Those travelling on the world's biggest cruise liner will be able to have a flutter in a casino.

People who take a trip on Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas - the biggest cruise liner in the world - will have a casino to gamble in.

Facilities onboard the ship, which is scheduled to be completed sometime next year, were announced this week - and gambling fans will be pleased to hear that a casino is just one of the options passengers will be able to choose from.

There will be room for 6,000 guests on the vessel that has reportedly cost £700 million to construct.

Weighing 220,000 tonnes, the cruise liner will also have a restaurant, swimming pool and loft-style apartments when work on the ship is completed in Finland in 2009.

Earlier this week, Royal Caribbean's chairman and chief executive Richard Fain told the Telegraph that the cruise industry is buoyant around the world despite the current global economic problems.

Norway is taking a proactive stance when it comes to helping their problem gamblers. They are adopting some of the strictest rules on video gambling machines in hopes of helping save people from themselves.

The move comes after the government has become worried about the growing amount of cases in which problem gambling is ruining people's lives. They have stepped in hoping that their stricter restrictions will help curb the problem gambling.

"There will be limits on how much an individual can lose, they will be closed at midnight, and there will be a cooling off period after one hour of continuous play," said the Minister of Culture and Churches, Trond Giske.

In July of last year, the government banned all privately owned gambling machines until they were able to come up with a way to regulate them. Just from that move alone the number of calls that came in to a national gambling helpline has decreased to 330 so far this year. That number is down from the 2,276 that called in 2004.

The new machines will be much tougher to use. They will not take credit cards or cash. The only way a gambler can play the machines is by buying prepaid cards from the company that will operate the machines, Norsk Tipping.

"The new game terminals will be remote-controlled and strictly regulated to prevent people from developing a gambling problem," said a statement from Norsk.

PKR.com has unveiled Club PKR - a pioneering new loyalty scheme that's set to shake up the world of online poker rewards. Club PKR will be available to all PKR.com users and boasts an exciting range of incentives like tickets to major sports and entertainment events, free gifts, VIP hospitality and exclusive prize draws.

The great thing about the loyalty program is that you can never get demoted, so there's only on way and that's up.

The program has six levels starting at 'Member' and going through to 'Diamond'. The player rewards rewards from get better at every level. High rollers will be rewarded handsomely with sparkling incentives like VIP invitations to live PKR.com events, big time sports and entertainment spectacles, life-time subscriptions to 'Stacked' (PKR's hot new magazine) and membership to 'Quintessentially', the luxury lifestyle group.

PKR.com Marketing Director Simon Prodger said, "Club PKR is a new type of poker loyalty programme. The points required for each progression are very achievable and our 'always up, never down' policy means players are never punished for taking a break - so they can work their way to the top in their own time".

It's not just the high rollers who are set to benefit - All Club PKR members will receive a monthly newsletter detailing their status and promotions, including invitations to special freerolls, challenges and competitions exclusive to their level. These challenges include qualification to big money tournaments and competitions with prizes redeemable on and off PKR.com. More frequent players will be fast tracked to higher Club PKR levels.

About PKR

PKR revolutionized online poker through its high impact graphics and ultra realistic avatars. The real-time 3D graphics engaged players more than any other poker room, making online poker as realistic as it can be.

PKR.com is steadily growing and is starting to become a force in the online poker world, proving that players like the realistic graphics.

Online bingo has definitely come a long way in a few short years. Just take a look at the amount of action British players are taking part in. It's no surprise that bingo is a popular gaming activity in the UK. However, the question of late is just how popular has online bingo become for UK online gamblers, many of whom also spend time gambling at online casinos.

Well, according to the bingo information portal, BingoPort.co.uk, Brits are spending over £600 million per year on internet bingo tickets. Considering many of these tickets can be bought with pocket change, that's a lot of bingo tickets. According to BingoPort's analysis, the well-branded Sun Bingo hosts the most traffic, followed by Gala Bingo, Foxy Bingo, Jackpot Joy and then Mecca Bingo. There are certainly many other bingo rooms getting their fair share of traffic as well.

Specializing in tracking game play at all of the major online bingo sites operating within and facing the UK betting market, BingoPort's figures do not even reflect the entire value of the burgeoning internet bingo industry, which is beginning to make waves with U.S. online gamblers. A bingo room that is a testament to this growing trend is none other than USA Bingo (part of the Bingo Workz network), which also caters to the UK crowd.

As brought to light in BingoPort's analysis, the sheer variety and amount of promotions now being offered by internet bingo sites signifies just how much the industry has grown in the last year alone. Now that a greater demand for this entertaining and social pastime is evident, competition amongst bingo rooms has risen sharply. Just as the case is with online casinos, it is not uncommon to see large-scale welcome bonuses and reload bonuses offered to players for their loyalty.

Either the U.S. is doing all they can to salvage badly needed revenue that will inevitably be paid out to an increasing number of WTO member countries seeking free trade recompense as a result of the passing of the UIGEA or U.S. officials truly are serious about trying to enforce a prohibition on payment processing companies helping U.S. citizens transfer funds for online gambling activities? Well, it's likely the answer is both.

First, allow me to catch you up on the most recent U.S. prosecution, which apparently fell under the radar. Unlike the Neteller case, in which the Neteller's two former founders were arrested and brought before a Judge, third party payment processor, Citadel Commerce, has simply been in talks with U.S. prosecutors to settle a fine agreement for knowingly processing "illegal" online gambling transactions.

