Asian gambling stocks, industry laggards last year, are setting records as investors bet on new casino projects in Macao and Singapore.

Shares of Malaysia's Genting, the builder of Singapore's second casino, and Australia's Aristocrat Leisure, the world's second-largest slot-machine maker, are each up more than 40 percent in the past 12 months.

Even after their gains, Asian casino stocks are less expensive relative to earnings on average than for such U.S. gambling companies as Las Vegas Sands and MGM Mirage. Asian stocks are set to catch up, said Charles Norton, who manages the $70 million Vice Fund in Addison, Texas.

"One of the reasons why we like the gaming sector as much as we do is just Asia," said Norton, whose fund buys alcohol, tobacco and firearms stocks along with gaming companies. "It's an enormous driver."

He holds shares of Melco PBL Entertainment (Macao), a partnership between Australia's Publishing & Broadcasting and Melco International Development that is building Macao casinos.

The eight gambling stocks in the Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia-Pacific Index had an average increase of 21 percent last year. The USA Index, composed of six gambling stocks, posted an average gain of 57 percent last year.

Macao, the Portuguese enclave that reverted to Chinese control in 1999, passed the Las Vegas Strip as the world's biggest gambling market in 2006. Genting last month said it planned to build a casino in Macao. The 28-square-kilometer (11-square- mile) area is the only place in the world's most populous nation that allows casino gambling.

U.S. gambling shares benefited last year from Asia casinos. The Las Vegas operator Steve Wynn, the MGM Mirage's Kirk Kerkorian and the Las Vegas Sands's Sheldon Adelson capitalized earlier than Asian companies on the demand in Macao. U.S. companies opened gambling houses after the Hong Kong billionaire Stanley Ho in 2004 lost his four-decade monopoly to operate casinos in Macao.

The 10 biggest gambling companies in Asia by market value sell on average for 19.4 times earnings. The 10 largest U.S. casino owners trade at an average of 34.9 times earnings, excluding Wynn's Wynn Resorts, whose value is 5,395 times earnings because the five-year old company was not profitable until last year. Wynn Resorts is opening a $1.2 billion Macao casino this year.

Macao's gambling regulator said Jan. 23 that revenue surged to 55.9 billion patacas, or $6.95 billion, in 2006, a 22 percent gain on the year earlier. In the United States, Nevada has yet to release full-year figures for Las Vegas's revenue. Morgan Stanley estimates the city's 2006 gaming revenue at $6.5 billion.

The possibility that China might relax gambling restrictions elsewhere in the country could hurt the industry, said Matt Hoult at ABN AMRO Asset Management. Other risks include rising costs for building and maintaining the casinos and competition among operators as venues open.

"It's a bit like the tech boom in that everyone says they've got these fantastic earnings coming through so let's get exposed to it," said Hoult, who helps manage the equivalent of $4.1 billion at ABN AMRO Asset Management in Sydney, and holds fewer gaming stocks than are represented in benchmarks. "But the supply of gambling facilities may be far in excess of what it's capable of supporting in five to 10 years time."

Genting, Asia's biggest casino operator, is valued at 19.9 times earnings, while Las Vegas Sands, the world's biggest casino operator by value, trades at 75 times. Las Vegas Sands runs Sands Macau, the world's biggest casino when ranked by the number of tables.

Publishing & Broadcasting, Australia's biggest media company by market value, trades at 21.9 times earnings. The Sydney company, which now gets 55 percent of its revenue from gaming investments, is a partner in Melco PBL with Ho's son, Lawrence. Melco PBL raised $1.14 billion in a share sale in December.

MGM Mirage, the world's second- largest casino company by market capitalization, is valued at 34.8 times earnings. The Las Vegas company is building a $1.6 billion resort in Macao that is due to open this year.

The next gambling venue that will open up is Singapore. Genting, based in Kuala Lumpur, jumped 54 percent last year and led gains in Asian gaming stocks. The company, controlled by the billionaire Lim Kok Thay, won a second Singapore casino license in December, joining Las Vegas Sands as the only operators in the city for at least a decade.

"In order to protect, I'd say, their own business, their industry there, they have de facto prevented foreigners from online betting into the United States", McCreevy said at the European Parliament in Brussels. To journalists afterward he labeled it "a protectionist measure".

The Bloombergs business news service expanded on earlier Reuters reports (see previous InfoPowa bulletin) that European Community officials may be unhappy with the manner in which the United States has targeted online gambling for Department of Justice enforcement actions. In an earlier report, EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy told the European Parliament."In my view it is probably a restrictive practice and we might take it up in another fora".

The U.S. is discriminating against foreign gambling companies by banning payments to betting Web sites, said Charlie McCreevy, commissioner for the European Union's internal market.

McCreevy told a panel of lawmakers that the EU should complain to the U.S. over the Oct. 13 bar to online gaming. McCreevy, who doesn't have authority over external trade, said he'll ask his staff to raise the issue with his colleague in charge of trade, Peter Mandelson.

The legislation seeks to close the business to people in the U.S., representing half of the world's Internet gaming market. Its backers argued that a past ban on online gaming in the U.S. had just pushed the business offshore.

A spokesman for the U.S. in Brussels declined to comment, saying it was premature to respond to remarks by a commissioner where no action has been taken.

Bloomberg reported that to crimp the flow of funds to betting sites, Congress passed the bill Sept. 30 to bar cash processing companies from processing payments to such businesses. Bush signed the measure into law on Oct. 13.

