OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – Washington state gambling regulators on Friday approved new compacts with 27 tribes that will allow thousands more slot-style machines in reservation casinos.

Although the deal now seems certain, state House Republicans decried what they called the largest expansion of gambling in state history and urged the Bush administration to reject the compacts.

The state Gambling Commission voted 5-3 to approve the new pacts, which include a major expansion of the machines and the gambling income to the tribes, but also place a limit on the number of casinos and require tribes to help finance problem-gambling and smoking-cessation programs.

After the compacts are signed by the tribes, they go to Gov. Chris Gregoire, whose office helped negotiate on behalf of the state. After she signs them, the tribes will send them to the U.S. Interior Department for approval.

The full process is expected to take about four to six months.

“On balance, we think this is a good place for the state to operate for a period of years,” said Tom Fitzsimmons, the governor’s chief of staff and a central figure in the negotiations. “The governor has signaled that she will sign them.”

The new compacts, dubbed X2 because they are amendments to the original compacts, expand the number of electronic slot machines from 18,225 to a maximum of 27,300. They cap the number of casinos, but give tribes authority to stay open around the clock and to offer higher stakes games.

Tribes now are allowed to operate 675 gambling machines, although the Muckleshoot, Tulalip and Puyallup tribes are allowed to lease or purchase as many as 3,000 terminals. The new compacts allow most tribes to have as many as 975 machines. The other three tribes will able to expand to 3,500 and, after three years, to 4,000.

The tally, while larger than the current level, is substantially below the 39,000 machines tribes originally expected in the 1990s, Fitzsimmons said.

The deal largely reflects the groundwork done in a sweeping new compact with the Spokane Tribe of Indians.

The Legislature, which has four voting members on the nine-member commission, has no veto over the pacts, but took generally favorable testimony at a joint House-Senate hearing on Thursday.

Lawmakers took no formal position.

Late Friday, House Republicans renewed their call for a legislative veto over expansion of tribal gambling. Rep. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, the deputy leader, asked the government to block the deal.

“The U.S. Department of Interior is our last chance to prevent the largest expansion of gambling in state history. The process has been moving like a freight train and we want to slow it down so we can fully weigh the social implications of the governor’s decision.

“We don’t think people fully understand what is coming down the track, and when they do, it is going to be a big surprise unfortunately.”

The Republicans also questioned whether campaign contributions from the tribes to the Democrats have affected the state’s position. Fitzsimmons flatly rejected that, saying neither he nor the Gambling Commission staff have considered tribes’ contributions when deciding gambling policy.

“Reasonable views differ on whether this is an expansion of gambling or not, but I really don’t think it’s right to politicize a delicate and complex set of negotiations,” he said in an interview.

Republican King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, a frequent critic of gambling, has endorsed the deal because of the limits that are included in the negotiated compacts.

The commission’s vote came at the earliest possible date, and reflected little dissent. Two of the three opponents, state Rep. Richard Curtis, R-Battle Ground, and former Sen. Janice Niemi, D-Seattle, complained that the compacts don’t require the tribes to share profits with the state. Gregoire previously said she doesn’t want to rely on expansion of gambling balance the state budget.

Ron Allen, chairman of the Washington Indian Gaming Association, recently called the agreement a fair compromise.

Tribal machines have more than tripled in the past 15 years and tribal gambling accounts for an estimated $1.2 billion of the $1.8 billion gambling industry in the state.

Everest Casino has announced that a Swiss player has scooped a huge online jackpot while playing the casino’s Space Ace video slot machine. The player, only known as R.L., won $101,999.84 on a $9 bet placed on March 4.
‘We’ve had a number of remarkable jackpot strikes of late and I couldn’t be happier about it,’ said Eduardo Santos, Everest Casino’s property manager. ‘Not only do our players walk away with a great cash prize, but people can see that Everest Casino players win big.’
Space Ace is just one of over a dozen online video slots games offered by Everest Casino. Featuring state-of-the-art graphics and sound, Space Ace offers players the real casino experience of a top-flight video slot machine without the player leaving their home.
Familiar science fictions symbols such as galaxies, planets, stars, and comets are used in this online video slot machine. Bonus rounds in Space Ace allow players to plunder planets and scatters give you free spins with doubled prizes. Space Ace also offers an Everest Casino exclusive that lets players gamble their winnings to double or even quadruple the received prize.
‘Players respond to our online video slot machines for a reason,’ Santos added. ‘They offer one of the most exciting gaming experiences online. There are many online casinos, but Everest provides the best, most authentic experience to its players.’

