Free Republic

Freedom's Watch, a conservative political advocacy group bankrolled mainly by casino owner Sheldon Adelson that poured $30 million into this year's political races, is shutting down. Multiple sources said the board of directors, which includes former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and former Ambassador to Italy Mel Sembler, has decided to close down rather than just scale down post-election. "There are no ifs or buts," said a Republican operative close to the situation. "The board has made the decision to shut the doors." The group had always planned a reduction after the election and up until the Thanksgiving holiday it...

Up to 11,000 workers to lose casino jobs in Macau

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Atlantic City's less-than-two-week-old ban on smoking in casinos will soon end under a change-of-heart measure narrowly approved Monday by the City Council and quickly signed by the mayor. Casinos said the ban cut into their business, while their workers were deeply divided whether its health benefits outweighed the potential economic harm. Some at Monday's meeting shouted "Save Our Jobs!" while others chanted "Save Our Lives!"

Former Las Vegas casino executive and mob-connected sports handicapper Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal has died at his Florida home at age 79. Rosenthal had been living in Miami Beach and died of a heart attack Monday. No funeral services have been scheduled. A sports gambling pioneer, Rosenthal at one time ran the Stardust, Fremont and Hacienda hotel-casinos secretly......

Harrah's Entertainment Inc. has spent millions of dollars for elaborate indoor and outdoor smoking lounges for its four casinos. The Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort and Resorts Atlantic City, on the other hand, won't have any lounges at all. Some casinos seem prepared, some not, for the start of a smoking ban that could last for only three days - or a bit longer - depending on how quickly City Council acts to end the confusion. On Wednesday, Atlantic City is supposed to become the largest casino market in the country to go completely smoke-free. No one will be allowed...

Frank "Lefty'' Rosenthal was a Chicago bookie who was sent to Las Vegas by the mob and helped turned sports betting into a billion-dollar business. The manager of several well-known casinos, his life inspired the Martin Scorsese movie "Casino.'' Rosenthal, 79, died Monday after a heart attack at his Miami Beach condo. Born in 1929 in Chicago, Rosenthal got involved in illegal bookmaking and eventually connected with mobsters. His nickname stemmed from a 1961 Senate hearing on gambling and organized crime at which he invoked the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 38 times. Throughout his testimony, he kept his left...

Wealth breeds 'poverty of soul' Ten years after the casino cash started flowing, the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians' good fortune is on display across the peaceful Capay Valley. Thanks to their Cache Creek Casino Resort – which makes about $300 million a year and is scheduled to expand – each of the 26 adults in the 60-member nation gets about $1 million a year after taxes, more if they're on the tribal council or committees. They get a travel allowance to expand their horizons to Tahiti, Europe or anyplace they desire. They own luxury cars, custom homes on the...

The 72-year-old senator from Arizona is a lifelong gambler, who favours the craps tables, and continues to play today, the New York Times reported. Former campaign officials said they were alarmed that his behaviour would be deeply unpopular with the Christian base of his party. Mr McCain's habit, which appears to take the form of a monthly binge rather than a daily addiction, has never before percolated into standard descriptions of his life and career. However, it could now prove damaging in a very close contest with his Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama. The evangelical wing of the Republican Party...

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings. A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino...

Casinos in Illinois have posted double-digit revenue declines since a smoking ban took effect there in January. And it's not primarily because high air fares stop tourists from visiting the Windy City in search of a game of chance. "The smoking ban is having a major impact," Tom Swoik, head of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, told The Wall Street Journal last week. Share & Save Newsvine Digg Fark Technorati reddit StumbleUpon del.icio.us Slashdot Propeller Mixx Furl Twitter MySpace Facebook Google Bookmarks Yahoo! Bookmarks Windows Live Favorites Ask MyStuff myAOL Favorites What is this? A 2005 research paper by the...

SAN JACINTO, Calif. — With 9 reservations and 10 casinos, Riverside County is a major center of Indian gambling in California. But a standoff between county sheriff’s deputies and leaders of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians has led to an unusual effort to close one of the casinos because of safety concerns. Three Soboba members were killed in gunfights with deputies on the reservation in May, and the authorities say tribal members have shot at deputies in patrol cars and helicopters with high-powered assault rifles over the past nine months. In July, citing what it called heavy-handed treatment by...

