Vietnam, for the west, for long has been the country where the United States had fought and lost the battle. But this once war torn nation is now in the path of recovery and is experiencing one of the fastest economic growth amongst other south Asian economic giants like Malaysia and Singapore and the Asian heavyweight China. May be it is the direct impact of the larger foreign investment flowing in, but the Vietnam government is learnt to have in principal decided to legalize online gambling and online casinos in the country, with the anticipation that it’ll bring in more tax revenues and thereby assists in the nation’s overall economic growth, as per the recently published reports from the popular Vietnamese news agency VNA.

The authorities from the ministry of finance, planning, and investment are reportedly to have stared drafting legal documents for governmental approval before they could formalize letting gambling casino houses to set shop in Vietnam cities. According to VNA reporters, the proposal also includes measures to ensure protection for casino gamblers and curtail all forms of criminal activity associated with gambling houses.

The new step from the government is in total contrast to its stand for many decades. Until recently, gambling in any forms – except the state lottery - was banned in the country, and was a punishable offence. Not any more. The ice first broke when the government gave permission to some upscale hotels to install electronic gambling equipments for the entertainment of tourists with a foreign passport in 2003. Still it was outreach to local Vietnamese gamblers, but things are going to undergo a sea change with the anticipated proclamation of the current casino gambling law, if it can be called so. 

The new initiative from the government to legalize gambling in Vietnam is also seem to have borne out of the fact that illegal gambling in Vietnam already accounts to over $1 billion. It appeared to have dawned on the government that instead of spending money on enforcement, it would be more productive to legalize casinos and gambling and tap on the tax revenue it generates. At present, revenue from the government owned lottery accounts for 2.4% of Vietnam’s GDP. Authorities hope to hike it further by letting in casinos as well.

It is expected that the draft proposals will also contain suggestions for regulating online gambling centers and online casinos as well, for with the spread of internet in Southeast Asia, there are lots of people now betting in western online casinos for big money. It will be pointless exercise if the government proposal totally ignores the online gambling section.

BrightShare, the affiliate program for the Jackpot Factory Group of online casinos, is one of the leading affiliate networks around for the online and mobile gambling markets and they have had an interesting time of it in recent days.

The first part of the interest started when the CAP awards decided to put BrightShare on their list of nominations for the “Best Overall Affiliate Program” award for 2007. Llyod Apter is a program manager at BrightShare and he was absolutely thrilled by the news when it came through.

According to Apter, “Being nominated at the CAP Casinos  awards is a true testament of everyone’s hard work, including our affiliates who are an integral part of our success.”

However, making it to the top of recognition is not about to dull things at BrightShare, as Apter was quick to set his sights on the year of 2008 rather than reminisce about the year 2007. He promised that in 2008 BrightShare would “…continue to shine…” and that BrightShare was “…working with the Jackpot Factory now on a number of exciting opportunities that will be launching over the course of the next few months.”

BrightShare’s self-announced goal for 2008 was not only to become the industry standard as far as online casino affiliate networks and online casino software was concerned, but also to work extremely hard to push that industry standard to a high level of quality that has not been previously seen in the online gambling affiliate industry.

According to Apter, BrightShare is “…focused on bottom line results, and [we] are committed to being the best all around affiliate program in the casino world.”

As part of that commitment, Apter pointed out the affiliate network’s recent addition of live chat to their help options. He was also quick to promise additional support methods in the near future and reiterated the importance of the online casinos affiliate agents to the overall BrightShare vision.

Ever since its founding in 2002, BrightShare has been quick to improve as an affiliate network. Through laying the emphasis of their program on building and maintaining relationships with their affiliates, they were quick to reach a level of excellence in their affiliate operations and currently offer some of the highest commission rates available. Now, with recognized success in 2007 and a detailed attack plan for 2008, the affiliate network that exclusively services the Jackpot Factory Group is set for sights even better in the weeks, months and years to come

Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, the country’s leading gambling group, whose majority stake controlled by casino tycoon Stanley Ho is all set to go public. Through its initial public offering, the SJM group is aiming to raise around $1 billion as capital.

According to SJM, the plan is to issue 1.25 billion new shares, which accounts to 25% of the enlarged share capital. Among the new shares issued, 85% will be sold to institutional investors, while 10% will be made available to the general public investors. The employees of SJM group will be reserved 5% of the shares.

As per a report published in China Morning Post, Deutsche bank has been roped in to oversee the global offering to institutional investors (Jan. 15), the public offering that is scheduled on Jan. 21 and the debut of trading charted for Feb. 1.

