Online gambling to top $10bn

Washington - Worldwide online gambling revenues will top $10bn in 2005 for operators of virtual casinos and bookmaking, a market research firm said on Tuesday. The report by the firm eMarketer said the $10bn represents only the “vig,” or house cut - which means there was likely well over $200bn in play over the year.

Fuelled by a poker craze, the growth of broadband, and television coverage, online gambling is quickly moving to the mainstream,” says Ben Macklin, analyst at eMarketer.

Online gambling is considered by US authorities to be illegal, but that does not prevent many Americans from visiting internet gaming sites, which are mainly based offshore.

The eMarketer report said various research shows 20 million to 30 million US internet users visited gambling or sweepstakes sites in February 2005 …

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Poker lexicon:

OPEN - Make the first bet in a hand, especially in draw poker.
ON THE COME - A situation where the player does not have a complete hand but hopes to make one if the right cards come up.
FLOORMAN - The casino representative in charge of the card room or a section of a card room. Arbitrates disputes when unusual events happen.
RUSH - A winning streak. Also "ON A RUSH".
LIVE ONE - The best kind of opponent, a poor player with a lot of money to lose and in a hurry to lose it.
RACE - In tournaments it is sometimes convenient to remove all lower-denomination chips from play, as the remaining players' stacks tend to grow. Small chips are converted to larger chips and any odd chips are "raced off" in the following way: each player with odd chips places them in front of his stack and is dealt one card for each chip. Highest card (rank and suit) takes all the small chips and converts them to higher-denomination chips.

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