InterCasino collected a record number of awards from Gambling Online Magazine’s annual readers’ poll in 2005.

Out of over 30 categories, InterCasino claimed five top spots, including the Gold Award for Top Online Casino for the 5th consecutive year.

“Internet gambling is a new but maturing business, and to ensure that our customers are playing in the safest and most exciting site on the web, we need to constantly react to the feedback and criticisms from our customers,” said Peter Marcus.

“We are extremely grateful to all the InterCasino players whose constant support and guidance have made our site what it is, and we thank them for this award.”

InterCasino also clinched the Silver Award for Best Reputation while the Silver Award for Best Poker Software went to InterPoker.

InterCasino now has over 100 games for players to choose from and its monthly match deposit is regarded as the best in the business.

An online casino has bought the flophouse bathtub which James Earl Ray stood in when he shot Martin Luther King Jr. for $7,600.

The website placed the winning bid on eBay on March 20th, said D’Army Bailey, the Memphis judge who owned the tub, according to Associated Press.

The tub originally went on sale in 2004 but eBay removed the artefact because they though it may be too offence to King’s family.

However, the website assured Bailey that it would treat the tub “with sensitivity for its historical significance”.

Bailey says he bought the tub in 1983 when the National Civil Rights Museum was being renovated.

King, the legendary civil rights activist, was shot dead on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis while helping to lead a strike by city sanitation workers in 1968.

Poker had its biggest year in 2005 and last month was the best February ever recorded, according to figures by PokerPages.com.

Poker buy-ins hit a record high of over $376 million in 2005, while the beginning of this year continued in the same vein, with January buy-ins up 36 per cent on a year earlier at $38 million.

And February’s buy-ins reached $25.8 million, the best of its month ever recorded.

PokerPages.com founder Mark Napolitano commented: “There have been whispers among some within the industry who wondered if poker could continue to grow in 2006.

“But, so far, 2006 has started out to be the strongest year ever in Poker, breaking records in all three PokerPages.com Industry Index (PPII) categories.”

Player entries grew by 30 per cent last year and continued to grow last month to become the all-time best February to date.

The month saw over 17,750 players enter into live tournaments. The Entrants index sits at 117, this down from January’s index of 130. Overall, the year-to-date Entrants index sits at 125.

The average buy-in per entry continues to creep up in February with an average of $1,451, another record high for the month.

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a new bill that will send millions of dollars to counties with Indian casinos.

The bill will provide $8.5 million worth of funding to Riverside County and the Coachella Valley from casino-operating Indian tribes, helping non-gambling tribes and boosting services in counties with casinos.

The money will go towards public safety, road improvements and other services, such as extra police and fire services, in areas around casinos, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The bill was put forward by California Senator Jim Battin and restores $20 million to the Special Distribution Fund. Around 40 per cent of the extra funding has been allocated to Riverside County, which has several tribal casinos.

A $50 million allocation to counties with Indian casinos for the fiscal year from July 1st 2005 was approved by the Legislature, but reduced by the governor.

A new bill that places tougher regulations on reporting how cash from the fund is spent has now been signed and local officials, as well as the Tribal Alliance of Sovereign Indian Nations, have welcomed the move.

Governor Schwarzenegger said in a statement: “I look forward to the enhanced reporting requirements under this measure to ensure that the funds are being used to mitigate the impacts of tribal gaming on local governments as contemplated in the 1999 compacts.”

A hypnotherapist from the north of England is taking advantage of the current poker craze by using hypnosis to train people to improve their poker skills.

Rosemary Owen, 51, is usually accustomed to helping people quit smoking and deal with their phobias, but now she is making a roaring trade in poker training.

She teaches her clients how to remove any trace of emotion from their face and how to eliminate negative thoughts from the mind and replacing them with positive thinking and intense concentration.

The Leeds-based hypnotherapist also teaches tailored mind games for individual players, such as helping people develop a sneaky-looking eyebrow raise to put off opponents.

“It really is a state of mind. All of us are able to improve our skills with practice and positive thinking,” she told the Yorkshire Evening Post.

“My sessions really do help people to improve their game. One client has already been to Las Vegas, which is every poker player’s dream, and another is heading there soon, using my techniques.”

Sounds great, but if you want to save splashing out on a hypnotherapist, why not play online with Inter Poker where no-one will see you?