SJM, at present, runs 17 of the total 28 casinos in the enclave. The group has also evinced interest in redeveloping the Hotel Lisboa Macau and casino gambling, which is thought to be designed in the shape of a bird cage, a Feng shui design that is said to be meant to trap gamblers money. But the fact that brings spotlight on the IPO offer is the entry of foreign casinos into the Macau casino domain since its accession to Chinese sovereignty from Portuguese colonization. Under the Portuguese colonial regime, SJM enjoyed an unchallenged monopoly in Macau’s casino business for over 40 years.

According to a report compiled by BNP Paribas, the total revenue of SJM is projected to dip by 58% in the next one year, and one of the reasons for the slump would be the entry of foreign players such as America’s Wynn Resorts, Melco, and Las Vegas Sands. At present, SJM has a 43% revenue share in the VIP segment, and 48% share in the mass market segment. If the findings of BNP Paribas are indeed true, this is going to change.

SJM had actually planned the IPO in as early as in 2006, but then an ongoing court battle over the shareholding structure of SJM’s parent firm, STDM, between Stanley Ho and his sister Winnie Ho had stalled things from advancing to the next level. As the dispute is still far from resolved, experts feel that it could still spook potential investors from investing whole heartedly in the IPO, thereby affecting the outlook for SJM.

BackgammonMasters.com has long been one of the best sites around for high quality backgammon online gaming. Where other online casino sites have really overlooked the quality in their backgammon games in favor of pushing their online casinos and online poker and sportsbook products, BM has done a lot towards making people that are interested in playing backgammon online feel as if there was a website there that was listening to their concerns, understood those concerns and was going to act on those concerns to create an environment exclusive to backgammon players.

Well, now it looks as if BM is set to follow the lead of many of the other online casino players in the online backgammon business and convert themselves into primarily an online casino website that secondarily offers backgammon as well.

Senior officials at the company that did not wish to be named, the redesign and renovation of the lobby at BackgammonMasters.com is a sign that the whole operation is eventually going to be converted to a full fledged online casino. The online casinos would provide over 200 different games such as blackjack, roulette, slots, video poker, craps and all of the other online casino staples and it would be doing this along the backgammon games that have long been the main breadwinner for the website.

In fact, a senior source came out and said as much in an interview when they said that “Our backgammon platform has always been known for its high-quality game experience and superior graphics and the feedback from our players prompted us to offer the access to more of their favorite games besides multi-player poker and 21 blackjack.”

Of course, considering the extreme popularity of BackgammonMasters.com as an online backgammon site specifically because it was not a full fledged online casino website, the statement above might come as a surprise to a number of customers that might have decided to register complaints with the company for their decisions if they knew about them ahead of time.

The source did not mention any complaints however, instead going on to say that “If they’re coming to us to get it, they know it’s going to be top quality. Aside from that, on the business side, we’re raising the value per player and affiliates will be knocking down our doors when they see how we’ve aligned ourselves with the top of the online casino game industry with a development team that is always one step ahead of the game.”

MGM Grand Macau, the joint venture between MGM Mirage – the Las Vegas based casino operator – and Pansy Ho, daughter of casino king Stanley Ho, had opened shop in Macau. The 35 storied, 600 rooms luxury hotel cum casino offers to the customers over 400 gambling tables, 800 slot machines and 16 private gaming rooms, making it one of the biggest casinos in Macau, in terms of revenue potential and capacity.

Macau’s casino scene was monopolized by Stanley Ho for over 40 years, but things have changed since 1999 when the Portuguese handed over Macau to Chinese rule. In 2001, China had opened up the casino industry to foreign investments, thus ending the Ho family’s dominance in the casino domain, and letting in foreign players such as America’s Wynn Resorts, Melco, and Las Vegas Sands to set up casino hotels in the city.

Through casinos like MGM Grand Macau, Pansy Ho intends to repeat Las Vegas, by attracting the richest casino gamblers to Macau amuse them with luxury shopping and entertainment as well. The hotel also includes a full fledged shopping center, convention center, luxury apartment complex, theater, and circus, which is under construction as of now. When asked by scribes the influx of casinos actually increases competition in the casino market, Pansy Ho said a number of casino players in the race only adds variety rather than pushing out any one out of business. Pansy Ho went on to add that it (foreign investments) only do good for the game and the casino industry at large.

Backing up Ho’s prediction is Jefferies analyst Lawrence Klatzkin, who also evinced confidence that the new MGM Grand Macau should fare well in the already crowded Macau’s casino industry. He further added that Macau’s casino market, instead of going saturated, will grow to a $15 billion one by the end of 2010. He underlines this projection by mentioning the average stay in the five star hotels in Macau that has in the past one year gone up from 1.45 days to 2.45 days. The longer the tourists stay at the casinos, chances are more that they spend more hours gambling, thereby boosting the revenue in the region.

However, on the stock market front, investors seem to be not quite buying Klatzkin’s ideas for the share sled 1% in trading the next day. May be the picture over a couple of months will give a good idea about what investors actually think of Macau’s casino scene.