A Hampshire-based businessman who bet £50,000 on the fact that Spain would win the Euro 2008 with William Hill, won a sum of £315,000 at odds of 11/2.

He won an extra £55,000 on Spain beating Russia in the opening games of the championship. He made a profit of £275,000 from the outright bet and £40,000 from the match bet.

William Hill Spokesman Graham Sharpe stated, “The win of Spain has proved costly for bookies as their victory has cost the industry millions. All our staff have been banned from going on vacation in Spain in the coming future.”

While one of the companies clients had bet £40,000 on Germany winning the final, another had bet £20,000 on them to win the tournament. The company has now made Spain 13/2 third favorites to win the World Cup. The odds on Fernando Torres being the Premier League top scorer next season are 4/1 with the company.

In other news the company has stated that it has made a good start to this year after its profits rose 43 per cent last year. William Hill, which operates 1600 betting shops, stated pre-tax profits had risen to £201.7 million in the year from £141.4 million for the previous year.

Genting Bhd. which is a gaming and leisure group based in Malaysia is getting ready to make its maiden entry into the Internet betting world. It will do this with it’s the launch of a UK online poker and casino site.

The company already owns a UK casino chain Stanley Leisure, and will unveil the new CircusCasino.com site on Friday. Its entrance into the online betting space may be seen as a vote of confidence for the industry which is still recovering from the effects after Internet betting was effectively outlawed in the U.S. in September 2006.

The company was keen to use the new launch as a testing ground for future launches in Asia since the number of Asian nations are in the process of reviewing online gambling rules.

The new site will be launched at the Beach Club and the software will be provided by Playtech. Though there is a lot of competition out there in the online betting world, the group has the advantage that it can tap its own players who play at its real casinos.

Other betting sites like Party Gaming, Bwin and 888 are all struggling to compete with sites like Poker Stars as the latter accepts bets from U.S. players and therefore have bigger prizes on offer.

The website Absolute Poker is pleased to announce that its Bad Beat Jackpot was won on Sunday evening. The jackpot bells rang just short $4,000 of hitting the $1 million mark. The $996,115.28 jackpot is the largest Bad Beat Jackpot ever won in online poker history.

An Absolute Poker spokesperson said, “We are achieving milestones, breaking records and making ordinary poker players very rich. The Bad Beat Jackpot continues to attract a large number of poker players to the site.”

The jackpot was won on Sunday exactly a year after the site launched the Texas Hold’em-based jackpot game. The winner of the latest jackpot, goes by the screen name RIVERMAN1969, and is a resident of Pasadena, Maryland.

RIVERMAN1969 lost a hand of Texas Hold’em with four tens to BFOXY’s four queens, securing $325,212.40 for his loss. BFOXY left the table $163,343.67 richer and 88 other players shared an additional $163,343.67.

The recent jackpot tops the previous industry record also held by Absolute Poker. On August 29th, 2007, the site broke the earlier record for the largest Bad Beat Jackpot ever won. With large numbers of players flocking to the site for a chance of winning thousands of dollars in cash just by losing a game of Texas Hold’em.

It was a lucky day for three bingo players who have just won more than £11,000 each on the National Bingo jackpot game. They won the money after they all called house in 45 numbers on this game in their respective bingo clubs. The total prize money for the day was £30,354 and was divided equally amongst the three winners.

One of the winners is a 20 year old unemployed lady from Bristol, who won the sum while playing at her local Mecca Bingo hall in Barton Hill. She has stated that she is now looking forwards to a big shopping expedition after winning the sum, she had earlier won a house jackpot prize of £500 and it seems that her luck is holding out.

She told the national gaming body, “I could not believe my luck. I just wanted to sit and cry.” She has been playing bingo since the age of 18 and wanted to share the win with her family, who was with her when she won the prize.

The other winner who shared the jackpot was playing at the Mecca Bingo club in Bridgewater. The winner has been a member of the club since 1992 and plays there twice a week.

Lee Rothery, the club duty manager said, “The winner was totally shocked by his win. We are always happy when one of our regular players wins money.”

A French player, David Benyamine has won his first World Series of Poker bracelet. He won it at the $10,000 World Championship Omaha Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better event. He beat a field of 234 others to win over $500k. The winner is often seen playing the highest online stakes.

Here’s what David Benyamine had to say about his win, “I haven’t really tried hard to play the tournaments, I’ve been playing the cash games, only playing tournaments sometimes. My first job has been to play the cash games.”

“And a couple of people this year, they said, so far you’re not doing anything in tournaments and so I turned around and said, this year I’m going to turn up and I’m going to show them,” he added.

“(But) I really never felt like I have anything to prove, I play poker because I like it and I will keep on doing it the same way!”

The winner who belongs originally to Paris, France, was the chip leader heading into a final table that consisted of six players with WSOP bracelets already in their jewelry box!

The online casino, Casino Tropez has announced the launch of two new slot machines.  The two games to be introduced are Silent Samurai, which is a 5-reel 20-line video slot and Wild Spirit, which is a 5-reel 9-line slot game.

