Mike Arrington takes a US-centric view that, because internet betting and gambling is forbidden in the U.S., and because the multinational Internet firm Yahoo! originates from the U.S., then the British users of Yahoo! U.K. & Ireland should be barred from playing poker online with Yahoo!. Makes no sense at all, since Mike Arrington also reports that American residents connecting from the U.S.A. are indeed prevented from paying the online game.

–> Michael Arrington has a screw lose. Judge by yourself:

Yahoo! has launched a new “for cash” poker website on their UK & Ireland property. Users can play against others via a Flash interface, and are offered $1,000 in credit when they make their first deposit into the account. Registration is allowed from most countries, although the U.S. and Gibraltar, where online gambling are prohibited, are blocked (I tried). The service is provided through a partner, St Minver, but the game play occurs on the Yahoo! site. The introductory video says “Congratulations on choosing Yahoo! Poker,use your skills and try your luck at winning the pot.” Players have maximum loss limits – they cannot withdraw more than GBP1000 from their bank account every ten days. In 2004, Yahoo! and Google announced that they were removing gambling advertising from their sites. This launch seems to contradict their position on Internet gambling. [*] This is an extremely controversial move, and one that Yahoo! may not be equipped to handle. Yahoo! does provide a “responsible gaming” tutorial, but the Press will be quick to jump on any tales of woe from players who’ve lost a lot of money from the site. Broken marriages and lost homes will only make the stories juicer. [Punctuation slightly edited.]

[*] The contradiction is brewed by Mike Arrington’s hyper fertile imagination, only.

Should Americans tell the other world’s citizens (in Ireland) and “subjects” (in Great Britain) what should or should not make it in their merchant economy? Go fugging yourself, Mike Arrington!!!

Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX.com) Traders correctly picked 7 out of 8 Top Category Oscar Winners to continue its stellar record.
Los Angeles, California, February 26, 2007 -

Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX), announced a spectacular 88% success rate for picking this year’s Oscar winners. The world’s longest continuously operating commercial prediction market and popular online game once again proved the accuracy of virtual stock markets.

This year Traders hit 7 of 8 in predicting the winners in the top categories. Traders scored a perfect 100% in the Lead Acting, Directing, Writing and Best Picture fields continuing their outstanding trend in picking nominees and Award winners. Last year HSX Traders also hit the 7 out of 8 mark, and the year prior a perfect 8 out of 8 victory. This brings HSX’s three year cumulative average to 92%.

This year HSX added a fun feature to our Awards Options. Best Feature Animation was not a part of our NominOption® series, but debuted during the Awards Options. Traders were given the chance to predict which of the three nominated animated films would win Oscar gold. They went with the popular Cars, which was edged out last night by Happy Feet.

“When it comes to movies, the collective wisdom of Hollywood Stock Exchange traders is unmatched”, said Alex Costakis, Managing Director. “HSX Traders are savvy, entertainment consumers, with a keen eye for not only predicting Oscar winners, but also for estimating how well a movie will do in box office throughout the year. Think of it as a virtual focus group. The Hollywood Stock Exchange is a proven prediction market technology that empowers individuals to influence Hollywood by making their opinions known by actively participating in this dynamic trading environment”.

Since its establishment in 1996, HSX has registered over 1.6 million users. HSX offers consumers the opportunity to buy and sell virtual shares of films and actors. HSX also offers unique Trading opportunities surrounding special Award events and consistently beats most polls and industry pundits.

- HSX – Oscars Nominations Prediction Markets – Accuracy

- Oscars 2007 – TradeSports-InTrade – Bingo!

- Oscars 2007 – Hollywood Stock Exchange – Bingo!

- Debunking HSX Alex Costakis’ conspiracy theory

- Hollywood Stock Exchange’s Alex Costakis makes historical mistake, TOO.

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Congrats to the two HSX co-founders (Max Keiser and Michael Burns) and congrats to the current managers (Alex Costakis and Amy Lamare), and all the other people at HSX.

One suggestion to Amy Lamare and the other people managing the HSX site: Why don’t you publish the entirety of your interesting spin output in your site feed (a.k.a. RSS feed)? Alex Costakis complained about ABC7 and their supposed flawed reporting. Well, since you have a large number of registered users, maybe you could inform them directly about the HSX performance for the 2007 Oscars. I’m a subscriber of the HSX site feed, and I haven’t seen your P.R. output there, yet. And why not a link to this P.R. output from the HSX frontpage?

If you google the sentence, “The Press release is dead” (with the quotes), you’ll find interesting ideas and suggestions pertaining to internet marketing.