Posts Tagged ‘casino’
Las Vegas-Style Casinos Could Come to Florida
January 12th, 2011
Can you imagine a casino on this beach? One Florida state senator can.
The state of Florida has experienced a poker renaissance since changing its laws on the game last summer. Now there’s a good chance that the state could be become the next Nevada as legislators prepare to consider a bill that would bring full-on casinos to Florida.
State Senate President Mike Haridopolos authorized a report last year on the possible revenues that could be collected if Florida were to legalize full Las Vegas-style casinos. Yesterday that report was presented to the Regulated Industries Committee chaired by Sen. Dennis Jones, who is currently drafting legislation that would allow the state to build “destination casinos.” The committee heard about the results in 13 other states that approved expanded gambling options, such as the $1 billion generated in Pennsylvania and the $500 million collected by Louisiana each year. It also heard from lobbyists for the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and Wynn Resort Casinos, each of which is interested in building casinos with attached convention and retail properties. Vegas-style casinos would create some 5,000 to 7,000 jobs at each location, for a ceiling of 35,000 new jobs in the state.
Jones’ legislation, which would allow Florida to build four or five casino resorts offering a full range of Las Vegas-style casino games including slot machines, blackjack, baccarat and craps in addition to poker, is expected to be ready in about two weeks. Currently only some of those games are permitted in the state, and even then the locations where they can be offered are highly regulated. Casino companies would have to pay $50 million just to bid for the right to build a casino in the state; in return the winning bidder would receive an exclusive contract to operate casino games in a 75-mile radius.
Earlier this week Haridopolos said he thinks the chances of the legislature approving expanded gambling this year are about even money. However, some fellow legislators think that the state’s compact with the Seminole tribe would prevent non-Indian casinos from being built, while others are convinced the state would have to pass a constitutional amendment to allow to construction of the casinos. The uncertainty means there will be plenty of debate on the bill, but the possibility is an exciting one for those who hate taking a long flight to Las Vegas to get their gamble on.
2010 November Nine Reuniting at Foxwoods
January 10th, 2011
Foxwoods is getting the band back together – and you’re invited to come along.
Normally it takes a stroke of luck to get more than one former WSOP Main Event finalist at the same poker table. Next month, though, all nine of last year’s finalists will reunite at the Foxwoods Resort Casino.
Last year’s November Nine – Jonathan Duhamel, John Racener, Joseph Cheong, Filippi Candio, Michael Mizrachi, John Dolan, Jason Senti, Matt Jarvis and Soi Nguyen – are being reassembled as part of Foxwoods’ Mega Stack Challenge XIX, which runs from February 4th to the 13th. They will all serve as hosts for the tournament series, but more interestingly, they will all play in a three-table reunion tournament against winners of a series of satellite tournaments to be held at the casino from January 11th to February 3rd. The reunion tournament is scheduled for February 8th in the newly opened Foxwoods tournament room.
“We are thrilled to host these poker superstars at Foxwoods and are proud to be a part of such a historic event,” said Terry Chiaradio, director of Poker Operations at Foxwoods. “We are pleased to be able to share this reunion of the 2010 November Nine with not only the Foxwoods players, but also the entire poker community.”
This isn’t the first time Foxwoods has welcomed members of the November Nine to its property for one of its signature tournament series. Duhamel, the reigning world champion, hosted the Mega Stack Challenge last fall, and 2009 WSOP Main Event runner-up Darvin Moon has also played host at the Connecticut casino’s tournament series in the past.
Trial Underway For Poker Player Accused of Murder
January 5th, 2011
Ernest Scherer III’s defense attorney says police targeted his client without any physical evidence tying him to the murder of his parents.
The trial of former professional poker player Ernest Scherer III, who stands accused of murdering his parents in 2008 in order to gain an inheritance of more than $1 million, began yesterday in a California court.
