$42.6 million in taxes were levied on the revenues, $2.9 million more that the amount collected during the same month last year and an increase of 7.3 percent, reports Associated Press.

Industry observers said the taxes were up despite revenue being down because of credit play and collections from prior months. When players lose money gambling on casino credit, casinos tally the monthly revenue but it isn’t taxed until the winnings are actually collected.

AP reports that following a double-digit jump in March this year, Las Vegas Strip casino winnings were down 2.2 percent to $427.5 million. Revenue from casinos on the Strip made up just over half the statewide revenues in April.

However, one analyst noted that the Strip’s revenue would have been up 1.4 percent had its revenues for the last weekend of April been counted with the rest of the month, and slot machines kept an average win percentage.

Casinos in Lake Tahoe and Elko County reported the largest percentage jumps compared with the prior year.

This year’s welfare lottery sales are expected to exceed 100 billion Yuan, compared with last year’s total sales of 90.4 billion Yuan, reports The China Daily.

The lottery raised more than 15.2 billion Yuan for public welfare funding, official statistics showed.

Half of the country’s public welfare funds go to China’s treasury, while the other half is disbursed to local governments across the country. The funds are then allocated to social welfare programs and charities.

Computerised lottery sales hit 34.44 billion Yuan, accounting for 68.66 percent of the total, up 16 percent year-on-year.

The ruling could have implications for the tightly controlled Dutch gambling market, dominated by a state monopoly which has enjoyed success in court actions defending its sovereignty recently. The state immediately notified its intention to appeal the decision.

The case involved a criminal prosecution against professional poker player Stefan van Zadelhoff, who was accused of organising illegal Texas Hold-em tournaments, but acquitted following expert evidence that poker was a game predominantly of skill and therefore fell outside the ‘games of chance’ element in the definition of gambling.

In effect, the ruling could free up the holding of poker tournaments within existing laws.

In the Netherlands, competitive gambling companies both on and offline have been refused licensing, protecting the monopoly held by the Holland Casino. The exclusion of competition, particularly internet cross-border competition, has generated litigation by companies from other EU nations, so far without real success.

It has been estimated that as many as 500 000 Dutch residents gamble online despite the licensing restrictions, generating some Euro 450 million in revenues, and much of this action is placed with allegedly ‘illegal’ online poker websites, most of them outside the Netherlands.

In 2008 the Dutch Senate voted down proposals that would have granted the state-run operator a three-year exclusive license to operate internet gaming in the Netherlands, and in June this year the European Courts of Justice confirmed the government’s sovereignty in excluding online operators licensed in other EU nations.

The industry is currently awaiting the publication of a study of internet gambling commissioned by the government.

In a similar skill vs. chance case in Denmark, the Supreme Court overruled on appeal a decision by a lower court that poker was a game of skill, justifying its finding by claiming that the lower court’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would effectively deregulate poker, which was not in the public interest.

Georgios Poufos, the director of the government’s Inland Revenue Department confirmed that his department was intensifying its tax inspection initiatives aimed at identifying defaulters and including them in the tax net, although he played down speculation that some 34 illegal gambling ‘godfathers’ were in his sights

Earlier this week the local publication Phileleftheros claimed that the IRD had identified some 500 people island-wide whose main income was from games of chance, most of whom do not have a tax-file with the IRD.

The 500 were said to include 34 people who are well-known to the police and between them control all illegal gambling, and were suspected of cheating on their tax obligations despite their companies making large profits from the pastime.

The article said that in conjunction with the police, the tax authorities were planning a clampdown in which the targets would be asked to clarify their sources of income.

Poufos told the Cyprus Mail that the IRD will invite any legal or physical person resident for tax purposes in Cyprus who has not submitted a tax-return to do so. That is their obligation, so our role is to be a watchdog, he added.

Anyone who fails to submit a tax-return when required is classified as delinquent, and therefore liable to penalties ranging from overdue interest to fines and criminal charges, depending on the specific details of each case..