AUSTIN — Big resorts with full casinos, shops and restaurants could be built in up to a dozen Texas cities under legislation proposed Thursday by two high-profile senators and backed by major gambling interests.
Voters ultimately would have the say on the proposed constitutional amendment legalizing casino gambling.
A main selling point of the plan, the legislators contend, is a provision that would dedicate $1 billion per year to a fund to pay for eligible Texans to attend a community college or public university.
Sen. John Carona, a Dallas Republican, and Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat, sponsors of the legislation, both said they aren’t gamblers themselves. But they said casinos in Texas would slow the flow of gambling money leaving the state. They also said “destination resort casinos” will attract tourism money for related activities, like high-end entertainment.
“Texans are already voting with their feet and going out of state,” Ellis said. “It’s time for Texas to reap the economic benefits and use that revenue to help Texas students go to college.”
It hasn’t been determined which cities would get the casinos. A gaming commission appointed by state leaders would decide which developers receive permits to operate them.
The Ellis-Carona proposal would provide $1 billion per year for a trust fund to pay for college tuition covering about 240,000 students once the program is fully running. Details on who would qualify would be worked out by state officials, but roughly it would cover scholarships for the students who had a combined SAT score of 1,000 or above, said economist Ray Perryman, who conducted studies for the proposal.
Perryman said casino gambling would create up to 400,000 new jobs and generate $3 billion to $4.5 billion in state and local revenue.
Proponents say Texans already spend about $10 billion per year gambling, some of it in other states and some of it illegally in Texas through eight-liners and on the Internet.
The proposed constitutional amendment, if approved by Texas voters, would allow for 12 casino gambling sites _ seven in urban areas, two along the Gulf coast and three on Indian reservations. It also would legalize video slot machines at horse and dog race tracks.
Opponents predict the casino legislation will go the same place similar bills have gone before _ nowhere.
“They just warm this baby up and roll it out every session,” said Suzii Paynter, director of the Baptist lobby’s Christian Life Commission. “Why would we go for such a bad deal?”
Paynter said the state would get a far lower return on casino gambling than it does on the state lottery and that, despite talk of tourism, casinos depend heavily on addicted gamblers and a large percentage of gamblers who come from within a 50-mile radius.
There’s a stronger public relations effort associated with this gambling proposal and a new promise of college scholarships, said Paynter, but she expects there will be the same firm opposition in the Legislature seen in recent sessions.
“Texas doesn’t need this. We have great economic development in our state, and we bring businesses to our state that are built on a family friendly business model,” she said.
Ellis and Carona, along with the powerful Texas Gaming Association that backs their plan, said this is an opportunity to enhance Texas tourism and boost the state and local economies.
If the constitutional amendment is approved by statewide voters, local voters would also have to approve any casino project.
The key to success of casino gambling in Texas is doing it in a comprehensive fashion, said Jack Pratt of Dallas, a former hotel and casino developer who chairs the Texas Gaming Association.
“There’s only one way to develop this business, and that is with large destination resorts,” Pratt said. Those casinos would pull business away from neighboring states’ casinos, he said.
Other gambling bills are also pending at the Capitol.
Legislation by Rep. Ismael “Kino” Flores, a Palmview Democrat, would allow video slots at Texas race tracks and on Indian reservations.
Ellis and Carona said they would be working closely with Flores. They said they would oppose a gambling measure that allows only video slot machines at tracks without establishing full resort casinos.
On Thursday, Rep. Jose Menendez, a San Antonio Democrat, filed legislation seeking to regulate poker in Texas. It would allow up to four live or electronic poker tables at establishments meeting certain requirements and would allow charitable poker.

State regulators are to some extent accepting the word of casino operators about the take from thousands of coinless slot machines on which millions of dollars in state revenue are based, a Division of Special Revenue official acknowledged.

But Michael Janusko, the assistant chief of the division’s integrity assurance unit, also said he is “comfortable” with how the state verifies the casinos’ haul, calling its methods comparable to those of regulatory agencies in other states.
“We really have a really good take on how much money is coming out of those slot machines,” he said. “We’re comfortable with the way we get the information.”

The official’s comments came in response to questions raised by some division employees concerning the newly implemented “ticket in/ticket out” system under which slot machine players who win are rewarded with a paper voucher instead of coins.

Connecticut is home to two of the world’s biggest casinos that reportedly together operate about 13,000 slot machines.

More than $5.3 billion went into “selected video facsimile/slot machines” at the Foxwoods Resorts Casinos in Ledyard between July 2006 and January 2007, when players won $472.2 million, division data show.

The state, entitled to 25 percent of that amount, took in $118 million.

