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The ruling by the constitutional court in Hamburg, northern Germany, means the state-controlled online casino, which opened a year ago, has to be halted until the law is changed. Giving the decision, judge Wilhelm Rapp said current legislation stipulated that games of chance must be played in a casino in the presence of players and staff. The online version streams a real game in the Hamburg casino live onto the Internet via a web camera, allowing punters elsewhere to log on and take part after registering. Rapp said one of the key reasons for the current legislation was so casino staff could supervise proceedings to stop clients being drawn into a "ruinous game," especially as access to Internet gaming was harder to control. However, such supervision was not possible if gamblers were sitting behind a computer screen, meaning the cyber version did not meet legal requirements, he added. The online casino was set up under the umbrella of Hamburg city authorities as an offshoot of an existing state-controlled gaming centre. In a reaction to the ruling, the Hamburg state government said it would now consider whether to seek the amend the law. It said the online casino scheme had been intended to offer an alternative to illegal Internet gaming sites.
The number of Americans who bet represented a vast potential audience, David Hawk, co-founder and co-chairman, said. More than 50 million Americans made more than 300 million visits to casinos last year, Hawk said, citing research conducted for the American Gaming Association. Other "niche" channels, such as the Golf Channel, had succeeded with a smaller pool to draw from, Hawk said. About 25 million people visited golf courses last year, half the number of casino-goers, he said. The new channel would target the young male crowd, age 21 to 34, which was valuable to advertisers, Nickolas Rhodes, the network's president and chief executive officer, said. US Television has been dealing out an increasing number of gambling-themed shows, including Travel Channel's hit series on the World Poker Tour and the coming Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo. Still, it remains to be seen whether gambling shows will be successful. "That's the ultimate question," Bill Carroll, an analyst for Katz Television, a media buying firm, said. "The marketplace will determine if there really is a need for any of these digital channels that are specially targeted." The network, which plans to raise $107.58 million in operating capital by first quarter 2004, is negotiating carriage deals. The goal is to reach one million homes initially and be in at least 20 million homes in four years.
Faithful managed to siphon the money from his small-town branch of the Commonwealth Bank in Western Australia over five years without detection until he turned himself in during a fit of suicidal depression. He had wagered up to 500,000 dollars a week and lost a total of 19 million dollars. Handing down his sentence, West Australian judge Kevin Hammond said it was "curious" the Commonwealth Bank never noticed discrepancies in the accounts of Faithful's branch at Karratha, on the state's sparsely populated north coast. The judge also asked why IASBet.com, Faithfull's online bookmaker, continued to accept his bets even though it knew what he did for a living. The court was told during the trial that Faithfull was IASBet.com's largest customer, betting ten times more than others, and the bookmaker encouraged his wagers by offering him tickets to the races and sending bottles of expensive wine to his bank. IASBet.com has denied any wrongdoing, saying over the weekend that it had been "in compliance of its legal and corporate responsibilities". The Commonwealth bank has refused to comment on the case, except to say the losses did not affect any customers, but is expected to try to recoup some of the money from IASBet.com. Faithfull gave himself up in August, leaving a note at his branch telling staff he was going to hang himself. "I wasn't thinking rationally and the dollar figure was way out of control," he said in a newspaper interview last week. "I was never going to get that back."
Although more than 18,000 people are employed in the business, almost nothing has turned out the way that gambling supporters expected, while unfortunately, many of the warnings that opponents voiced from the start have come true. New Orleans failed as a tourist destination point for gamblers, while the once-quiet beaches of Biloxi, Miss., and miles of impoverished cotton fields in Tunica, Miss., became the Deep South's key destination points for players. The Shreveport and Lake Charles areas, originally slated to have only a small piece of the action, instead became Louisiana's tourist gambler stops, entertaining millions from Texas. Three Indian reservation built gambling institutions - free from state taxation- and their location on land was considered more attractive to gamblers. While the state was preoccupied with gambling, the 1990s economic boom across the United States largely bypassed Louisiana, which lost thousands of manufacturing and oil jobs and now finds itself in an almost-desperate game of catch-up with other states in attracting new business in a much-slower environment. Industry analysts have said Louisiana took a wrongheaded approach, first by limiting the number of riverboat casinos, which made the licenses themselves valuable and subject to corruption, and then restricting land based gambling in New Orleans. During the same time, Mississippi took a market-based approach to dockside gambling, rather than limiting the number of licenses. The Louisiana projects had to have local investors, some of which sold out for millions even before the wagering began. Gus Mijalis, a longtime crony of former Gov. Edwin Edwards, got a small share of a New Orleans boat that he eventually sold for $26 million. As a result, Mississippi's industry boomed while Louisiana's often staggered. Four riverboats in New Orleans either