Time for a tough talk on Delaware gambling

Delaware Online – Delaware still has not cured its gambling problem. The state remains dependent on a casino levy that grows more vulnerable every time a competitor opens its doors across the state line. A series of recommendations from a state task force will help keep Delaware’s three casinos alive, but the proposals will not solve the revenue problem. The Delaware study commission recommended changes in the way money is split between the state, the casinos and the horse-racing industry. The recommendation would cost the state about $9.9 million in the next fiscal year. The panel’s proposals are not guaranteed…

New Jersey lawmakers to simplify casino self-exclusion

Miami Herald – Gamblers could ban themselves from casinos or gambling websites without having to admit they have a problem under a bill that the New Jersey Assembly approved Thursday. The state’s voluntary self-exclusion lists permit people to sign up and request that they not be admitted to casinos or allowed to gamble online. But the law currently requires them to attest that they have a gambling problem. The bill, passed by a 77-0 vote, would let people sign up for the lists without having to admit they are compulsive gamblers. “This is simply another option for those who want…

Sheldon Adelson Seeks Land to Add Singapore Hotel Rooms

Business Week – Las Vegas Sands Corp. has asked Singapore authorities for more land to increase rooms at its resort in the city-state by about 60 percent after facing almost full occupancy, billionaire Chairman Sheldon Adelson says. The world’s biggest casino operator plans to add 1,500 rooms to the 2,563-room Marina Bay Sands, Adelson said at a briefing in Singapore today. The company will also add meeting rooms, ballrooms and exhibition spaces to the $6 billion casino resort and largest hotel in Singapore, when the government releases more land, he said. “We need more rooms,” Adelson said. “We are running…

Tribal Leaders Confident in iGaming Prospects

Poker News – As online poker conversations continue to expand, Indian tribes are being thrust into the forefront, especially in California where legislators have introduced two bills. That state is home to dozens of federally recognized tribes, almost all of which want a piece of the iGaming pie. “At the heart of the Internet gaming debate, tribes are simply asking to be able to compete on an equal footing,” said Ernie Stevens Jr., chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) in the latest issue of Casino Enterprise Magazine. “To protect tribal sovereignty and ensure equal access to the market,…

New Jersey officials: Sports betting ban is unfair

The Daily Journal – By this time, New Jersey figured it would be raking in the bets on professional and college sports. But with its bid to offer legal sports betting stalled and relying on a long-shot appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the only madness this March will bring to New Jersey is anger that things did not turn out quite the way it had hoped. A handful of state legislators and Atlantic City’s mayor held a news conference Wednesday to tout the benefits of sports betting. But the only nine people who could really help them — the…

Florida governor asks Senate to pause on gaming bill

TampaBay.com – As a Florida House committee voted Wednesday to create a new state agency to regulate gambling, Gov. Rick Scott asked the Senate to put the brakes on its proposal to bring two resort casinos to South Florida so that the legislation would not interfere with his gambling negotiations with the Seminole Tribe. As a result, Senate Gaming Committee Chairman Garrett Richter abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting Monday to take up the Senate’s gambling bills. “The governor’s office called me and asked if we would slow down the process until we know what the terms of a potential deal…