Aussie Gambling Gossip From The Media Man, by Greg Tingle - 1st February 2010

Aussie Millions Champion Crowned

The 2010 Aussie Millions Main Event has a champion. Tyron Krost is keeping the title in Australia for the second straight year. The 23-year-old battled 746 players over five days to take the title home to Sydney, along with the $2 million AUD first-place prize. Krost is sponsored by PartyPoker.com and learn to play using the popular poker website.


James Packer's City Of Dreams Macau Potential Share Buy In By Harrah's Entertainment

Packer-controlled Crown could get an offer for its $US600 million ($675 million) stake in its Macau gambling joint venture, a US-based analyst report says. Mr David Bain, a gambling and gaming analyst with the Southern California arm of the broking firm Sterne Agee, said in a memo to clients that the world's biggest casino operator, Harrah's Entertainment, was "acutely interested" in buying the 32 per cent stake in Mr. Packer's Melco Crown Entertainment.


Politics - Aussie Election Odds

Australia's political campaigning has began. In the blue corner Tony "Liberal Lout" Abbot and in the red corner (seconded by "Stephen "The Blacklist" Conroy), it's Kevin "Bloody" Rudd. Political pundits predict the federal election will be held after July but before November this year. A regular election can be called between August 7 and April 16 2011. What do the bookies say? Labor is a $1.19 short-priced favourite, with the coalition at $4.40. Centrebet's media chief Neil Evans says there's $150,000 in the pool so far, with 75 per cent for Labor and just 25 per cent for the coalition. "There was a bit of a rush when Abbott took over but, by and large, it's been pretty strong for Labor for the last 12 months," he said. There is no doubt Mr Abbott is a totally different political animal to Mr Turnbull - and a more bruising campaigner.


Productivity Report on Australian Gaming

Folks, we won't have to wait much longer for the long awaited report. It gets released this month!

Aussie Renee Mate Wins iGB Affiliate Award

Renee Mate of Sydney, Australia has won the title of Best Casino Affiliate Manager Renee Mate, Rewards Affiliates. Rewards Affiliates flagship website is Captain Cooks Casino.


Australia Day Sees Massive Police Numbers At Beaches Following Internet Filter Protests

An unprecedented number of police offers on foot, in "paddy wagon" and on horseback ("mounted police") were present at many Aussie beaches this past Australia Day. Bondi Beach, Cronulla and Manly says a total of multiple hundreds of police. Strong rumours indicated rioting was expected. Tensions remain high with a number of racial hate attacks in the headlines along with Aussies protesting the upcoming Australia Blacklist aka as "The Great Australian Firewall". Over 1000 websites including 3 in the Media Man stable participated in the online Great Australian Internet Blackout.


UFC Australia Sports Betting Interest Red Hot

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is to finally hold an event in Australia this month on the 21st February. The fights will be held at Sydney's Acer Arena. All 16,500 tickets sold out on the first day of sale, technically within 10 minutes! Other than the obvious fights (in the cage) another battle is brewing... the battle for the sports betting dollar on the upcoming UFC Australia fights. The smart money says BetUS.com and PartyBets.com are in the running, with another 1 or 2 sports betting firms expected to join the fight.


Australia surges into the top 10 of global gambling

With one poker machine for every 110 people, Australia is now in the top 10 international gambling centres, alongside Monaco and Macau. Australia also has the ninth-highest number of gaming machines: 186,344 lined up in pubs, clubs and hotels, according to industry figures.


Betfair Gets Major Worldwide Publicity Via Australian Open Tennis

As if the brand wasn't strong enough already, recent controversy over Betfair's sponsorship of the Australian Open tennis tournament, along with an investigation into a number of matches tipped to have been fixed, has seen Betfair get major national and international news media coverage. Make no mistake, Betfair now is the major sports betting brand in Australia, at least as far as exposure goes, if they weren't already. Ok, maybe not including the TAB that has a decade head start, via the Australian government's TAB on the horse racing and the doggies, but you get the point. Betfair is bringing the fight to the TAB, and may even throw their hat in the right for the UFC sports betting dollar we're told.


