No More Gambling With Giftcards.com
Online gamblers will no longer be able to buy virtual gift cards at www.giftcards.com to fund their accounts.
Sometime this weekend, giftcards.com officials removed the virtual gift card choice from their purchasing menu and are now offering only "hard cards," corporate gift cards, and an ATM card option.
A giftcard.com spokesperson refused to say if the move was related to online gambling.
"There is no comment on any of this," spokesperson Jason Wolfe said. "We took the service down because we are revamping our fraud system."
Casino City reported last week that you could buy a virtual gift cards and use it to deposit into a casino within two hours. That made it a great option for U.S. based online gamblers looking to find another deposit method in the post-NETeller era.
And it worked quickly enough that it came close to mimicking the Instacash option once available with NETeller.
Players can still fund their accounts using processors like www.ePassporte.com, but the options are not instant and can take as long as two weeks to process.
Online Casino City
12-Step Program for e-mail addicts
Twelve-step program aims to manage, cure messaging obsession
PHILADELPHIA - Alcoholics have one, and so do drug abusers. Now people addicted to e-mail also have a 12-step program designed to tackle their obsession.
An executive coach in Pennsylvania has devised a plan to teach people how to manage the electronic tool, which some users say can be as much an intrusive waste of time as it is fast-paced and efficient.
Developed for cases such as a golfer who checked his BlackBerry after every shot, and lost a potential client who wanted nothing to do with his obsession, Marsha Egan’s plan taps into deepening concern that e-mail misuse can cost businesses millions of dollars in lost productivity.
There is a crisis in corporate America, but a lot of CEOs don’t know it,” Egan said. “They haven’t figured out how expensive it is.”
One of Egan’s clients cannot walk by a computer — her own or anyone else’s — without checking for messages. Other people will not vacation anywhere they cannot connect to their e-mail systems. Some wait for e-mails and send themselves a message if one hasn’t shown up in several minutes, Egan said.
The first of Egan’s 12 steps is “admit that e-mail is managing you. Let go of your need to check e-mail every 10 minutes.”
Other steps include “commit to keeping your inbox empty,” “establish regular times to review your e-mail” and “deal immediately with any e-mail that can be handled in two minutes or less but create a file for mails that will take longer.”
Egan says she hosts no 12-step meetings but is planning a monthly teleconference for “e-mailers anonymous.”
"Had me by the throat"
Michelle Grace, an insurance agent in Lehighton, Penn., said she receives up to 60 e-mails a day and uses Egan’s program to make it less time-consuming and less stressful.
“E-mail had me by the throat,” she said. “When you can’t find what you need, then it becomes a problem.”
Now that her e-mails are transferred — some manually and some automatically — into files, Grace said she spends less time hunting for them.
On average, workers who receive an e-mail take four minutes to read it and recover from the interruption before they can resume working productively, Egan said.
She also recommends checking e-mails not more than three or four times a day.
Some employees resist the lure of e-mail during the regular workday, only to find themselves putting in extra hours at home to clear the backlog, she said. One of Egan’s clients said he had 3,600 e-mails in his inbox.
Part of the problem is senders who copy messages too widely and are too vague in their subject lines, so recipients don’t know what they need to open right away, Egan said.
For Grace, relief from her e-mail addiction means she is not checking her computer every five minutes.
She said she has let her colleagues know that if they need to reach her immediately, e-mail is not the way to do it.
“I told them, ‘If you need me urgently, pick up the phone,’ ” she said
Source: Reuters via
MSNBC
Canadian Online Gamblers Go Down With Americans
Proximity to the United States has often paid off for Canadians.
All things considered, the US makes for a good neighboring country and Americans for good neighbors. But at least this week, and regarding online casino gamblers, this proximity has got them involved with the US and left them at a loss.
The ban on online casinos that passed in the US in the fall of 2006 has now extended de facto to the Canadian side of the border.
In an announcement made this week by FirePay, an e-wallet payment option that has served online casino gamblers in Canada and elsewhere, said the company will close its doors to online casino gambling by Canadians.
Source
“Fellatio reduces risk of breast cancer” and other myths men make up
Once again, it boils down to: Don’t believe everything you read.
While the internet has greatly increased the exposure of information and health stories, there's a long history of such false reports appearing in the press.
