“This joint venture agreement with GamerSaloon.com illustrates H3′s dedication and commitment to growing its online video gaming business,” said Jordan Edelson, H3′s Chief Technology Officer and Digital Entertainment Director. “Our developmental efforts will be fully supported by a unique and comprehensive marketing and advertising campaign strategy. Video Gaming is a multi-billion dollar business and H3 is excited to be a part of it.”

Advance registration for the initial beta service will begin the week of August 4th. Individuals who sign up for one of the limited beta spots will be eligible to win a HipHopSodaShop prize bundle. Winners of the contest will be announced at the exclusive H3GameLine.com launch party hosted by the HipHopSodaShop in Tampa, Florida. More information on the beta sign up will be available at H3GameLine.com in the coming days.

About GamerSaloon.com: GamerSaloon.com is the world’s largest video game tournament network that lets adults compete for real cash prizes in head-to-head and multi-player tournaments. GamerSaloon.com members can chat live with each other and view a potential opponent’s profile containing history and other player comments. Over 100,000 members are registered (free) with the website and more than $1.3 million in cash prizes have been awarded since GamerSaloon.com was launched in November, 2006.

In a recent news, FBI has began investigating the Facebook, a social network for friends to hang out and chat for possible violation of anti-online-gambling laws as people may use Facebook to facilitate their NCAA March Madness pool. Now, this is the same FBI that’s supposed to protect the nation from terrorism, crime and other threats, investigating whether adults, in a totally consenting fashion can place a few dollar bet on basketball games over the Internet. Give me a break, I’d rather have the FBI agent do … anything else.

Ironically the ban on online gaming makes no sense. How can an activity that is legal in 48 of the 50 states be a criminal act simply because it utilizes the Internet? If an American has the right to choose in the “real world,” shouldn’t they enjoy that very same right when they are online? What’s the difference between entering an office pool for March Madness (illegal) and going to the track to bet on horses (legal)?

• In both cases you are betting on a sport performance (chance)
• You have a limited set of statistics available to you to help you make a decision (skill)
• March Madness Pool involves more skill in winning because it requires to pick many more winning combinations on the decision tree.

So why is online gambling illegal? It’s really not. Passed in 2006, with enforcement started in 2007, the United States enacted the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which made it illegal for financial institutions to process payment transactions between gambling operations and American customers, which effectively banned online gambling. So will someone please try to explain why was an activity enjoyed by millions of adult, fully consenting Americans outlaws in a sneak attachment to a law that was designed to protect the nation’s ports? I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader…

Ironically, everyone but the leaders of the free world can gamble online. EU has legal online gambling, UK has legal online gambling, South Africa is in the process of legalizing online gaming, the entire world can play poker online, except the US.

In the online multi player first-person shooter called “Kwari,” players go can head-to-head to win jackpots of cash.

Launched in early January in Europe, “Kwari” is a free game — but you have to spend money to make money. The ammo will cost you $5 for 5,000 bullets, and that’s the only cut that publisher gets. The money for the jackpots is pooled together from real money spent on in-game goods — weapons, health upgrades and self-inflicted injuries — and it stays strictly in-game. With Visa, Mastercard and PayPal on board, “Kwari” looks to set its sights beyond Europe.

For those of you who would rather play in cash tournaments on your XBox or PS3, we present the video game tournaments directory.

Marketing Director Al King expects we’ll be seeing “Kwari” in the U.S. in June, despite strict U.S. gambling laws, which vary from state to state. Apart from the notorious 14 states which are known to be completely intolerant of any type of gambling or skill-based gaming, Kwari is not officially not gambling. It’s skill-based.”

In the European version, one player is raking in the dough. At the top of the leader board is the Dublin-based “Sinister,” who’s won $32,610.81 to date; the second place player behind him hovers around only $2,200. I wondered why the disparity between the players’ earnings was so large. “The difference in his ability is not as big as the difference in his monetary earnings,” King explained. “He’s had one $20,000 jackpot and one $5,000 jackpot. So if you take that out, then that’s more of an accurate reflection of his difference in ability. There’s no doubt that he is very, very good. But he’s only slightly better than the rest of the people at the top end of the spectrum.”

Source: MTV News