If the title has you thinking that Rival has released some kind of piece of crap I-slot, think again. Fixer Upper is the latest online slot from the folks at Rival gaming. Fixer Upper is a 5-reel, 20-line i-slot based around home improvements with a quirky funny-pages look to it.

If you’re a fan of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition like I am, which by the way makes me cry like a four year old with a skinned knee, then you’ll enjoy the lighthearted cartoony look with the task-based bonus play. The object of the game is to fix up houses while trying to win money along the way. Like most cartoony slots, the colors are bright, the characters and symbols are unique and fun to look at. There is also some pretty quality animation here as well.

Surprisingly, and I don’t normally call attention to this, I even enjoyed the border on this online slot. The borders of the game are broken pipes, shottily patched up with tape. It gives the game some real character. Symbols are buckets of paint, paint brushes, shovels, staplers, saws, wrenches, carpenters and carpenteresses? Carpentress? Carpentyr? What do you call a female carpenter anyway?

Coin denominations are 0.01, 0.05 and 0.10 and can be wagered up to 10 coins per payline with a maximum payout of 8888 coins or 8888.00 credits. While the bonus round’s maximum payout is 1700.00 credits. I was jazzed with Fixer Uppers offer of up to 50 free spins and expanding wilds.

If you’ve played Rival’s i-slots before, then you know their signature feature (what makes them i-slots to begin with) is the interactive, video-game-like bonus rounds. Bonus rounds on Fixer Upper will see players working to complete several home improvement tasks like painting and plumbing (no butt crack necessary). Another ground breaking feature Rival has introduced with Fixer Upper is the dynamic casing controlled by players. So if you’re looking for a new online slot to try out this weekend, head over to a Rival casino and check out Fixer Upper and maybe win yourself money for a new house. Or you could head over to the Home Depot and do some of your own home improvements on your old one.

Titan Poker continues its onslaught of tremendous online poker promotions this October with Titan Turbo. The mammoth online poker site, is giving away $50,000 in cash prizes and tournament entries to poker newbies, vets and regulars through a series of “races.”

Kicking off October 5, starts the first of Titan Turbos weekly one-day Tournament Player races. Each race goes towards ranking players according to their online poker tournament participation and drops $1,000 to the weekly winner. Titan Turbo will dole out seats to the top 100 players from each of the five races at Titan Poker’s ECPokertour Malta Freeroll on October 31 where the 3 best players will win a prize of $5,000 including a buy-in to the ECPokertour Malta event. Not to shabby for an online poker tournament, right? By the way, the EXPokertour Malta event will be held in the fabullous Casino di Venezia in Malta in November. I don’t even know what Malta looks like, but it sounds exclusive and expensive to go there, doesn’t it? (Ok, just looked it up on Wikipedia, it’s gorgeous there.)

If Texas Hold’em is more your bag then hop on board the Titan Turbo races which also start October 5. Races last four days each and ranks players according to the Titan Points players earn at the tables with $5,000 in prizes. Like the the player races above, the top 100 will qualify to advance onto bigger and better things. Landing yourself in the top 100 will gain entry into the final, one-day Titan Turbo race also being held on October 31, set to drop $10,000 in cash to the best ranked players.

If you’re new to Titan online poker (or have yet to play there) and haven’t scored yourself VIP status, then it’s about time you did. Titan poker is doubling the first place prize if it’s won by any Bronze VIP player at the Titan Turbo Game Races. This goes for the main event as well, so if you think you’ve got the chops and haven’t checked out online poker at Titan, this could be a pretty sweet time to go card shark and win yourself some hefty dough.

Loyal Gambling Review readers, if such a thing exists, have probably noticed that Ricky Bauer and I have a decidedly anti-UIGEA stance and while we’re not exactly fans of Barney Frank, we appreciate his efforts to repeal the law. Well, today I read an opposing viewpoint from an industry lawyer that I find interesting and provocative, so I thought I would share.

In a recent article, Martin Owens contends that Barney Frank’s gambling legislation is unnecessary, possibly even detrimental to the industry, and doesn’t stand a chance of passing anyway. Recently I have written that I am not optimistic of Frank’s chances, but what about the other two? Martin Owens is a California attorney who specializes in internet law and is the author of a book called Internet Gaming Law, so he’s infinitely more qualified to comment on the subject than me.