The prosecution gave its opening statements on Tuesday. Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Michael Nieto painted Scherer III as a shady character who habitually deceived those around him, fell behind on mortgage payments for a house his parents had purchased for him, and sought female companionship through Craigslist ads despite being married. He told jurors that he will call a long list of witnesses to testify against Scherer III, including authorities who answered the initial emergency call from his parents’ home; an employee who oversaw the washing of Scherer III’s car in the days following his parents’ deaths; casino employees who knew Scherer III; Scherer III’s grandfather, sister and ex-wife; and an automotive expert who can match Scherer III’s vehicle to the one in the surveillance footage from his parents’ home.
Scherer III’s defense attorney, Richard Foxall, delivered his opening statements earlier today and told jurors that police targeted his client without considering any other suspects despite the complete lack of any physical evidence tying Scherer III to the crime. Foxall discounted the theory that Scherer III committed murder to gain his inheritance, noting that his client’s sister also stood to inherit money in the event of their parents’ deaths. He also noted that much of the evidence that prosecutors will present – including his Google searches for countries without extradition treaties and information on buying a gun in Mexico – is purely circumstantial and only ties his client to the crime if his guilt is presupposed.
The trial of the former professional poker player is expected to continue for the next few months.
Cake Poker January Promotions
January 5th, 2011
The Diamond Mine $40K Tournament Series, Irish Open 2011 Satellites, WAR Freerolls and Turbo Gold Cards will be served up for Cake players throughout January.
Diamond Mine
The Diamond Mine $40,000 Gold Card Tournament Series is debuting on January 10th, and running until January 23rd. The Diamond Mine is similar to a stepladder format tournament series in which each tournament awards seats to the next tournament in the series. Entering the Diamond Mine series does not cost players a thing except for Gold Cards. As players move up in the series they play for progressively larger prize pools and ultimately the $15,000 final. Players who participate in every event of the tournament, from event one through 12, will receive free entry into the $10,000 Flawless Freeroll for their shot at some post-holiday cash taking place on January 22nd.
Turbo Gold Cards
As 2011 series Gold Cards will be quite rare during the first few weeks of January, Cake is also running its popular Turbo Gold Cards in order to increase players’ chances of acquiring the 2011 series cards required to enter the Diamond Mine. Turbo Gold Cards will be distributed at ring game tables at double speed each day from January 10th through January 23rd from 4-5pm EST and 8-11pm EST giving players a great chance to build up their 2011 series Gold Card collections and get in on the $40,000 Diamond Mine. Players can also visit The Exchange, to purchase the cards they require.
Irish Open Satellites
Also in January, Cake kicks off its 2011 Irish Open satellites beginning January 3rd. The Irish Open, rich with history, is the longest running No Limit Texas Hold ‘em poker tournament in Europe and second longest in the world after the World Series of Poker, Las Vegas. Cake is offering its players a shot at a seat at the main event for as little as $1.10 with satellites running daily. Each $7,000 USD prize package includes a main event seat at the Irish Open worth €3,500, a 5 night stay at the Irish Open host venue, The Burlington Hotel, $1,500 USD cash to help with travel as well as an official Cake Poker gear pack.
Daily WAR Freerolls
Additioanly, Cake Poker is now running daily WAR freerolls. Added to the Cake Poker roster earlier this year, WAR is an online multiplayer game, inspired by the all-time classic card game. Each player starts the game with the same ten cards and is forced to out think and out guess their opponents to accumulate the most cards and ultimately, the most points to win the game. Though the game itself is extremely simple, it offers its players amazing depth through strategy and bluffing while also allowing for dynamic interaction between players, and with the introduction of daily freerolls, Cake players can try their hand at making money through this new and exciting offering for free.
News
Lastly, Cake is excited to announce that it has made a strategic decision to expand its casino offering into several new territories. This expansion of the casino product line combined with the recent additions of Cake WAR and Tourney Blackjack further contributes to Cake’s ever increasing gaming options.
For more information on all of Cake Poker’s unique promotions visit us at the Cake Poker Promotions page.
Hard Rock Las Vegas Settles Drug Charges for $650,000
December 31st, 2010
Las Vegas will Rock a little less Hard for the foreseeable future.
The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has a pretty solid reputation as one of Sin City’s premier party places – and it seems it’s a reputation that’s well-deserved if the hotel’s recent settlement with the Nevada Gaming Control Board is anything to go by.
