France Endorses Internet Poker

French government just proposes to its congress a law amendement concerning the openning up of gambling market. If approved, this reform will come into force from Jan. 1st, 2010. Only those internet sites with a licence will be authorised.

During the last several decades, there are only two national companies that take legal control of online gaming industry in France, La Française des jeux and PMU. Things are changing. The government is forced to break up the monopoly for the head-on competition from Internet gaming.

The minister of Budget, Éric Woerth, explains that 5% of French frequent those "underground" gaming sites which are illegal according to current law, and it's potentially dangerous. These sites' number has passed 25,000 among which 20% are in French language. And the total revenu can reach 2 billion euro per year. While three quarters of this sum evades tax.

The opening of this market to free competition will concern horse gambling, sports gambling. While La Française des jeux will keep its monopoly in lottery. In terms of casino gaming, only internet poker are allowed. Meanwhile Blackjack, Roulette, and slot machines are still contraband.

Licences will be awarded to those qualified internet sites. And taxes are paid according to their revenue. Rate for sports gambling is set to be 8.5%. For horse gambling it's as high as 15.5%. While the tax rate for poker sites will be 2%, part of which will be used to finance cultural heritage programmes.

Roulette—the most charming casino game

It's the "chef-d'oeuvre" in the casino hall. Fortunes are lost and won at the spin of a wheel and the game's reputation is sealed. Since the total of all numbers on the wheel is 666, Roulette is jokingly coined as the game of the devil. And it undeniably has a hold on people who are eager to experience the real thrill of the casino game.

The following are something you may not know about Roulette.

1, essentially there are two versions of Roulette, with different wheel layout. In European Roulette the wheel has 37 slots, comprising of numbers 1-36 and zero. American Roulette has 38 slots, an extra slot, for the double-zero.

2, a minimum of one player is required, with a maximum of eight being accepted at each table. Every player is allocated one colour of chips (to avoid bets being confused).

3, be careful about late betting and misplaced chips. If you bet after the point the dealer has said he is no longer taking bets, your bet will be void. With so many chips on the table, it is inevitable that some will be knocked and end up moving to numbers they are never intended for. While misplaced bets tend to be the biggest source of disputes, by playing online casino you don't need to worry about that any more.

Gravity Counts

On the 6th floor of an apartment building, John Doe falls off the window. It's no doubt an accident. What surprises is that during the less-than-one-second dive, the man's mind goes through a ton of things with high pressures to the extent of collapse. Besides, due to some unknown reasons, his five senses becomes blurred and hallucination sets in. Holly Molly, it's going on in slow-motion!

John passes through 5th floor: the window is open; a couple of people are playing Texas Hold'em. He sees himself among them. He is sporting his usual-casual move: stacking the poker chips on and off. Entertainment is fun.

The 4th floor: it's a kitchen scene. Seems nobody is not at home while the water tap is kept on. John can't hear the sizzling sound for it's being overlapped by the Beethoven Symphony IV from the living room next-door. Coffee cups are in the sink, toaster is still warm. A nice morning to be remembered.

It appears to be a casino lobby on the 3rd floor. John stands beside the Roulette wheel, his eyes rolling tightly with the little gold ball. It's a 2-grand bet. The roaring voices around evaporates into thin air the moment it stops at slot 26, his pregnant wife's birthday.

2nd floor turns to be his gaming specialty store. He dedicates a whole shelf for equipments like Mahjong tiles and poker cards. Another one is piled up with books on poker strategy and poker rules. On the wall, posters of celebrity poker players and their autographs are everywhere.

Ground floor is the bank VIP room. The bank manager brandishes a roll of documents in front of John's face, looking helpless. The Financial newspaper on the table typed in capital letters: 1929 in 21th Century.

Pong …

The clues are not clear. The detective before the monitor rethinks his judgment.

Did You Know

"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live."
This quote over the significant decline in the population of honeybees is attributed to Albert Einstein.

John Montague, Earl of Sandwich, was a man of doubtful integrity and a compulsive gambler who lived in the 1700s. He was so reluctant to leave a poker game even for a meal that he had a servant bring him a piece of meat between two slices of bread so he could eat with one hand and play cards with the other poker players. The new invention was dubbed … a sandwich.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." Dick Rowe said of the Beatles. The former was the executive of Decca Records (UK), the very company who rejected the Beatles. It happens in 1962.

In France, Blackjack call this land hometown. In French decks, the four suits represent the four classes: Spades represent nobility, hearts stand for the clergy, diamonds represent merchants, and clubs are peasants. Maybe here poker rules are different, too.

"Music is well said to be the speech of angels".
Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) said this. But 100 years before his quote, across the English Channel (or La Manche according to French), a big name had the exact opposite feelings:
"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."
By Voltaire (1694-1778)

"All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion." Quoted from British scientist Stephen Hawking.

"Americans always try to do the right thing—after they've tried everything else."
—Winston Churchill