Online gaming shares plunged and companies including Sportingbet Plc, Leisure & Gaming Plc, PartyGaming Plc and Empire Online Ltd. ceased U.S. operations or sold them for nominal amounts.

"It is probably a restrictive practice and we might take it up in another forum", McCreevy said at the EU Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.

Asked by journalists afterward if that referred to a World Trade Organisation complaint, McCreevy said, "The WTO talks have enough to be going on with at the present time without adding this in. It's not something that has major momentum".

The U.S. is contesting a WTO decision from 2004, based on a complaint brought by Antigua and Barbuda, that the ban on Internet gaming is illegal.

The real sting in the tail of the Bloomberg report was a general comment that: "A group representing U.S. casino operators such as Harrah's Entertainment Inc. and MGM Mirage has pushed Congress to fund a study of whether online gambling could be regulated, as a possible way to get into the business themselves." That sentence will resonate with many online gambling observers and operators who believe that US action against online gambling is aimed at ultimately securing the $6 billion US market for established US land gambling companies.

The U.S. Justice Department last week demanded information from some of the world's biggest investment banks as part of the probe into online gambling companies such as Britain's PartyGaming.

The move was the latest in a U.S. crackdown on online gaming, which began with the arrest of BETonSPORTS' Scottish Chief Executive David Carruthers in Texas last July.

McCreevy later told reporters the U.S. rules were a "prima facie" case of protectionism and that the World Trade Organization was a possible venue for tackling them.

However, due to the WTO's protracted negotiations to secure a new world trade agreement, he would not rush to file a complaint.

"It's not something of major momentum," McCreevy said.

There have been no face-to-face talks about the issue with Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, McCreevy said.

McCreevy has launched legal actions against several EU countries to tackle obstacles to foreign competition.

The Israeli business publication Globes Online says that an important legal ruling handed down this week by an Israeli judge could have consequences for foreign gambling companies based outside Israel.

Israeli Judge Abraham Heiman said that online gambling sites may not hide behind the fact that the company and its servers are located in another country.

A foreign company operating an online gambling site may not hide behind the fact that the company and its servers are registered and located in another country, and it is breaking the law if does not block access to Israelis, said the judge in the Rishon LeZion Magistrates Court.

Judge Heiman'sruling was in respect of a case against Victor Chandler CEO Michael Carlton. Heiman said, “In the era of the Internet, the original location of content (Internet services) is marginal and negligible. The centre of gravity, especially the territorial legal jurisdiction, must switch to the end point, in other words, the individual computer.”

Clarion ATE, producers of the popular European Gambling Briefing (EGB) conference, yesterday launched a pioneering online blog, Gambling Law Debate, offering players and industry professionals a one-stop-shop to access up-to-date information on current regulatory issues relating to the gambling industry.

The new blog provides an online network for legal professionals, lobbyists, media companies, and regulators to deliberate over all the key developments in online gambling legislation.

The blogsite is intended to significantly enhance the reach and weight of the discussions that take place at the 3rd annual EGB conference, a senior-level two day briefing that addresses a wide range of issues relating to gambling regulation across Europe and beyond.

Clarion ATE will use the site to ask for opinions, articles and comments to help form the basis of debates that will take place in Brussels on 8th & 9th May. Lawyers, lobbyists and regulators have already been invited to contribute.

A professor of mathematics and chairman of the Scottish Mathematical Council believes that introducing simple gambling games that use dice and playing cards could increase Scottish student's mathematical comprehension and probability skills.

Alastair Gillepsie, the professor that works at the Edinburgh school of maths insist that he is not promoting gambling in any way, however he believes the use of simple gambling games in class could keep student's attention while at the same time teaching them fundamentals of mathematics.

"Things like tossing coins and cutting cards are simple techniques which teach pupils about basic maths and I think it would catch the interest of students if we were to introduce that in schools," Professor Gillepsie said. "What you are trying to do is engage with pupils and present them with scenarios which interest them because it shows how maths can be relevant and we need to do more of that."

After Gillepsie brought up this idea of introducing gambling games to schools concerns arose. However, the professor insisted that by teaching students the probabilities of gambling the students would realize how unlikely it is to win and therefore actually be more likely to avoid gambling in the future.

Gambling problem center executives say introducing gambling to schools could be a disastrous situation that promotes gambling to an already growing problem of students who owe gambling debts.

Professors of gambling disagree, stating that there is no evidence that teaching gambling could lead to problem gambling.

Whether or not Professor Gillespie's ideas about introducing gambling to students in Scotland will happen has yet to be decided.

The Casino Windsor, a long-time favorite among US bettors looking to beat the odds across the border, has decided to change it's official name. In a press release today, The Casino Windsor of Canada announced it will change their name to Caesars Windsor in early 2008. The Casino Windsor is popular among US citizens especially in areas like Cleveland and Toledo.

According to Steve Cummings, an Ohio native and self-proclaimed sports betting expert, "On the weekends, we simply hop on I-75 North and head straight to the sports betting lounge at the Windsor. We can observe all the games and place bets in a comfortable atmosphere."

The decision to change the casino name comes with many other significant changes including a new 20-story hotel and a 5,000-seat entertainment center.

All of the changes are being subsidized by the Ontario provincial government, which holds a majority stake in the casino. They are hoping the moves will draw more American gamblers. US gamblers make up over 47% of the total revenues each year, according to a report filed last year.

Casino Windsor has been struggling of late however, thanks in part to a controversial smoking ban and tough competition from Detroit's newest gambling casinos, which themselves are undergoing improvements.

Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which owns the Caesars name as well as an interest in Casino Windsor, will operate the casino and provide marketing and sales support.