The NGCB accepted a $650,000 settlement with the Hard Rock yesterday over charges that the casino’s employees sold drugs to patrons and let them use private nightclub bathrooms for sex and drug use. Among the charges included in the case against the Hard Rock were that undercover police officers paid security guards $80 to allow them to smoke marijuana in a bathroom, and that they were able to buy cocaine and ecstasy from nightclub hosts on multiple occasions. One such incident reportedly involved a nightclub host arranging the sale of 7.2 grams of cocaine to police officers in exchange for a kickback.
The $650,000 settlement – $500,000 as punishment, $150,000 to reimburse the NGCB and police for their investigation – didn’t require the Hard Rock to admit to the charges, which allowed it to avoid a hearing where its gaming license could have been revoked. However, the casino was required to state for the record that regulators would have been able to prove their case had a hearing been held. Joseph Magliarditi, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino’s CEO, released a statement saying that the hotel takes the issues seriously. “We remain committed to conducting our operations in accordance with all gaming regulatory requirements,” he said.
Poker Replacing Jai-Alai, Racing in Florida
December 29th, 2010
Jai-alai is on its way out in Florida as poker grows in popularity.
Thanks to a few changes to state law that lifted limits on the stakes and hours of its poker rooms, 2010 was a fantastic year all around for poker in Florida. As our favorite card game takes off for new heights that have Time Magazine calling Florida “Vegas By The Sea,” though, sports that once held the betting public’s attention are dying off. The Miami Herald has published a number of features by journalist Linda Robertson lately looking at the impact expanded gambling in general has had on three formerly popular pastimes: dog racing, horse racing and jai-alai.
Jai-alai was imported to the United States from the villages of northern Spain some 80 years ago and became popular enough to draw famous people like Babe Ruth and Eleanor Roosevelt to games. The fronton at Dania once grossed $50 million in bets over the course of a four-month season; today it draws about 25% of that total, and games that once packed 10,000 fans into the seats rarely draw more than a few hundred these days. Meanwhile Dania’s poker room draws more than $105 million in bets each year.
Dog tracks and horse racing operations, also once popular betting options in Florida, aren’t faring much better than jai-alai these days. The state’s 16 dog tracks draw less than half the wagers today that they did 10 years ago and owners would rather upgrade their new poker rooms and casinos than sink money into a dying operation. Horse racing is in similar decline, with revenues down 30 percent over the last decade while the attached “racinos” – casino operations allowed by state law only as long as the racetracks stay open – continue to boom.
Robertson quotes Nova University law professor Bob Jarvis, who says that dog racing and horse racing, like jai-alai, only existed to give people something to gamble on. Now that other, less labor-intensive gambling options are available in Florida – namely casinos and poker – the once-popular sports are on the road to extinction. Until the final day, though, operations continue at the state’s frontons and racetracks.
Rivers Casino Poker Dealer Charged With Theft
December 16th, 2010
Turns out the eye in the sky really is watching the games at Rivers Casino.
A Pittsburgh poker dealer will be looking for a new place to pitch cards after being caught lifting money from the poker tables in the casino where he worked.
Matthew Eisenberg, 25, was charged with theft by Pennsylvania State Police on Wednesday. His scheme involved maneuvering a chip from the pot into the mucked cards at the end of a hand, then dropping the chip into his left hand and into the tip box from there as he prepared the deck to be shuffled again. Police said Eisenberg pulled off his trick 108 separate times in a one-week period late last month, netting $501 in $1 and $5 chips. They know this because – surprise! – the casino’s video surveillance system caught every one of them on tape.
The small-time theft cost Eisenberg his job, and police have reported him to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which will likely suspend his dealer’s license. Police said that while he was not the first Rivers Casino employee to be charged with theft, Eisenberg was the first dealer caught in the act since the casino first opened its poker room back in July of this year. That means it took less than six months for the room to have to fire a dealer for stealing, a bit less than you might expect given how much hassle the dealers had to go through to get their jobs in the first place.
