Featured Articles Archive - Page 274

Hacienda ownership confirms sale to Dotty's operators

The ownership of the Hacienda Hotel and Casino near Boulder City confirmed Tuesday that it sold the hotel-casino to the operators of the Dotty’s statewide chain of taverns.A sales price was not disclosed by the Lakeview Company, which said the Hacienda employees were told the property and surrounding land had been sold to Nevada Restaurant Services Inc., which owns the Dotty’s brand.Dotty’s owner and founder Craig Estey said in a statement that the 370-room hotel-casino, 3½ miles from Hoover Dam on U.S...read more

Slot machine maker IGT expands board by two members

Five months after a contentious proxy fight threatened to shake up IGT - International Game Technology’s board of directors, the company announced it has expanded the governing panel by two members.In separate statements released Friday, the slot machine giant said two new members, both with experience in the technology sector, have been appointed to the board...read more

M Resort closes 14-table poker room

LAS VEGAS -- M Resort closed its 14-table poker room last week to make space for additional slot machines that will be used for tournament play.Rina Foster, a spokeswoman for the casino, said employees displaced by the closure were offered other jobs, although she wasn’t sure how many were moved to new positions.M Resort is owned by Penn National Gaming.She said the space layout is still be reconfigured and M Resort has not determined how many slot machines will move in the space...read more

IGT laughing all the way to bank over acquisition

Suddenly, Wall Street loves IGT - International Game Technology’s DoubleDown Casino.After roundly panning the slot machine giant’s $500 million acquisition of the free-to-play social gaming website 17 months ago, the analyst community pulled a 180-degree turn in July.“In our view, DoubleDown is turning into one of IGT’s best acquisitions, which we believe can continue to grow profitably,” Wells Fargo Securities gaming analyst Cameron McKnight told investors July 24.A day earlier, IGT credited a boost in results from its social gaming products with increasing the company’s third-quarter earnings and profits.DoubleDown Casino, an application found on the Internet, Facebook and mobile devices, was responsible for $61.4 million of IGT’s $579 million in revenue for the quarter that ended June 30.Interactive gaming revenue — nominal fees paid by users to the website to purchase additional gambling tokens that increase their virtual bankrolls — were more than double compared with the same quarter a year ago...read more

Nevada gaming revenues fall, but analyst heralds slot play

LAS VEGAS -- A more than 10 percent decline in gaming revenues on the Strip during June was directly attributed to poor results from baccarat play.But that’s just part of the story.One analyst pointed toward a third straight month of increased slot machine wagering inside Strip casinos as the “best metric” for determining if a Las Vegas recovery is taking hold.The Nevada State Gaming Control Board Gaming Commission said Friday that Nevada casinos collected almost $792.5 million from gamblers in June, a decline of 4.81 percent compared with more than $832.5 million collected in the same month a year ago.On the Strip, gaming revenues fell 10.1 percent in June to $434.7 million.Sterne Agee gaming analyst David Bain said the increased slot machine volume — 0.2 percent in June, 1.7 percent in May and 1.1 percent in April — were indicators that Strip casinos are seeing a return of midlevel customers.“We continue to believe correlating factors, as well as several other data points, point to Strip upside relative to consensus,” Bain said.Revenues from slot machine play on the Strip increased 3 percent.Baccarat was the culprit for the Strip’s decline.Revenues from the game decreased 48.9 percent to $52.7 million in June...read more

Tavern operator Dotty's to acquire Hacienda near Boulder City

Tavern operator Dotty’s, whose controversial business model inspired casino industry-led changes to statewide gaming regulations, is acquiring its first full-fledged hotel-casino.The company is buying the Hacienda Hotel and Casino outside Boulder City on U.S...read more

Fertitta creates Golden Nuggets

LAS VEGAS -- It’s taken Tilman Fertitta just a few years to build his casino company.It’s going to take another few years to analyze the business’s level of success.Not that Fertitta is in a rush.The wealthy 56-year-old Texan over three decades created Landry’s Inc...read more

Gambling's expansion has Multimedia Games on cusp of cracking manufacturing's upper echelon

It seems laughable now in hindsight.Slot machine maker Multimedia Games, Inc. was for sale in 2010 and couldn’t attract a buyer.Today, it’s the hottest commodity for the gaming industry investment community.“We’re an exciting growth story in gaming, and there aren’t too many of those, to be honest,” said Multimedia Games Chief Executive Officer Patrick Ramsey, 39, who joined the company as chief operating officer in 2008.A few years ago, Multimedia Games had only a handful of gaming licenses...read more

Top-10 Chinese Poker variations

If you follow any high-stakes poker players on Twitter, you may have been seeing a lot of talk about Open Faced Chinese Poker lately in their feeds. The game has taken the poker world by storm, and it's created a lot of interest in Chinese Poker generally.There are so many variations of Chinese Poker, it can be quite confusing...read more

Why is the payoff range at sic bo so wide?

Question: In sic-bo, payouts for various three-dice totals run from a high of "1 wins 60" for a four or 17, to a low of "1 wins 6" for a nine, 10, 11, or 12. Why is the spread so wide?Answer: The spread in payouts counterbalances the spread in the chances of making each total...read more