Gambling Blog

Donald Trump is currently scouting out locations in Massachusetts for a new casino resort, it has been reported.

According to the Boston Globe, the gaming and property mogul and his team have been checking out a number of possible locations across the state for a proposed luxury resort.

At present, the list of likely sites has been whittled down to just 12 locations, including waterfronts in Fall River, New Bedford and Warren.

In addition, executives from Trump’s resort development arm have also met with the mayors of the towns of Chicopee and Holyoke.

At the start of this month it was reported that shares in Trump Entertainment Resorts fell by as much as 15 per cent in value after a planned deal with the Baltimore developer Cordish Co for a new $200 million casino close to Indianapolis fell through.

Industry experts cite increased competition from nearby New York and Pennsylvania gaming venues for the continued stunted performance of Trump’s Atlantic City casinos.

Tennis legend Boris Becker has been unveiled as the latest celebrity ambassador for PokerStars.

The 40-year old will not only represent the online gaming operator in both live and internet tournaments, but he will front a new television advertising campaign across Europe.

However, in comparison to his on-court skills, the German’s poker-playing abilities remain limited, meaning he will be embarking upon a rigorous training program prior to his PokerStars debut at the European Poker Tour (EPT) tournament in the German city of Dortmund.

“When I was still playing professional tennis, I started learning to play poker casually in-between games because it helped me to improve my concentration,” the ace explained.

“Now I want to develop my poker skills and challenge myself to become really competitive at the highest levels in poker.”

Becker joins former World Series of Poker champions Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem and Greg Raymer, as well as high-ranking pro Daniel Negreanu, on the all-star team. 

A massive Las Vegas-style casino resort and theme park is to be built in the Spanish region of Aragon, it has been revealed.

The £12.2 billion development, which will dwarf the European Disneyland in neighboring France, will include 32 hotels, five theme parks and numerous gaming venues, in addition to a proposed bull ring and a wedding chapel.

According to those behind the project, one of the parks will take its inspiration from the James Bond franchise.

Spyland will feature up-market gaming spaces modeled on those seen in the recent Casino Royale film, with stars Eva Green and Daniel Craig expected to be invited to the opening ceremony.

“This is going to be a new version of Las Vegas in Europe,” said a spokesman for Aristocrat Technologies, an Australian gaming company involved in the project.

“It’s going to bring lots of jobs. Disneyland Paris will be tiny in comparison.”

The formal plans for the project will be unveiled next month, though rumors of prehistoric and Roman-themed casinos are already rife among gaming industry executives.

The UK casino and bingo operator Rank has turned down an approach from its US counterpart Harrah’s Entertainment, it has been reported.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, the group was effectively offered all of Harrah’s UK-based casinos in return for a 28 per cent stake in its growing operations.

Since the smoking ban came into effect, the profits of all UK gaming operators have been badly hit, with the damage exacerbated by recent limits imposed on the number of slot machines allowed in casinos.

According to reports from within the industry, Rank remains a target for investment, with Malaysia’s Genting also rumoured to be in the running.

The news comes as Harrah’s, which is well-known as the operator behind the World Series of Poker, is in the process of being taken over by equity funds Apollo Management LP and TPG Capital.

Just last year, the gaming giant acquired a stake in the UK casino market through its purchase of London Clubs International.

The Las Vegas gambling tycoon Steve Wynn has announced his intention to expand his empire into Macau.

The 65-year old is seen by many industry observers as having been one of the major reasons behind the transformation of “Sin City” into a high-end family holiday destination thanks to his investment in top-quality restaurants and hotels.

Just last week Wynn’s Las Vegas restaurants received a number of highly coveted stars from the Michelin Guide and now he intends to follow rival operator Sands into the booming Asian market.

Speaking to AFP, Mr Wynn revealed that he plans to “create the most beautiful hotel ever built” in the former Portuguese colony.

“We’re not going to be the biggest, we’re not going to have the most amount of square footage, we’re not going to have the most amount of rooms or the biggest casino or any of that jazz,” he said.

“We’re just going to have the nicest place anybody has ever walked into.”

This summer Las Vegas Sands opened its $1.8 billion Venetian Macau casino, said to be the second-largest building in the world.

Budding poker professionals are to be given a shot at stardom, with MTV currently on the lookout for online gamers to participate in an upcoming show.

With online poker booming across the world, the music station is keen to chronicle the lives of young Americans who spend a large portion of their time online.

Alongside online poker, the True Life show will feature people who have online “lives” in an effort to showcase the unique lifestyles in the US.

Invitations for applications to feature on the show have already been posted on a number of poker sites.

Earlier this week, Absolute Poker, one of the world’s fastest-growing gaming sites, announced that it is to hold a special charity tournament aimed at combating world hunger, poverty and disease.

“When it comes to extreme poverty, too many people on this planet have been dealt a bad hand,” said David Clainer, senior vice president for Absolute Poker.

“We’re inviting poker players to help put an end to poverty through a fundraiser that’s both rewarding and fun.”

A number of Capitol Hill lawmakers have joined the European Union in calling for a rolling back of the legislation regarding online gambling in the US.

Earlier this week the EU’s trade chief, Peter Mandleson, told the European Parliament that compensating gaming operators and WTO members who have lost out due to the ban on internet gambling was the “wrong option”.

Mr Mandleson called for a rolling back of the legislation, with two House of Representatives Committee chairs now joining the campaign.

In a letter sent to President Bush, Barney Frank, the head of the House Financial Service Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, stated: “We are writing to express our interest in considering possible legislative solutions that might restore US compliance with the GATS agreement without renouncing any of our commitments under that agreement.”