Players over the same period deposited $6.3 billion in video facsimile/slot machines at the Mohegan Sun casino in Montville, winning $543.7 million, the data show.

The state’s share was $135.9 million.

The Mohegan Sun casino announced last week that all of its slot machines would be coin-free by May 1, and Foxwoods is expected to be coinless by year’s end.

The division employees, who insisted on anonymity because they fear retribution, said the ticket in/ticket out system eliminates the use of casino personnel to sell change and fill the hoppers on slot machines, but poses an accounting problem.

They said that while the division can review computer tapes of those transactions, there is only occasional audit testing, which is done “after the fact.”

The employees also charged that the division has not assigned accountants on a regular basis to either Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun and that there are no routine, daily checks on the system. Division accountants do conduct random audits, they said, but only after the fact.

Finally, the employees questioned why the division doesn’t have 24-hour staffing at the casinos, saying the Mohegan Sun sometimes does “drops and buys” – in which money is emptied from machines and added up in the counting room – when no division “liaison officers” are present.

Janusko confirmed that no division accountants are assigned to either casino on a regular basis, saying that instead there are “liaison officers up there close to 24/7.”

He said some of those officers may have financial backgrounds or experience, but that they were regular personnel and “not accountants.”

Asked if some were present at the casinos at all times, Janusko demurred, saying he couldn’t “speak to that” because the liaison officers came from a different unit than his.

“They try to keep everyone on, but with the staff they have it is not always a possibility,” he said.

Janusko said division auditors, on the other hand, “go out in the field on a monthly basis, for three or four days a month,” and that they “randomly sample days” at the casinos.

“It might be anywhere from five to 10 days of activity,” he said. “They look at some reports on the tickets that have been redeemed or issued, making sure the information on those reports is matching up with what’s on their ledgers.”

Janusko said it was “maybe partially fair” to say that the state was taking the casinos’ word about how much money was generated by their slot machines.

“We have access to the system reports on how much the ‘tickets in/tickets out’ are,” he said. “We’re certainly not looking at anything in real time, but we’re probably auditing a couple of months after the fact.

“We’re verifying what they have reported – the initial amounts are reported by the casinos and we verify.

“We’re happy doing it this way,” he added. “I guess from an auditing perspective I think it’s pretty consistent with the way other regulatory bodies do it, as far as I know.”

Since online casinos began over 10 years ago, women have grown part of the internet gambling industry. Research shows that they continue to grow in number. As more babes play at online casino websites, more of them join the distinguished club of online casino winners. All right!

Research of women’s gambling habits reveals that women prefer gambling small amounts rather than risking high amounts. They still, however, go after the great prizes that online casino sites offer, just as men do if not more than men. Betting small amounts of as little as a single dollar (or euro, or pound for that matter) may win them prizes upwards of 50,000 dollars, sometimes much higher. Fast games such as Wheel of Fortune and Monopoly that make them fast and big winners are often what women look for at online casino sites.

And so, as women play more – they win more! Women make up about 70 percent of online casino members today. They also make up about the same percent of online casino winners. As gambling becomes more popular among women and word of their winnings spreads, stories of female online casino winners will be heard around the world.

Con la febbre del gambling che per arrivare all’apice per il capodanno in Grecia, fonti hanno detto che si prevede che i greci abbiano giocato circa 8,5 milioni Euro quest’anno con sempre più alte spese nei casinò, sulle lotteria di OPAP e giochi illegali online.

Circa 3 milioni di Euro saranno spesi in tutti i nove casinò del paese nel 2007 mentre il fatturato annuale da OPAP, una delle ditte più grandi quotata nella Borsa di Athene è circa 3,5 milioni di Euro. Si prevede che il numero degli ospiti che vanno ai casinò raddoppieranno durante la stagione festiva.

Le statistiche mostrano che il Loutraki casino, ad ovest di Athene, è stato visitato da circa 3.000 persone al giorno ma la cifra aumenta a circa 5.000 intorno a Natale.

Allo stesso tempo gli scommettitori al gambling elettronico illegale spendono quasi 1,5 milioni all’anno al loro passatempo. Le puntate illegali su Internet hanno vinto più ammiratori visto che danno migliori ricompense di OPAP e l’opportunità di scommettere su solo una partita – che aumenta la probabilità di vincere.

Il numero delle persone che giocano [ai gioci illegali] è minore di quelle che giocano ai giochi legali, ma le somme delle scommesse sono più alte, ha detto un superiore della polizia.

