislation in place would provide Florida with more control over what goes on in the state. And in California, it looks like interstate online poker may become legal. In California, the Commerce Casino has been working to get the state to pass a law that would allow online poker — provide the casino offering it is also within the state. Why? Because then state residents will have to play at the Commerce Casino online.

This “within the state” rule looks like it’s going to pass in New Jersey where the legislature has already voted in favor of allowing land-based casinos within the state to offer online gambling to state residents. This legislation isn’t going to allow residents to play at any of the many overseas casinos already on the web, but states that the casinos offering online gambling will have to keep the equipment used in the business in Atlantic City itself.

I have to admit the main reason I was drawn to this article was the Trump name. Now and then, I like reading about what “The Donald” is up to because he works so hard at being noticed. And the Trump news today is that the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has reversed an earlier decision in a lawsuit that was in The Donald’s favor. Okay, the article I’m reading is full of legalize so I’m going to try to translate that in English for Humans.

Back in 2006, Keystone Development Redevelopment Partners, LLC - a Trump firm - filed an application in Philadelphia to open a Category 2 casino. The application was rejected. Well, The Donald doesn’t take rejection well, so he filed a lawsuit against the people sitting on the board. And somehow won. Though later the counts against board members who hadn’t been on the board when Trump’s application was rejected were dismissed. (It must be odd to be sued for something that happened when you weren’t even there.)

But now the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has reversed the decision in the lawsuit and dismissed all counts to the dismay of Trump. According to the court’s ruling, the Gaming Control Board functions as a quasi-judicial entity and therefore members are entitled to immunity from lawsuits. This form of judicial or quasi-judicial immunity is put in place to allow government officials to do their job without fear of being sued. And The Donald has proven that the immunity is apparently needed.

I’d love to give an opinion on the ruling or the law itself, but it’s just hard to feel sorry for Donald Trump.

This could change the face of corporate meetings. Well, only in Nevada. Coming from a corporate background, I used to sit in meetings with executives who were spending more time on their Blackberry phone than they were paying attention to the real live people in the room. Supposedly these executives were answering critical emails that would cause the world to stop spinning if they weren’t answered immediately. Well, now if those corporate meetings are held in Nevada, those Blackberry-addicted executives could be placing wagers during those meetings. I’m not sure how this affects the world at large, except it might distract executives long enough for other people to do their job.

The cause for all the Blackberry news? The Nevada Gaming Control Board has approved a new application that will allow people inside the state of Nevada place sports bets from their BlackBerry smart phone. Now, the big news here isn’t that people can place bets using a smart phone. It’s that the application was developed to include geographic location processing (it knows where you are) so that it can be deactivated at the Nevada state boarder. So, if you aren’t in Nevada, you can’t use the application. And since the application only works with the boarders of Nevada, apparently that state gets to approve or disapprove it.

The company that built the BlackBerry application is looking into developing applications for the Android phone with plans to move into the iPad market. Though if I recall Apple has its own rules about what applications can be used for iPhones and iPads. I think Steve Jobs may trump the Nevada Gaming Board on that one.

The Las Vegas Hard Rock hotel and casino has been in the news lately for all the wrong reason. I’m beginning to feel sorry for them. Okay, going back to September, the Hard Rock Café International (the restaurant chain) filed a law suit over the TV show Rehab at the Hard Rock claiming that the name and the behavior portrayed on the show reflect negatively on the Hard Rock brand.

Perhaps the show was a bad idea. I don’t know if the Nevada Gaming Board watched it before filing a complaint against the Las Vegas Hard Rock basically because the type of actions portrayed in the show were taking place at the hotel. Amazing, right? The Gaming Board is saying that employees and supervisors at the hotel sold drugs and provided those visiting the Las Vegas Hard Rock with private restrooms to take drugs in and have sex in. The Gaming Board also cited complaint letters sent to them expressing concern over problems at the location including public sex acts, date rape, inappropriate service charges, admitting minors and more. As a result of all of those, the Las Vegas Hard Rock has been fined $500,000 plus an addition $75,000 to the Gaming Control Board and another $75,000 to the local police to cover investigation expenses.

