The legalisation will also boost public finances through a specific taxation imposed on gaming operators, the Estonian Free Press reports. This year Estonians will be able to play nation-based gaming platforms such as the one set up by Olympic Casino group. Full international access to the Estonian gaming market will come into force in 2011.

According to the news provider, the decision to legalise online gambling comes after the success of the Baltic Poker Festival and the policy of other European governments to boost revenues from gambling by adopting ad-hoc legislation.

The Estonian market could be a gateway to high levels of investment for the whole Baltic market from international gambling operators, the report added.

This week, the market analyst Mondo Visione reported a marked increase in international investment interests in Estonia in 2009 as its stock exchange saw the second highest number of transactions in the last decade.

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Bundled-up revelers began trickling in at 6 p.m. for a block party with plenty of street-side bars and 2010 knickknacks. Bartenders flipped shakers and danced on the bar, while crowds sang along with tribute bands playing hits from U2, Van Halen and Aerosmith.

Elsa Valenzuela, a 27-year-old third-grade teacher from Victorville, Calif., said that despite graduating from high school and college during the last 10 years, she’s glad to move on from the past decade. “The horrible outfits, the bad hair,” she said as she and her boyfriend wore matching novelty hats and beads. “I really think it’s just more like thinking ahead on the possibilities and the good that we can do and the changes that we can make.”

David Fraley, 56, of Las Vegas, said he’s also ready to get away from the aughts. “This decade’s over, let’s get a better one going,” said Fraley, who said he lost his job as a supermarket liquor clerk in March. “My wish is a job. I’ve been laid off. I need work,” he said, sporting glasses that displayed “2010″ in blue lights.

On the Strip, actress Eva Longoria was scheduled to host at Eve nightclub at CityCenter, the newest casino complex in town. Other celebrity hosts at various clubs included rapper 50 Cent, singer Robin Thicke, Nicole Ritchie and Maroon 5, while DJs Mix Master Mike, Jermaine Dupri and DJ Z-Trip were scheduled to spin.

Las Vegas Boulevard was closed to vehicles from the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino to the Sahara. Police spokesman Ramon Denby said there were no major problems before 11 p.m., with eight adults arrested for various misdemeanors and one juvenile arrested for being on the Strip past curfew without a chaperone. Official crowd counts were not immediately available, Denby said.

At midnight, more than seven minutes of fireworks were shot from seven casinos on the Strip, stretching more than four miles from the MGM Grand to the Stratosphere. The show cost an estimated $500,000 and was brought back to the rooftops after a toned-down fireworks show last year was panned by tourists, city officials and casino executives.

Gone from the festivities were stunts. Last year, three stunts were performed in Las Vegas as part of television specials. This year, television networks Fox, ABC and CNN all planned New Year’s Eve programming from Las Vegas.

Tourism officials said they expected the city’s 148,000 hotel rooms to be 96 percent full as casinos slash prices to get more people in town.

The estimate of 315,000 tourists eclipsed last year’s total of 312,000 visitors, but the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said it expected folks to spend less than they did last year because of the bargains.

The agency, which promotes tourism to Las Vegas, estimated revelers would spend $183.4 million, down from $199.5 million last year.

In downtown Reno, several casinos pooled efforts to bring back fireworks in hopes the display would add excitement and encourage more visitors. The tradition went on hiatus last year as companies tried to save money.

They planned a $65,000, 15-minute show with Michael Jackson-themed music.

BetOnSports legal defenders claim the company has more liabilities than assets and still owes U.S. gamblers $7 million to $8 million.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Holtshouser told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the amount owed to U.S. gamblers is probably much higher and supposably only half of those gamblers went through the steps to verify money owed to them.

Gary Kapla,the company founder was convicted last month to 51 months in prison after he has pleaded guilty,in August to conspiracy, racketeering conspiracy and violating the Wire Wager Act for running what once was one of the world’s largest offshore sports gambling companies and he agreed to forfeit  $43.65 million.His brother and sister have been convicted to ten months house arrest and having to turn over $6 million held in offshore bank accounts.

David Carruther,former CEO has also pleaded guilty and is remaining under house arrest awaiting sentencing.

Discussion is about to begin on a new draft legislation that would introduce further changes to Polish gambling laws. The proposed legislation would place severe restrictions on online gambling in the country, and would also place a ban on the sponsorship of Poland’s sports teams by companies in the e-gaming industry.

Under the proposed legislation it will still be legal to bet on sports in Poland, but Polish teams would not be allowed to wear shirts advertising online sportsbooks. Naturally, the thought of losing this lucrative source of sponsorship has Polish teams alarmed. Online gambling sponsorships of Polish sports teams currently amounts to approximately 50 million Polish zloties ($18.2 million) annually. This new legislation would be devastating to the teams that receive this money.

Sponsorship of European football clubs by online sportsbook operators is becoming more and more common. For example, by early 2010 France will open its doors to the world of online gambling, and Ligue 1 clubs Lyon and Marseille will start wearing shirts carrying the logo of a major European sportsbook starting in January. Other countries have taken the opposite route: online sportsbook sponsorship of teams in Russia and Ukraine is currently illegal, and Portugal’s football league recently lost its sportsbook sponsorship after the country’s state-controlled gambling operator won a battle in court.

