The UK online gambling payments group Neovia Financials plc has partnered with e-cash services group PayPal in an agreement which will increase the facilities available to online casinos users and create more internet gambling business opportunities for merchants.

Neovia’s Netbanx subsidiary can now offer PayPal as an additional payment method to its customers, making PayPal functionality available through the Netbanx Payment Gateway. This allows merchants to accept payment via Visa, Maestro, Diners, American Express, Carte Bleue, Carta Si and JCB debit or credit cards in virtually any currency worldwide.

The service also supports the major popular non-card local payment types such as Giropay, ELV, DirectPay24, Ukash, iDeal, NETELLER, direct bank payments, and now PayPal.

A number of merchants have already gone live with PayPal via Netbanx, including Readyparcels.com, the online parcel delivery service which uses its purchasing power to give heavy discounts to individuals and small businesses.

With over 20 million accounts in the UK alone, PayPal allows consumers to shop online without sharing their financial details. More than 150 000 merchants across Europe already accept PayPal, including leading UK e-commerce sites such as Boots, Topshop, Just Giving, New Look and eBay.

PayPal also supports payments for Monarch Airways with a payment solution for flight bookings.

Dan Starr, EVP Sales Marketing & Products at Neovia Financials says: “We are pleased to be able to add PayPal to the range of payment options available to our merchants, giving their customers more choice in how they want to purchase goods online. The PayPal option is fully integrated within Netbanx, meaning that there is no integration required for merchants who have already migrated to our Netbanx Unified PayPage checkout technology.”

Cameron McLean, General Manager Merchant Services at PayPal commented: “We are delighted to have signed this strategic partnership with Netbanx – one of the leading market payment service providers. Netbanx has a great merchant portfolio and this partnership offers PayPal an excellent way to reach this significant audience. Netbanx provides secure online credit card and debit card payment solutions and with PayPal its customers can keep their financial details secure and choose whether to fund the transaction either from a bank account or from a credit card.”

Server Based Gaming specialists Inspired Gaming Group has inked a partnership deal with the UK based games developer Blueprint Entertainment UK Ltd through which Blueprint will exclusively provide Inspired with new casino games content for LBO, SBG Bingo and VLT terminals due to be rolled out across Italy in 2010.

The partnership will allow Inspired to provide its customers with exciting new big brand content, such as VIZ and Super Spins BAR-X, all due for release before Christmas ‘09. A total of five new Category B3 casino games will be available on Inspired’s Open SBG platform. The agreement also brings a wealth of European expertise into the UK market, as Germany’s Gauselmann Group has a controlling interest in Blueprint

Martin Lucas, Managing Director of Inspired’s LBO division, commented: ‘Inspired has been working with Blueprint for several years so we are excited to be securing further content on an exclusive basis for our LBO customers. This partnership further demonstrates the power of Inspired’s open Server-Based Gaming platform which allows us to offer the widest range of content from the best developers.’

Darren Breese, Blueprint’s Managing Director, commented: ‘Having already developed many successful games for Inspired I am delighted to be strengthening the relationship with this partnership. Inspired’s platform offers us great distribution across LBO, SBG Bingo and now Italy, which will be a new area for us.’

The online gambling industry has come out with guns firing following uninformed claims in the British press this week that UK online gambling sports face an increased threat of match-fixing as a result of the relocation offshore of major internet gambling groups like William Hill Online and Ladbrokes.

The CEO of William Hill, Ralph Topping has already debunked the claims and Clive Hawkswood, chief exec of the Remote Gaming Association has joined the fray, challenging the allegations and describing them as ‘bizarre.’

Hawkswood, who heads a trade association to which most major British online gambling groups belong, says that the moves offshore by Ladbrokes and William Hill Online were purely commercial decisions motivated by the need to better compete in a highly competitive global industry.

Online betting is a global operation facing global challenges and is not (nor ever was) solely focused on British sport, he remarked.

Following on from this, it is a fallacy to suggest that betting operators combat integrity threats because they are compelled to, Hawkswood said, pointing out that operators do so because it is crucial to the safe running of their business.

And, Hawkswood commented, the [UK] Gambling Commission does not have a monopoly on good regulation.

The RGA chief stressed that reputable betting operators have been making a significant investment in integrity mechanisms to assist sports for some considerable time, and will continue to do so.

“Operators have a significant interest in this area; what harms sport likewise harms operators, both in financial and reputation terms. There is, therefore, a mutual interest, and the fact that operators are based abroad makes no difference in that respect,” he said.

Hawkswood ended with a stiff condemnation of “those who wildly, and inaccurately, speculate that betting presents as great a risk to sport as doping”, saying that the comments in the press have no foundation and do nothing to focus the discussion about what is an essentially commercially forced move.

William Hill’s CEO had earlier explained that the relocation of the company’s online activities to Gibraltar had been largely motivated by the burden on its competitiveness which the UK gambling tax of 15 percent and horseracing levies of a further 10 percent constituted.

Hawkswood revealed that the RGA is presently conducting a consultation on sports betting, and has invited a number of national and international sporting bodies to respond.