Featured Articles Archive - Page 534

MGM cuts reassure investors

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Wall Street wasn't surprised Wednesday when casino giant MGM Mirage said its third-quarter profit fell 67 percent from a year ago due to the slowing national economy and reduced customer spending. What gave investors a lift was the company's reaction to the crisis. Cost reductions, corporate restructuring and downsizing and other strategic budgetary initiatives enacted over the past few quarters gave the financial community comfort that MGM Mirage, which operates 10 Strip hotel-casinos, will successfully manage the global economic downturn. The company said it was indefinitely postponing construction of two major resorts in Las Vegas and Atlantic City...read more

Which Way, Asia?

Macau’s gross gaming revenue is slowing. Still, the only legal casinos in China made more in the first three quarters of 2008 than they did in all of 2007 -- and that was more than all the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. Singapore is next, with the first of two gigantic integrated resorts, or IRs, as they are called, set to open in 2009. Vietnam, which has small casinos restricted to foreigners, had a groundbreaking on its own billion-dollar IR...read more

Chips fly and records fall at Full Tilt

The record for the largest online no-limit hold'em pot was broken four times within 24 hours last weekend. The previous mark was set on September 12th by "patatino," who won a $610,000 pot against Hac Dang. According to the hand histories posted by highstakesdb.com, the record was first broken in a battle between Tom "durrrr" Dwan and "LarsLuzak." "LarsLuzak" started the action by raising $3,000 preflop...read more

Playing It Smart: The elegant side of roulette

Roulette has an underlying elegance few solid citizens (or casino bosses, for that matter) appreciate. Bets on combinations such as corners or columns pay the same as on the total spread uniformly over the identical numbers. It's invariably in whole dollars, and it means that the edge is consistent regardless of what's bet. This holds universally at single-zero roulette...read more

Experienced 'Chino' Rheem set to make bid for WSOP title

David "Chino" Rheem certainly has all the necessary attributes to be the last man standing when all is said and done at the upcoming final table of the World Series of Poker's 2008 Main Event. Everything except a big stack of chips, that is...read more

Slot machine lawsuits spinning out of control

LAS VEGAS, Nevada --If you find the constant legal wrangling between rival slot machine makers International Game Technology and Bally Technologies perplexing, you're not alone. Roughly a dozen patent infringement lawsuits and antitrust claims between the companies are floating through the federal courts...read more

Gaming industry bets big on McCain

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Gaming has bet the house on the presidential campaign of Republican John McCain. Through September, individuals with ties to casinos have contributed more than $260,000 to McCain's campaign, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics...read more

New books focus on lottery, betting on games, Wall Street

Sometimes it's like a feeding frenzy as lottery terminals and computer terminals hum all across the United States. People bet billions of dollars annually on lotteries and on Wall Street. Sometimes it's tough to tell the difference between what your chances are of hitting the big one in either endeavor...read more

Judge tosses motion to order Sands to post bond

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- District Judge Michelle Leavitt denied a motion Monday that would have ordered Las Vegas Sands Corp. to post a bond on a $58.6 million judgment against the casino operator won by Hong Kong businessman Richard Suen following at six-week trial last spring. After a brief hearing, Leavitt said she didn't believe Las Vegas Sands was in financial trouble despite the current global economic crisis. Attorney John O'Malley of Los Angeles, who represents Suen, said Las Vegas Sands' failure to list any reserves to cover the verdict, a more than 90 percent decline in the company's stock price in the past year, and a $475 million cash infusion into the company by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sheldon Adelson on Oct...read more

Playing It Smart: Saving a buck at the casino

Sir William Thompson, aka Lord Kelvin, a 19th Century Scottish engineer, said, "When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind." Few things are more definitively measured and expressed in numbers than money and probabilities...read more