Stories surfaced over the weekend that one of the last obstacles in the sale of online poker site Full Tilt Poker to Groupe Bernard Tapie involves millions of dollars that Chris “Jesus” Ferguson held in personal accounts that were used for corporate purposes. Groupe Bernard Tapie agreed to acquire the troubled company on November 17th in a deal struck with the permission of the US Department of Justice and that would ultimately see Full Tilt’s assets sold to GBT for $80 million. The complicated deal included the US government taking responsibility for repaying an estimated $150 million owed to former [ Read More ]
Opponents of online gambling have long said that the activity is dangerous because it can be addictive. Players who are addicted to online gambling can blow all of their money and ruin their lives. While that is true, it accounts for a small percentage of players and it ignores the fact that many things can be addictive but are available to people. Alcohol and cigarettes are the two most obvious examples, but what about the Internet. A recent study out of China suggests that people can become addicted to the Internet. Recent studies have shown that those who have an [ Read More ]
GamblingPlanet visitors will have the chance to cash in on an exclusive slots tournament running at Europa Casino from January 23-26, with €1,000 in free prizes handed out to the top finishers. Competing in the contest couldn’t be easier, as you simply have to sign up and deposit at Europa and then play any of its hundreds of slots games — including the Beach Life slots progressive with a jackpot of $7.2 million — and you’ll accumulate leaderboard points based on your play for the tournament standings. Leaderboard standings will be published and updated so you can see exactly where [ Read More ]
Several US states are taking a hard look at legalizing online poker and casino sites for residents but the potential profit involved may be underwhelming when compared to the shortfalls faced in many state budgets. The District of Columbia has already passed legislation that could allow it to offer online casino and poker sites and New Jersey, California, and Nevada are all considering passing their own laws that could pave the way to offering their own intra-state online poker sites. The primary driver for many states is a simple one: the lure of cold, hard cash. With the lingering recession [ Read More ]
A Roman Catholic priest has been sentenced to more than 3 years in prison and ordered to repay $650,000 that he embezzled to fuel his video poker play at various Las Vegas casinos. Monsignor Kevin McAuliffe had admitted to embezzling parish votive candle, prayer, and gift shop funds for eight years from his northwest Las Vegas parish in order to support his video poker habit, claiming that he suffered from gambling addiction. He’d asked for probation so that he could continue to seek help for his gambling problem and to continue practicing as a priest and pay restitution to St. [ Read More ]
The state of Florida is one step closer to possibly building three huge casino resorts after a bill cleared its first legislative hurdle, gaining approval from a committee to move on to the next step of the process. The Senate Regulated Industries Committee approved the bill by 7-3 vote, gaining passage after an amendment was added to give residents of Florida counties the final say via referendrums as to whether or not a casino will be built in the county they live in. Republican sponsors introduced the bill, which is designed to set the stage for three huge resort casinos [ Read More ]
Casino revenues in November continued to slide for Atlantic City casinos, down 6% to continue a slump that goes back over 3 years for the 11 casinos in Atlantic City. Total revenue for November came in at $245 million, off 6% from what was taken in a year ago in November 2010. Only four of the 11 casinos reported a monthly increase versus last year, with Trump Plaza the biggest loser, off 32% as compared to 2010. Slot machine revenue (which is typically responsible for the bulk of revenues and profits for brick-and-mortar and online casinos alike) was down about [ Read More ]
Caesars Palace is set to open its new Octavius Tower extension in early January, which will add 668 new rooms to the popular Las Vegas hotel and casino. Caesars remains one of the top US casinos, and one of the few located on the Las Vegas Strip that has expanded in recent years. Casinos in Las Vegas continue to struggle with the oversupply of hotel rooms and gambling venues that opened or expanded during the last boom in the mid 2000s before the global recession struck the US and other countries around the world. While some mega casino projects managed [ Read More ]
Macau eclipsed the Las Vegas Strip back in 2006 as far as total gambling dollars taken in each year, with Singapore poised by the end of 2011 to surpass the 2010 haul of $5.8 billion the Strip took in. US casinos in Vegas might still the textbook definition of “casino” that most conjure up in their heads — huge mega resorts awash in neon and noisy slots — but more and more the shift of gambling power in the world is heading east to Macau and Singapore. Macau has experienced recod growth in 2011 and is projected for more of [ Read More ]
The Genting Group’s planned $4 billion casino project in Miami — which is designed to be the world’s largest casino — is already running into opposition that could see it shrink in order to gain necessary approvals. Genting announced its planned project six months ago, which would include a 5,200 room resort hotel as well as 800,000 square feet of casino space — more than four times larger than anything in Las Vegas. Miami is looking to add up to three resort style casinos in the area, which are projected to produce as much as $6 billion in gambling revenues each [ Read More ]
