Featured Articles Archive - Page 343

Ohio draws comparison to Singapore as fertile market for casino gambling

CLEVELAND -- Long before the first official hand of blackjack was dealt on Monday, the $350 million Horseshoe Casino Cleveland was credited with driving more than $7 billion in downtown reinvestment in Ohio's second-largest city.Imagine what the next phase - which could include a second casino and a hotel - might accomplish.Owners of the Horseshoe, one of four casinos around the state approved in a 2009 voter referendum, confidently predict the 300,000-square-foot facility on four floors of the old Higbee's Department Store building will attract 5 million visitors to downtown Cleveland each year...read more

The peril of faster action at the casino, and how to forestall it

Some casino aficionados find leisurely action tedious, if not boring, and prefer games that proceed at a rapid clip. Many, however, fail to recognize the cost inherent in a high decision rate. Players’ fate follows from the joint influence of edge and volatility characteristic of every wager. • Edge, a small fraction of each bet, arises because players earn less for each win than the odds fought to achieve it; casinos therefore reap more than they sow netted over many rounds and players collectively lose...read more

Affinity Gaming revenues, net income trending up

Casino operator Affinity Gaming grew its net income and revenues in the first quarter, the Las Vegas-based company reported late Monday. Affinity, which was created after the bankruptcy reorganization of Herbst Gaming, said its net income for the quarter ending March 31 was $4.1 million, compared with $3.4 million in the same quarter a year ago. The company said overall net revenues grew 4.8 percent, to $112.8 million. Affinity Gaming is privately held but has publicly traded debt of roughly $400 million. During the first quarter, Affinity Gaming closed several transactions, including the sale of its Terrible Herbst convenience store slot machine route operations and a casino in Searchlight to Jett Gaming...read more

Illinois looks to lottery to regulate online casino, poker

Illinois was the first state in the U.S. to sell lottery tickets online, and now, Illinois State Sen. John J. Cullerton is looking to make it the first state in the U.S. to offer regulated online poker and casino games.Cullerton submitted an amendment to HB4148 that would create a Division of Internet Gaming within the state's Department of the Lottery, and the lottery's online gambling site would be the state's lone operator."In order to protect Illinois residents who wager on games of chance and skill through the Internet, and to capture revenues generated from Internet gaming, it is in the best interest of the State and its citizens to regulate this activity by authorizing and establishing a secure, responsible, fair, and legal system of Internet gaming," reads the amendment...read more

Top-10 things to remember while betting on the Preakness

Saturday's 137th running of the Preakness means different things for different people. For people looking for a big party, the Preakness is a place for people to drink heavily, hang out with Kegasus -- Lord of the Infield, listen to Maroon 5 and Whiz Khalifa and "get their Preak on" (I'm not kidding, that was the marketing campaign in 2010). For horse racing fans, the Preakness represents the second leg of the Triple Crown, the hope that this will be the first year since Affirmed in 1978 that a horse will win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont (June 9), and a great day of betting. The field for Saturday's running of the 137th Preakness hasn't been finalized yet...read more

WSOP prep: Tax implications of staking/profit-sharing agreements

The World Series of Poker is right around the corner, and thousands of poker players across the world will be making their annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas in pursuit of fortune, fame, and most importantly, a WSOP gold bracelet.This year, for the first time, a player from the Casino City Home Game will be participating in the Series, playing in a $1,500 no-limit Hold'em event...read more

Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert "rolled the dice" and led the push for legalized casinos in Ohio

CLEVELAND - Dan Gilbert resembled any other casino floor person.Dressed in a dark tailored suit adorned with a Horseshoe name badge that had his first name in capital letters, Gilbert also wore a gold-colored Horseshoe lapel pin.He blended in with many of the 1,600 Horseshoe Casino Cleveland employees Thursday afternoon who were about to take part in the property's eight-hour controlled demonstration.Ohio gaming regulators sealed up the $350 million facility to see if employees had been properly trained on internal control systems and could successfully operate a casino with 2,100 slot machines, 63 table games and a 30-table poker room.Gilbert didn't really need the name badge.To Northeast Ohio residents, Gilbert - founder and chairman of online home lender Quicken Loans - is the Detroit businessman who saved the Cleveland Cavaliers.He became majority owner of the NBA franchise in 2005...read more

Should you toss a buck on longshots with high house advantage?

Some slot machines and bonus side bets at table games have extremely high payoffs with correspondingly low probabilities of success. In this sense, the jackpots are longshots. However, the wagers aren’t simply all-or-nothing affairs. Rather, they generally offer ranges of payoffs with chances of success that rise as the amounts in question fall...read more

Deal me in: Be 'put' off by this bet

Dear Mark: Some casinos offer a wager on the crap game called a “put” bet; others do not. Should I be playing craps where they offer it, since it might be a bet that is favorable to the player? Rick K.A "put" bet, Rick, is a seldom-played wager that you can make on the pass line after a point is established...read more

Loveman says Caesars in broad expansion

CLEVELAND -- Caesars Entertainment is "in the middle of a big expansion" and may sell more casinos in crowded markets to finance new properties in less competitive areas, company Chairman and CEO Gary Loveman said Thursday.The company's new strategy was illustrated by Monday's announced sale of its Harrah's St...read more