Nambling Notes - Feb. 19, 2008

Since Feb. 5, shares in 888 have gained nearly 40 percent on the London Stock Exchange. Momentum continued today as shares jumped 7.75p (5.0 percent) to close at 162 -- a 52-week high. Last week, 888 Chief Executive Gigi Levy called the group's fourth-quarter trading update "the best [888] had ever published since the company went public."

The London Times says Citigroup took a 7 percent stake in Ladbrokes for Joe Lewis, the British-born, Bahamas-based billionaire.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Gtech -- which is currently putting the finishing touches on a tie-up with Boss Media -- spent at least $260,000 lobbying Florida's executive branch in 2007. State Gov. Charlie Crist proposed expanding the lottery by adding a midday game, new automated ticket machines and more advertising to generate about $200 million more to help balance the state budget -- an expansion, the paper says, Gtech has "an obvious interest in." Gtech supplies equipment and services to the Florida Lottery.

Australian daily the Age reports Tattersalls and Tabcorp may have broken Victorian statutes covering pokie ads. The paper says the two operators ran a widespread ad campaign -- on television and in print -- offering pokie patrons the chance to win a car or house by spending A$20 at their local venue.

PacificNet, via its Octavian International Ltd. subsidiary, has agreed to supply MaxBet -- a European casino operator with venues in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus -- with 3 million euro worth of its Gaminator machines.

In an editorial carried by the Guardian, journalist Paul Haigh opines that the dispute between self-confessed compulsive gambler Graham Calvert and William Hill "could make bookmaking [in the United Kingdom] non-viable by making it possible for every pigeon to demand his feathers back after he's been clipped."

Reuters reports that Britain's government is to set out the terms of a new horse racing levy on Wednesday, three months after it was forced to settle a dispute between the United Kingdom's gambling and horse racing industries.

The Malta Independent reports the Malta Remote Gaming Council has issued a written statement in response to concerns received regarding the increased availability of gambling services. THE MRGC said that the country's online gambling industry is often perceived as unregulated and unscrupulous, countering that these perceptions are most often maintained on the basis of insufficient research into the industry, its regulation and its participants.

Japan Today reported Friday that Japanese police arrested Yuki Shiina, 25, for sending as many as 2.2. billion spam messages, some of which contained ads for gambling and dating services. The Register says Shiina faked the message headers of junk mail he sent in an effort to avoid detection -- an offense against local anti-spam laws. Spammer Shiina is not the first junk-mail peddler to be arrested in Japan, as four men suspected of sending an Internet-congesting 5.4 billion spam e-mails to promote a dating Web site were arrested in January 2007.

On the London Stock Exchange today, London Capital Group was up 24p (7.0 percent) to 369.00, Probability was up 1.50p (2.3 percent) to 66.50 while Ladbrokes was down 1.50p (0.5 percent) to 326.00.