Along with some of the latest and best graphics, the game Silent Samurai includes Scatter symbols and a bonus round where players throw stars to fight off an army of 20 fierce ninja warriors.  If a magical ninja is defeated the player wins an additional 3 prizes. However, if the player faces an evil ninja, the bonus round is over and the free spins will start.

The game, Wild Spirit, is a Native American themed slot machine game. This game includes an entertaining bonus round. Druing the game, players get to visit the mysterious Shaman and have their fortune told through mystical symbols. Every symbol brings with it a prize for the player.

Visit Casino Tropez today to try your luck on the newest slots online!

The website Bodog Poker has announced that it has released a new version of its software. The new software has several player requested features. When they visit the new site they will notice the new software, which includes full-screen mode, resizable tables, embedded chat and game details. According to Bodog Poker, the ability to resize tables is one of the most requested features.

Morris Mohawk Gaming Group CEO, Alwyn Morris states, “The opportunity to offer players a secure and most enjoyable playing experience is very important to us. When our players asked for features like the ability to resize ones game window and play in the full screen mode, we added these new features to our new software.”

Morris added, “The new features that we have added to our site are another step in the evolution of our site. People can look forward to further changes as we move forward.”

The site has also announced that players will soon be able to play on more than three tables – the current maximum. According to the release issued by the company, it will be the first time players will be allowed to test new features. The company is encouraging visitors and players alike to give their feedback as coming versions of the software will reflect the inputs received by the site. Players will be able to check out the beta version of the software as it can be run independently after each time the site updates the software so that players can compare the updates and choose which they like best.

The online poker website UltimateBet has announced the launch of a promotion that will give players a large number of seats to the 2008 Aruba Poker Classic.

Annie Duke, Ultimate Bet’s Card Room Consultant said in a press statement, “the site is attempting to make the tournament a big success and in an effort to achieve that we are aiming to send a record number of players. The best thing about winning our prize package is that it is as easy as relaxing under a palm tree.”

This promotion launched by the site comes behind the launch of two successful promotions for the world series of poker leaders. The WSOP promotions saw players fighting for a seat in the final table of the main WSOP event. The new promotion on the site will work the same way as the World Series of Poker promotions.

The only difference here being that poker players will be competing for $8,500 Aruba Poker Classic prize packages. To qualify for the Aruba Poker Classic poker players must play in any of the Sit ‘n Go, ring game or multi-table tournament at the site between June 20th and July 17th and climb their way up the promotion leader board.

Once the qualifying is over, the players who have won the most RAI$E status points will automatically qualify for the $8,500 Aruba Poker Classic prize which includes the $5,500 Main Event entry fee and $3,000 for travel and stay. Players that are ranked 2nd and 70th on the leader board will play in an exclusive free roll that will consist of seven additional $8,500 Aruba Poker Classic prizes.

Phil Galfond won his first WSOP gold bracelet playing the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha with Re-buys. The winner stated, “Winning a gold bracelet wins a player respect from ones seniors. Winning against a line up of players that are tough players makes the victory sweeter.”

The winner took home a sum of $817,781, which is the second-highest prize ever paid to the winner of a Pot-Limit Omaha tournament. Phil occupied the top spot in the 2008 WSOP earnings list by a narrow margin leading into the final table as the chip leader with 1,393,000.

He was being chased by a pack of players that boasted impressive qualifications. The pack of players chasing him included 11-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, Jr. and 10-time bracelet winner Johnny Chan, but also Daniel Negreanu and John Juanda. These four players had combined to win more than 100 WSOP cash prizes in their careers.

But as the final table started, the big names started to fall away. Hellmuth, the all-time leader in WSOP finished eighth, Negreanu, who had more than $85,000 at stake finished seventh, Juanda, who has more WSOP finishes than any other player since 2000 finished sixth and picked up $154,296 while Chan was fourth and Benyamine took third.

When the final two players started facing each other, the winner was the leader with a 4.1 million-2.1 million chip lead. The runners up fought hard to remain in contention for more then 100 hands, but gave up when the winner’s two pair prevailed over his pair of aces. 

 Phil Galfond is a 23-year-old native of Wisconsin who now has five WSOP cash prizes that include a 45th-place finish in the $10,000 World Championship Heads-Up No Limit event where he won $14,438.

PokerStars is increasing its player presence at the World Series of Poker this year. In 2007 it sent 1,596 players to the Main Event, and this year it plans to send 2,000 players!

The site has announced a series of online qualifying tournaments that will award 200 lucky players with a $12,500 WSOP Main Event seat package. These satellite series tournaments have a $370 entry fee with the prize package including the $10,000 Main Event entry fee for the World Series of Poker plus travel and accommodation allowances.

PokerStars has announced that it has invested $2.5 million in order to send 200 players to the World Series of Poker.

The Main Event may be the big attraction for most players, but a number of the sites professionals are already in Las Vegas competing in some of the preliminary events. If the success of these professionals is any indication of how the online qualifiers will do, the site could see a few of its qualifying players win some money this year.

The player Daniel Negreanu has already won four gold bracelets this year, and Chad Brown was among those who won money in three events. Victor Ramdin was placed behind him with two finishes and some prize money. Barry Greenstein has also been pickedto finish at the final table with some money!