With pressure mounting on the federal government to find new revenues, Congress is considering legalizing, and taxing, an activity it banned just four years ago: Internet gambling.
On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee approved a bill that would effectively legalize online poker and other nonsports betting, overturning a 2006 federal ban that critics say merely drove Web-based casinos offshore.
The bill would direct the Treasury Department to license and regulate Internet gambling operations, while a companion measure, pending before another committee, would...
Iowa Lottery sales rose over the past 12 months, although profits dipped slightly amid a surge of lucky prize winners.
Preliminary figures released Tuesday show sales totaled $256.3 million for the state budget year ending June 30, up about 5 percent from a year earlier. Lottery proceeds, spent on state government programs, totaled $57.9 million, down about 4 percent from a year ago.
Iowa Lottery Chief Executive Terry Rich said two key factors reduced lottery profits. One is that prize payouts, which are cyclical and even out statistically over time, were ahead of projections. Compared with the previous year, the Iowa Lottery returned an additional $12.1 million prizes directly to players.
A Briton who won a £7.7 million (US$11.9 million) in a lottery has promised to continue working for the sake of his employees who had even worked for free to save his recession-hit firm.
There is no longer any need for Ivan Westbury, 64, to go to work. But he has pledged to keep working to save the jobs of his 30 employees.
Westbury, who supplies lightning protection, shared the win with his wife Susan.
"It couldn't have come at a better time. Everyone's job is secure.
"The employees of the company have stood behind us through tough times when the banks wouldn't help us. So we can't just walk away and leave them in the lurch now. There are no jobs out there," Westbury was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
Illinois Lottery officials say a player who bought a second-place winning Mega Millions ticket nearly a year ago in Des Plaines needs to redeem the $250,000 ticket by month's end or lose the prize.
A Vancouver Island man is suing the British Columbia Lottery Corporation because the company denied him a $42,500 jackpot on the grounds he's a registered problem gambler although the BCLC has never stopped him from losing money.
Most folks pick up a T-shirt or a mug commemorating their vacation, but Wilman Bravo of Puerto Rico is bringing home a fat wad of green after winning $1 million on a scratch-off lottery ticket.
A Gastonia, N.C., woman accused of stealing scratch-off lottery tickets from a Clover Mini-Mart tried to retrieve prize money in North Carolina and successfully cashed 27 winners in South Carolina before being caught.
The B.C. Lottery Corp. disabled its online gambling site last week because the accounts belonging to 134 users had been compromised, organization president and CEO Michael Graydon said Tuesday.
