Monthly Archives: May 2015

US law enforcement lost control of seized Black Friday poker domains

Online poker domains seized by US law enforcement on Black Friday have been exposing visitors to scams and malware.

On Thursday, tech blog Torrentfreak.com reported that online gambling domains seized by US federal authorities on April 15, 2011 – including AbsolutePoker.com and UltimateBet.com – were now directing visitors to a Zero-Click advertising feed, which has been criticized in the past as a conduit for malware installers and other digital cesspools.

Until recently, the domains displayed only a seizure notice from the US Department of Justice. A similar effect greeted visitors to Megaupload.com, the cloud-storage website formerly run by Kim Dotcom, who was indicted by the DOJ on charges relating to illegal file-sharing in January 2012.

The problem arose after the DOJ apparently lost control of the domains’ nameserver, either by letting control expire or by some unknown action by a third party. Domain name ownership service Whois currently lists the sites’ nameserver as a derivative of CIRFU.biz, which appears to be a play on the CIFRU.net domain operated by the FBI’s Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit. But CIRFU.biz, which is hosted on a server in the Netherlands, isn’t an official CIFRU domain.

WSOP Day Two: Tournaments Underway, Colossus Incoming Like a Cannon

WSOP Day Two is now officially underway, with two tournaments already having played through a day on Wednesday to kick off the action. That means hundreds of players have already busted out of their first event, and we also have our first chip leaders to report, including some prominent names who are hoping to get their […]

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Sportech sells SNG Interactive stake to NYX Gaming Group

UK pools betting operator Sportech has sold its stake in the SNG Interactive joint venture with NYX Gaming Group.

On Thursday, Sportech announced it had sold its 50% stake in SNG to NYX for total consideration of £12m – £5.2m in cash, £5.2m in NYX shares (representing 6.1% of enlarged share capital) and up to £1.6m in deferred consideration. The deferred payments will be made in tranches of £520k for each new non-New Jersey client SNG inks over the next five years (to a maximum of three clients). Sportech estimates it will realize a pretax profit of £8.8m on the deal.

SNG made its first splash last year when the two JV partners inked a deal to supply Atlantic City’s Resorts Casino Hotel with an online casino platform. That platform went live in February in New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market. Resorts has a separate online poker deal with PokerStars (now owned by Canada’s Amaya Gaming) that is still awaiting regulatory approval.

Sportech CEO Ian Penrose said the deal provided “a significant return for the group in a short space of time.” The deal also allowed Sportech to “reinvest in our US growth activities in the sports gaming market, whilst retaining a material stake in the future of online casino gaming in North America.”

Woman seeks freeze of daughter's money in $1M lottery fight

The Brooklyn mom who says her daughter ran off with her $1 million lottery winnings wants a judge to freeze her offspring’s bank accounts. In papers filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Barbara Quiles , 51, says she needs an emergency order against daughter Linza Ford “to immediately cease any further use of my lottery winnings” and to “return all of my lottery winnings she has taken from me.”

Paul Phua Case Could be Tossed: Prosecution to Decide Friday on Whether to Drop Charges

Paul Phua may or may not know that crime doesn’t pay, but his defense attorney David Chesnoff has done everything possible to make sure that his client never has to find out. Due to Chesnoff’s legal team’s brilliant maneuvering, businessman and high stakes poker player Phua may not have to face trial at all, with […]

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Massachusetts Gaming Commission seeks dismissal of Boston lawsuit

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) has filed a motion on Tuesday to dismiss Boston’s 152-page lawsuit, describing it as “verbose, repetitive, argumentative, and confusing.”

Commissioners asked the state judge in charge of the lawsuit to dismiss the suit as it did not comply with the state requirements for such legal documents to be brief but comprehensive.

The suit, which was filed in October by Boston officials, led by Mayor Martin Walsh, accused the MGC of giving preferential treatment to Wynn Resorts’ $1.6-billion project, which beat out Mohegan Sun for the lone Boston-area casino license in September.

Walsh spokeswoman Bonnie McGilpin said that the city administration might seek injunction to block the construction of the property. She also pointed out that the city will remain open to discussions about the impact of ancasino in Everett on residents.