NEWS
The gaming awards programme of the year? They hope so
London’s ICE Totally Gaming event is the latest trade show to launch its own awards scheme. Here’s what you can win, and how to enter
Another diary date for the competitive: ICE Totally Gaming, the January mega- show in London, is launching its own awards programme. Show organiser Clarion Events has partnered with groups including the
European Casino Association and National Casino Industry Forum to set up the Totally Gaming Awards, which will be presented on 23 January, the day before the expo starts.
Categories will include best product in each of Bingo, betting, lotteries, mobile and online; manufacturer of the year; street-gaming supplier of the year; casino of the year; marketing campaign of the year; and outstanding contribution to the industry. A media category will, unusually, be open to the creators of PR campaigns as well as to industry publications and individual journalists. “We are very close to our stakeholders and the message coming through loud and clear is their desire for a prestigious awards programme that is for the industry, by the industry, and in conjunction with our partner associations that is exactly what we have
created.The Totally Gaming Awards will provide an ideal way to launch what is the most comprehensive and international gaming event on the planet,” Kate Chambers, Portfolio Director of Clarion Events, observed modestly.
The deadline for entries is 2 November, with organisers requiring a written submission from each entrant that explains how they meet the criteria for a particular award. That process is spelled out in detail at
www.totallygamingawards.com.
Russia gets tough on illegal gaming;
Briton is facing jail Banishing casinos to the wilderness didn’t work. Now Moscow is criminalising illegal operators, and could send them to prison
The velvet glove has come off Moscow’s iron fist after the failure of its two-year-old attempt to limit gambling. In 2009, the Russian government banned gaming throughout the
country except in four designated zones. But these were so remote (to the extent that a recent spoof policy leak proposed three more in the depths of the Arctic Ocean, inside an active volcano, and in the radioactive wasteland of Chernobyl) that few Russian gamblers trekked to them, and illegal operations flourished. In Moscow in the first six weeks of this year alone, for example, nearly 400 illegal casinos were shut down. Yet operators of these underground venues could only be punished for
running an unregistered enterprise, a relatively minor infraction. No longer. Following President Dmitry Medvedev’s push for criminalisation, the State Duma – Russia’s parliament – has now approved much fiercer laws, covering online and mobile as well as land-based gaming, with prison time facing larger operators. Under the new rules, individuals can be fined up to about $170, officials ten times that amount, and companies as much as $36,000. Gaming equipment is, of course, confiscated. And, most seriously, those who have made more than about $50,000 profit from illegal gaming can face up to six years in jail. Already, one Briton is awaiting trial under the new rules. Forty-three-year-
old Darren Keane was previously CEO of Storm International, a legitimate casino operator in Russia before the nationwide ban. Its properties included the Shangri La in Moscow as well as sites in Bishkek and Yerevan, the capitals of Kyrgystan and Armenia respectively. It’s alleged by authorities that the Moscow Shangri La had reopened in defiance of the ban. Keane was first held in a detention centre but has since been released to house arrest, “taking into account his co-operation with the investigation”, said the state news agency RIA Novosti; that decision came after the raising of concerns in the West over Keane’s health, although the news agency implied they were not a factor. Either way, Keane’s impending trial is likely to be – for Moscow – a welcome demonstration that this time the Russian government is serious about restricting gaming.
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