Tanti proprietari delle agenzie di scommessa pare stiano aiutando ad aumentare lo sviluppo del gambling elettronico illegale accettando puntate dalla loro clinetela affidabile e poi trattando la puntata loro stessi per una commissione del 4 percento. La fonte dalla polizia ha aggiunto che un proprietario su dieci fa cosi.

Il nuovo film di James Bond, Casino Royale sarà esotico, ma non ci sarà nessuna Moneypenny, nessun Q e niente dispositivi. Ci sarà M. e, certamente ci saranno sempre belle ragazze.

Daniel Craig ha detto “Volevamo un’attrice che prendesse la parte della ragazza di Bond con l’attitudine da – dobbiamo capovolgere il ruolo -”.

Chi lo sa,che tipo di film avrebbero fatto se fossero riusciti ad ingaggiare le persone che avevano inizialmente scelto, che il direttore Martin Campbell conferma includeva sia Angelina Jolie che Charlize Theron. Ma Craig insiste che in Eva Green, la sensuale, seria attrice francese che ha fatto la stella per il film The Dreamers (2003) e Kingdom of Heaven (2005), hanno trovato la persona adatta.

“Lei è straordinariamente bella,” dice l’attore, “che è perfetto per questo perché in realtà non sappiamo chi lei veramente sia. C’è un buon attrito. E secondo me, è più provocante che ‘Ciao, Come sta?’ ‘ho freddo’ ‘Ebbene andiamo a letto, cara”

Ovviamente, non c’è nessuno con il nome di Kissy o Onatopp in Casino Royale. Ma quanto sono cambiate le cose per le altre due ragazze di Bond?

Da quando l’industria del gambling online è stata mirata dal governo di Stati Uniti, quale sono le probabilità per l’industria negli Stati Uniti?

Ecco una breve dettagliata analisi degli eventi:

L’arresto di Peter Dicks (il presidente non esecutivo di Sportingbet) in settembre.

L’arresto di David Carruthers (CEO di BetonSports) in luglio.

Un progetto di legge passato nella camera bassa degli Stati Uniti che proibisce alle banche e alle ditte di carta di credito di trattare pagamenti ai siti di gambling su internet all’estero.

Direi che questi sono colpi forti da parte del governo americano nella lotta contro il gambling sull’internet.

L’arresto e le accuse contro Carruthers hanno causato la chiusura degli affari di BetonSports per lo meno temporaneamente con la sua base di clienti americani.

Dall’altra parte,Dicks, la cui ditta Sportingbet dice che non accetta scommesse per telefono, è stato accusato secondo resoconti sotto la legge di Louisiana per gambling tramite computer. Adesso è stato liberato ed è nel Regno Unito.

I membri dell’ American Gaming Association, come MGM Mirage, adesso dicono che vogliono operare I propri siti di gambling per proteggere I loro affari dalla competizioni straniere. Gambling Online, legale o no, è trincerato nel terreno americano, a dispetto dei troppo entusiasti pubblici ministeri.

The media coverage of the banning of online casinos in the USA has been ongoing. But the online casino industry doesn’t remain idle. While some US government officials see the recent developments as a big success, it is safe to say that the internet casino industry is in no way going to stop. The US government knows that it is a hard job to ban online casino games from its many US fans, which is why those in the government opposing the online casino industry have chosen some alternatives in which to practice the ban… by forbidding US gamblers from using credit cards in order to take care of their online casino funds.

In that way, the dirty work is handed over to the banks who aren’t too happy with this. However, you don’t have to be a genious to know that there are so many other ways around this. For example, there are the more traditional form of checks and wire transfers to the more advanced forms of payment such as Ecocard which is a virtual debit card and Netteler, both offering a secure and advanced method of payment very popular through the net.

The online casino industry is not based in the US, but scattered safely around the Caribbean, Europe and Central America were privately owned online casino companies don’t seem to be too worried. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is looking at putting pressure on the US government to cancel the new law restraining banks and credit companies from transmitting online casino gambling funds. Their claim is that the new US legislation exempts US based online betting companies from these restraints, while specifically targeting foreign online casinos. Lawyers presenting Antigua and Barbuda even claim that the new laws may bring much complaints from the European Union as well.

In the time since the US Congress decided to pass the Internet Gambling law, online gaming group PartyGaming has announced that it will cancel its dividend which was due to be paid at the end of this month.

The world’s biggest internet gambling company said that it had decided to cancel the interim dividend of three cents a share in order to spend the money, a total of £64 million, on acquisitions.

The company, which derives 90 percent of its revenues from the US through sites such as sportsbetting.com and betonusa.com, said that the ‘material adverse change’ to its business from the new law could put it in ‘technical default’ of its loan agreement.