The site, Casinoforcharities.com, launched this week by the internet gambling firm Gaming Corporation, pledges to donate 10% of gross profits to charities. But the site fails to make clear that 97% of the money staked by players will be paid out in winnings, leaving charities just one tenth of the remaining 3%.

The 97% figure is cited in a statement issued to journalists but is not advertised on the website.

Gaming Corporation's chief executive, Justin Drummond, said: "The national lottery has established gaming as an acceptable way for charities to raise money. Casinoforcharities.com now gives online players the chance to make a contribution to charity while participating in gaming. Just like the lottery, we're making gaming a pastime that offers a social benefit."

The national lottery handed over £1.59bn - 28p for every £1 spent by players - to "good causes" in 2002-03, via the grant-making lottery distribution funds. But donations from Casinoforcharities will be much smaller and only one charity - Christie's Against Cancer - has so far signed up with the website.

The charity is featured on the site as its "charity of the month" and its logo is prominently displayed. Casinoforcharities describes Christie's as "one of the first charities to take donations from the site".

But a spokesperson for the charity said it had not agreed to take a percentage of proceeds. "Christie's Against Cancer is receiving a one-off £500 donation to mark the launch of the website. Charities cannot turn down a donation. Therefore every donation we receive is gratefully accepted."

The charity had allowed use of its logo only "in association with the £500 donation" for a month. The company's long-term plans for payments to charities that may sign up is unclear. But for a charity to receive £500, players would have to spend £166,667, earning £4,500 for the company.

Andrew Watt, head of policy and standards at the Institute of Fundraising, said Casinoforcharities.com was "clearly trading on the charity brand".

He added: "It is not precisely signalled how much money is actually going to charity. I would be very concerned, if I was playing this in the belief that a significant proportion of my money was going to charity, to discover that 0.3% of my money was going to charity."

Susan Osborne, communications director at Britain's biggest cancer charity, Cancer Research UK, described it as "a particularly poor return" for charities, which had "only their name and reputation to trade on".

A Gaming Corporation spokesperson said: "These are fairly thin margins, but we think even these sums can make a difference to some charities. We are not expecting to make huge profits out of this."

By Tash Shifrin, The Guardian

There is an ancient Chinese proverb about gambling and goes like this: "If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: The rules of the game, the stakes and the quitting time.”

A U.S. trade official, speaking on condition that she not be identified, confirmed that a WTO panel had issued a final report that was "largely unchanged" from its preliminary ruling against the U.S. ban one month ago.

Since they couldn't go after the offshore operations directly, prosecutors started threatening to go after companies that aid and abet those offshore bookies. That could mean anybody who accepts advertising from offshore betting parlors, including the search engines.

Last June, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John G. Malcolm sent a letter to media trade groups warning that their members could be breaking the law by accepting ads for gambling sites. Meanwhile, Raymond W. Gruender, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, has convened a grand jury in St. Louis that is issuing subpoenas to companies that do business with the online gambling industry.

Michelle Carinci, in an interview with The Canadian Press, said the website is already being used to create a database of potential on-line gamblers.

This was as a result of regulatory changes made by the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency last year allowing Internet wagers on horse racing.

Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, called the subpoenas and notice letters an "intimidation tactic to go after the messenger," rather than prosecute the online gaming sites that the Department of Justice alleges are violating the law.