PartyPoker / PartyGaming VS PokerStars.com VS Pacific Poker battle for punters and sponsored players

PartyGaming continue to ramp up their poker and casino offerings in the Asia Pacific, with Australia being target #1. PartyPoker is almost 6 months into their sponsorship agreement with Aussie Millions 2009 winner Stewart Scott. Last week Party signed Aussie Tony G for their Noble Poker brand for starters, and now Party are rumored to be in serious closed door negotiations with 2010 Aussie Millions winner Tyron Krost (who learned to play online poker with Party), along with fellow Aussie and PartyPoker trained, Frederik Jensen. PokerStars face and 2005 WSOP champion Joe Hachem is said to be keen to see PokerStars secure addition sponsored players for the Australian market, and in the meantime Pacific Poker's Shane Warne and Jeff Fenech appear to have lost a lot of shine and exposure of their once dominant presence in the Australian poker landscape. Our picks... PartyGaming's PartyPoker on top, trailed by PokerStars, with Pacific in 3rd place.


iGB Down Under Earmarked For Sydney In March

The iGB Down Under igaming conference is pencilled in to occur in Sydney this March. The event formally known as CAP Down Under, saw close to 500 people attend last year, obviously enough to see event organiser Alex Pratt give the all clear to come back down under for seconds. The rumour mill says sponsorship enquires have been strong with the likes of Party, Betfair and PokerStars all looking to secure major billing.


Casino Canberra In Nation's Capital Not Happy

Casino Canberra in the nations capital is being denied entry to the gaming sector as the ACT Labor Government's Labor Clubs grabbed the majority of the almost $100 million profit made by pokies in the ACT last financial year.

The situation is leading to claims of a conflict of interest since Labor club poker machines made $14.21 million profit in 2008-09, just one-seventh of the $98.6 million profit made by all pokies in the ACT over the 12 months.


'Casino Jack' Has Aussie Politicians Buzzing (and worried)

Canness Film Festival standout documentary 'Casino Jack And The United States Of Money' has a number of Australian Labor Party folks worried, to say the last. The ALP has a long and colourful history of deals with Australian / Asia Pacific gambling and gaming entities. Australia's political parties have received substantial donations from the Aussie gaming industry over the years and major Australian news media outlets have questioned the relationship more than once. This is one to watch. The official 'Casino Jack' website is http://www.takepart.com/casinojack (don't type CasinoJack.com, as it will take you to a porn site!)


Australian Horse Racing Industry To Get Major Overhaul

Leading Australian racing figures and business leaders agree that the Australian horse racing industry is in dire need of a major fix (no, not that kind of fix). Leading the charge are John Singleton, Gerry Harvey and Alan Jones. A number of get togethers have occurred to talk shop, with firms entities such as Betfair, TAB and Racing NSW all seen to play a major role in the revamp. The AJC (Australian Jockey Club) is concerned about what the changes may mean to them as they have been struggling in recent years, as the gamblers dollars continues to been engulfed by internet betting, something that the AJC has not incorporated well into their business model, as that's putting it likely. Some parallels can be drawn towards the way most Las Vegas casinos did not, and still haven't, adapted to the animal that is the internet.


Media Man Global Expansion Continues

Not content with last months launch of www.mediamanaustralia.com to coinside with The Great Australian Internet Blackout week, Media Man starts this month with the launch of www.AmericanGamingNews.com, in preparation for expected major happenings in the U.S market this year, much of which will be driven a mix of political campaigns, the PPA (Poker Players Alliance), with no doubt Harrah's Entertainment, World Series of Poker and PartyGaming's World Poker Tour in the thick of the action.


*The writer is the founder and director of media and publicity company, Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com

*The writer owns shares in Crown Casino

*The writer is a special contributor for Gambling911

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