failed or were canceled. A downtown casino in New Orleans went bankrupt twice. And Edwards himself went down, now serving a 10-year federal prison sentence for extorting riverboat applicants. The legislation allowing 15 riverboat casinos was passed in 1991 during the administration of Gov. Buddy Roemer after an extended state recession triggered by low oil prices. After Edwards came back for a fourth term in 1992, the Legislature decided to authorize a single land casino in New Orleans. That franchise came with stipulations designed to appease the existing tourist industry such as restricted food service and a ban on a casino hotel. But backers said the casino would be a giant success in a city known for Mardi Gras and the French Quarter. Estimates of potential gambling winnings by the casino topped $1 billion and what turned out to be pie-in-the-sky estimates of employment hit 50,000. Today, after two bankruptcies and a 50 percent state gambling tax cut, it employs about 2,600. It is projected to win about $285 million from gamblers in 2003, which would be the casino's best year yet. Initially, riverboats were supposed to take gamblers on cruises, other than those in Shreveport-Bossier City, which could stay at dock rather than venture out in the shallow Red River. Within a few months of the opening of the state's first casino - The Star Casino on Lake Pontchartain in New Orleans - authorities were fighting what would become common with all the boats: staying docked because of supposed hazardous cruising conditions. In 2001, the Legislature finally authorized dockside gambling for all riverboats, while cutting the taxes of Harrah's New Orleans land casino and allowing Harrah's to build a hotel, which is now on tap for construction. One warning from critics was that casino gambling would beget more gambling. That occurred when the state's race track industry eventually demanded a cut of the action in face of declining wagering on horses, winning authorization in 1997 to have slot-machine casinos. Two are now open at Delta Downs near Lake Charles and Louisiana Downs at Bossier City. A third is under construction near Opelousas for Evangeline Downs. On Oct. 4, voters in Orleans Parish approved a casino for the New Orleans Fair Grounds. Whether the casinos have been an overall boost or negative for the state is difficult to ascertain. A report put together by the University of New Orleans in the late 1990s suggested that the state got more benefits than losses from gambling - but only because of Texas gamblers coming into Shreveport-Bossier City and Lake Charles. In mid-September, an Indian reservation casino opened in Oklahoma, just two miles of the north Texas border. For that month, revenue from gamblers in the Shreveport-Bossier City market dropped nearly 12 percent, compared with September 2002.
The council was required by law to defeat resolutions that would establish a casino at 22nd Street and Pacific Avenue and free the city to use municipal land for expanded gambling as well as pass a third resolution to repeal the last council's tentative approval of a downtown venue. City administration suggested the city voluntarily take a further step to clarify its stance by passing a resolution banning the use of city land for a gambling expansion in the next three years. Council unanimously passed all four resolutions without debate -- a marked contrast to the heated discussion that dominated the last year. The Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority has already decided to move its downtown venue proposal to the Whitecap First Nation, 26 kilometres south of Saskatoon. The previous city council voted late last year in favour of the proposed casino downtown and against holding a referendum on the issue. A petition later forced the city to call a referendum that last month resulted in voters rejecting both a casino on 22nd Street and the city's use of its own land to accommodate expanded casino gambling. If it ever decides to reopen the issue, Donauer said council should voluntarily call a plebiscite. If electors chose council candidates who openly supported a gambling site during the campaign, the city could likewise argue it had a mandate, he said. Tourism Saskatoon chief executive officer Todd Brandt noted that council's stance could handicap any plans the Emerald might form to expand, in the unlikely event that the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority rejects a licence application for the casino on the Whitecap reserve.
The owner and manager of the business were charged but not taken to jail, according to Deputy Diana Bryant. She said they were cooperative, so complaint affidavits were filed and will be turned over to the State Attorney's Office. "From there a warrant will be issued," Bryant said. The game room, located at 1952 U.S. 1 South, was raided as six adult video arcade businesses in Volusia County were also shut down, according to the Sheriff's Office. They were: Gold Dust Casino, Nevada 21, The Player Palace, Fantasy 21 & Lucky Spin, Jokers Wild and Wild 777's 2. Lt. Dale Bryant said the owner of Mr. Lucky's was told the business was illegal from the beginning. He said the machines that patrons feed up to $20 at a time are not a game of skill, but a game of chance, making them gambling machines. He said players hit a button to start the machine, then hit the button again to stop the machine. Based on when the machine stops, the player can win gift certificates or gain credit from the business to play more games. "The mere pushing of a button does not demonstrate skill," Lt. Bryant said. The games were pre-programmed to win a certain percentage of the time and skill can't manipulate that, according to the Sheriff's Office. Lt. Bryant said the machines will now be analyzed by an expert to make sure they were running illegally. After the machines were loaded onto a truck bound for the Sheriff's Office evidence compound, complaint affidavits were signed against owner Noreen J. Ayres, 63, and manager Arnold B. Robbins, 65.