While the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed in 2006, regulations for the law weren’t passed until 2008. According to Owens, while the law was written by Capitol Hill politicians, the regulations were written by professionals in the financial industry to protect themselves from UIGEA. Yes, that’s right. The regulations for UIGEA protect the financial industry from UIGEA. UIGEA basically gives the government the power to prosecute any financial institutions who transfer funds from “unlawful internet gambling.” The problem is that there is no definition in that or any federal law about what constitutes “unlawful internet gambling.” If you don’t know whether the gambling was legal or illegal, how are you supposed to know if the funds are from a restricted transaction? Currently, there are only 6 states in the Union that have laws prohibiting online gambling. According to Owens, the regulations in UIGEA provide safety for the financial service providers (FSPs) because “as long as they install proper procedures to identify and block these ‘restricted transactions,’ American FSPs will not be penalized, even if a wicked internet bet or two does slip through the cracks.” According to Owens, thanks to the new regulations, UIGEA has become “unintelligible, unenforceable and mostly unimportant. It is doubtful that any person or company could be prosecuted for anything under the UIGEA in its present state.”

A major problem with Frank’s bill is that it takes rights away from the states and gives them to the federal government. As you may be aware, Gambling Review is a big proponent of states’ rights. In Frank’s bill, the power to license online casinos lies solely in the hands of the Treasury Department. States and tribes don’t voluntarily join the federal internet licensing program. They are automatically enrolled, though they do have the option to opt out within 90 days of the passage of the bill. And if Frank’s bill is passed, guess who profits from taxing the online casinos and players? It’s the federal government, not the states.

A major issue with Frank’s bill, though, is tribal casinos. There are already legal conflicts between tribal casinos and the states in which they operate, due to loopholes and general confusion from tribal gambling laws. In Frank’s bill, a tribe’s internet gambling decisions are completely independent from the state in which the tribe is located. Owens put forth a hypothetical question, if a tribe said yes to internet gambling but the state opts out, “what about the internet connection in and out of the reservation?” He also asks “since the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act only allows Indian gambling to take place on Indian land, will the gaming tribes be able to meaningfully participate online in the first place?” It is an interesting question. Currently, it is legal for American citizens to gamble in Indian casinos because they are on sovereign tribal land, not United States soil. However, there is question about whether it would be legal to log onto a tribal online casino from US land in a state that opts out. Equally important, though, is this question: Why would anyone bother using a tribal online casino if there are plenty of non-tribal alternatives? It’s not more convenient, since all of the casinos are available on your home computer.  It seems that Frank’s bill would provide more competition for the tribal casinos without letting them get in on the new action.

All of this begs the question, if Barney Frank’s bill would not protect financial service providers more than they already are, will cut into the profits of tribal casinos, and will potentially take tax money away from individual states that are hurting in this recession, is it a good thing after all? This is just another example of whenever the federal government does something, it’s never simple and things are never as they seem.

Hooray!  Another cartoony online slot by Microgaming.  I was raised on Saturday morning cartoons, the Disney afternoon and Nickelodeon so it’s been ingrained in my psyche to enjoy and find comfort in colorful, silly cartoon type-things.  That’s why my face lights up every time I come across a new light-hearted, cartoony online slot.  That doesn’t mean that I’m not a fan of hard-core movie action slots like Rambo or Terminator, but I have to say that the kid in me enjoys the fun slots just a little bit more.

The latest online slot that tickles my fancy (don’t judge) is The Great Galaxy Grab from the geniuses at Microgaming.  Looking like a mix between Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Disney’s Treasure Planet, ‘Galaxy Grab’ is a 5 reel, 25 pay-line slot featuring a space-pirate theme.  The awesome 3D graphics in this online slot are brightly colored and great fun to watch as you rocket across the galaxy with Captain Bronzebeard and his band of robots.

The Great Galaxy Grab features an innovative bonus trail comprised of six separate opportunities to plunder some wins.  Steel Scarlett uses her powers to create scatter combos that lead to the “space odyssey.”  There, you hop back and forth from your choice of six bonus games.  The quirky symbols and characters featured in this online slot are the main attraction for me.  There are zany robots, floating cogs, space burger joints, malls, saloons, and much more.

