GLOBAL VR has announced that the first production run of NASCAR Team Racing Upgrade Kits has shipped and is available for immediate delivery. This highly anticipated game comes complete with everything required for easy installation providing an instant boost to cabinets’ earnings. Easy to play and exciting to drive, the latest installment in this blockbuster franchise delivers many new and updated features.

As Sex and the City and fashion icons Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte continue to make their mark on pop culture, so does the Sex and the City™ slot machine. IGT announced that its Sex and the City™ slot has reached #1 among all stand-alone progressives MegaJackpots® games on casino floors today, and remains among the most popular slot themes worldwide.

Eurocoin Ltd has launched its most comprehensive range of security locks for the casino and gaming industry, from low cost to the most superior high security locks available on the market place.

Project’s Free Play is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the most successful Category C gaming product on the market. According to Deith Leisure’s Kevin Temple, the noughts and crosses based game has been recording consistently high weekly income figures across all sectors and locations since its release in February.

Comestero Group srl has chosen the SMART Way for their award winning innovative high-speed change machine the Nexus Pro.

The latest change machine from Comestero, the Nexus Pro, offers faster and more advanced performance than the original Nexus change machine by utilising Innovative Technology’s SMART Way to payout.

Allstar has released an innovative tattoo series for summer and a hot new elastic bracelet in 1” and 2” caps.

Following the incredibly successful Vampire Tattoos series, Allstar Vending introduces Moody Tattoos reflecting the popular Emo subculture embraced by tweens and teens worldwide, and popularized in music and fashion. Emo comes from the word “Emotional” which characterizes the angst-ridden, sensitive moods that teenagers sometimes experience.

CYE introduces a new series of crane machines with three different payout settings as follows:

NORWAY

The Ministry for Culture and Church Affairs in Norway has imposed some of the world’s strictest rules on video gambling machines in a drive to reduce the number of compulsive gamblers.

Under the new regulations introduced last year, all gaming machines operated by Norsk Tipping AS, the Norwegian State-owned gaming company, are only accessible to pre-registered users via prepaid cards.

‘There will be limits on how much an individual can lose, they will be closed at night and there will be a cooling-off period after one hour of continuous play,’ said Trond Giske, Minister for Culture and Church Affairs.



The Government had grown increasingly concerned about the rising number of Norwegians reportedly addicted to gambling machines and banned all privately owned machines in July 2007 while it looked for ways of better regulating them.

Following the ban, the number of people telephoning a national gambling help line plunged from 2,276 in 2004 to 330 this year. The Government stated that the new terminals would be remote-controlled and strictly regulated to prevent people from developing a gambling problem. In addition, the machines will not take cash or credit cards and can only be used with a prepaid card sold by Norsk Tipping to registered players over the age of 18. 



The system will also limit the amount that can be bet per game to ten dollars and set a loss limit of $80 per day and $440 per month per player even if they have more than one card.

Source: IGaming Business and RGC-news

From the TV to the laptop to the mobile phone, we live in a culture of screens. Especially for the youngest generations, a digital display of one kind or another is the natural thing to turn to when seeking information or entertainment – so it’s not surprising that the screen is increasingly the intermediary between business and consumer.

Many illegal amusement venues have recently emerged in Guilin City and caused a lot of social problems, which made the public dissatisfied and also raised strong concerns of the culture department.

In recent years, discussions on casino legalization in Japan have alternated between dynamic enthusiasm and stagnation.

After the House of Representatives election was held last year, a new administration was inaugurated and the industry was keen to discover what kind of attitude the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) as the center party held on the casino issue.

While it is too early to quantify the disastrous economic effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, tourism will almost certainly be affected for months to come. Summer is the height of the vacation season, and Gulf Coast amusement/arcade operators worry that their resort and beachfront location revenues will plummet if the spill is not contained and cleaned up quickly.

By an almost two-to-one margin in April, the Florida House approved a proposed 20-year gambling compact with the Seminole tribe. The state Senate passed the compact by a three-to-one vote. It should go through official measures smoothly since Florida Governor Charlie Crist strongly supports it and the U.S. Interior Department, which regulates Native American gaming, should also give its okay.

Four years after Congress passed the measure and former President George W. Bush signed it, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) became the federal law on June 1.

Oklahoma legislators passed a bill that triples the state’s sales tax decal for vending and coin-op amusement equipment from $50 to $150. The price increase took effect on July 1. Currently, vending and amusement operators buy a decal at an annual flat fee for each machine on location. This cost takes the place of paying total sales volume taxes. Operator fees have remained stable since 1988. They apply to food and beverage machines, as well as jukeboxes and games.

After years of co-location, the three national trade associations that own Fun Expo- IAAPA, AMOA and AAMA-have decided to shut the show down. The convention had lost money last March when commingled with the Amusement Expo in Las Vegas. As a 50% owner, IAAPA controlled the show’s destiny, and constant rumors circulated that the show would be discontinued.

