Samoa is to open its first casino. It will be at Aggie Greys Resort at Mulifanua, near the international airport, and employ 100 staff. The Prime Minister, Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, says the first casino will create more job opportunities and attract more tourists into the country. Tuila’epa has told reporters in his weekly radio programme the idea behind the government’s decision for a casino is for tourists to spend more days in Samoa and spend their wealth. At the same time the prime minister says more money will be pouring into the local economy. SOURCE

Global Gaming Business Magazine – A new study from the Harvard Medical School’s Division of Addiction found that online gaming does not promote gambling addiction, and that the vast majority of those gambling on the internet are casual gamblers who effectively set limits for themselves. Harvard researchers worked with online casino operator bwin.party to study gambling habits of millions of online players over a two-year period, and supplemented the research with a six-month study done by the University of Hamburg. The Hamburg research studied only internet poker; Harvard looked at all online casino games. According to the Harvard report, 95…

Sin City made huge successes of the casino resorts operated by companies such as Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts. However, for the last five years gaming in Asia, rather than U.S. operations, have lifted these companies’ profits. But with 2014 profits in Las Vegas on the rise, is Sin City on the way back? Following the 2008 financial crisis, Las Vegas profits dropped as American gamblers spent less on leisure travel and non essentials like gambling. At the same time, Macau profits started surging as the Cotai strip there opened and Las Vegas Sands dominated the Cotai Strip with the…

iGaming Business – The Williams Interactive gaming entertainment products and services subsidiary of Scientific Games has launched its first online slot game to be powered by the offline game engine Supercharged Reels. ‘Roman Chariots’, which will be added to the Williams Interactive Game Server library, features three miniature bonus reel sets atop the main slot game. One or more of these mini-reels will charge up with win multipliers each time a ‘wild’ symbol fills reels two, three or four of the main game. All activated mini-reels spin with the triggering symbol of reel five, with all mini-reel wins increasing by…

Reno Gazette Journal – Some of the newest incarnations of fantasy football look a lot more like gambling than intricate, outsmart-your-opponent strategy games. Since 2011, the billion-dollar fantasy market has been infused with dozens of daily and weekly games. Those games allow players to win huge prizes quickly, sometimes in one week, sometimes in just one night. With players betting thousands or even tens of thousands a night, legal experts believe it’s time to review the section of the 2006 federal law that was written specifically to protect fantasy sports from being banned the way online poker was. “There’s importance…

ABC News – When lawmakers carved out an exemption for fantasy sports in a 2006 law targeting online poker, no one predicted that it would spawn an online gambling operation that may someday rival the millions wagered daily in Las Vegas sports books. But huge money changes hands every day in daily fantasy sports games and, unlike a bet on your favorite team to win a game, it’s legal in all but five states. The exploding popularity of the games has attracted investments from traditional media heavyweights Sports Illustrated and USA Today, both of which recently started their own pay-to-play…