Like this one, written by Brandon Williamson, a student, who made it appear like it’s a CNN health bulletin item. He eventually owned up, apologizing to his university, to CNN and to "all men who did not take advantage of this article in time to get head".
"Fellatio reduces risk of breast cancer." made news around the world. The story was published in newspapers from Chile to Croatia, reporting that women who swallow semen regularly, once or twice a week, may reduce their risk of breast cancer by up to 40 per cent, according to a North Carolina State University study.
One of the researchers, Dr Helena Shifteer, was quoted saying that since the results have been known: "I try to fellate at least once every other night to reduce my chances."
And yes, it was a hoax. And a mighty successful one. The website that posted the original article received more than 667,000 hits on a single day soon after the story broke.
Williamson wasn't the first.
Another favourite is a story that appeared years ago, claiming to be from The New England Journal of Medicine, entitled Ogling Breasts Makes Men Live Longer.
The main thrust of these stories is that sex is good for you. That oral sex is good for you and swallowing is even better.
Back in the real world of proper science, there is actually a growing body of evidence that supports some of these fantasies. For a start there's: Oral Sex Makes Pregnancies Safer. It's true, according to Professor Gus Dekker, a maternal-foetal medicine specialist at the University of Adelaide. Dekker compared 41 pregnant women with pre-eclampsia - a condition where the mother's blood pressure soars during pregnancy - to 44 without. He found 82 per cent of those without the condition practised fellatio compared with 44 per cent of those with it.
There's also research suggesting regular sex can improve sense of smell, reduce risk of heart disease, aid in weight loss, pain relief and soothing PMS symptoms, and even help people live longer.
The work never stops. Across the world male scientists are trying to prove to women that they need it. Often.
Source
NETeller staff laid off
250 NETeller employees have reportedly been laid off.
Gambling911 reports quotes a NETeller manager as saying: "These 250 layoffs are still ongoing. There were more on Friday and more of us will be leaving at the end of the month. Even executives are leaving."
The North American President, Gord Forbes, is said to be on his way out the door the end of this month as well as Dale Johnson who is VP of Asia operations.
Non-US players are also advised to stop using the service.
Gambling911
Online Gambling: US Customers Best Valentine's Day Gift
Have a Visa or Mastercard? Chances are it won't work when it comes to online gambling from the US. It's hit or miss and mostly miss depending on the issuing banks.
But that won't stop US gamblers from finding alternative methods of betting online using a credit card.
All the rage on poker forums such as Two Plus Two center around GiftCards.com, which allow online gambling aficionados to purchase so-called "virtual credit cards" online.
They seem to work.
So what are gift cards exactly?
They are debit cards that are accepted in millions of locations around the world - including from what we can tell, online casinos and poker rooms. Gamblers are simply purchasing the cards for themselves, then using them like debit cards or ATMs.
If you don't like buying them online and waiting a few days for your giftcards to arrive, these can actually be purchased at your local drug store such as Walgreens.
Maybe it is Valentine's Day approaching, but since word got out about this new method of depositing money into an online poker or casino site, Walgreens and other stores claim to have experienced a "run on the cards".
There are drawbacks, but for the hardcore online poker player, these may seem insignificant. Most gift cards have a $500 cap. There is a 3% vig for a $500 giftcard (or a cost of $15), though some are said to be more costly than others so shop around and compare.
And to answer the question: Can you send a giftcard to yourself? Gamblers have tested and it appears this is possible.
But here is where we throw in the Valentine's Day connection. Ladies, if your man plays poker online, this is the perfect gift....and vice versa.
Happy Valentine's Day everyone!
Source:
Gambling911.com
French ban online gambling
The French appear to have joined forces with the USA and decided to crackdown on online gamblers.
According to reports, they have produced amendments to a ‘delinquency prevention' bill, which was put in place to combat future riots after those that took place in 2005. However, these amendments may stop Internet players enjoying their favorite pastime.
The French National Assembly responsible for the amendments, have created similar legislation to that of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which makes it illegal for financial institutions to transfer money to gaming sites.
In addition, this new bill also attempts to stop banks transferring money to known gamblers, as well as prevent companies advertising online poker rooms. One in particular is Pokerstars, who face a possible ban.