Not only would the ban impact upon the domestic economy over the short-term, it could also affect the country’s credibility as a trading partner.

The game of poker continues to become more mainstream across both the US and the world, with the World Series of Poker now recognised as the  11th  most admired sports league in North America.

Despite not yet having the popular following of the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, NHL or the PGA Tour, the world’s leading gaming event was recognised for its achievements as part of a survey commissioned by Milwaukee’s Best Light.

The WSOP was the only poker league to  be  featured in the study, in which NASCAR, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association and the National Hot Rod Association also ranked highly.

Commenting on the recognition, Jeffrey Pollack, commissioner of the WSOP, said: “We’re honored to keep company with the best sports brands in North America.

“Thanks to our players, sponsors, media partners, fans and staff, we’ve entered the mainstream in another new way.”

Further highlighting how far the game has come, the University of California, Los Angeles, recently announced that its official poker club is to start holding regular meetings, with some of the leading experts on the game due to speak to students and other enthusiasts.

The Harrah’s casino in New Orleans is to play host to the largest poker event in the American south for the fourth year running.

The forthcoming World Series of Poker event will feature some of the biggest names in the professional game, including Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith and Phil Gordon.

Kicking off on November 26th and running to December 5th, the Winter Bayou Championship will offer big cash prizes as well as guaranteed entries to the prestigious WSOP 2008 Main Event, to be held, as per usual, in Las Vegas.

“This is our fourth straight year to be part of the World Series of Poker and every year this tournament continues to grow,” said Jim Hoskins, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Harrah’s New Orleans.

“But aside from the great poker action, the best thing we have to offer is warm hospitality, terrific world-class cuisine and entertainment, and all the excitement that comes with visiting the great city of New Orleans.”

Just recently “Jesus” Ferguson won the WSOP Circuit event at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe.

The 44-year old now owns three gold rings as well as five WSOP gold bracelets.

Two former students of the illustrious Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been on the road telling eager audiences of how they fleeced Las Vegas casinos for millions of dollars through their early-90’s card-counting exploits.

Mike Aponte and Dave Irvine were part of a team that made huge wins at the city’s blackjack tables through learning a card counting technique developed by an MIT professor in the 60s.

At their peak they were raking in $500,000 a weekend and, not surprisingly, their story is set to be told in a forthcoming movie starring Kevin Spacey.

However, while card-counting is not illegal in the US, the pair have now joined forces with the country’s casinos and are working with gaming executives to help venues minimise their losses.

Speaking at the recent Global Gaming Expo, held in Las Vegas, Irvine warned that the old MIT method has since been improved upon, meaning casinos are having to work to keep up with the developments.

“We made 99.9 percent of our money counting cards the old-fashioned way,” he told the audience.

“I have a way of beating the casinos with a different twist and that’s what the casinos need to stay up on. I’m not going to tell you what it is.”

Legendary poker player Annie Duke has defended the game at a recent meeting of the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee in the US.
 

Duke represented the Poker Players Alliance at the recent hearing, which featured a range of experts and was called in order to address concerns relating to the apparent inconsistency of America’s internet gambling laws, Gambling News Review reports.
 

“Except where one’s actions directly and necessarily harm another person’s life, liberty or property, government in America is supposed to leave the citizenry alone,” Duke told the committee.
 

She added: “Examples of Congress straying from this principle are legion, but few are as egregious as Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.”
 

Another witness at the hearing made clear that there was no evidence to link internet gambling websites with terrorist money laundering.

Poker expert Daniel Negreanu has revealed some of his poker secrets that could help some players develop the winning edge that they are after.
 

Negreanu is the author of a new book entitled ‘Hold’em Wisdom for All Players’ and he insists that when it comes to tournament poker a successful player need to know how to survive and when to be aggressive.
 

In the early stages of a competition, when stacks are deep and blinds low it is not often worth making an all-in call, but when fewer players are left in the game and the number of hands are limited it is time to start making some more moves, Negreanu suggests.
 

Writing the Falls Church News Press, he explains: “Once you’ve built up your stack to a healthy size, start attacking the weaker players who haven’t made the necessary adjustments to their game. Players still stuck in the survival mode at this stage of the tournament are your primary targets.
 

“It’s at these precise times when great players take their games to another level.”
 

Until 2004, Negreanu was the youngest owner of a World Series of Poker bracelet after he won $169,460 in the 1998 event at the age of 25.

The iconic New Frontier Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip is being demolished to make way for a new mega-resort in the legendary Nevada gambling spot. 

Now reduced to a pile of dust, the destruction of the 16-storey New Frontier Hotel & Casino is part of a massive makeover of the northern Strip and took 1,000lbs of explosives to fell. 

The Wild West-themed resort was only the second casino built on the Strip in the Nevada Desert and the New Frontier Hotel & Casino was the site of Elvis Presley’s Las Vegas debut in 1956, but became known for cheap rooms and cheap entertainment towards the end of its life. 

Developers IDB Group and Elad Group are planning to open a vast new $8 billion complex on the site in 2011 under the Plaza brand. 

The New Frontier Hotel & Casino was the first themed hotel in Las Vegas, spawning numerous copies and playing host to acts as diverse as Wayne Newton, Siegfried and Roy, and Ronald Regan. Opened in 1942, it played with a space age theme before returning to the Wild West. 

A host of glitzy new casino developments are underway in Las Vegas, including the CityCenter from MGM Mirage, Wynn Resorts’ Encore and the Echelon from Boyd Gaming. 

Next year’s Irish Poker Open championship will feature a ladies competition for the first time in the event’s history, it has emerged.