If anyone ever doubted that Jobs was one of the leading figures in the online world as we know it, today’s reaction to unpleasant news shows it clearly:

- Google.com added a piece of text under the main search engine, saying “Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011“, the link leading to the Apple website,

- Cnn is pretty much only about Steve Jobs at the moment, as is The New York Times,

- Xkcd created a touching comic, uncharacteristically animated,

- Gizmodo, who was in the last year the main source of information for all Apple-related stuff, is covered with articles about the visionary leader,

- Panic.com published a cool tribute to someone that helped their company grow,

- a contributor to Comixed.com finished a saga of Jobs + Gates comics, and it’s not a surprise that Bill Gates expressed a heartfelt farewell too.

Steve, rest in peace, you will be missed.

Piggs Peak claimed that the internet casino gaming takes place on the gaming servers (theirs were in Swaziland, where gambling is legal), while the Board finally concluded that the betting on internet casino games takes place where the players is located, regardless of the servers or license.

This is naturally a huge blow for Piggs Peak and also other casinos, however it is unlikely that we will see a massive withdrawal of the software providers from South Africa, as it was the case with Italy and France. The reason is – SA government does not have a clue how to run the online gambling operation.

And players from South Africa? Well, to be honest, those who are smart enough are not bothered with this news. There is tons of online casinos and millions of ways to get paid without being noticed. Just be a little cautious and that’s it.

Dan GIlbert researches happiness

This comes as no surprise, the Italian online casino market has been booming and casino and gambling domains have been always generating nice pricetags. The domain casino.com was sold in the past for over 5.000.000$ (yep, five million dollars) and the owners of the domain gambling.com are also trying to pocket a similar sum of money due to a huge revenue that the domain itself generates every month.

What would be the fist thing you would buy with that money?

This is most probably one of the biggest Playtech jackpots in the last couple of years and will make one player rich and one internet casino operator very happy with tons of free PR.

It’s still time to win, download one of the Playtech casino skins and try your luck!

So, how good of a job did they do with their new portal with the name casino grinder? Not too good one, I would say. As far as the content is concerned, they jumped the bandwagon with all the other brainless affiliates, offering bonuses, free play, reviews, etc. So basically in terms of offering their visitors some new unique internet casino content – nada.

And as far as design is concerned – well, it seems that they paid someone 10$ to make them a logo and 20$ to make some full-width backgrounds and that’s pretty much it. Coming from a poker industry giant with more than enough money to spend on quality products… well… lucky grinding.

The prize for the best stand must definitely go to Bodog (anybody surprised?) who created a full winter cottage, including the skis and very sexy winter hostesses, in the midst of the air-conditioned Fira hall in the middle of sun-heated Barcelona.

As far as the hostesses are concerned, Casino.com did not trail much behind Bodog, actually all the girls (mostly Spanish by the looks) did their job fantastically well, helping affiliates to rest their eyes from the computer screens and constant battle for attention from internet casino players.

Other notable exhibitors were ever-present Party Gaming, 888, Winner, Go Wild, who have a great experience with such events and showered the affiliates with gifts, attention and nice stands full, showing off their software and marketing capabilities.

There were also some new faces, some of them doing good, some a bit less. The people who drew the most attention were guys from Class 1 Casino, including a full team of FC Barca-dressed guys and girls, including a midget (no resemblance to Messi). Other notables were Mr. Green Poker, who had a tall guy dressed completely in green (figures), and Poker in Venice, who were promoting their Everleaf network with persistent yet polite girls.

All-in-all, the trip to Barcelona was great, there was a lot of meetings to be seen, discussing what the online casino industry will bring us in the upcoming years. Oh yeah, and the parties… let’s not forget the parties!