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Susan Boyle's shock loss in the final of Britain's Got Talent has had its benefits for some - the bookmakers have won big after millions of dollars were bet on the Scot to win the competition. Boyle's loss followed Adam Lambert's shock defeat in the final of American Idol, which also had bookmakers breathing a huge sigh of relief. Ten-piece dance group Diversity defeated Boyle in the final. UK bookmaker William Hill estimated the betting industry could have lost £5 million if Boyle had won, according to Scottish newspaper The Press and Journal. "We were expecting to pay out millions of pounds, but after the biggest shock in reality TV betting history we have won a six-figure sum," the newspaper quoted a William Hill spokesman as saying. The bookmaker is now offering odds of 3/1 that Boyle's first single will reach number one on the UK charts.
A new study by the UK Gambling Commission exposing a relaxed attitude to underage betting among bookmakers is already being used by anti-gambling campaigners to push their agenda. The study, published last week, revealed that most betting shops are ignoring laws against underage betting. The commission inspected 100 gaming outlets, with the results showing that 98 of them took bets from a 17-year-old. Not surprisingly, the study is being used by opponents of gambling as proof that children are vulnerable to the industry. "We were told by the government that reforming gambling laws would help to protect our children, but yet again we have damning evidence that shows that isn't happening," said Don Foster of the anti-gambling Liberal Democrat party. But gambling industry officials have admitted to the problems and promised to work on rectifying the situation. "We have to take these findings on the chin and admit that for some reason that culture has not been embedded in the industry in the way that it should have been," said Andy Lyman of the Association of British Bookmakers. The study is the latest in a series by the Gambling Commission - which has responsibility for the regulation of betting and remote gambling - that will no doubt be used in the debate on the future of gaming in Britain.
Winning millions off a smart card-counting strategy in blackjack... Betting your wife around the roulette table... Breaking into a fancy Las Vegas casino... All these are sexy gambling moments. They have all also been made into successful Hollywood movies. Which is probably the fate of the next, Leonardo DiCaprio flic. The Hollywood star, a Golden Globe Award winner and lead actor in Titanic, among other roles and accolades, will star in a new movie on online gambling, yet untitled, from Paramount Pictures. The movie will take place in the online gambling hub of Costa Rica, a short distance from the US and hosting high profile online casino companies that cater to the North American gambling market. The effect of the movie and DiCaprio acting in it will certainly be noticed in the online gambling world, as was the case following the most recent movie success around gambling - "21".
UK sports betting site William Hill Sports has definitely taken a stand on this one. Although they still place Roger Federer on top of the odds table, at 8/11, it is not as high as other sportsbooks place the Swiss phenom. This leaves a fair chance for Brit favorite Andy Murray. After becoming the first Brit in 71 years to win at Queen's, Andy Murray is a 7/4 odds favorite to win at Wimbledon. His defeat of world number one seed Rafael Nadal in the Queen's semi-final helped boost his confidence, as surely does Nadal's not participating in Wimbledon. William Hill Sports have gone a step farther, listing ten reasons why this might be the Scotsman's year. 1. Murray has prepared well to playing on grass - more so than Federer. 2. Murray was impressive at Queen's - he didn't drop a single set all tournament. 3. Queen's is a proven Wimbledon success predictor - see Pete Sampras, Lleyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick and Rafa Nadal. 4. Nadal is out. Nuff said. 5. Home crowd advantage. Louder please! 6. Federer is back down to earth. Murray has beaten him in the past, too. 7. Murray a master of big serve returns. And Sampras is not competing, last we checked. 8. Being British does not mean he has to fail at the finish line. 9. Brits over French. French stars Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gael Monfils and Gilles Simon are not doing too well. 10. Murray is in shape. And a born winner. Convinced? Place your bet.
Home of casinos entertainment Belle Rock offers the best promotion of coming months at the following 4 online casinos: JackpotCity.com River Belle Lucky Nugget The Gaming Club 1,000,000 euros are up for grabs at the end of the tunnel. A million euros that can be yours. Players can visit any of the participating online casinos or the Gold Ticket Freeroll Slots Tournaments page directly, and open a real account; Players who already hold an account can simply sign in. At the casino, click on the slots tournaments option and select "Gold Ticket Freeroll Tournament." Tournaments are held daily, for 92 days through the summer. Daily winners in every Gold Ticket Freeroll receives a Gold ticket to the Grand Slam of Slots Final, held in October. The Grand Slam of Slots Final Tournament is set to take place over 9 days from October 23 to November 2. There players have a chance to win lottery size prize of a million euros. Participating games at the current stage include Loaded Video Slot and other video slot games. As only 15,000 players will compete for the grand prize, your odds are 1 in 15,000. That is by far than lotteries anywhere else. And no entry free is required.
