Monthly Archives: September 2015

Museum's long trip down memory lane shuts up shop

Standing in the light of a gas lamp and pressing your nose against window panes to peer into a quaint colonial shop or cottage will become a thing of the past for visitors to Auckland Museum. The snapshot of a thriving seaport’s retail enterprises – gifted by pioneering department store Milne & Choyce – is to make way for restoration work on the museum’s East Gallery and a new World WarI commemorative centre.

LeoVegas Slots Player Turns 46p into £100,000

September got off to a great start for one Swedish LeoVegas slots fan, who managed to win just over £100,000 from a 46p spin.  Ann-Kristin Ahlin from Sandviken, a small town north of Stockholm, won the six-figure sum playing Cosmic Fortune.

Ahlin, who describes herself as a casual player, said the win will help with debts and other troubles. She said: “I’ve played a bit in my life but I can’t describe how much this amount of money means to me. I will pay for my partner and his daughter to go to America, we’ve always talked about it.”

Despite being £100,000 richer Ahlin still went to work the night of her win. She said: “After working late that night my partner and I went to a bar and celebrated with an Irish coffee, it was, it was very cosy and I was having trouble believing it. When I first told him of the win he yelled and asked me if I was a millionaire [converted into Krona £103,827 is equal to 1,352,603 SEK].”

Commenting on Ann-Kristin’s win, LeoVegas UK country manager, Shenaly Amin said: “Ahlin’s win goes to show that anyone can win big at LeoVegas, even if they’re just betting 46p. We hope she and her family have a fantastic time in America and it’s a great feeling for everyone here to know that playing at LeoVegas helped her get there. Maybe when she gets there she can celebrate with something stronger than an Irish coffee.”

US regulator: Bitcoin officially a commodity

Bitcoin is a commodity, just like oil and corn, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced.

On Thursday, CFTC filed and settled charges against San Francisco-based bitcoin exchange Coinflip Inc, which it said facilitated commodity options-related transactions without complying with the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and the CFTC regulations.

“In this order, the CFTC for the first time finds that bitcoin and other virtual currencies are properly defined as commodities,” the commission said in a statement posted on its website.

According to the agency, Coinflip operated online platform Derivabit, offering to connect buyers and sellers of bitcoin option contracts. But because bitcoin options are deemed as “commodities,” CFTC said the company should have been properly registered and will be subjected to laws governing swaps.

Real Money Gaming On Mobile

For anyone who’s been waiting years to make a dollar from the hundreds of hours spent honing their skills on phone games, the moment has arrived. GamyTech a company focused on skill games decided to release the first version of Flappy Bird for Money.

The key to GamyTech’s success is that while casino style-games have been waiting for legislation that legalizes online betting for games of chance, gambling on games of skill is already legal in 36 States. 

In my opinion, gambling on skill-based video games could become much larger than any casino-style mobile game said Jonathan Swerdlow, GamyTech’s CEO.

Money Birds has been inspired by one of the most addictive game in the history of gaming: Flappy Bird. In just a few weeks, the mobile app Flappy Bird became a global phenomenon. It was a simple game, but frustrating and endless. Sharing many similarities with the famous Helicopter Game — only with Super Nintendo-style graphics — it’s safe to say Flappy Bird took over the web.

FIFA suspends general secretary over World Cup tickets claims

Sepp Blatter’s right-hand man at FIFA was relieved of his duties and faces formal investigation after fresh allegations of World Cup Tickets Scheme.

FIFA has announced Thursday that it has suspended Secretary General Jérôme Valcke “until further notice,” for alleged involvement in an operation to improperly profit from World Cup ticket sales. FIFA has also requested a formal investigation by the FIFA Ethics Committee.

The allegations against Valcke have been made by a consultant, Benny Alon, who worked for JB Sports Marketing that at one point had a contract with FIFA to sell tickets for the 2014 World Cup.

Documents seen by the Guardian appears that Valcke was to be the beneficiary of an agreement to sell the tickets at inflated prices but Valcke denied the allegations saying that when he saw that the tickets were offered more than four times the value, he warned Alon to adhere to the regulations and eventually cancelled the contract.

Alexey Evchenko: Gambling legalization in Ukraine to benefit tourism industry

Ukraine tourism adviser Alexey Evchenko will take the stage at the Ukrainian Gaming Congress, to discuss the expectations of the tourism industry from the legalization of casinos in the country.

Evchenko, adviser at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, becomes one of the speaker at Ukrainian Gaming Congress, which will be held on September 29.

Evchenko will tackle the structure of the Ukrainian gaming industry after its legalization, expectations from the new law, and its effect on the tourist image of the country. In particular, Evchenko will cover the possibility to attract tourists and players to Ukraine from all over the world and factors that can repackage the image of the country, as well as the chance to turn the country into an interesting investment project in the terms of gambling and other sectors.

In his interview posted on Ukranian Gaming Congress website, Evchenko pointed the fact that the legalization of gambling across the country will ensure the flow of a certain category of tourists who visited the Ukrainian gambling establishments before their prohibition in 2009.