THE NETHERLANDS

The European Court of Justice delivered its rulings on two Dutch cases upholding the opinion of Advocate General Bot that a Member State can determine its gambling policy which includes the ability of the Member State to prohibit the operation of games of chance on the internet. In both rulings, which involved remote gaming operators Ladbrokes and Betfair, the court argued that restrictions on the freedom to provide services can be made if the objectives of the Member State are to protect consumers, prevent fraud and to preserve the public order. Additionally, the Court also expressed that having a licence to offer online or telephone gaming services in one Member State is not “sufficient assurance” that national consumers in another Member State will be protected. The ECJ findings mean that the Dutch national courts will likely deliver similar rulings on the cases. Source Euromat

Novomatic closes the 2009 financial year with a fall in turnover of more than 30 million euro compared to the previous year. This is one of the facts emerging from the presentation of Novomatic’s balance sheet for last year; this Austrian colossus is committed to investing directly in the new Italian videolottery market.

The Hit Group, a leader in the management of Slovenian casinos, has decided to launch an assault on the Italian market. The gaming sector is preparing for a revolution: in the next few months the doors of hundreds of Videolottery halls will open throughout the country, using the latest generation of high technology slot machines to guarantee large winnings and high profits for the managers.

During the technical days organized by the iiR company in Madrid, the predominance of methods of payment for on-line gaming activities was analysed in the light of the current financial scenario. What became apparent was the necessity to adopt a new community legal framework that would harmonise and supplement the fragmented national regulations relating to payment services, and solve the problems of inefficiency and legal insecurity arising from earlier differing regulations.

The Secretary General of the Department of the Interior of the Catalan Government, Joan Boada, and the person responsible for Gaming, Mercè Claramunt, have presented the results of an initial study into the practice of Gaming in Catalonia which is based on the results of a survey.

www.juegointegral.tv, is a communication platform specialising in gaming matters that is taking advantage of the new technologies to offer new communications and marketing paths between the gaming industry and the market. Over the last year Juego Integral has been present at the most important events that took place in Spain. The information offered by Juego Integral in high quality videos shows the different aspects that surround the world of gaming and brings a new point of view to the present traditional methods of communication.

The annual meeting arranged by COFAR (Confederación de Asociaciones del Recreativo – the Confederation of Amusement Associations) took place in Bilbao in June. This meeting brings together professionals from the Spanish gaming industry and politicians from the different Autonomous Spanish Governments. This year the event dealt extensively with the present crisis.

The second GTI Asia China Expo will take place from August 26 to 28 at Hall 1&2, First Floor, Poly World Trade Expo Center in Pazhou of Guangzhou City, China. The tradeshow has become the most representative of its kind for the Chinese electronic game industry.

Independent visitor research shows that buyers ‘overwhelmingly’ back London as IGE venue of choice. The importance of keeping the annual International Gaming Expo in London has been underlined following the publication of independent research conducted through a sample of visitors attending the 2010 IGE in January. The executive summary released by Geoffrey Dixon, principal of research agency Vivid Interface – members of the Market Research Society of Great Britain – states:

Heber has released a dedicated customer support forum for the benefit of all of its clients. This forum can be accessed via the Heber website and will give all Heber product users access to a vast knowledge base of data and additional resources. The forum will also support and allow the creation of new discussions on topics and subjects of interest to all participants.

Rimini Fiera’s sales campaign is in full swing for the 38th edition of ENADA International Amusement & Gaming Machine Show, being held from Wednesday 6th to Friday 8th October 2010 at Fiera di Roma.

International Game Technology has installed the sbX at Grand Casino Helsinki in Finland. After thorough training and a smooth installation, Grand Casino Helsinki experienced a flawless go-live on almost 20 percent of its gaming floor with IGT’s sbX Experience Management System.

In the late evening of the 16th of June a new amendment to the Austrian gambling Law was adopted by the parliament.

Gaming Laboratories International is expanding its Supplier Development Team, increasing its focus on suppliers in the Eastern United States in the process. Leading the effort is David Elmore, GLI’s newest Supplier Development Representative. Elmore will be based in the company’s headquarters in Lakewood, New Jersey, and will service clients up and down the eastern seaboard.

The popularity of the low stake high volume gaming experience with female ‘grey panthers’, the demographic group defined as active women of pensionable age, has been put into sharp focus by a programme of customer research commissioned by UK gaming operator Praesepe plc on behalf of its Cashino brand of Adult Gaming Centres (AGCs).

It seems that even the football loving and dance crazy Brazilians cannot resist the superb and proven family fun of Pan’s world leading electronic shooting galleries. Following a contact made at a previous IAAPA exhibition, Pan has recently completed and installed its fourth gallery in two years, an 8-gun Hillbilly, for Mar-a-Mar in Sao Paulo. Mar-a-Mar operates a number of family entertainment centres throughout Brazil, many of which are located in shopping centres.

Two years of evidence gathering by music industry bodies the BPI and PPL have culminated in a dramatic series of raids across seven addresses in the north of Scotland this week.

Following last year’s successful launch, organisers BACTA have been busy improving the show and hall layout and rebooking the companies that took part at the first event. With this first phase successfully completed the show is now open to all companies wishing to participate and book space at the show.

IOA Group member, SE Leisure is reducing its carbon footprint at the same time as improving logistical efficiency following the addition of two new lorries to its fleet of delivery vehicles. As well as being compliant with the latest EEV (Enhanced Environmental Vehicle) Standards, currently among the most strict in Europe, the 10-tonne Iveco EuroCargo trucks run on five per cent biodiesel, with emissions from each and every journey neutralised by carbon offsetting.