Update: Beneficiaries of “Black Friday”

Bwin and Playtech profit

What is now called “Black Friday”, which occurred on Apr. 15, resulted in a positive effect for certain gaming operators, especially the European gaming operators such as Bwin.party and Playtech, as anticipated by industry experts.

This is due to the fact that players are looking for alternative venues to play poker, and as a result, the share prices in the London-listed betting firms noted a great boost; namely Bwin.party's share price had soared by 34 percent, 888 by 24 percent and Playtech by 11 percent.

In addition, there are other European groups that seek to profit from the situation by offering promos that match or exceed the affected US-facing sites' promotions.

Apart from the news about the federal action's effect on other, non-indicted groups, on Apr. 18 came the report that the first of the eleven indicted in the internet poker crackdown, has appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas today in a Manhattan Federal Court. Bradley Franzen (41), who has been charged with conspiracy to violate the UIGEA, conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy and operating an illegal gambling business amongst others, is accused of creating phony companies and websites in order to fool banks into handling gambling proceeds disguised as online purchases of items such as golf balls and jewelry. To these accusations, he pleaded not guilty, and the court set a $200 000 bail to release him from custody.

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