Along with Neteller, Citadel was one of the top online casino and poker room eWallets in business before the passing of the UIGEA, having processed over $2 billion in the years spanning 2003-2007. Well, even after the passing of the UIGEA, Citadel remained doing business with U.S. customers. It wasn't until Neteller was taken down that Citadel got the warning and stopped handling U.S. transactions. However, U.S. officials are using their bullying tactics to claim they always had laws in place that made Citadel's services illegal.

In fact, U.S. prosecutors even got ESI Entertainment Systems Inc. (the company that owns Citadel Commerce) to admit to engaging in criminal wrongdoing and knowingly violating U.S. gambling laws. ESI has also agreed to cough up $9.1 million to avoid prosecution on conspiracy charges (far better than the $136 million Neteller was forced to pay).

The most interesting aspect of the agreement is that Citadel must agree to cease from further wrongdoing for the next eighteen months. Perhaps that is a sign of a possible timeframe in which online gambling regulatory legislation may be enacted? Let's hope so.

Perhaps we all owe the Canadian government an apology? While I certainly haven't been impartial to the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, I will be the first to admit that I recently offered some sharp criticism against the Canadian government and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson's proposal to shut down Kahnawake's long-standing online casino licensing jurisdiction and gaming services regulator.

Hardly being anything but a black and white issue, on the one hand you have the Canadian government crying bloody murder for reasons that seem more about protecting land-based gambling and lottery revenues than they do about protecting youths and problem gamblers, while on the other hand, you have the Kahnwake Gaming Commission doing a horrible job regulating internet poker rooms under their jurisdiction.

You might recall the not-too-distant cheating scandal that went down at Absolute Poker. Well, guess what? It's happened again. And this time around it went down at one of the most popular poker rooms on the internet - Ultimate Bet. Stemming from suspicions and complaints in January of 2008, Ultimate Bet finally came out with a list of six player accounts and eighteen different aliases that were engaging in fraudulent activity.

And just like the Absolute case, the fraudulent activity was coming from none other than former employees of Ultimate Bet. And guess what else? Ultimate Bet is owned by the same company that owns Absolute Poker. And guess what else?! That company is Tokwiro Enterprises, which is owned by the former Kahnawake Grand Chief, Joe Norton. How could it possibly get any worse than that?

Well folks, if you consider the way in which Kahnawake is handling the situation, it does get worse. Albeit, Kahnawake made sure that any and all players who lost money as a direct result of the fraudulent activity were reimbursed and also imposed a $500,000 fine on Absolute Poker (chump change to a poker room of their size), they have not addressed how they are going to keep this from happening once again in the future. Nor have they demanded the people responsible for the fraudulent activity come forward. The only thing known is that six former employees were able to tap into a master user account to see other players cards and netted cheated funds running into the millions.

Well known poker strategy author, Steven Ware, stated on TwoPlusTwo.com that an analysis of one of the cheating players winning hands were akin to winning the Powerball lottery three days in a row. Ware also went on to express his disappointment with the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which is quickly becoming the sentiment for many poker players, saying it is "unfathomable" that online gambling companies dealing with as much money as they do, could be in operation with such a low level of transparency.

Ultimate Bet's argument is that the perpetrators of the fraud had left the company well before any cheating took place. Well then, where are the regulations requiring strict monitoring of all former employees and player accounts? Have some of these poker rooms simply gotten too big for their shoes? And another important question is how does this affect play at online casinos, which Kahnawake also licenses?

Well, fortunately, online casino gambling is just you and the software RNG - not you and another player. All online casinos licensed by Kahnawake (many of which are certified by eCOGRA) are audited on a monthly basis to ensure minimum payout percentages are met. Nonetheless, Kahnawake will need to clean up their tarnished reputation in the poker world, if they want to continue being one of the leading online gambling regulators in operation today.

Top online casino software developer, Wager Works, and popular UK-based online betting site, Ladbrokes, are one step closer in teaming up to get some of Wager Works most popular casino games on Ladbrokes' Orbis Fixed Odds Games Framework platform. In fact, you could say the deal is already done, and all that remains is some technical implementation to finalize the new and improved platform.

The first games to make it online will be two of Wager Works most popular fixed odds games - "Monopoly on a Roll" and "Multiplier". As for online casino games, Ladbrokes already has that department covered, as they use Microgaming's most advanced Viper platform of 300+ casino games, including a mobile phone gaming platform developed by Spin3 Technologies.

However, when it comes to fixed-odds games, Wager Works certainly offers some very unique choices. Being an IGT-owned company, Wager Works has exclusive rights to some of the most popular games to exist, including Monopoly and Wheel of Fortune.

Wager Works' Commercial Director, Tom Kenny, said Wager Works is very excited to be working with such a well known brand as that of Ladbrokes. Originally known for their sports betting, Ladbrokes is now prized for online casino games, fixed odds betting, poker and UK online gambling in general. Kenny said a collaboration with Ladbrokes is a testament to Wager Works own broadening reputation of being a top provider of online gambling solutions.

Ladbrokes' Games Managing Director, Andy Harris also spoke highly of Wager Works and said the partnership will allow Ladbrokes to continually offer their players flexible online gambling options under a single virtual roof.