GamblingAct2005
Latest
YouTube star charged over 'FIFA' game betting
The consequences of promoting dodgy bets on video games can extend well beyond account suspensions and tarnished reputations. YouTube star Craig Douglas (aka NepentheZ) and FUTgalaxy owner Dylan Rigby have both been charged with violating the UK's Gambling Act through their respective businesses. The two allegedly used their online presences to push lotteries and "unlawful gambling" in FIFA 16 matches through bets with in-game coins. Douglas is also accused of encouraging underage gambling by refusing to warn viewers that bets were only for people 18 and over.
Roulette-cheating gadget may be legal in the UK?
In case that established career of yours isn't working out so well, you may want to consider a move to the United Kingdom, where a new law deregulating the gambling industry may make it much easier to cheat at roulette. A £1,000 ($1,883) device, consisting of a tiny computer that can be embedded inside other electronics is used to calculate deceleration on a roulette wheel that's perceived to favor one section over another; the computer then sends an audio signal to the wearer alerting him/her where to place a bet. The Guardian reports that the legal change requires casinos to police themselves, and that the Gambling Comission is advising British gaming establishments to refuse making pay outs to gamblers caught with the device, forcing upset clientèle to take their grievances to court. Still, it's unclear whether or not the so-called Gambling Act 2005 which goes into effect next year actually prohibits such devices -- although it does create a "criminal offence for cheating at gambling," Europe's only professor of gambling, Mark Griffiths at Nottingham Trent University, argues that neither the roulette computer nor card counting techniques constitute cheating to begin with because both supposedly use "science to give yourself a better advantage." While we'd have to disagree that using a computer inside a casino is the same thing as using your brain, the fact of the matter is that the gambling community as a whole benefits from a stricter interpretation of the law: i.e. if electronic aids become legal, and everyone starts using them and winning, then the casinos will eventually go out of business and there'll be no more gambling at all -- way to ruin everyone's good time, you lousy non-cheaters.[Via The Guardian]