For some time now, we have intensified our inspections of the whole tax base, so it would be wrong to focus on just one small part in isolation, Poufos said, adding: We are bound by confidentiality on the details of our work.

Another anonymous IRD source told the Mail: There are a lot of people who handle millions and not just to do with gambling who do not have a tax file.

House Legal Affairs chairman Ionas Nicolaou emphasised that parliament is discussing government proposals for regulating gambling including online which will clarify the scope of gambling revenues that could be taxed.

Popularized during the resistance in the 1940s, the word is often translated loosely as “courage,” but its meaning goes beyond the bravery of, say, dashing into the line of fire. It conveys a special perseverance - an ability to face adversity with courage, but in a rational manner, with tenacity and long-term resolve.

Sisu is precisely what Ohio’s budget crisis requires from its leaders. Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, and the GOP-controlled Ohio Senate are at an impasse over the governor’s proposal to cover $933 million of the $3.2 billion gap in the state budget by authorizing video lottery terminals (VLTs), commonly known as “video slots,” at horse race tracks.

Strickland wants the lawmakers to enact VLT legislation. The Senate now proposes a November ballot issue to let the voters decide.

Voters should decide something as fundamental as a major expansion of gambling. But there’s a problem. The fall ballot is nearly certain to include a proposed constitutional amendment to permit full casinos in four cities, among them Cincinnati. It would authorize casino gambling only at those locations, and defines “casino gambling” as “any type of slot machine or table game wagering.” State lottery games and charitable bingo are exempt from the ban on other gambling.

That raises questions: Are VLTs “slot machines” or a form of lottery game? Could casino operators, with the authority of the newly amended state constitution behind them, insist VLTs be shut down, cutting off that $933 million? Or will courts agree that, technically, they are an electronic lottery and therefore exempt? Should elected officials be betting the state budget that VLTs will fly legally?

VLTs will face legal challenges no matter how they are authorized, whether the casino issue passes or fails. What happens if they are tied up in court?

The deeper questions are philosophical: Should the state balance its budget and fund core services such as education with gambling receipts, estimates of which can be unreliable? Should the state be asking - and depending on - citizens to squander their own resources on these machines?
Strickland and the Senate GOP may be squabbling over the manner and the timing, but both see expanded gambling as a budget solution. That, I believe, is dangerous. Just ask Indiana. Gambling revenues plunged 13.5 percent in the first half of 2009 at Southern Indiana riverboats, the Enquirer’s Alexander Coolidge reports.

Revenue from gambling ought to be considered icing on the cake, not funding for basic functions of government, and not money you balance your budget on. It ought to go into a form of “rainy day” fund to tap in hard times.

Meanwhile, Ohio must enact a balanced budget immediately. Strickland and the legislature have two unpalatable but unavoidable options: They can make up that $933 million with additional budget cuts, or find it in additional tax revenues. Most likely, the answer will be a combination.

Many are calling this a budget “stalemate,” but that implies that both sides are unable to move.

Both can move, and both must do so now. They will if they act rationally and resolutely for the state’s long-term good. They will if they act with sisu.

The state plans to submit evidence indicating that gambling giant Penn National Gaming is underwriting an effort to overturn racetrack slots legalized by lawmakers and Gov. Ted Strickland in July.
The Wyomissing, Pa.-based gaming company is backing a competing proposal that would allow full-scale casinos in Ohio’s four biggest cities.
Penn’s financial involvement is referenced in an affidavit prepared for a lawsuit filed by LetOhioVote.org. The conservative group wants a referendum on the slots plan placed on the November ballot.
The document, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its filing, details a conversation between state Sen. Bill Seitz and fellow Cincinnati Republican Tom Brinkman of LetOhioVote.org. Seitz says Brinkman was told by the group’s attorney that Penn was paying for the lawsuit and any referendum.

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