With the strong possibility of the US going ahead and regulating online gambling, one important thing to consider is the age at which legal gambling should be allowed. Many states already allow bingo and poker gambling at 18, whilst in others 21 is the standard age. It is believed that if regulated internet gambling does come into force, Congress will probably set a national age.

According to the UK’s Conservative Party there are so many people addicted to gambling because of the relaxed rules on internet gambling and advertising. They say that figures show an increase of almost of a quarter of a million more people gambling online in 2008, compared to 2007 when advertising was first permitted.

Under pressure from the EU it has been reported that France will allow private online gambling companies to operate in France from next year.  An online gambling bill will be submitted to the cabinet at the end of March.

The trend is changing.  More and more gamblers are staying at home to gamble online than take a cruise and gamble offshore, particularly in the USA.  Until now cruise ship casinos were the answer for gamblers where land based casinos are illegal because offshore gambling is allowed once the ship is three miles out to sea.  It seems the online gambling business is putting the cruise lines out of business and they need to find new ways to bring in the passengers.

We all thought the problem of Kentucky state seizing 141 domain names was over when the Appellate Court ruled last week against Gov. Steve Beshear’s case.  It’s not.  Apparently the battle is still being fought.  Despite the ruling, Kentucky’s Justice and Public Safety Cabinet have stated that the case will now be taken to the Kentucky Supreme court.  Will it ever end?

Despite just winning nearly $250,000 at the 2009 Aussie Millions Poker Championship, 19 year old American, Zachary Gruneberg, is still too young to realise his ultimate dream of playing poker in Las Vegas.  His father Craig Gruneberg was “overwhelmed with pride and shock” that his son had turned poker into a profitable activity.   Zachary says online poker is the only job he’s ever had.

An exciting event for online bingo operators and other related companies to look forward to is the 4th Annual Online Bingo Summit on 16-17 June at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel & Conference Centre in London.  Many top level representatives of the industry from sites such as Mecca Bingo, ValHala Investments, Foxy Bingo, Bingos.co.uk and many others will be speaking at this event.  Participants can save up to £300 by booking by 27th February.

The Chinese love playing online games that is.  A recent report from Interfax China states that in East Asia and China a total of $1.5 billion was made by online game operators in 2007.  This revenue is expected to rise to $1.86 billion in 2008 and it is further predicted that this amount could almost double by 2010.

In order to avoid the highly volatile situation that exists in the United States, the South African government will be regulating and taxing online gambling sites.  The Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, proposed a new bill to the government last week – the Interactive Gaming Tax Bill.  If the bill is passed it will “tax gross gambling revenue outside of operators within the online gambling industry.  Sites in or doing business in South Africa would be subject to a special tax”.

Everyone in the online gambling industry is hoping that the new Obama administration will see sense in the fact that online gambling will bring in substantial revenue to the ailing country.  As the chief of the American Gaming Association, Frank Fahrenkopf, said over the weekend “There have been projections circulated on the Hill that it can raise billions of dollars in new federal revenue, so we can expect that the whole issue of internet gambling will be front and center in the next Congress”.