Featured Articles Archive - Page 277

Convicted slot cheat becomes Black Book member

LAS VEGAS -- A convicted slot machine cheat became the first new member of Nevada’s Excluded Person List, commonly referred to as the Black Book, in almost four years.The Nevada Gaming Commission and Control Board Thursday unanimously placed Roderick William Dee II on to the list, which makes it a felony for that person to enter a Nevada casino...read more

MGM Resorts International creates four new positions

LAS VEGAS -- MGM Resorts International announced Wednesday it created four new positions within the company’s corporate diversity, philanthropy and community engagement department.Ondra Berry, Shelley Gitomer and Tony Gladney will assume new vice president positions at the company while Patty Coaley has been promoted to an executive director role.Berry has been named vice president of diversity and inclusion development...read more

Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson blisters Strip competitors

LAS VEGAS -- Las Vegas Sands Corp. grew profits 120 percent in the second quarter, fueled by record results in Macau.But during the company’s quarterly earnings conference call with analysts Wednesday, billionaire Chairman Sheldon Adelson provided a few off-the-cuff choice comments directed toward the casino operator’s chief competition on the Strip that he blamed for the market not increasing fast enough.Las Vegas Sands said its net income for the quarter that ended June 30 was $529.8 million, which translated into earnings of 64 cents per share...read more

Missouri regulators sign off on Pinnacle-Ameristar deal

LAS VEGAS -- Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc.’s $2.8 billion buyout of Ameristar Casinos, Inc. received the last state regulatory approval needed to finalize the transaction Wednesday.The Missouri Gaming Commission approved the acquisition, which will create a regional casino company with 17 properties in nine states.Pinnacle said it hopes to close the sale by the end of August.Officials from the Las Vegas-based company told the Missouri regulators Pinnacle hopes to finalize an agreement to sell its Lumiere Place in downtown St...read more

Penn links weak earnings to bad weather, less interest in gambling

Regional casino giant Penn National Gaming, Inc. said Tuesday bad weather in several markets and a reduced interest in gambling by customers led to poor second quarter results.The company, which operates M Resort in Henderson, said it lost $12.2 million or 16 cents a share in the quarter that ended June 30...read more

Titus wants House panel to conduct hearing on Web gaming

LAS VEGAS -- Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said Tuesday she wants a House of Representatives committee to hold a hearing on the current state-by-state expansion of Internet gaming.In a letter to both the chairman and the ranking member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Titus said Congress needs to move quickly because Internet gaming is moving forward in several states, including Nevada.“Previous efforts in Congress to create a national legal framework for Internet gaming have failed and states have moved ahead of Congress to develop these laws and accompanying regulations,” Titus wrote.Nevada has legalized Internet poker and the first pay-to-play website, operated by Ultimate Gaming, a company majority owned by Station Casinos, has been accepting wagers since April 30...read more

Social gaming products help boost IGT profits, revenues

LAS VEGAS -- A boost in results from its social gaming products helped slot machine maker IGT - International Game Technology increase profits and revenues in the third quarter.The company, which has headquarters in both Las Vegas and Reno, said Tuesday that its net income was $65.7 million, or 25 cents per share, for the quarter that ended June 30, up from profits of $46.6 million, or 16 cents per share, a year earlier.Companywide revenues rose 8.7 percent to $579 million from $532.8 million.Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected IGT to report a profit of 31 cents a share.Social gaming revenues — attributable to IGT’s DoubleDown Casino application found on the Internet, Facebook and mobile devices — reached $61.4 million, more than double the revenues produced in the same quarter in 2012 and up 13 percent over the second quarter.IGT said there were 1.7 million average daily users of the company’s free play social gaming products in the quarter, 25 percent higher than a year ago.The average user spent 40 cents on the DoubleDown website to purchase extra virtual gaming tokens, a 60 percent increase from a year ago.IGT’s revenues from slot machine sales grew 12 percent to $259.2 million in the quarter...read more

Flying J Truck Stop opens at Whiskey Pete's

A Flying J Truck Stop has opened at Whiskey Pete’s Hotel and Casino at Primm Valley, expanding the services offered at the casino location on the Nevada-California border.The 13,000-square-foot Flying J has a professional drivers’ lounge with flat screen televisions, seven private showers and a commercial laundry facility...read more

Top-10 observations of Ultimate Poker play

As I was preparing for my trip to Las Vegas to cover the World Series of Poker's $111,111 One Drop High Roller event, one of the things that I was excited about (outside of the time I was going to be spending inside the Amazon Room at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino covering the tournament) was the opportunity to play online poker at a site licensed and regulated by the state of Nevada during my downtime.Ultimate Poker has been operating in the state of Nevada for a couple months now, and based on the enthusiasm shown by WSOP officials during a conference call prior to the start of the series, and the shots those same officials took at Ultimate Poker, which was already up and running, I thought I'd have a chance to play at two different sites.It turned out that WSOP.com wasn't ready for prime time while I was there, and the launch date is still up in the air...read more

Casino projects in Russian port of Vladivostok draw investment from Macau

The up and coming Russian casino market of Vladivostok scored its first big-name participant.Lawrence Ho, the son of Hong Kong billionaire and Macau casino giant Stanley Ho, said his two companies would spend $630 million to buy a 51 percent stake in a business building two casino resorts in the Primorye Region near China’s border.Bloomberg News reported the companies’ filings to the Hong Kong’s stock exchange last week.Lawrence Ho is partners with Australian businessman James Packer in Melco Crown Entertainment, which several large and small casinos in Macau, including the City of Dreams complex, the Altira Macau and the Studio City development project.“It’s a rather small investment for Lawrence, compared with other projects he has in Macau,” Jeremy Tan, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Kim Eng Securities Ltd., told Bloomberg...read more