It reads like a cold war spy thriller. A tale involving a gambling operator, a state monopoly, and the former head of the country’s elite counter-terrorism unit, codename Cobra. Far from fiction however, this is the spy story involving bwin and Casinos Austria that has gripped Austrian media over the past week. 

bwin is said to have contracted Wolfgang Bachler, a security consultant and former Head of Cobra, to spy on a frequent critic of the online gaming operator and to investigate possible links between the individual and Casinos Austria.

The individual in question, Bert Schmidt, is said to have launched numerous complaints against bwin in the past in the name of Omnia, a Vienna based gaming company.

bwin admitted to hiring Bachler for surveillance purposes. “We needed to be able to objectively assess our environment,” said bwin spokesman Kevin O´Neal. “We were looking for evidence to support our suspicions that Casinos Austria was behind Schmidt´s activities.”

The company contracted the former Cobra head to evaluate risks in countries where the company operates, including Austria. “How Mr Bachler gets the information relevant to his services is unknown to us, and cannot be known to us,” added O´Neal.

As part of the operation, Bachler sent two operatives to observe Schmidt. According to police reports, two inconspicuous persons positioned themselves near to Schmidt’s home, from where they could observe his activities and record video footage and photographs of his movements.

At some point the operatives caught the attention of Schmidt who confronted them. The pair are said to have told Schmidt they were journalists photographing the local area, before speeding away in a car.

Schmidt contacted the police and through ‘research’, traced the cars number plate to the owner of the vehicle. Days later the police received an anonymous complaint, accusing officers of performing an illegal search of the police database and Schmidt of instigating abuse of authority.

The department of Internal Affairs however concluded that no searches of the police database had been conducted in the period in question.

Dietmar Hoscher, Chairman of the Board of Casinos Austria, is also alleged to have been under observation.

According to the surveillance report, contact between Hoscher and Schmidt was verified. The name of the Casinos Austria chairman is also said to appear numerous times in the 300+ page Bachler report.

Schmidt has admitted to knowing Hoscher, but denies the “conspiracy theories” of bwin.

bwin for its part claims to have begun the investigation after learning that two of its executives, Norbert Teufelberger and Manfred Bodner, were themselves the subject of surveillance. The company has not ruled out the involvement of Casinos Austria in the spying, however a spokesman for Casinos Austria categorically denied the allegation, calling it “absurd”.

As a result of the spying, both bwin and Casinos Austria have filed suit for civil injury with the public prosecutors office.

Wolfgang Bachler, the former head of Cobra, has said that he himself did not participate in the investigations, but contracted them out.

Source: gamingintelligencegroup.com

The game of Roulette (a French word meaning “little wheel”) has been played in its current form since as early as 1796 and it is believed to be an amalgamation of the English wheel games Roly-Poly, Ace of hearts, E.O., and the Italian games of Hoca and Biribi.

The oldest historical reference to the game of Roulette can be found in official regulations published for the territories of New France (Canada), which banned the games of “dice, Hoca and Roulette”. The first literary reference of the game can be found in the 17th century French novel “La Roulette, ou le Jour” by Jaques Lablee.

During the 1800’s Roulette took first Europe and then the Americas by storm, but it was the Frenchmen François and Louis Blanc who brought the game to the attention of the financial elite when they established a casino in the Principality of Monte Carlo. It was here that the game of Roulette prospered and was then exported across the world. It was also because of the Monte Carlo connection that Roulette became known as the “King of casino Games”.

Source: JackpotCity.com Online Casino

To find out more about Roulette, check out JackpotCity.com Online Casino’s page about Roulette, it covers the History of the game, advantages of playing it online, basic Roulette strategy and famous bets in Roulette; pretty much everything you need to know about the game and playing it online.

Many online gamblers love putting down their virtual chips on a live online roulette game. Many people comment on the addiction and the excitement they feel when they play live roulette online. When you decide to play live roulette, you can fully interact with a real live dealer. You do this through a webcam attached to your camera and in the roulette studio. In the majority of online gambling games, the only thing you get to play with is a software application on your computer. This is why so many people love playing live online roulette.

Gamblers have flocked to online casinos, being able to gamble without having to leave the house and partake in many different activities often at the same time, is very attractive to people wanting to gamble online. However, there is one thing that the online casinos no matter how they have tried have failed to do. And that is to aptly recreate the buzz and the community feel of a real life casino. This is why live roulette is such a great way forward. Not only do you have the benefit of being able to stay at home, but you also have the genuine feel and look of being in a real life casino.

The roulette wheel in movies and in real casinos has been portrayed as thrill seeking and extremely exciting places to be. This is the one thing that software, no matter how hard it tries, can create properly. Live roulette puts you with real people and a real dealer and a real casino feel. This is why live online roulette has become so popular since it was first introduced.

In some instances, you will also get to interact with the dealer and other people verbally rather than just by typing. This again gives you a more realistic feel of a casino and of a social community. If you love gambling online and love the thrill of a real casino, live online roulette is the only place and activity where you will get both. There is no definite system or chance of winning or losing when playing live roulette, but then that is gambling and the stats are always stacked against the player.

To help you in your live roulette play, instead of just betting on a number, bet on a sequence such as red/black, low/high, even/odd. Your odds are much better when betting on the sequences rather than a particular number. Live online roulette is a complete chance game, you may win, and you may lose. Whichever way you decide to bet the one thing for definite is that when you play live online roulette, you will have lots of fun!

About the Author:

If you live in the UK, play live online roulette or visit the site where you can read more about the casino site. Please keep the links working if you like this article and use it on your website for free.