MGM Mirage and CapitaLand have teamed up to submit a bid to build the first casino in Singapore.

The two companies are rumoured to be front runners in the race for the ambitious $3 billion casino complex project, with their proposal including a resident Cirque du Soleil act, Reuters reports.

The city state is currently accepting final bids for the scheme and the downtown waterfront casino will be the first of two controversial large-scale gambling ventures, aimed at attracting more visitors to Singapore and both scheduled for completion in 2009.

The final Marina Bay complex will be one of the most expensive in the world. Officials from each of the bidders, as well as designers and architects, will all arrive in Singapore to put forward their case for the contract in person soon.

Casino giants Harrah’s Entertainment and Keppel Land, Las Vegas Sands, and Malaysian partnership Genting International and Star Cruises, are all bidding for the Singapore deal.

Ministers from the Singaporean government will assess the bids in terms of tourism appeal and contribution, concept and design, and development investment, before announcing the winning proposal in June this year.

The International Poker Association (IPA) Tour will stop in the state of New York for the Niagara Falls Open this year.

The 2006-2007 IPA Tour, formerly the North American Poker Tour, will feature some of the world’s top professional poker players and the first stop on the annual tour, which launches this May, will be the Hollywood Park Casino in California.

Hansen Gray & Company has now revealed that the Niagara Falls Open will take place at the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel on October 9th to 21st.

The IPA tournament schedule will feature over 25 events and the final No-Limit Hold’em Championship Event will offer a guaranteed prize pool of $2 million.

Planned events for the 2006-2007 season include $200 to $1000 No-Limit Hold’em Events, a 32-player $5,000 Chinese Poker Event, $5,000 Mixed Game and the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event.

Frank Weber, president of Hansen Gray said: “The addition of the Seneca Niagara Casino Hotel to NAPP Tour’s growing roster of tournaments further entrenches its premiere position in the poker industry. As part of its strategic plan to capitalise on this explosive growth, NAPP Tour plans to broadcast its professional events on national television throughout 2006 and 2007.”

A poker player trying to match Chris Moneymaker’s $2.5 million jackpot at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is blogging his experiences.

Ivan Correces, who blogs as Spektacular, started his mission in December – slowly building up an initial $10 into $200.

“I deposited $50 into an online poker site and went broke within a week… I had a friend who had a healthy bankroll on one site, so I told him to transfer $10 to my account,” he said.

“I promised him that not only would I pay him back, I’m going to double, triple, quadrouple that ten dollars into my lifetime poker bankroll… And I’m glad to say, I haven’t gone broke yet.”

After his initial winning streak, Correces suffered a series of setbacks, but managed to hold on to at least some of his bankroll.

He continued to build up his bankroll, now standing at around $700 gained through playing his favourite no limit Texas Hold’em and $20 and $30 sit’n’go games.

Correces says he will keep on blogging his experiences at his blogspot website.

If you happen to be passing through the town of Llanelli in Wales, it might be worth stopping for a game of poker.

The town is the luckiest place in Wales for lottery gamblers, according to organiser Camelot.

Llanelli residents scooped a massive £16,5 million in the past year, which for a pretty small town isn’t half bad.

Bryan Thickins, Camelot regional centre manager, told the Western Mail: “Given its population, Llanelli is the luckiest place in Wales.”

Bob Bradley, 83, is the latest lucky resident of Llanelli, scooping £3.5 million this month.

You never know, the gambling luck may also transfer to poker.

Construction on a new $100 million casino has begun in British Columbia, Canada.

The new casino is a by-product of efforts to attract a more mainstream clientele to British Columbia’s burgeoning gaming sector.

“We have been able to develop a product now that is much more acceptable to the public,” said David Gadhia, chief executive officer of Gateway Casino Income Fund. “It’s much more mainstream.”

The Starlight casino will features 600 slot machines, 54 gaming tables, a show lounge and a 25,000-square-foot interactive sports bar.

When it opens next year, the casino will replace existing facilities located inside the decks of a riverboat near downtown New Westminster.

Corey Hammill of Paradigm Capital commented: “British Columbia lags behind the rest of Canada in terms of net gaming expenditures per capita in both casinos and horse racing.”

However, he added that the growing number of Asian immigrants to British Columbia will add to the customer base, the Globe and Mail reports.