While US authorities clamp down on online gambling and online bingo, Korean authorities are having to deal with a growing number of gambling sites that target the Korean market through off-shore servers.

Korea maintains very strict domestic laws regards online gambling and has blocked up to 550 off-shore Korean language gambling sites in March alone.

The ever burgeoning amount of Korean online gambling sites can be traced back to an domestic gambling scandal that rocked the country’s gambling industry last year, according to a report in the Korea Times.

"We will continue to make efforts to block illegal gambling sites, which lure Korean people, in collaboration with local Internet firms," the Korea Times reported a state official as saying.

Korean prosecutors indicted two men for producing and distributing illegally reprogrammed video slot machines. A substantial amount of customers had already fallen victim to this by the time a crackdown on unlawful gambling came into effect in the country, prompting many online operators to transfer their operations out of Korean jurisdiction.

The market for people who play online bingo in Korea is small, but Asia in general is seen as a growing market in all areas of online gambling.

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US players with the Breakaway, Connect2 and Sci-Fi venues are reported to have received an email informing them arbitrarily that they were being transferred to another company called Pantasia.

The move is said to have been made without prior consultation and is being blamed on "recent legislation in the US". The above casinos are owned by Norwegian group PlaySafe Holding AS which operates under a Netherlands Antilles license.

Customers who have been affected by the move are understandably concerned about the privacy issues involved. Assurances that such a move is common practice have met with a certain amount of customer disquiet and there is a general feeling that the whole matter has been handled with a decided lack of respect for those customers.

None of the affected casinos operate free online bingo games or run online bingo halls. No known event of similar nature has occurred in the UK online bingo industry.

The new company to which customers have been transferred operates on the Rival software platform. A statement by a Rival spokesman has assured affected customers that no banking details have been transferred in the move.

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US newspaper the LA Times has published a hard hitting editorial attacking current US anti-online gaming laws as both inequitable and hypocritical.

The editorial suggests the US government should consider changing its policy to one of regulation and licensing of the online gambling industry in which the country and players would benefit through extra taxation aimed at helping gambling problem areas. Online bingo in the US has recently been hit hard by the implementation of the UIGEA law which prohibits foreign operators from accessing the lucrative US market.

Much of the article centers around US government attempts at thwarting a WTO ruling which labeled the US anti-online gambling policy as a violation of its commitment to an open market for services. The US inter-state remote betting on horse races comes under particular scrutiny as an example of US policy hypocrisy.

The editorial writes: "As the off-track-betting issue illustrates, Congress loses interest in protecting people from the lure of online gambling when thoroughbreds and trotters are involved. . . Similarly, interstate restrictions on games of chance evaporate for state lotteries - a form of gambling that the government enthusiastically promotes.

"Meanwhile, restrictions on other forms of wagering have led to perverse results. The most closely scrutinized and stable gambling businesses - casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City - stayed out of online wagering, conceding the field to unregulated and, occasionally, fly-by-night operators.”

The editorial pretty will much concludes with the opinion that: "A saner approach would be to allow online betting through licensed and regulated operators, as proposed by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

"This approach would do far more to protect the public than ineffective prohibitions that criminalize only the high-tech version of an otherwise legal act."

US gamers who play online bingo have been largely shut out of the popular online version of bingo leading to heavy loses over the last 6 months for all involved. Many online bingo halls have gone out of business as a result and forced existing operators to look to new markets.

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Tim Bristow has been appointed with immediate effect as Party Gaming’s newest independent non-executive director.

The current CEO of Gibtelecom Ltd., Gibraltor’s main telecommunications company will join the online gambling group’s Board at a time when Party Gaming is making moves to counteract the loses incurred in the wake of the US government’s implementation of its UIGEA law.

Michael Jackson, Party Gaming's Chairman said: "The Board looks forward to working with Tim, who is an accomplished professional with a great deal of experience that will serve Party Gaming well."

Party Gaming is a major player in the online gaming world with varied products including online bingo games.

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The Virgin Games stable has launched a new betting service called Virgin Bets which will enjoy the support of online betting group Betfair in a partnership that will offer customers a range of sports betting options.

Virgin Games already offers an online bingo option via its popular Virgin Bingo online bingo hall.

The new partnership with Betfair is expected to receive a major marketing boost as Virgin seeks to consolidate its place in online and off-line gambling.

Virgin Games CEO Simon Burridge says: "Although entertainment betting is seen as a sideline by most of the traditional bookies, we believe it is a market with huge potential. Every year, millions of people spend millions of pounds phoning and texting votes into reality TV shows."

The amount of people in the UK who play online bingo is also expected to grow with the introduction of a smoking ban in England which will affect land-based bingo halls.

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The US government’s recent decision to modify its current World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements so that it can remove online gambling from being covered by the WTO is a slight to the international trade body: This according to influential London business publication Tax-News.com.

The controversial decision by the US was announced by John Veroneau on behalf of the US Trade Representative and said: "We did not intend and do not intend to have gambling as part of our services agreement. What we are doing is just clarifying our commitments."

This has produced a torrent of outrage form both external and internal sources without and within the US.

The WTO treaty has provisions for member states to withdraw from commitments relating to the opening of its services market to foreign investors. It is a rarely used procedure and is seen as another hypocritical action by the US government in the ongoing controversy surrounding its implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) introduced last year.

UIGEA has had a disastrous effect on the online gambling industry, including the online bingo industry. A large proportion for online bingo halls have been force out of business due to the loss of US customers who enjoy the chance to play online bingo.

Regarding the WTO treaty signed by the US and originally negotiated multilaterally, the US will now face negotiating with any of the other 149 member countries should they object to the decision and want to renegotiate any of their own commitments in return.

The decision represents a precedent very few would have contemplated when the original WTO treaty was brought into effect. It effectively calls into question many of the WTO’s hard-won tenants based on a desire by the US to single out online gambling as the one industry it wants to control.

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The United States is now in the midst of three separate, yet related attempts to bring the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) to heel, and possibly to have it repealed.

The first, and most prominent of these attempts is the much reported initiative of Congressman Barney Franks who has proposed an updated and improved version of the law called the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act, 2007. This initiative seeks to introduce more regulated, yet open market features to the US online gambling industry. He is largely supported by the Poker Players’ Association and the American Gaming Association.

Congressman Franks’ improvements would see a return of US customers to international online bingo halls and allow online bingo operators to once again tap the lucrative US market.

A second front in the fight against UIGEA has been opened by Nevada Representative Shelley Berkley. She has introduced a bill in which a one-year study into the effects and operations of online gambling is conducted by the National Academy of Sciences.

"One of the advantages of this legislation is that it doesn't take a side," she said. "It doesn't say Internet gambling is good or bad. It says 'Let's study the issue'."

A third attack on UIGEA is being waged by Florida Representative Bob Wexler who has an interest in ensuring online poker enjoys the same exemptions under UIGEA as state lotteries, horseracing and fantasy games. While this does not help your average US online bingo player, it none-the-less is another indication that UIGEA is a badly thought out law in the first place.

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