Back in 2007 the drive by US federal authorities to disrupt online gambling by attacking financial companies that processed online gambling transactions netted close to $19.2 million in seizure orders impacting the Canadian-based Optimal Group Inc., more familiar to online gamblers as ‘FirePay’.

The seizures were made on the grounds that Optimal subsidiaries had been involved in allegedly illegal casino gambling transactions between 2004 and 2006.

The Reuters news agency reported a sequel to the case this week when U.S. prosecutors said Friday that Optimal acknowledged that Internet gambling merchants broke U.S. criminal law by offering gambling in the United States.

“Optimal, operating an electronic wallet called Firepay, processed more than $2 billion worth of illegal gambling transactions for United States customers,” a statement by the office of the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan said.

With the acknowledgement, and in return for an assurance of non-prosecution, Optimal confirmed in its own statement that it would forfeit the $19 182 418.82 already seized to the U.S. government.

The amount reflected “disgorgement of property involved in and proceeds received from the payment processing services that were provided by the company’s subsidiaries to Internet gambling merchants in relation to U.S. customers of such merchants,” the Optimal statement advised.

U.S. prosecutors said Optimal processed transactions originating from customers in the United States until October 13, 2006, when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was signed into law. It disposed of most of its payment processing business and is now principally a toy and consumer electronics company.

Wracked by recent political corruption claims, the Polish government is reported to be taking a populist approach in its latest proposals for new gambling regulations…and these may not be online gambling friendly.

According to the Wall Street Journal blog, the government wants to show how lobby-proof and corruption-resistant it is and has accordingly drafted a bill that limits gambling to casinos only, outlawing slot machines outside casinos and banning e-gambling.

Blogger Malgorzata Halaba reports from the Eastern European nation that the government is under pressure after a number of politicians and cabinet members were accused of tampering with the existing gambling legislation, and were suspected of involvement in illegal lobbying by the land gambling industry. The charges forced a government reshuffle earlier this (October) month.

According to the financial portal money.pl, the gambling ban will mean the state budget will be short of 3.5 billion zlotys ($1.23 billion) in five years time. Legal gambling sites will bring 350 million zlotys to this year’s budget, and the amount could only rise in the coming years.

Halaba observes that previous attempts in Poland to ban the liquor industry should have informed the lawmakers that there are always ways to circumvent prohibitionist style laws. She quotes an idiomatic Polish expression: “A Pole is always wise after the damage has been done,” commenting that the old saying did not appear to have worked this time around.

Phil Ivey’s bad week at the Full Tilt high stakes cash game online tables perked up as the week closed with a profit on Pot Limit Omaha of over a million - mainly at the expense of Tom Dwan, who hemorrhaged over a million through the casino gambling night.

Ivey’s cards and talent enabled him to hammer his $500/$1,000 PLO opponents into submission over 627 hands of serious action, earning him some $800 000 in the process.

Ivey’s good fortune did not extend to the NLHE and 7-Game tables, though. On 515 hands of NLHE the ice-cool American pro dropped $377 000, leaving him with a profit for the night of around $420 000 despite his earlier windfall courtesy of Dwan.

Dwan battled all night on the NLHE tables to recover some of his losses, but was only able to claw back around $100 000.

Sympathetic online gambling railbirds will be pleased to hear that French pro David Benyamine at last managed to end his disastrous losses this week, finishing the night up over $407 000 after playing almost 3 600 hands on the 7-Game tables. Patrik Antonius also enjoyed a profitable night, leaving with $700 000 from PLO and 7-Game to add to his already substantial 2009 bank balance.

November 2nd will see he advent of a new online poker show on Sky Sports television in the UK, sponsored by the giant online poker provider PokerStars.

Branded ‘Bounty Stars of Poker’ and filmed by Emblaze Productions, the show takes amateur online gambling qualifiers from PokerStars into a live TV environment where they will have to beat other members of the public to progress to the next stage of the show.

If successful, the online qualifier will then face either a Team PokerStars pro or a sporting celebrity for a GBP 5 000 cash prize. Players won’t know who they will face until they take their seat at the table.

The sportsmen who will be standing between the amateur players and a cash windfall are ex-England test cricketer and former ‘King of the Jungle’ Phil Tufnell, England rugby star and talented poker player Mike Tindall, and Welsh football legend Gary Speed.

The Team PokerStars pros include Peter Eastgate, 2008 WSOP Champion; Victoria Coren, the first woman to win a European Poker Tour event and Marcel Luske, one of Europe’s most feared and respected players.

Commenting on the new show, Coren said, “This is an excellent opportunity for previously unknown poker players to make a name for themselves and play against some of the best in the business.

“The PokerStars Bounty Stars of Poker will expose these guys to the unique pressures of playing in a live environment with thousands watching.”

The first episode airs on Sky Sports 2 at 22h00 on Monday, 2nd November 2009.

After less than a year of actual operational use, the mobile phone giant Nokia is to close its controversial - and developmentally expensive - mobile gambling service.

The service, which at one time was thought to hold some online gambling potential will close next (2010) year, a move widely seen in Europe as an acknowledgement of failure in the company’s first major services offering.

Casino games and music were Nokia’s first targets in the service sector as the group looked for new income sources to compensate as its traditional handset market matured. However, Nokia’s dedicated gaming phones proved unpopular in the market despite a massive global advertising campaign.

“We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform,” Nokia said on its N-Gage blog this week, adding that the games would be available until the end of September 2010, and the supporting community site would remain in operation throughout 2010.

Nokia’s leading position in the cellphone market had attracted all the top mobile game makers — including Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Glu Mobile and Digital Chocolate to create special games for N-Gage.

After closing the N-Gage service, Nokia will continue to sell mobile games at its Ovi Store.

The massive success of online gambling group Betfair has again been reflected in the latest business accolade for founders Andrew Black and Edward Wray, who earlier this month were again honoured at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in London.

The duo’s success was recognised in the UK’s Media, Entertainment And Communications section of the awards, one of the most prestigious top online casinos business honours in Britain.

Betfair was launched in 2000 and has twice been named as the Company Of The Year by the Confederation Of British Industry. In addition, it remains one of the only betting companies to win a Queen’s Award For Enterprise twice after being recognised in 2003 and 2008.

Licensed in the UK, Australia, Germany, Austria, Italy and Malta, Betfair employs over 1 500 people and its founders won Ernst And Young’s Emerging Entrepreneurs Of The Year Award in 2002.

The 2009 ‘UK Overall Entrepreneur Of The Year’ award went to Michael Spencer, chief executive of interdealer broker ICAP plc, a familiar figure in online gambling investment circles. He founded ICAP with four people 23 years ago and now employes over 4 000 people in a FTSE 100 company with annual revenues in excess of GBP 1.5 billion.