Featured Articles Archive - Page 242

MGM Resorts chairman: 2013 "best operating performance since recession"

LAS VEGAS -- MGM Resorts International ended 2013 on an upbeat note.Company Chairman Jim Murren told investors Wednesday that 2014 is off to an equally good beginning.The casino company, which operates 10 resorts on the Strip, said it reduced its fourth-quarter net loss while growing revenues more than 9 percent during the three-month period that ended Dec...read more

Galaxy Gaming wins license in Arizona

LAS VEGAS -- Las Vegas-based Galaxy Gaming has been licensed in Arizona to place non-traditional table games and wagering enhancements in Indian casinos.Arizona is one of the faster-growing Indian gaming markets, according to the most recent Indian Gaming Industry Report by Casino City...read more

South Point begins "soft launch" of online poker website

LAS VEGAS -- Nevada finally has its third real money Internet poker website.Real Gaming began its soft launch phase this week, joining Ultimate­Poker.com and WSOP.com in offering regulated online gaming to gamblers within Nevada’s boundaries.The website is owned by Michael Gaughan’s South Point Hotel Casino and Spa and is offering tournament play and cash games across multiple platforms, including PC and Mac computers, smartphones and tablet computers.“The true differentiator of Real Gaming is that players can access the site on any device, anywhere and anytime,” said Lawrence Vaughan, a technology expert who is serving as Real Gaming’s CEO...read more

Purported hackers of Las Vegas Sands websites surface, taunting

LAS VEGAS -- Someone claiming to be the hackers who knocked Las Vegas Sands Corp. off the Internet for nearly a week has posted an 11-minute video purporting to show stolen internal company information and taunting the international casino operator.The video was e-mailed to several media outlets and was posted to YouTube.com late Monday.However, YouTube removed the video from the website before 3 p.m...read more

Cromwell rooftop pool club to open Memorial Day weekend

LAS VEGAS -- The 65,000-square-foot day-club and nightclub pool deck on the roof of the redeveloped Cromwell will open Memorial Day weekend, Caesars Entertainment Corporation announced Tuesday.The area, which is being designed an operated by Victor Drai, is located on the 11th floor of The Cromwell and includes Drai’s Beach Club - Nightclub, offers panoramic views of the Strip.The 188-room Cromwell is being created from the closed Bill’s Gamblin’s Hall at a cost of $185 million.Drai, who has spent 15 years in the Las Vegas nightlife business, criticized the current state of the industry.“The mega-clubs have become nothing more than large music venues for million dollar DJs,” Drai said...read more

Top-10 things to look forward to at this year's WSOP

The World Series of Poker released its 2014 tournament schedule last week, and poker players around the world have started planning their summer pilgrimages to Las Vegas. Some will play as many events as they physically can. Others will take just one shot, whether it be a $1,000 or $1,500 event, or the $10,000 Main Event...read more

Caesars interactive subsidiary buys fourth social gaming business

LAS VEGAS -- Caesars Entertainment Corporation’s interactive subsidiary has acquired an Israel-based social gaming business, the company’s fourth deal in the past few years to expand its presence in the growing free-to-play gaming market.Caesars did not disclose financial terms to acquire Pacific Interactive, which owns the slot machine-style, free-play application House of Fun.Social gaming has become a growing business for several gaming companies, including Caesars, which owns the World Series of Poker and Playtika, and IGT - International Game Technology, operators of DoubleDown Casino.The activity is free to play on Internet platforms, including Facebook, but customers often make nominal purchases — usually of less than $1 — to acquire thousands of virtual gaming tokens.Eilers Research analyst Adam Krejcik, who follows social gaming, told investors the privately held Pacific generated an estimated $25 million to $30 million in revenue in 2013, 75 percent from its Facebook presence and 25 percent from its mobile applications.Krejcik said Pacific is ranked ninth on his Eilers’ social casino tracker among the companies with social games on Facebook...read more

The merger man: Sanfilippo drew on experience in deal for Ameristar

LAS VEGAS -- Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. CEO Anthony Sanfilippo drew upon his experience in corporate mergers in overseeing his company’s $2.8 billion acquisition of rival Ameristar Casinos in 2013.In the six months since the buyout’s completion, Pinnacle has become a new company under its old name.Las Vegas-based Pinnacle doubled its size...read more

Inside Gaming: Scorn troopers sow fear of Net bets

LAS VEGAS -- If there’s one thing we learned from last week’s telephone press conference by the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling it’s that all five speakers “were honored” to be on the 45-minute call.They said so, several times.That, and Internet gambling is responsible for every ill known to mankind.The paid representatives for the Washington, D.C.-based coalition — funded by Las Vegas Sands Corp...read more

Deal Me In: Surreptitious jackpot shrouded in mystery

Dear Mark: I subscribe to the local paper and look forward to your column each week. I have learned a lot from it and was hoping to learn a little more, maybe.A friend and I went on an all-nighter junket to the Reno Hilton about 15 years ago and what happened to my friend has stuck in our craw for all this time...read more