Man Steals $1.5 Million in Bellagio Chips
December 15th, 2010
Las Vegas police released this video of the Bellagio robbery suspect on YouTube.
A gunman robbed a craps table at Bellagio early on Tuesday, making off with $1.5 million in chips from the world-famous casino.
Las Vegas police say that the man, dressed in a leather jacket and full-faced motorcycle helmet, walked into the casino’s pit area around 3:50 a.m. and demanded the chips from the pit crew. The crew complied, giving him chips of numerous denominations, including the $25,000 “flag” chips. Once he had the chips in hand, he fled the casino and sped away on a motorcycle. “It was a very quick, in-and-out type of job,” Lt. Mark Reddon told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Gordon Absher, a spokesman for MGM Resorts International, which owns the Bellagio, noted in a statement to the Las Vegas Sun that casino chips aren’t the same as cash and that they have no monetary value until they are redeemed. Absher also failed to confirm whether or not the Bellagio uses RFID radio frequency devices in its casino chips, meaning that the thief – or whoever buys the chips from him, assuming he can sell them – might be caught the moment he tries to redeem the chips.
The scene at Bellagio was very similar to that of a robbery at the Suncoast poker room just last week, where a man in a motorcycle helmet made away with some $20,000 in chips. That was the ninth casino robbery in Las Vegas this year, making the Bellagio heist the tenth.
Casino Billionaire Spends $330,000 on Two Truffles
November 29th, 2010
What three hundred grand worth of fungus looks like. (photo courtesy of AP)
So what do billionaire casino moguls in Macau do for fun, when they’re not hosting mutli-million dollar cash poker games with Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey? Apparently they spend $330,000 on fungus.
Billionaire Stanley Ho, who made much of his fortune owning hotels and casinos in Macau, came in with the winning bid for two prize white truffles at a charity auction held at his own Grand Lisboa hotel. Both the delicacies are enormous, by truffle standards, with the larger weighing in at nearly two pounds, and the other tipping the scale at just under a pound.
The auction featured sixteen different lots of white truffles and raised almost $400,000 for a variety of charities. White truffles from Italy, the kind Ho bought, are prized for their flavor and aroma. Dogs or pigs are used to sniff them out from where they grow under trees. The two that commanded the most in auction were both found in Italy, one in the central Tuscany region and the other in Molise.
This wasn’t the first time Ho has laid down hundreds of thousands of dollars in pursuit of the giant fungi. Three years ago he paid the same price for a single enormous truffle.
Online Poker Player Wins Florida WPT Event
November 24th, 2010
He can’t legally buy a drink, but he could buy a couple of Ferraris if he wanted to. (Photo: Michael Laster)
Florida is one of the only places in the United States where you don’t have to be 21 years old to play live poker, so it’s no big surprise that a 20-year-old Floridian won the state’s first live tournament with a $5,000-buy-in.
Harrison Gimbel, known to his fellow online poker players as “gibler321,” conquered the Fall Poker Open at the Seminole Hard Rock casino and took home $330,000 for his efforts. Gimbel, who lives in Jupiter, Fla., had to overcome a field of more than 300 players, including a number of experienced poker pros, on his way to the win. Shannon Shorr and Shawn Cunix were among those who made the money, while Gimbel had to fend off Allie Prescott (9th), Raj “BadCardsAA” Vohra (4th), and Fred Goldberg (3rd) at the final table. Gimbel’s even-numbered payout came as the result of a deal with Anthony Ruberto, the second-place finisher who took home an extra $42,000 over what first place was scheduled to pay.
The win is actually the second major victory of 2010 for Gimbel. Back in January he won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, an event noted for its enormous fields packed with tough online poker players, and claimed $2.2 million in the process. Not bad for a guy who won’t be eligible to play in the World Series of Poker until 2012.
The Fall Poker Open was the first WPT Regional Event, a series of tournaments recently announced by the World Poker Tour that will sport the WPT brand but not feature any television coverage. They also apparently won’t feature much in the way of online coverage, so a tip of the hat here goes to Nick Sortal at the Action South Florida Gambling blog, who put in a marathon reporting session to get the info out where the WPT didn’t.
