Featured Articles Archive - Page 379

Top-10 ideas that improved poker on TV

Televised poker has come a long way since Johnny Chan beat Erik Seidel for the WSOP title in 1988. It has improved because producers of televised poker came up with great ideas to make the product better. Some of those ideas are recent, others are more than a decade old, and some (unfortunately) have fallen out of favor.Here's my list of the top-10 ideas that have improved televised poker.10...read more

Deal Me In: Do not believe in scheming RNGs

Dear Mark: Do the odds on a slot machine change based on past performance? Let’s say I am winning smaller jackpots spin after spin, does the machine get to point where it stops paying knowing I have won such-and-such amount? This has been happening to me lately...read more

Nevada gaming authorities release online poker details

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- State gaming authorities have released proposed regulations for Internet poker to be implemented if the federal government legalizes the activity. The proposals, posted to the Gaming Control Board's website Wednesday, include rules for the finding of entity suitability, technology approvals, audit and record-keeping, and customer enrollment. The proposals also spell out regulatory oversight of internal controls by the online gaming companies and establishes a disciplinary process for regulatory violations. Gaming Control Board Chairman Mark Lipparelli said the proposals were offered after the Nevada Legislature and Gov...read more

Massachusetts inches towards full-scale casino gaming

BOSTON, Massachusetts -- A long-awaited deal that could lead to full-scale casino gaming in Massachusetts may have finally been reached. The Boston Globe reported this morning that Gov. Deval Patrick and leaders of the state’s House and Senate reached a tentative agreement to expand gaming in the state. Under the deal, Massachusetts would have three stand-alone Las Vegas-style casinos and a fourth slot machine-only casino with up to 1,250 games. According to the Globe, the three resort casino licenses would be auctioned for at least $85 million and require developers to invest $500 million in each project...read more

Pinnacle misses deadline to submit A.C. hotel application

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey-- Pinnacle Entertainment failed to submit a formal application with New Jersey gaming regulators to build a boutique-style hotel-casino in Atlantic City by last week's deadline, ending the Las Vegas-based company's interest in the project. In a statement, New Jersey authorities said Hard Rock International was the only company to formally file an application by the deadline. In January, New Jersey Gov...read more

California online poker efforts appear dead

SACRAMENTO, California -- An effort to legalize and regulate Internet poker in California appears dead. According to the Oakland Tribune, California State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said a measure backed by a coalition of card rooms and Indian tribes wouldn’t be voted on this year. State Sen...read more

Top-10 activities both spouses can enjoy in Las Vegas

My wife and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary a few weeks ago. Over the weekend, we were on our way to Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire for former Casino City reporter Ryan McLane’s wedding, and we came up with a top-10 list of places we had been to before we met each other that we’d like to return to now, as a couple...read more

Gambling and the Law: 'Blackjack and the Law' wins case for casino

In one of the very first cases heard by the federal court in Las Vegas in 2011, Harrah’s (now renamed Caesars) once again won the right to kick out card-counters. Roger L. Hunt, Chief U.S. District Judge for Nevada, based his decision, in part, on a book I co-authored in 1998, BLACKJACK AND THE LAW. Unfortunately for all advantage players, Judge Hunt’s decision was correct. A Los Angeles lawyer, Ernest J...read more

Gambling and the Law: Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid!

Opponents of legal gambling are notorious within the industry for making up numbers. Robert Goodman, for example, is a discredited "anti" and the founder of the grandly named, though now defunct, "United States Gambling Research Institute." He is infamous for proclaiming, "The American Insurance Institute estimated that 40 percent of all white collar crime had its roots in gambling." The only problem is that there never was an American Insurance Institute...read more

Would the bosses be giving away the casino with 10s-or-better video poker?

Pretend your friendly neighborhood casino just installed a platoon of multi-game slot machines, and you notice that one of them includes a 10s-or-better video poker option. You know enough about video poker to realize that the probabilities associated with various final hands aren’t arbitrary, as they are for the winning levels on reel-type slots...read more