Featured Articles Archive - Page 524

Murren making his mark on MGM Mirage

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Clearly, MGM Mirage is now Jim Murren's company. Fifteen days after taking over as chairman and chief executive officer, Murren helped engineer the sale of Treasure Island to Phil Ruffin for $775 million, which will reduce the company's Strip holdings to nine casinos when the deal closes in June...read more

Gambling executive gets post on Federal Reserve

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Boyd Gaming Corp. Chief Executive Officer Keith Smith will become the first casino company representative on the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's board of directors. The announcement is being made today. Smith, 48, will join six other directors on the Los Angeles branch board in providing economic information about the region to the Federal Reserve System. Smith, who has been Boyd Gaming's president since 2005 and who has been with the company for 19 years, said he will be able to offer economic data about the gaming and tourism industry, which has been hit hard during the recent economic recession. "This position will allow me to provide the Federal Reserve with a great deal of information about the discretionary spending habits of our customers in the current economy," Smith said...read more

Deal Me In: While all liars figure, some figures can lie

Dear Mark: I need to settle this argument. I play pai gow poker, and to me, other than a copy hand, I see it as an even game, since there have been many times where I did not have a copy hand all night, or very, very, few of them. So from a dealt hand, I would say it is a 50/50 proposition on who will win. My buddy, Tom, plays three-card poker, with the ante only bet, no pair plus...read more

Dwan issues challenge to the poker world

Poker wunderkind Tom "durrrr" Dwan has never been afraid of mixing it up at the tables, especially if the stakes are sky-high. So it should be no surprise that the 22-year-old Full Tilt pro is issuing a $1 million challenge to the online poker world. Dwan told Bluff Magazine that he will put up $1 million to prove that he is the best online player in cyberspace. photo by Matt Waldron "I'm making this heads-up challenge to the world," he said...read more

Gambling and the Law: The Casino of the Immediate Future

The casino of the future can be found today, in countries like Vietnam and Cambodia. Many countries have allowed casinos, restricted to foreign tourists. The ones I visited in Cambodia were in hotels in Siem Reap, near the famous ruins of Angkor Wat. What is unusual is to see table games like roulette and baccarat...read more

The Impact of a Depression on Gaming Laws

Buy when there is blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own. Baron Nathan Rothschild This is not just an economic recession -- it’s a worldwide depression. The distinction is important, like the difference between neurosis and psychosis...read more

LV Sands, Elad Group deny New Frontier land deal report

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- What began as a Web site report in Israel on Tuesday morning spun into speculation that one of two casino operators were looking at taking the vacant New Frontier site off the hands of the Elad Group, which has stalled in its plans to build a $5 billion version of New York's Plaza Hotel on the Strip location. However, the news may be nothing more than Internet-fueled fodder. Reuters News Service in Jerusalem picked up a story from Israel's TheMarker financial news Web site that the owners of Elad Group wanted to see whether Las Vegas Sands Corp...read more

Recreational bettors staying away from Vegas

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- My brother Craig has a business partner we'll call Uncle Steve. Uncle Steve has a love affair with Las Vegas. But lately, the romance has soured. The grim economy has played havoc with the Southern California real estate market, Uncle Steve's primary source of income...read more

Gaming regulator comes full circle

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- In a way, Mark Lipparelli is going back to his roots. When he takes his seat next week on the three-member Gaming Control Board, Lipparelli will return to an agency where he began his career as a research and securities analyst. In the years between, Lipparelli, 43, held a multitude of positions within the gaming equipment manufacturing sector...read more

Gaming Control Board gets new member

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Technology company owner Mark Lipparelli was named late Wednesday to the three-member Gaming Control Board by Gov. Jim Gibbons. Lipparelli, 43, who lives in Las Vegas, spent four years as an executive vice president at Bally Technologies and two years as president and vice president of Shuffle Master...read more