Excerpt - Officials say a Harrah's shuttle bus carrying 42 passengers overturned on its way to the Tunica airport near Casino Strip Drive after losing control. According to eyewitnesses there are many injuries and multiple fatalities. ~ snip ~

CHEROKEE, N.C. — Investigators have stopped a cheating ring that stole $286,000 at the Cherokee Indian casino in western North Carolina, a newspaper reported today. No arrests have been made but investigators are questioning a 26-year-old electronic card dealer at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported. Cherokee Indian Police Department Chief Ben Reed said the FBI had been contacted. Arrests are likely . . .

Just a few months ago, images of smiling children, police officers and firefighters filled TV screens and mailboxes across the state, urging voters to support major casino expansions for four Southern California tribes. Gov. Schwarzenegger and other government officials promised that the tribes would help balance the state's troubled budget with an influx of gambling dollars. The casino riches would help protect state funding for schools, police and fire departments, health care and roads, the tribes and their supporters said.

Just a few months ago, images of smiling children, police officers and firefighters filled TV screens and mailboxes across the state, urging voters to support major casino expansions for four Southern California tribes. Gov. Schwarzenegger and other government officials promised that the tribes would help balance the state's troubled budget with an influx of gambling dollars. The casino riches would help protect state funding for schools, police and fire departments, health care and roads, the tribes and their supporters said. Voters approved the deals, but recent signs suggest the promises may not pan out. Deals touted as a sure-fire way...

A federal judge today ruled against the Seneca Nation's Buffalo Creek Casino, saying that casino gambling cannot legally take place on the nine-acre site on Michigan Avenue. U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny, in a 127-page decision, vacated the earlier decision by the commissioner of the National Indian Gaming Commission to allow gambling. It was not immediately clear whether Skretny's ruling will halt construction on the $333 million permanent casino, but it is clear that the temporary casino no longer has the legal right to operate. Skretny ruled that the parcel is indeed Indian country. "However, the court finds that...

Thousands of problem gamblers in have launched a $3.5 billion class action lawsuit in Ontario, saying they were allowed into provincially run casinos despite signing up for a program that should have denied them entry. According to the CBC's website, the suit was filed earlier this week in Toronto, claiming the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. did not fully enforce a "self exclusion" program that allows problem gamblers to ban themselves from casinos. Those who sign up for the program are photographed and their personal information is stored in binders at all of the province's casinos. If program members are...

Beware talk of Dubai being home to the world's biggest hotel. The recently expanded Venetian hotel in Las Vegas now offers 7,000 rooms - topping the 6,500 rooms at the planned Asia Asia in Dubailand. The Venetian's new $2bn, 50-storey Palazzo extension adds two award-winning restaurant franchises and a nightclub run by Jay-Z. In total the hotel now offers 50 restaurants, cafés, bars and banqueting halls can serve 10,000 diners a night. Asia Asia, due to open in 2010, plans for 6,500 rooms (of which 5,100 will be four-star and 1,400 five star), but, with plenty of desert space, could...

RIVERSIDE – The union representing thousands of Riverside County Sheriff's Department employees has recommended people stay away from the Soboba Indian Casino following fatal shootings last month of tribal members by deputies. The Riverside County Sheriff's Association sent an e-mail to its nearly 3,700 members late last week advising them and the public to visit other casinos until the situation at Soboba was “stabilized.” The action was based on safety concerns, union president Pat McNamara said. In early May, three tribe members were killed in shootouts with deputies on the reservation. Sheriff Stanley Sniff announced a few weeks later that...

The Pascua Yaqui Tribe's top casino executive encouraged tribal members to vote early last week by offering free meals at Casino del Sol worth up to $20 per vote. Like laws governing Arizona and federal elections, the tribe's code makes it unlawful to give anything of value to someone as an incentive to vote or to refrain from voting. CEO Wendell Long issued a memo on the eve of early voting for the Tribal Council that urged tribal gaming enterprise employees to clear it with supervisors and then "leave their work post to cast their vote." "As a small token...

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — In recent years, the Trump Marina Hotel Casino has been wasting away in Atlantic City's ultra-competitive casino market, searching for its lost shaker of salt, if you will. Now, it's about to be reborn with a tropical theme under new owners who are bringing singer Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" brand to the Northeast in hopes of reviving a property that had become as listless as the hero of Buffett's hit song. Coastal Marina LLC, an affiliate of Coastal Development LLC, said Thursday it is buying the casino from Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., the casino company founded...

All too familiar with the gambles of war, Jimmy Kinsey, Kyle Riley and a few dozen fellow soldiers landed in the desert. But for these guys this Memorial Day, the most at stake is a few bucks. The soldiers-turned-high rollers took a private jet to Las Vegas over the weekend for an all-expenses-paid getaway with all the perks normally saved for casinos' richest regulars. They were greeted at the airport by Wayne Newton, chilled backstage with the guys from Blue Man Group and hobnobbed with Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who runs Las Vegas Sands Corp. and paid for...