Whether these new amendments will come into play is uncertain, but it has certainly frustrated many French poker players. The French governments disapproving stance on poker is also the reason behind the European Poker Tour's French leg in Deauville being cancelled.
Strippers’ Money Not Good Enough For Breast Cancer Society
The Breast Cancer Society of Canada has rejected the offer of thousands of dollars from a fundraising group of exotic dancers in Vancouver.
Exotic Dancers for Cancer holds an annual charity event in memory of a former dancer who lost her life to the disease.
Last year, the event raised $6,000.
However, former dancer Trina Ricketts said the society sent her an e-mail declining the money this year, because its major donors did not support a connection to exotic dancers.
She says the society has taken the group's contributions in the past.
"I really feel that it's a strong indication of the degree of the stigma that exotic dancers experience when an organization doesn't even want to be associated with them for fear of experiencing the same stigma."
Ricketts said her group is still looking for a cancer charity that will accept a donation.
The annual event will be held next month at a downtown hotel.
Source
Sexpresso please!
Coffee houses in the Seattle area are now so abundant that they're using sex to compete.
At Best Friend Espresso in Kenmore, at the northern end of Lake Washington, the outfits take their inspiration from Playboy-style sex fantasies. The staff will go for the naughty schoolgirl look one week, then don black-framed glasses the next to look like sexy secretaries.
Welcome to "sexpresso" - the latest coffee fad to hit America, in which the country's seemingly boundless fascination for Italian-style Java is combined with its equally boundless fascination for half-naked women...
Their staff may only receive minimum wage, but the tips can be terrific. "Our customers may be half-asleep when they get here, but we do what it takes to wake them up," said [Sarah Araujo, owner of The Sweet Spot]. "They always say: 'Thanks for the great cup of coffee and the smile; it made my day'."
The beverage options range from the Wet Dream (with caramel and white chocolate) to the Sexual Mix (a caramel macchiato).
Via
Ballot: Have children or get annulment.
WTF??OLYMPIA, Wash. - Proponents of same-sex marriage have introduced a ballot measure that would require heterosexual couples to have a child within three years or have their marriages annulled.
The measure would require couples to prove they can have children to get a marriage license. Couples who do not have children within three years could have their marriages annulled.
All other marriages would be defined as "unrecognized," making those couples ineligible for marriage benefits.
The paperwork for the measure was submitted last month. Supporters must gather at least 224,800 signatures by July 6 to put it on the November ballot.
Source
NETeller Funds Being Held by FBI?
Things are looking bleak for NETeller customers.
According to USA Today, NETeller funds are being held in court as potential evidence. According to an FBI agent, some customers may get their money back, but he did not provide a timetable.
The federal crackdown on online gambling has tied up the funds of thousands of U.S. patrons of two of the largest services.
The actions against NETeller have left the online accounts of its U.S. customers frozen until legal issues are resolved.
"The truth is that the money is in limbo and the companies are not required to refund any money until a successful prosecution or settlement takes place," says Michael Tew, principal of gaming consultant CapitalHQ. "This could take years."
Similarly, most U.S. customers of BetOnSports have been waiting to cash out money in their accounts since July, when a federal grand jury issued a 22-count indictment charging CEO David Carruthers with racketeering, conspiracy and fraud. BetOnSports handled $1.77 billion in bets during its 2005 fiscal year, with more than 90% of wagers from the USA.
An attorney representing the company declined to comment.
Source
New blog keeps players updated on gambling regulations
Clarion ATE, producers of the popular European Gambling Briefing (EGB) conference, has launched a pioneering online blog, Gambling Law Debate, offering players and industry professionals a one-stop-shop to access up-to-date information on current regulatory issues relating to the gambling industry.
The new blog provides an online network for legal professionals, lobbyists, media companies, and regulators to deliberate over all the key developments in online gambling legislation.
The blogsite is intended to significantly enhance the reach and weight of the discussions that take place at the 3rd annual EGB conference, a senior-level two day briefing that addresses a wide range of issues relating to gambling regulation across Europe and beyond.
Clarion ATE will use the site to ask for opinions, articles and comments to help form the basis of debates that will take place in Brussels on 8th & 9th May. Lawyers, lobbyists and regulators have already been invited to contribute.
www.gamblinglawdebate.com