Oh, but the poor Hard Rock’s troubles don’t end there. A visitor from Minnesota has now filed a lawsuit against the hotel claiming that the hotel security defamed him, assaulted him and falsely imprisoned him after a October 12^th complaint about a domestic disturbance in his room. Since the visitor from Minnesota was alone in his room, he says he couldn’t have been having a domestic disturbance. Nevada law does set limits on how hotel and casino security personnel can detain or treat guests and it remains to be seen if the Hard Rock violated those limits. But the location does seem to have some problems with security, behavior and maybe even consistency.

I haven’t seen a lot of support for online gambling from real world casinos. After all there is concern that if we can all gamble online we won’t have any reason to go to a real world casino. But the situation is a bit different in Atlantic City. Perhaps, well, perhaps because no one has any reason to go there already. So in Atlantic City, the casino are offering their support to an online gambling bill. Why? Because this bill will definitely benefit them.

The bill under debate is named S490 and will allow real world casinos operating in Atlantic City to offer a broad selection of online casino games to New Jersey residents and even international players. Under current US law, they won’t be able to offer games to players in other states. So we’ll all just have to encourage our states to pass laws to let us gamble online. And if New Jersey passes their bill, other states may jump in once they see the benefit that the state is set to reap. Estimates from the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) are that New Jersey could raise a potential $55 million in tax money and more than $250 million in gross revenue. In this economy, states need the money. And many people will point out that taxing gambling works as a self-imposed tax. You only pay it if you want to gamble. And New Jersey is set to offer enough games to satisfy the selective gambler if the bill goes through. So far the proposed bill includes the ability to offer craps, roulette, blackjack, slot machines, red dog, pai gow, poker and other popular games. Maybe Poker Players in Washington State should consider a move.

The popular poker room, PokerStars, has had a television ad banned in Germany, and they’re getting lots of free publicity out of it. It’s the usual effect of government or bureaucracy telling people that something is bad for them. We all go to check out the bad thing. After all, no one really trusts the government to make that sort of decision for them.

Now with the PokerStars commercial, I can see Germany’s point — to a point. The commercial shows poker players taking out their poker opponents in a variety of violent ways. Probably no more violently than some of the more popular movies out there. I don’t know when and how this ad was aired in Germany, but it probably isn’t appropriate for young children. For adults, well, if you’re an adult maybe you should be able to choose what you want to see.

And the web is the place for choice. The ad taken off of German television has made its way to YouTube. Which is where videos suddenly become viral sensations. And the PokerStars ad looks like it could be heading in that direction. Looking at chats going on in poker forums, it seems that poker players find the ad amusing. Perhaps it’s part of the game of poker to have moments when you’re really like to take out your opponent. Perhaps as adults, most of us realize that it really is socially unacceptable to murder your opponents at the table. Somehow I don’t think a single ad is going to change that.

I’ve found a new word to add to my vocabulary. Don’t worry if you don’t know it yet. I think someone just made it up. It’s Sofalising. (That must be the British spelling. I’m sure we in the US will change that to Socializing to give the letter Z something to do in the alphabet.)

Sofalising is a term used to describe the current trend to socialize online, meaning we socialize while we sit on our sofas at home and browse sites like Facebook and Twitter. Research has show that more than a quarter of the people surveyed said they spend more time socializing or chatting with friends online than they did speaking in person. And about one in ten are more likely to spend their weekend catching up with friends online than going out. Now this trend is being linked to a variety of influences from the presence of the web itself to just the rising cost of going out. Sofalising saves on gas money, restaurant costs and other costs.

Which is where it links up with online gambling. Folks who are staying home to socializing and chat online probably are more likely to play at an online casino than they are to get in their car and drive to a real world casino. This is the influence that online gambling is fighting against in the United States and other countries. The world has changed since Las Vegas for established itself as a gambling destination. We live differently, play differently and even socialize differently. So we also gamble differently. We want to play while we sofalise.