All too familiar with the gambles of war, Jimmy Kinsey, Kyle Riley and a few dozen fellow soldiers landed in the desert. But for these guys this Memorial Day, the most at stake is a few bucks. The soldiers-turned-high rollers took a private jet to Las Vegas over the weekend for an all-expenses-paid getaway with all the perks normally saved for casinos' richest regulars. They were greeted at the airport by Wayne Newton, chilled backstage with the guys from Blue Man Group and hobnobbed with Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who runs Las Vegas Sands Corp. and paid for...

SACRAMENTO – A bipartisan measure that authorizes a large group of California Indian tribes to operate up to 2,000 slot machines each sailed out of the state Senate yesterday despite late opposition from San Diego County. The legislation would redefine terms of 61 compacts negotiated in 1999 to grant each of the tribes up to 2,000 slot machines. That includes local tribes such as Rincon, San Pasqual and Jamul, which are itching to expand or build new casinos. “It's a truth-in-advertising measure,” said Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, a Temecula Republican whose district includes the Rincon and San Pasqual reservations. “The tribes...

snip- He told radio interviewers and a reporter at the golf tournament that the debt stemmed from a wager on the 2008 Super Bowl. He did not explain why Wynn alleged the loans were made in October. "I've been gambling 20 years. I've never had this happen before," the 45-year-old Barkley told WJOX. "It's my fault I let the time lapse. I screwed up." Barkley, now a basketball analyst for Turner Network Television, denied any personal financial problems, and said the casino didn't call him before filing the complaint. "All they had to do is call and say, 'Hey, you...

Democrats are trying to chase from the political playing field a new conservative group expected to spend tens of millions of dollars this year attacking liberal candidates. Using accusations of links to gambling and "forced abortions," the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is striving to make the group, Freedom's Watch, too toxic for Republicans to stomach. "House Republicans and Republican candidates need to decide whether they can afford to partner with Freedom's Watch, a group that embodies the Republicans' culture of corruption by consistently breaking the law and is bankrolled by money that is inconsistent with their values," said Jennifer...

DARTMOUTH, Mass. -- A new gambling study shows some Massachusetts residents who have not supported casinos in the past may be changing their minds. "Fifty-seven percent of Massachusetts residents still favor two or more resort casinos in the state of Massachusetts. That number is actually four percent higher than when we last did this poll in September," said Dr. Clyde Barrow, a public policy analyst at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. The study was funded by a real estate development firm with land interests in the proposed Palmer and New Bedford casino sites. The research showed that as the state's deficit...

The fallout from losing its New Jersey casino license will force the owner of Tropicana casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company said Monday. --- The bankruptcy filing would cover nine properties: The Tropicana Casino & Resort in Las Vegas; Bayou Caddy's Jubilee Casino in Greenville, Miss.; Casino Aztar in Evansville, Ind.; Horizon Casino Hotel in Vicksburg, Miss.; Horizon Casino Resort and the MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa, both in Lake Tahoe, Nev.; the Tropicana Express Hotel & Casino in Laughlin, Nev.; River Palms Resort & Casino in Laughlin, Nev.; and the...

After nearly seven years on the Strip, the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in the Venetian will close its doors May 11. Guggenheim officials made the announcement Wednesday and said the museum will continue to partner with the Venetian on “a number of projects,” but wouldn’t elaborate. The museum will offer free admission beginning Friday until it closes in May. With the closure — and Steve Wynn’s dismantling of his own fine arts gallery — the only remaining Strip art gallery is at the Bellagio, where the effort to bring fine art to the Las Vegas masses began in 1998. The Guggenheim...

The Santa Ysabel casino overlooking Lake Henshaw opened in April to much fanfare, but it has been hampered by a bad economy, wildfires and torrential rains that closed roads leading to it. The San Ysabel Band of Diegueño Indians, which owns the 349-slot gambling hall in North County, has fallen $410,144 behind in payments to the county for sheriff's deputies, prosecutors, ambulance service, fire protection and treatment for problem and pathological gamblers. “It hasn't been what we expected,” Santa Ysabel Tribal Chairman Johnny Hernandez said. “Look at what we've been through. “You just have enough money to keep yourself open....

METROPOLIS, Ill. -- Officials of Harrah's Metropolis riverboat casino claim Illinois' new smoking ban has resulted in the layoff of about 30 jobs at the casino. Casino officials claim guests are spending less on entertainment and making fewer trips because of the ban and the casino suffered a drop in visitation compared to the previous six-month average.