Bets for The Great Galaxy Grab go from 0.01 up to 0.25 with a max bet of 125 coins meaning you could win as much as 36,350 coins in the base game alone.  Add on to p of that the 11,000 coins in available bonuses and 109,050 in free spins.

The Great Galaxy Grab is available at All Jackpots Casino, All Slots Casino, River Belle Casino, and Lucky Nugget Casino among others.

For those of you who have been waiting for PayPal to become a bigger player in online gambling, your wait is finally over. Yes, that’s right. Break out the champagne and celebrate because PayPal, the world’s largest e-wallet provider, has just signed a deal with Neovia, one of the largest providers of e-wallet solutions in the world. What makes it significant is that Neovia is used by more than egaming sites, especially online casinos, and is a major player in the UK’s online gambling market.

PayPal used to be widely used in online casinos, but was pulled out of the market in 2002 by their parent company, eBay, when the United States government accused them of violating the PATRIOT Act and the Wire Wager Act by transferring funds to overseas gambling sites. In 2003, PayPal did what everyone does to get the government off their back – they paid them off. The bribe settlement was for $10 million. Interestingly, Neovia got into similar trouble with the US government and ended up paying them $136 million in 2007.

Under the deal, PapPal will be available in as a payment method for customers of any sites using Neovia’s Netbanx payments. PayPal will not accept bets from users in the United States. Probably a wise move, because the government needs money and will take it from anyone who gives them a reason.

If you are a loyal Gambling Review reader, then you probably know that both Ricky Bauer and I have a generally negative view about television shows about poker. We just don’t feel that poker makes for interesting television. It seems that there are quite a few people who disagree, though, as evidenced by the number of TV shows out there dedicated to gambling. Well, there is a new one.

In Australia, there is a new show called The Poker Star. The show, appropriately enough, is hosted by Australia’s biggest poker star, Joe Hachem, who was the 2005 World Series of Poker champion. In the show, Hachem is searching for the next big thing, the new poker star to act as the image and the ambassador for poker in the Outback.

A group of contestants live together in one house, kind of like Big Brother, and have to complete a series of challenges relating to poker. Each of these contestants need to prove to Hachem that not only are they good poker players, but display the necessary qualities for a role model and a leader for Australian poker.

The Australian TV show can be viewed by poker fans online, so even if you live in Bolivia and want to watch Hachem and company pick the new face of Australian poker, you’re in luck. Personally, I won’t be watching, but if you want to, no one here will judge you. Well, Ricky might. I don’t want to speak for him.

Months ago we ran a story highlighting the shady practices of one Pitbull Poker.  They burst onto the scene, aggressively recruiting new players, offering $10 cash to anybody that would sign up for a Pitbull account.  They rocked a flash-based gaming platform that made gambling online convenient and accessible anywhere you could find internet access.  But it wasn’t long before Pitbull players wandered into the casino and took a wiff of something stinky.  Allegations of programmed bots sitting in at tables and superusers, capable of seeing other players’ hole cards were becoming more and more prevalant.  Pitbull refused to provide information on hand histories and before you knew it, Dimensus Ltd, the parent company of Pitbull Poker had dissolved with no clear owner or even base operations.  Pitbull claimed to be a Costa Rica-based online casino, but had also mis-represented themselves as being located in the UK.  They shut their doors, showing no intention of paying players what they were owed.

Now it seems that this dog has been put to sleep and the owners of Pitbull Poker have been arrested.  Proving that if it walks like a pitbull, barks like a pitbull and bites like a pitbull…it’s probably a shady online gambling organization.

The Pitbull Poker boss arrests occurred when night shift employees were told to leave so maintanance could be conducted on the building.  The strange and sudden maintanance set off a red flag to the employees who stuck around to see what was happening.  When they spotted a truck arrive and proceed to remove all of the equipment from the office, they knew something was up and alerted the police.  The owners were arrested by Costa Rican police and are currently being held as the employees  try to convince authorities that the owners are indeed a flight risk.