Featured Articles Archive - Page 159

Lakes Entertainment shareholders approve merger with Golden Gaming

Lakes Entertainment shareholders approved the company’s merger with Las Vegas-based tavern and slot machine route operator Golden Gaming during a vote on June 17, the company said in a securities filing.The transaction will create a new publicly traded company, Golden Entertainment...read more

Chinese firm buys World Poker Tour

The World Poker Tour as been acquired by a Chinese-based social gaming company for $35 million.The all-cash transaction was announced Sunday in which Ourgame International Holdings Ltd. will purchase the World Poker Tour from Gibraltar-based Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment...read more

Top 10 Fourth of July resort-casino activities

The Fourth of July is coming up next weekend, and casinos across the United States are looking for ways to draw people to their resorts to celebrate the holiday.Here are 10 great ways to celebrate America's independence, and maybe make a bet or two along the way.10...read more

Inside Gaming: Hospitality Hall to replace outdated UNLV building

The building that houses the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Harrah College of Hotel Administration is outdated.But a new one is coming.Thanks to Gov. Brian Sandoval’s signature, the $56 million Hospitality Hall will soon rise at the center of the UNLV campus...read more

Boyd Gaming pledges $2.5 million for new building at UNLV

Boyd Gaming Corp. has pledged a $2.5 million donation to support construction of a new building for William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.The donation comes a week after Gov. Brian Sandoval signed an appropriations bill that included $24.4 million in funding for the building.Boyd Gaming’s latest commitment adds to the university initiatives the company has supported...read more

Casinos filing more suspicious activity reports, prosecutor says

Casinos are increasingly reporting customers’ suspicious activity but more can be accomplished through a “culture of compliance,” a federal prosecutor charged with enforcing anti-money laws told a Las Vegas audience on Thursday.The address marked the second year in a row a top official from the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, addressed the Nevada State Bar Association’s Bank Secrecy Act Conference.Stephanie Brooker, FinCEN’s associate director of enforcement, told the audience of more than 400 at Paris Las Vegas that the casino industry’s filing of suspicious activity reports increased 69 percent in the last year and the trend has continued in the first part of 2015.“From the data that you have provided us, we can tell that the highest reported categories of suspicious activity by your industry are minimal gaming and altering transactions to avoid currency transaction report filing,” Brooker said...read more

Deal Me In: Change only happens when customers demand it

Dear Mark: After reading some of your recent columns about gambling in the Detroit Free Press after a recent trip to Vegas, I thought I would share some observations of how Vegas is prying more money out of our pockets.Regarding ways to pass time at low cost, as I have done in the past, I sat down and played video poker at a bar-mounted machine, and ordered a beer...read more

UNLV law school to create center for gaming regulators

A one-of-a-kind center, where gaming regulators worldwide can meet to exchange ideas and discuss emerging issues, will be created at the University of Nevada Las Vegas Boyd School of Law after state lawmakers designated $1 million for the program.The Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents still needs to sign off on the International Center for Excellence in Gaming Regulation...read more

Scientific Games signs deal with Oregon Lottery

Gaming equipment provider Scientific Games Corp. said Wednesday it signed a deal to sell some 2,000 slot machine-like video lottery terminals to the Oregon Lottery.The transaction is taking place through the Las Vegas-based company’s Bally Gaming subsidiary...read more

Kirk Kerkorian, founding father of modern Las Vegas, passes away

Billionaire financier Kirk Kerkorian, one of the founders of modern Las Vegas, whose name is synonymous with some of the Strip’s best-known hotel-casinos, died Monday night in Los Angeles after a brief illness.Kerkorian, who turned 98 on June 6, was the largest shareholder in MGM Resorts International, which he founded in the early 1990s.Considered one of the central figures in making Las Vegas a premier global tourist destination, Kerkorian three times built and opened what were then the world’s largest hotel-casinos — the International (now the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino) in 1969, the original MGM Grand (now Bally’s - Las Vegas) in 1973 and the current MGM Grand Las Vegas in 1993.Kerkorian invested in and operated businesses in numerous industries, including airlines, automakers and film studios, but no business held his interest as much as gaming...read more