Featured Articles Archive - Page 545

Echelon delayed, Boyd decision hailed

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- The announcement by Boyd Gaming Corp. on Friday morning that the casino operator will delay construction of its $4.8 billion Echelon project on the Strip for up to a year was met with applause on Wall Street. Company shares, which have been hammered over the past 12 months, rose more than 20 percent on the New York Stock Exchange...read more

Inside gaming: Trying times loom for Sands in Macau

MACAO -- Visa restrictions imposed by the Chinese government that curtail mass-market visitation to Macau hurt Las Vegas Sands Corp. more than any other casino operator. But did Beijing act deliberately to punish Las Vegas Sands? Some observers speculate Chinese leaders are not happy the Beijing government's inner workings were aired in a Las Vegas courtroom last spring during Hong Kong businessman Richard Suen's six-week civil trial against Las Vegas Sands. The company's Venetian Macau, with 3,000 hotel rooms and a 546,000-square-foot casino, needs the casual Chinese visitor from Macau's neighboring provinces to supplement its sizable high-end, junket-fueled customer base...read more

Bits and Pieces from Indian Country - July 2008

Indian gaming numbers for 2007 were released by the National Indian Gaming Commission. Indian gaming is still growing, although the growth has slowed to 5 percent. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act is twenty years old this year and revenues have grown from $200 million to $26 billion...read more

Quick-takes: The month's trends in a glance - July 2008

TAKE ONE Gaming in the United States has matured; growth into new markets is slowing as there are fewer new jurisdictions available for expansion and revenues are flat or declining in the face of a challenging economy. We are all feeling the rising price of gasoline, the tightening of the credit market, a falling stock market, increased unemployment, falling consumer confidence, and an endless series of doom and gloom news stories about the economy...read more

Gaming stocks take beating

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- If this were a fight, it would be stopped on cuts. The average daily stock price of nine of the 10 publicly traded gaming companies charted by a Las Vegas financial adviser recorded double-digit declines in July, continuing a slide that began in March...read more

Tells, cheats, quotes -- three poker books for those who like variety

Looking for variety in poker books? Here are three different, yet each in its own way fascinating, books on the game for players who just can't get enough as they learn or improve on their game. They cover three totally different aspects of the game yet provide plenty of information of value.The books are Poker Face -- Mastering Body Language to Bluff, Read Tells and Win by Judi James (256 pages, paperbound, $14.95), Poker Unchecked by Russ Georgiev (286 pages, paperbound, $29.95) and Essential Poker edited by Graham Sharpe (157 pages, hardbound, $22.95).Since the classic Mike Caro book on body language and tells at the poker table (written 25 years ago), there have been a cluster of titles recently updating tells, alerting you to your own tells and those of your opponents...read more

IRS seizes more than $24 million from payment processors after two-year Bodog probe

A two-year IRS investigation into Bodog has resulted in the seizure of more than 24 million dollars from two payment processors. On January 24 and February 19, 2008, the IRS siezed about $14.2 million from JBL Services, according to court documents filed in federal court in Baltimore...read more

Casino openings cut into Sands profits

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Two casinos that weren't around a year ago helped send the quarterly revenues for Las Vegas Sands Corp. soaring more than 81 percent higher during the three-month period that ended June 30. But costs associated with opening the Venetian Macau last August and the Palazzo in January, along with additional corporate expenses as the company expands its footprint globally, propelled the casino operator to a quarterly loss. Las Vegas Sands said late Wednesday it had a net loss of $8.8 million, or 2 cents a share, in the second quarter...read more

Feist's "Workbook," Steele's "Pro Scorebook" helpful tools

Jim Feist's Football Workbook ($39.95, 8x11 plastic spiralbound, 317 pages) and Phil Steele's Northcoast Sports Pro Football Scorebook ($34.95, 8x11 plastic spiralbound, 320 pages) are two of the chunkiest books serious angle-shooting, record-keeping, statistical-minded bettors will find this year, and each is unique. Feist's book is for both college and pro football bettors, with 10 years of results, spreads and totals (for pros only)...read more

Deal Me In: More and less than you think

Dear Mark: I was looking at your Web site and figured you were a good person to ask. I have noticed that when people are wining a lot, casinos switch dealers on them. Why do they do it, and why in the heck do pit bosses walk around with clipboards marking stuff? Rossco C...read more