A $100 million campaign has four Indian gambling measures riding a wave of voter support, but a separate proposal to alter legislative term limits desperately needs a life jacket, according to a Field Poll released Sunday. With election day looming on Tuesday, the poll shows that support for the Indian gambling measures has risen consistently in recent weeks, while the term limits measure has fallen dramatically. Propositions 94 through 97, which would allow four wealthy Southern California Indian tribes to add up to 17,000 casino slot machines, is leading by 47 percent to 34 percent, with 19 percent of likely...

A bus carrying about 40 casino workers rolled over and caught fire on an interstate in southern Nevada, authorities said on Thursday. The bus overturned on I-15 near Primm, Nev., just across the state line from California. Four people were airlifted to Las Vegas hospitals in critical condition, and at least 10 others who were injured were transported by ambulance, authorities said, adding that it was "miraculous" that nobody was killed in the accident... The bus rode against the side of the wall until it ended and then fell on its side, bursting into flames.

The developer of the $3 billion Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino says its lender, Deutsche Bank, filed a notice of foreclosure on the property for a construction loan of $760 million that just matured. Developer and owner Ian Bruce Eichner says in a statement that his company is working with Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch to find new investors. Eichner tells The Associated Press in the statement that, "This action by our lender comes as no surprise." He blames challenges in the real estate and capital markets for difficulty in raising capital for the project, which is now under construction. The...

DOYLE BRUNSON (left) is a poker legend. Twice winner of the game's most prestigious annual tournament, the World Series of Poker (WSOP), held in Las Vegas, the cowboy-hat-clad southerner affectionately known as Texas Dolly also wrote what many consider to be the bible of poker theory, “Super System: A Course in Power Poker”. His reputation among card-shufflers borders on the superhuman. Indeed, after fighting off supposedly terminal cancer in the 1960s, he celebrated his return to the cardrooms with 53 straight wins. Adding to the mystique, both of his World Series titles were won with exactly the same cards: a...

The son of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was sentenced to three months in federal prison Friday for his role in conspiring to cheat the Nooksack River Casino out of more than $90,000. Jacob Nickels was one of 24 people charged in May in connection with a multistate casino-cheating scheme in which bribed employees dealt pre-recorded, unshuffled playing cards. Teams of swindlers, led by members of a San Diego-area family, fanned out to 18 casinos around the country to execute the "false shuffle" scam in games of blackjack and mini-baccarat. Prosecutors say the ring cheated casinos out of millions of dollars....

A T-shirt produced by a North Dakota business at tempting to poke fun at the UND Fighting Sioux logo con troversy has inflamed ten sions on an already sensitive issue. The shirt, which James town, N.D.-based Orriginals Inc. began printing about a week ago, includes the words: "No Sioux Logo No Sioux Ca sinos!" It also features UND's Indian head logo with the words: "Hostile and Abusive," and plots out the location of three casinos in North Dakota and South Dakota, which it describes as "Destructive and Addictive."

Woman, 65, Furious Over Treatment At Yonkers Raceway YONKERS (CBS) ― A great-grandmother from Mount Vernon is filing suit for allegedly being strip searched at the Yonkers Raceway casino. As CBS 2 HD has learned, the angry woman says it was over a winner's slip that was missing. Myrna Jones is appalled at the way she was treated. "I felt just humiliated, embarrassed," Jones said. The 65-year-old said it was 13 months ago Monday when she was with friends at the Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway. She was playing video slot machines. Jones says she was playing $1 slot...

Set at the extravagant Endless Horizons Hotel in Durban, African Palace Online Casino hosted a sparkling event to celebrate Danielle Kok's massive win by handing over one of the biggest payouts ever won at a South African Online Casino. Danielle was browsing the Beeld website in search of employment when she decided to "dabble in a little casino fun." Never a gambler by nature she followed a link to African Palace Casino and decided to experiment with the progressive jackpots. She used the R100 deposit given to her by the casino as her starting point and began her gaming adventure...

For about an hour last August, Gary Hoffman was a very lucky man. Hoffman was playing the nickel slot machines at the Sandia Resort and Casino on an Indian reservation in New Mexico when he appeared to hit the jackpot: the machine said he won nearly $1.6 million. "I became ecstatic," he said. But the ecstasy was short-lived. Hoffman says in a lawsuit filed earlier this year that Sandia refused to pay, claiming that the machine malfunctioned. Instead, he said, they gave him about $385 and a few free meals at the casino. "I won money, fair and square, and...