Martin Kaymer's odds of winning this week's British Open were cut in half by William Hill Sports after his win at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond. He has now been backed in to 29.00 to win the tournament, which begins Friday at Scotland's Turnberry golf course, after being cut from 67.00 to 34.00 immediately after the victory. Ladbrokes is still offering odds of 34.00 for the German to win it. As usual, Tiger Woods leads the betting, with short odds of 3.25 at both William Hill and Ladbrokes. Nobody else comes close to challenging the American, who has won 14 major championships in his career, including three British Open trophies in 2000, 2005 and 2006. Only four more players lead Kaymer in the odds at William Hill, beginning with Spaniard Sergio Garcia, 21.00, and followed by the UK's Lee Westwood, 26.00, Rory McIlroy, 26.00, and Ian Poulter, 29.00 In the specials, William Hill is offering odds of 2.00 on someone hitting a hole in one during the tournament. Ladbrokes is focusing more on Tiger Woods, giving odds of 67.00 on the world number one to hit a hole in one, 11.00 for him to miss the cut, 51.00 on him to win by seven shots or more and 1.33 on him not to win the tournament. The odds of the tournament being decided by a playoff are 3.50, with 1.28 for this not occurring.
Life keeps offering its nice surprises. This time: online casinos that offer free games to visitors. No visitor to Las Vegas would ever dare ask for such royal treatment.Ask and you shall get, though. At least as far as Gaming Club, or any other online casino, is concerned.Free games. Food for thought. What makes Euro Grand Casino, to take one, offer cash-free action to players?Online casinos realize you might be a first time visitor to their online casino, and so want you to feel at home, get to know your surroundings, and not run away from first deposit requirements, which are not at all necessary to begin with. Thus free games give you the chance to get used to the software on your own terms, sort of speak.The business logic, then, is the following: first for free, then for cash. These casinos hope fun mode players follow with a deposit after having tried with the casino. Not to mention that most jackpots can only be hit by playing for cash.And so the reasons for players to play free casino games are many. Try free video poker and other games at Jackpot City Casino. It's the right call.
Poker in the Park returns to London for a third straight year and is expected to draw in some 25,000 poker fans.The two-day event, being held at Leicester Square in the center of town, begins on Thursday August 13 and continues all day on Friday August 14.It includes free poker tournaments, lectures by the UK's biggest poker stars, and sale of merchandise and poker books.Poker in the Park is being sponsored by online poker room PKR and produced in conjunction with poker publication Bluff Europe.PKR marketing director Simon Prodger said: "This year's Poker in the Park is going to be even bigger and better than last year's and, because it's free to participate, it creates an interesting experience for all kind of people passing through the heart of the city."As the event is two weeks away, you're invited to come over and practice your poker skills at one of our reviewed poker rooms.
Online bingo sites owned by the St Minver network, (recently acquired by the global gaming technology leader, GTECH), will now be accepting PayPal transactions. The first partner to offer PayPal to its UK customers is ChitChat Bingo while other sites such as Littlewoods, Yahoo, Ann Summers, BingoJoy, InterBingo and MetroBingo plan to go live in August.Added Attraction for Bingo Lovers"We are very excited about being able to offer our UK bingo partners the comfort, ease and security that comes with using the PayPal service," says Johan Berg, Chief Operating Officer of GTECH G2. "We are always looking at ways to serve our bingo licensees better and this latest deal will further enhance our already very high level of core capabilities in this high-growth area."The UK bingo market offers a plethora of online bingo sites, all of whom are in fierce competition for the British punter. The partnership of PayPal with the St Minver group sites will give them added attraction to online bingo lovers.A Safe Choice for GamblersPaypal has more than 153 million global users, covering 18 different currencies. In the UK there are 23 million PayPal accounts. It is an attractive choice for the online market as its third party position means that players can feel secure about a successful transaction without releasing their personal details or secure data to online gambling sites.
British novelist Hilary Mantel has become the betting favorite in the odds for the 2009 Booker Prize, with the popularity of her book Wolf Hall propelling her to 3.00 outright favoritism at Ladbrokes.South African J.M. Coetzee, who won the award previously in 1983 and 1999, was installed as favorite to win it a third time after his fictionalized memoir Summertime was announced as one of the 13 books on the longlist - or Man Booker Dozen - two weeks ago, but he has since slipped to equal-third in the odds at 8.00.Colm Toibin is second favorite at 6.00 for his work Brooklyn, while Sarah Waters appears to be the other strong contender for her work The Little Stranger. She is level with Coetzee at 8.00.The surprise emergence of Mantel contradicts initial Ladbrokes predictions - a spokesman was quoted by British newspaper The Guardian two weeks ago as saying Coetzee's reputation would have literary punters "quick to back the author's bid to create history."Books GiveawaysTo celebrate the longlist announcement the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London will see book lover Graham Fudger on Tuesday, 11 August at 11am reading extracts from the prize's 13 longlist titles.One of each of the books will be given away to the public.Man Booker PrizeThe Man Booker Prize for Fiction, or simply the Booker Prize, is a literary award given each year for the best original full-length novel, written in English, by a citizen of a Commonwealth country or Ireland. In the past it has been won by such big names as India's Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, 1981), Australia's Thomas Keneally (Schindler's Ark, 1982) and India's Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things, 1997).This year's prize has seen active betting so far, largely for the high profile author Coetzee and his celebrated chances to win for an unprecedented, third time.The 2009 winner will be announced on Sunday September 6.
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