According to the lawsuit, Siddiqui has suggested that he has no plans to return the money. Last Friday, Santa Clara County Judge William Elfing signed a preliminary injunction freezing Siddiqui's bank account, saying he should not use the money until the matter can go to trial. The company, which owns the Venetian hotel-casino, refuses to talk about the case. No one is saying why the money was sent to Siddiqui's account, although one source suggested it may have been a line of gambling credit. What is clear from the lawsuit is this: The Sands has sued Siddiqui to return funds inadvertently' deposited by electronic transfer to his Citibank account. For whatever reason, the Nevada corporation had legitimately agreed to wire $1.435 million to him. The problem is that from a separate Bank of America account, the company wired him a duplicate $1.435 million, which Siddiqui has refused to return, according to the suit. The court papers say the Las Vegas Sands and Venetian marketing corporation wanted to freeze Siddiqui's account before he could drain it. And, in legal documents, it said he's already used a portion of the money and is worried creditors could attach or encumber the money. Siddiqui's home was unlighted this week and no one responded at the door. A neighbor described him as a private man who travels a lot, has several homes and only lives in Palo Alto part time. Two attorneys for the Sands -- one in San Francisco and one in Las Vegas -- declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Abdul Gani Shabudin is claiming more than R40m from GrandWest casino and entertainment complex. Shabudin believes he won this amount at an automated coin machine. According to High Court documents, Shabudin instituted his claim after winning the money on June 26. Shabudin said he had put his card in a coin automated machine at 19:34 and it read that he had won R40 304 235.44. He said he had informed the casino management about the jackpot he had won, but they refused to pay him. The claim was postponed temporarily on Thursday. Acting Judge Owen Rogers said because of several shortcomings in Shabudin's summons, he did not think it justified the case. The casino's attorney, Anneke Viljoen, said Shabudin had to re-submit his summons to the court within 10 days. GrandWest contested the claim. According to court reports the coin automated machine had been out of order on that evening and the largest amount that could be won on the machine was R50 000. Casino reports showed that Shabudin tried five times unsuccessfully to push his card into the machine in question. The sixth time the machine accepted the card, but the reports said problems occurred when it tried to read the credit on the card. As a result of a communication problem, the machine read Shabudin's card number, 403 042 3544 as the credit amount. Because of this problem, the machine displayed the amount, which led to Shabudin thinking he had won the jackpot. The casino also said in the court reports that Shabudin's summons had been vague and confusing, because no legal grounds were given to indicate that the casino had a responsibility to pay him the money.
Some board members said they thought it was against the law for schools to offer such courses in Mississippi, which legalized casino gambling a decade ago. But board member Ricki Garrett of Clinton said she thinks the board can do so without legislative approval. New Orleans-based Tulane University announced earlier this week it will be offering a casino resort management program at its Edgewater Mall campus is Biloxi. Deputy Attorney General Mike Lanford said his office is studying the issue. Under a Mississippi Gaming Commission statute, gaming schools cannot be located on public property and no public school can teach or train people to become gaming employees. Universities can offer hospitality management and other classes that help prepare students for some casino jobs, but the courses are not gaming specific. Board member Amy Whitten, a lawyer, said the College Board has the constitutional authority to manage and control the universities, and that extends to the courses they offer. Whitten said universities should be training people for the best paying jobs in the gaming industry. "But as it is now, we train people to run housekeeping and the casinos bring people in from out of state to run gaming because they can't educate them here," she said. "There's something wrong with that." Andy Bourland, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Association, said he hopes the College Board is successful. "This is something the industry has been supporting for many years, and I'm glad to see some serious movement to help us get this along," Bourland said.
A report to the Planning Committee, which meets on Thursday, December 4., says that the area they plan to use is at present used as pool halls, virtual reality zones and simulator games. It is planned to retain the caf'ar and restaurant uses and the roller coaster ride would remain on top of the two-storey building. Head of Physical Development Bob Reid reports: "It is recognized that the role of Aberdeen City Centre as North East Scotland's commercial centre should be maintained and enhanced and there is a need to consider the implications of the proposal for this. "Although the scale of the proposed development is significant, in terms of floorspace, no new floorspace is proposed. The proposal is in effect a change of use of part of the existing leisure facility. "Whilst there will be a more restricted clientele as a result of licensing requirements, the impact of the proposed use set amongst other leisure uses within the amusement park is not considered to be so significant as to justify refusal in this case. "Whilst the proposed use could be appropriately provided within the city centre, it is acknowledged that amusement centres and related facilities have an historical association with a seaside location. Accordingly it is not considered that this particular proposal conflicts with government guidance." It should be noted that before a casino could be opened permission is also needed from the Licensing Board.
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