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Bwin
Interactive Entertainment - an overview
Bwin Interactive Entertainment
AG (WBAG: BWIN), formerly Betandwin.com (until
2006), is an Austrian based online gaming company.
The group operates under international and regional
licences in countries like Gibraltar, the Amerindian
reserve of Kahnawake (Canada), Belize and Germany,
Italy, Mexico, Croatia, Austria and the United
Kingdom. The Group offers sports betting, poker,
casino games and soft games with most revenue
coming from poker and sportsbetting. Competence
centres are located in Vienna, Austria, Stockholm,
Sweden and Gibraltar.
The
parent company, bwin Interactive Entertainment
AG, has been listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange
since March 2000. The Company provides services
for its subsidiaries such as marketing, finance
and administration, corporate communications,
controlling and IT services. All operational activities
are managed by licensed subsidiaries.
On
the 15 September 2006, Norbert Teufelberger and
Manfred Bodner were surprisingly arrested at a
press conference in La Turbie, France, due to
offenses against the French gambling laws. After
an investigation the judge released them on the
evening of September 18, 2006.
As
of October 2006, bwin no longer takes bets from
United States players, due to the signing of the
Safe Port Act.
On
6 March 2007 the European Court of Justice struck
down Italian national gambling restrictions in
the Placanica case.
The
EFTA Court held hearings in January 2007 to decide
on the admissibility of a state monopoly for betting
and gaming according to European Law. The decision
of the EFTA Court will be made on 14 March 2007.
Products
The
company’s subsidiaries and affiliated companies
offer sports betting, poker, casino games and
soft games, as well as audio and video streams
on sporting events such as the German Bundesliga.
These are all provided via the Internet, and many
are also available via other digital distribution
channels, such as mobile phone.
bwin Games AB
bwin
Games AB - founded in 1999 and formerly known
as Ongame e-solutions AB - became part of the
bwin Group following its acquisition, in March
2006, by bwin Interactive Entertainment AG.
Within
the bwin Group, bwin Games AB acts as the competence
centre for poker and casino games, developing
products via digital distribution channels for
bwin proprietarily owned brands, such as PokerRoom.com,
HoldemPoker.com, eCardroom.com, PokerGaming.com,
Europoker.com and the Ongame Network partners.
PokerRoom.com
PokerRoom.com
is an online poker cardroom founded in 1999. Licensed
by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, PokerRoom
offers both play and real money formats. Tournaments
and ring games are available in both web-browser
and download client platforms, with support for
both Macintosh and Linux. PokerRoom was one of
the first online poker sites to provide multi-language
support, today it caters for Danish, German, Spanish,
French, Italian, Russian and Swedish speakers,
these languages are accessed via 'regional sites'
many of them showing local sponsoring for the
selected region.
Legal Issues
PokerRoom
also maintains a play money only site, PokerRoom.tv,
that is advertised in Canada on the boards of
NHL rinks, as well as on US television networks
like ABC.
Awards
PokerRoom
has won industry awards such as Poker Site of
the Year from the UK Gambling Awards in 2006 and
Top Poker Software from the Online Gambling Magazine
Awards in 2005.
Sponsorship
Among
bwins sponsoring activities, the group is a partner
of leading European sports.
The
traditional Spanish club FC Barcelona has been
a bwin partner for many years. In Italy, a cooperation
relationship is maintained with the record-holding
team, Juventus Turin. Also in the package is the
first Portuguese football league, which has been
known as the bwinLIGA since 2005/06. And footballers
of the team, FC Slovan Liberec, wear the bwin
logo on their team jerseys as well. Additionally,
bwin sponsors the Italian football club A.C. Milan,
and the team members wear the company logo on
the team jersey. In June 2007, bwin became main
sponsor of Real Madrid.
Sponsoring
contracts have been made with other sports such
as the MotoGP World Championship, the International
Basketball Association (FIBA), the Kite Surf Pro
Tour in Tarifa (Spain), as well as many other
top events in the international and local sports
world. (Credit: Wikipedia).
Profiles
Bwin
Gaming
Sports
Betting
Online
Betting
Casino
Games
Poker
Poker
and Casino News
Manfred
Bodner, CEO
Norbert Teufelberger, CEO
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