Featured Articles Archive - Page 262

Penn National to begin spinoff of real estate holdings

LAS VEGAS -- Penn National Gaming, Inc. will begin to spin off its real estate holdings into a separate public company this month, the casino operator and owner of M Resort told investors this past week.Under a plan approved by the company’s board of directors, Penn National shareholders will receive one share of common stock in the real estate investment trust equal to each share of common stock held in the casino operator as of Oct...read more

Randy Black out as COO of Mesquite Gaming

Randy Black, the face of Mesquite’s casino industry since the 1990s, is no longer associated with the casino company that he founded.Black, who appeared in numerous local television commercials touting the small-town atmosphere of Mesquite, has retired as chief operating officer of Mesquite Gaming, LLC, according to a memo sent to employees of the Casablanca and Virgin River casinos late Monday.Mesquite Gaming was created in 2011 following the bankruptcy reorganization of Black Gaming...read more

"Runner Runner" could have been a parody

When Brian Koppelman and David Levien wrote Rounders in 1998, they did something no one had ever done before: They made poker interesting to a mainstream audience.If Chris Moneymaker was the spark that created the poker boom in 2003, Rounders was the match that lit the fuse...read more

Top-10 questions after seeing Runner Runner

Runner Runner opened over the weekend and managed to pull in a disappointing $7.7 million, but I'll be honest, I thought it would be less. The plot of the Ben Affleck/Justin Timberlake film revolves around an offshore online gambling operation run by Ivan Block (Affleck)...read more

Terms of Caesars restructuring, spinoff company set

LAS VEGAS -- Caesars Entertainment Corp. told shareholders they have until Oct. 17 to participate in a stock sale that will raise $1.18 billion and place ownership of Planet Hollywood, the company’s interactive division and a new Baltimore casino into a new holding company.Caesars announced the restructuring effort in April...read more

Gibraltar firm rocks online gambling

Gibraltar-based 888 Holdings Plc has quietly carved out an extra-large share of the neophyte U.S. online gaming market.The company, one of the largest operators in legal European Internet gaming jurisdictions, has deals to operate interactive gaming platforms — the technology to house the online gambling websites — in all three states where the activity is legal: Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware.As other states move to adopt Internet wagering regulations, 888 Holdings will buy into the game.“We’re building a U.S.-based poker network,” 888 Chief Operating Officer Itai Frieberger said in an interview during last month’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas...read more

Pop goes the expo: Celebrity and cinema dominate G2E

LAS VEGAS -- Gaming analysts were turned into film critics during last month’s Global Gaming Expo.Knowledge of the entertainment industry was a required tool when visiting the booths of the major slot machine manufacturers inside the Sands Expo and Convention Center.You also needed to avoid the roaming zombies from Aristocrat Technologies and the Na’vi warriors patrolling the International Game Technology space.Credit Suisse gaming analyst Joel Simkins told investors in a post-G2E report the show had the “most licensed premium content available for the participation segment we have seen in some time.”It also didn’t come cheap.Securing branded content from feature films (“Avatar,” “Bridesmaids,” “Back to the Future,” “Beetlejuice,” “Flashdance,” “Titanic”); television (“Batman,” “True Blood,” “The Walking Dead”); and entertainment (The Rolling Stones, David Copperfield, ZZ Top ) comes with a hefty price.“Some vendors are mindful of the costs to secure branded content,” Simkins said...read more

Deal Me In: Gambling goodies from the grave?

Dear Mark: A friend of mine recently passed away. He had a large amount of casino comps. Do they go into his estate and to his heirs? Bob M.In its strictest form, Bob, a "will" is limited to real property while a "testament" applies to the disposition of personal property...read more

Poker Player Tweets of the Week: Let's go to the movies

The fate of the poker world might depend on a Ben Affleck movie. We're all doomed. Runner Runner, starring Affleck and Justin Timberlake and written by Rounders scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien, is the first full-length feature film centered on online poker...read more

New Jersey online gambling will go live Nov. 26

New Jersey will officially go live with online gambling on Tuesday, Nov. 26.State regulations go into effect Oct. 21, with additional changes not included in the original proposal becoming effective Oct. 28.A five-day "soft play" period will begin Nov...read more