For about an hour last August, Gary Hoffman was a very lucky man. Hoffman was playing the nickel slot machines at the Sandia Resort and Casino on an Indian reservation in New Mexico, when he appeared to hit the jackpot: the machine said he won nearly $1.6 million. "I became ecstatic," he said. But the ecstasy was short-lived. Hoffman says in a lawsuit filed earlier this year that Sandia refused to pay, claiming that the machine malfunctioned. Instead, he said, they gave him about $385 and a few free meals at the casino.[snip]..... [snip]Regardless, a jury may never get chance...

Wanted: Smart, outgoing and energetic men and women to serve drinks and food at a new downtown St. Louis casino. All the better if you have modeling, acting, dancing, singing or cheerleading experience. Oh, and one other thing: It never hurts to be pretty. Las Vegas-based Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. is in the midst of a massive hiring spree to fill some 1,200 jobs needed to run its $495 million Lumière Place when it opens in December. But none of the jobs will attract as much attention as the so-called Ladies and Gents of Lumière.

A Colorado Springs couple is complaining that U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn left them two threatening voice mails after they wrote a letter criticizing his fundraising. Jonathan Bartha and Anna Bartha told The Denver Post that Lamborn said there would be "consequences" if they did not withdraw their letter. Lamborn, in a call to The Associated Press, said he had never intended to threaten anyone and just wanted to warn them that they would embarrass themselves with a false claim that he accepted campaign funds from the gambling industry.

Colorado Springs - Rep. Doug Lamborn left two voice mails at the home of a couple who questioned his acceptance of campaign contributions from the gambling industry, saying there would be "consequences" if the couple did not respond. Jonathan and Anna Bartha wrote a letter printed in the Aug. 24 Woodmen Edition, a community newspaper. The couple raised concerns about Lamborn's receipt of $1,000 from International Game Technology PAC and a $500 contribution last summer from Marc Murphy, an executive of Bronco Billy's Casino in Cripple Creek. IGT makes gambling equipment. Jonathan Bartha, 34, is employed by Focus on the...

CHICAGO - Do you believe "The Clown" or an admitted hit man? Jurors will have to decide when they begin deliberations Tuesday in Chicago's biggest mob trial in years. They got the case Thursday night after prosecutors made a last pitch to sway them to believe the testimony of their star witness, admitted hit man Nicholas Calabrese. Defense lawyers have pegged Calabrese as "a walking piece of deception" whose testimony shouldn't be believed, even suggesting that if Calabrese says it's raining, someone ought to go outside to check. But prosecutors say it's the five men on trial who can't be...

A holding company for the Persian Gulf state of Dubai has laid down a big marker on the Las Vegas Strip _ a $5 billion investment that gives it a chunk of MGM Mirage and 50 percent of a massive entertainment complex the casino operator is building. Dubai World will pay $2.7 billion for half of the 76-acre CityCenter complex under construction in the heart of the Strip, and buy up to $2.4 billion in MGM Mirage Inc. stock, the company said Wednesday.

ELIZABETH, Ind. - A Kentucky man who was playing slot machines at the Caesars Indiana casino claims he sat in a chair soaked with urine left by a gambler who had just exited the seat. Floyd Kibiloski, 60, of Fern Creek, Ky., filed a complaint with the Indiana Gaming Commission, saying a woman who had been playing the slot machine moments earlier had urinated in the chair at the southern Indiana casino. "My whole concern is that they fix this," he told The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky. "It's not apparent that they have anything in place to deal with this...

Structure Collapse Reported at Fontainebleau Aug 6, 2007 07:41 PM PDT Three floors of the Fontainebleau construction project collapsed around 10:30 Monday morning near the Las Vegas Strip. Firefighters from three departments rushed to the scene to help with rescues. Fortunately, all of the construction workers escaped without injury. Eyewitnesses say they heard a noise and saw plumes of dust coming from the structure but they didn't know what had happened. This is the second incident at the construction site in less than a week. Last Thursday, a worker was killed after he fell from a beam. The Fontainebleau is...

Two people were wounded in a Las Vegas Strip casino Saturday after a man knocked down in a fist fight retrieved a gun and opened fire, police reported. The gunshots rang out soon after a fight involving several people began about 4 a.m. near an elevator leading to a parking garage at the Caesars Palace hotel-casino, said Officer Ramon Denby of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. "Blows were landed, one guy was knocked to the floor," Denby said. "The gentleman who was knocked to the floor got into the elevator, went upstairs and got a firearm." The man returned...