Category: Gambling Feature Stories
Gambling Foundation Blasts AGA for “Runner Runner” Hypocrisy
Gambling 911 – The Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation has come out swinging against the Nevada lobbying group, American Gaming Association (AGA), for its advertisements suggesting the new film “Runner, Runner” is a cautionary tale depicting the ills of an unregulated online gambling industry. The AGA draws parallels with the film and the current offshore betting environment as a means of educating the public and policyholders to the importance of regulation within the US. SPGF says “not so fast”. WATCH OUR FULL INTERVIEWWITH AGA PRESIDENT “Casino operators now hope to expand another key demographic to their base: young people, especially those…
New zip line set to open in Vegas
Gulf News – A new zip line connecting two towers at Las Vegas’s Rio casino is set to open in early November. The VooDoo Skyline at the off-the-Strip casino will start at the patio of the VooDoo Steakhouse on the 50th floor of the Masquerade Tower. Riders will glide to the 20-storey Ipanema Tower and then return to their starting point. The ride covers half a kilometre in 70 seconds. Tickets are $25 (Dh92). Sin City is expecting two more zip lines in the future. A popular ride at downtown’s Fremont Street Experience is being reinvented under the name “Slotzilla,”…
Analyst highlights uncertainty of social gaming sector
iGaming Business – Nick Batram, leisure analyst at KBC Peel Hunt, has told iGaming Business that investors should “tread warily” in the social gaming sector. Speaking after news emerged that mobile games developer King had filed documents for an initial public offering (IPO) in the US, Batram cited the examples of mobile games developers Zynga and Zatikka in explaining why the sector does not guarantee a positive return on investment. “There is a lot of money being invested in social gaming and there is no guarantee of success. Indeed the investment that ‘hard’ gaming companies have made has not delivered…
Has ESPN ruined poker?
Salon – The 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event opened to a pastiche of landmark tournament moments from the last decade starting with, of course, Chris Moneymaker’s serendipitous Main Event win in 2003. Moneymaker – a then 27-year-old poker hobbyist with an easy going countenance – won an online satellite tournament for a $10,000 entry fee to the Main Event, then navigated an 839 person field, “eliminating” various heady professional players on his way to a $2.5 million first place payday. The “Moneymaker Effect” was poker-prozac and ESPN replayed the 2003 Main Event highlights in multiple-hour blocks at all…
Las Vegas is on pace with last year’s visitor volume
Vegas Inc – Las Vegas visitor volume inched upward in August, bringing the total number of travelers to Southern Nevada nearly even with last year over eight months. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported August visitor counts up 0.9 percent to 3.4 million for the month, bringing the 2013 total to 26.7 million. It was the second straight month of monthly percentage increases and the fifth increase in eight months this year. The average daily room rate was up 3.3 percent to $105.47 a night for the month. Strip room rates were up 4.7 percent to $113.70 while…
Slots machines: Appealing to patrons with art design
Las Vegas Review-Journal – Catch a glimpse of it in a crowded casino and Bally Technologies’ “Michael Jackson Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ ” slot machine is striking. It’s tall and housed in a sleek black case, with stereo speakers placed in the connected high-backed player’s chair and classic video of the late pop star playing on high-resolution screens. Impressive. Now take a look at that same slot machine in the uncrowded lobby of Bally Technologies’ Las Vegas headquarters. There, amid comparatively uncluttered surroundings where the lights and the sounds of the casino are absent and the giant machine can breathe,…