This proposed legislation in Poland is still preliminary, and the outcome could go either way. The proposed changes are certain to bring up a lot of arguments from both sides. There is no estimation on when a decision will be made.

“Barring any surprises, I hope the president will be able to affix his signature as of November 30,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said when presenting the project two days ago.

The Senate voted in favour of the project with 48 votes to 3, and 30 abstentions.

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The law received the green light from the lower chamber on Thursday, and now requires the signature of Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, before it can come into effect.

Gambling will be made illegal for individuals below 18 years of age under the law.

The decision by parliament comes nearly a month and a half after Tusk was forced to sack several key ministers and political allies over allegations of influence peddling within his cabinet regarding the gambling legislation.

The operation was jointly handled by the police’s specialist Lahav 433 unit, Tax Authority investigators, state prosecutors and the Money Laundering Prohibition Authority. Over 300 police officers and Tax Authority officials raided the homes of 37 suspects across the country, taking dozens of gamblers in for questioning, and seizing assets worth tens of millions of shekels.

Twenty court orders authorizing the Tax Authority to seize the vehicles and assets of suspects had been made available before the raid, and 160 bank accounts have been frozen.

“We employed techniques to monitor the Web site that are very similar to eavesdropping,” a police source told The Jerusalem Post.

In a statement released on Monday, police described the ring as a “pirate sports gambling industry that has taken in more than NIS 340 million since 2007.” “Internet gambling is one of the severe crime phenomena among Israeli crime organizations,” police added. “It brings with it other forms of serious crimes, like aggravated extortion, violence, money laundering, tax offenses, and theft of moneys from public funds.”

An elaborate hi-tech support network enabled the site’s ongoing operation, police said, including a Web site construction team, a technical support team, and betting agents.

“Millions of shekels in clean profit were made by the Web site’s operators,” police said. “Between April 2007 and June 2009, 70 million visits were recorded on the Web site, mostly by gamblers.”

Over the past year, a team of state prosecutors and investigators from the Tax Authority and police plotted to strike a blow to illegal Internet gambling rings.

Police said Monday’s raids were the result of the first undercover investigation led by the Joint Intelligence Center (JIC).

In March 2007, the government set up the JIC and tasked it with providing information to various police and Tax Authority task forces investigating crime organizations.

The center is based at the Intelligence Branch of the Israel Police headquarters in Jerusalem. It includes representatives from the police, Tax Authority and Money Laundering Prohibition Authority.

The ban would limit Poland’s casino choices only to the ones that are already established. This would mean that no new permits would be issued to hopeful casino operators. Another portion of the legislation would also raise taxes on the current casinos within Poland. Video lotteries would also be banned completely, leaving basic slot machines as the only option.

While still in its draft stage, the law needs the approval of both the parliament and president. Though these approvals have not yet been attained, both parties are expected to give the go-ahead on the ban. Ironically, mere weeks have passed since a scandal involving gambling and lobbying had stricken the Polish legislation with allegations.

Amendments to the Corporate Revenue Act adopted by Parliament at first reading on November 4 increased the tax rate to 12 per cent from 10 per cent. But Parliament’s budget committee chairperson Menda Stoyanova has said that there could be an even more dramatic increase, hinting at the 15 per cent benchmark.

Her proposal came as a poll commissioned by the Ministry of Finance showed that raising the corporate tax on gambling enjoyed the broadest public support and was approved by 84 per cent of the respondents.

Fixed-odds sports betting outfit EuroFootball is now paying the brunt, with sports and national lottery bets now taxed at 10 per cent of turnover and not on the profit. The company said in a statement that the gambling tax was about five or six times higher than the tax imposed on other commercial entities operating on the Bulgarian market because it was based on the entire turnover, without deducing payment and activity expenses.

Miroslaw Drzewiecki announced his decision after Rzeczpospolita newspaper published transcripts of tapped telephone conversations.

In the calls between a politician and a gambling industry boss, Mr Drzewiecki was allegedly named as someone who could help block planned casino taxes.

Mr Drzewiecki denies wrongdoing, saying he has been falsely accused.

The allegations may taint the reputation of PM Donald Tusk’s centrist government.

The politician in the tapped phone calls has been named as Zbigniew Chlebowski, the head of Mr Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) parliamentary group.

He has been suspended pending an inquiry into what Polish media have dubbed “Black Jack-Gate”.

The bill, which is expected to be debated in parliament soon, proposes higher taxes on the gambling business to channel more money into overstretched state coffers.

Both Mr Chlebowski and Mr Drzewiecki deny wrongdoing.

Drop in support

The sports minister said was resigning to prevent the situation from affecting important projects, such as plans to build football stadiums for children, or football’s Euro 2012 championship, which Poland is set to co-host with Ukraine.

Tusk took power two years ago with a pledge to clean up government

“I believe that when the media frenzy dies down and all the circumstances relating to the gambling bill have been clarified, it will turn out that I have been falsely accused,” he wrote.

“(But) I cannot allow this situation to affect the Euro 2012 preparations or my beloved Orliki project,” he said, referring to the stadium-building plans.

The accusations have dented support for the government, polls suggest, with a 6% drop in support for the PO since the scandal emerged last week.

Mr Tusk took power two years ago with a pledge to clean up government.