Nambling Notes - April 4, 2008

The Local, a Sweden-based, English-language daily, reports Margareta Winberg, former prime minister of the country's Social Democratic Party, has been named the new chair of Svenska Spel, Sweden's state-licensed operator. Sweden's Finance Minister Anders Borg said in a prepared statement that Ms. Winberg's appointment will "clarify the direction of Svenska Spel's work" and "strengthen (the organization's) concentration on social responsibility and public health." At this point, it is not clear who, if anyone, Ms. Winberg replaced, or how, if at all, Ms. Winberg's appointment will impact Svenska Spel's operational philosophy. IGN reported in January that Sweden received a letter of formal notice from the European Commission. The letter, the first stage in the infringement proceeding, sought information from the government to verify whether Swedish national measures relating to poker games and tournaments are compatible with European community law. IGN could not reach Jesper Kärrbrink, Svenska Spel's chief executive, or Andreas Jansson, the company's communications director, for comment.

The London Times reports Guoco Group Ltd. has been silent on its intentions toward Rank Group, following Genting Berhad's announcement Thursday that it would not launch a $959 million bid for the London-listed operator. Guoco, the investment arm of Hong Leong Group Malaysia, currently holds a 9 percent stake in Rank, while Genting maintains an 11 percent holding. With regard to the Genting bid, analysts with Landsbanki, an Iceland-based bank and financial services provider, suggest that the departure of John Gill, Rank's finance director, with a year's pay and without a job to go to, "has reinforced our view that Rank is not expecting an imminent bid approach, neither has it received one."

Jadestone Group AB, a Sweden-based online and mobile games developer, has inked a partnership agreement with Scandinavia Online AB (SOL), a Norwegian media company, to make available its GamArena skill games network to SOL's Norwegian customers. SOL's portal site, SOL.no, offers news, entertainment and other services. Tobias Nissen, Jadestone's business development director, said the agreement "gives a further boost to our expansion of the GamArena Network." Jadestone's GamArena partners include Bwin, Unibet, Ålands Penningautomatforening (PAF) and Schibsted, a Scandinavian media group.

Austrian Lotteries, the state-licensed operator, has revealed a 4.5 percent rise in full-yearly net gaming revenues to 1.5 billion euros, or $2.36 billion. Sales at its Win2Day.at online division were up 4.7 percent to 808 million euros, or $1.27 billion, which accounted for approximately 39 percent of the group's corporate sales: 2.06 billion euros, or $3.23 billion. The annual report may be found here, and a transcribed discussion with the management board regarding the sole-licensee-versus-liberalized-market debate may be found on pages five through seven.

Financial Times reports that psychologists at Stanford University have demonstrated that financial decisions can be influenced by pictures that are sexual but irrelevant. The paper says experiments with a gambling game demonstrated that, if their brain was stimulated by erotic pictures, men were consistently more likely to take bigger financial risks than they otherwise would. In the experiment, subjects bet either 10 cents or $1.00 after viewing images that were positive (people in erotic poses), neutral (office supplies) or negative (snakes and spiders). The positive images produced many more $1.00 wagers than the neutral or negative images, while at the same time, neural scans showed increased activation in a brain area associated with the anticipation of the reward.

On the London Stock Exchange today, Rank Group was up 1p, or 1.1 percent, to 90.00, William Hill was up 9.25p, or 2.4 percent, to 402.25 and Sportingbet was up 1p, or 2.5 percent, to 40.25.