Last month, tennis legend and commentator John McEnroe expressed his fears that the Russian mafia may be corrupting the sport. Actually, the U.S. Senate drew the same conclusion over a decade ago after a 15-month investigation. But fresh betting scandals have prompted McEnroe to speak and governing bodies to take action.

Last week, the ATP, WTA and ITF joined forces with the organizers of the four major tournaments to announce a review of their policies. “(This) independent review will help us ensure we are protecting the integrity of professional tennis into the future,” WTA Tour chief executive Larry Scott told reporters.

Whether anything more can be done, or whether the review merely pays lip service, remains to be seen. According to Scott, we may see the establishment of an anti-corruption unit with policing powers. But if the problem is organized crime, do you really want to send in the tennis police?

While bettors in the United States fume over anti-gambling legislation, not everything is rosy across the pond. Germany has ratified an accord unveiling new restrictions on Internet betting; those restrictions came into effect on New Year’s Day.

This state legislation (all of the country’s 16 states are on board) is the latest step in Germany’s attempt to entrench its monopoly over lotteries and other betting. Placing a wager on German soil, even with an offshore book, is once again illegal. So is any advertisement that tries to “directly invite, incite or prompt” customers to place a bet.

The European Union had previously asked Germany to reconsider its anti-gambling measures; now the European Court of Justice will almost certainly be brought into the legal fray, as online gambling operators have already sued to keep their businesses afloat. Like the U.S., Germany argues that its citizens need to be protected against the moral problems of gambling. The EU isn’t buying it.

The days of having to sign your life away to join an online casino are long gone. Playing slots online couldn’t be any easier than it is now. It used to be a pain to fill out the profile questionnaire and then wait for a download that would take five minutes to complete. Even once it finished, the games were boring and there wasn’t much of a selection to choose from.

Now there are games you can play that don’t even require a download, you just click and play. There are still player profile questionnaires, but you only fill them out when you play real-money games, and they’re much shorter than they used to be.

There’s also many more banking options these days; we’re no longer limited to just one or two options. Most casinos have at least a half-dozen different ways to buy-in and cash out.

A convicted bank robber who isn’t supposed to gamble was recently the lucky winner of a scratch ticket worth $1 million dollars. He may not be so lucky after all. Timothy Elliott faces a court hearing today over whether he violated his probation when he bought the $10 ticket for the $800 Million Spectacular in Hyannis Massachusetts.

After pleading guilty in October 2006 to unarmed robbery for a January 2006 heist at a bank on Cape Cod he was placed on five years probation. Under the terms of his probation it stated that he “may not gamble, purchase lottery tickets or visit an establishment where gaming is conducted, including restaurants where Keno my be played.”

Elliott has collected the first of 20 annual $50,000 checks from the Massachusetts lottery commission.

As a part of his sentence, Elliott 55, was put under the care of the state Mental Health Department and sent to a hospital for treatment, and recently state officials refused to say whether he was still being treated.

The lottery routinely cross references the names of winners with the state Revenue Department but in this case it will be up to the court to determine what will happen with Elliott’s winnings.

What does the court have to say about this? “This is kind of new territory”

Most of us have heard of David Blane, the celebrity status street magician.  If only we could have him be our good luck charm the next time we hit the roulette table.

Finally your day has come and you have hit a good run of luck in Vegas. You either hit a jackpot on the slots, or you had a crazy run on the roulette table and won a few grand. Many of us don’t realize that the party is over almost as soon as it starts, because the IRS is watching and they want their cut of your good fortune. What you are playing when you win will determine whether or not you’ll have to pay taxes.

Any winnings over $1200 on the slots or $1400 for Keno will be taxed, and with all the bells going off it’s easy for the IRS agent to find you and give you your W2-G form. Most table game winnings are not taxed. If you have a good day on the blackjack tables the IRS will not come after that money. The theory behind this is that it would be too difficult to stop every high-roller game after a player won a $1500 hand and issue a W2-G form, so the table games are exempt. Tournament poker winnings are also taxed because the casino can easily figure out who won the money.

If you’re a resident of the U.S. you will usually be taxed about 28%, depending on the state in which you live. Non-U.S. residents are taxed 30%, and that amount is withheld by the casino and given to the IRS. Non-resident winners can sue for that amount back, but it’s a timely process that usually requires a lawyer to move it along. I don’t need to tell you what happens to most of that recovered money once the lawyer’s bill arrives.

One way to recover some of the winnings the government will take from you is to claim all the gambling loses you have for the year. If you keep track of all the money you’ve spent on gaming (credit card bills and ATM receipts for example), it is dollar-for-dollar deductible against any winnings, up to the amount that you’ve won.

Whether through luck, skill, or some other means the following 10 gamblers have done what all gamblers dream of - strike it rich at games of chance.

Joseph Hobson Jagger
Jagger is often referred to as “the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.” During the 1800s, after an insane amount of research, Jagger discovered that some of the roulette wheels at the Monte Carlo casino weren’t completely random and favored certain numbers. Using his new-found knowledge Jagger won $70,000 in one day and went on to win more than $300,000 before the casino caught on and corrected their error. Today $300,000 may not seem like much of a windfall, but it definitely was in the 1800s.

Jamie Gold
By winning the 2006 World Series of Poker Gold set a new record for winnings in a single poker tournament. Gold pocketed $12 million for the victory and his record still stands after the 2007 WSOP prize pool failed to compare to 2006.

Anonymous Slots Winner
A 25-year-old software engineer who wished to remain anonymous became the biggest slot machine winner in history on March 21, 2003. The anonymous winner was playing a $100 Megabucks machine when he won $39,710,826.36 on a single spin.

Ashley Revell
Revell may not have won a huge amount of money, but his story makes him one of the biggest roulette winners ever. In 2004, Revell (from Britain) sold everything he owned - even his clothes - and went to Las Vegas. He put every cent ($135,300) on one roulette spin. With his life savings riding on “Red” the roulette ball landed on Red Seven and Revell walked out of the casino with $270,600.

Andrew “Jack” Whittaker Jr.
Andrew “Jack” Whittaker Jr. became the single largest lottery jackpot winner in history when he won the Powerball lottery draw in 2002. After matching all of the numbers Whittaker won an astounding $314.9 million. After deciding to take a lump sum instead of 30 annual installments Whittaker ended up with $170 million after taxes.

Jerry Yang
Yang walked away with the second largest prize in poker history after winning the 2007 World Series of Poker. Yang’s winnings of $8.25 million were much less than Gold’s $12 million, but it did top the $7.5 million won by Joe Hachem two years earlier.

William Nelson Darnborough
Darnborough was a roulette legend in Monte Carlo from 1904 to 1911. During that time he won $415,000, which at the time was an amazing amount of money. One of Darnborough’s well-known feats was when he won five successive roulette spins all on the number five.

Michael Larson
Larson’s gambling winnings came on a different stage than the rest of the people on this list. Larson won $110,237 on the game show Press Your Luck after memorizing the patterns of the supposedly random game board. Larson’s system caused an overhaul of the entire Press Your Luck game and is one of the most famous game show scandals ever.

Elmer Sherwin
Sherwin in one of the luckiest people on the planet. When he was 92 years old Sherwin won a Megabucks slots jackpot of $21 million. This came almost 16 years after he had won a previous Megabucks slots jackpot of $4.6 million.

Kerry Packer
The billionaire businessman is renowned for his big losses and big wins at casinos around the world. One old story tells of Packer suffering a torrid three-week losing streak that cost him $28 million. Another story tells of Packer going on an amazing Baccarat run and winning $20 million and also hitting another incredible run of cards at the MGM Grand that added $33 million to his pile.