Handheld relief coming soon to Nevada casinos

I know that the thing that bugs me most about Nevada casino resorts is how hard it is to gamble. You often have to walk several feet to get to a slot machine. Luckily, the Gaming Control Board is on top of the problem and, thanks to Cantor Fitzgerald, a solution is on the horizon: […]

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news about gambling

Not just Visa…WSOP Visa

With poker sets, poker video games, and every other conceivable sort of poker paraphernalia available at toys stores across the world, I thought that poker had gone as mainstream as it could. But I was wrong. Thanks to Harrah’s Entertainment, you can go “all in” to the exciting world of consumer debt with the official

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gambling & culture

No gambling under bin Laden

Not to make light of the current geopolitical-religious-cultural situation, but if bin Laden had his way, it’s safe to assume that Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, Tunica, and other communities whose economies depend on gaming-related tourism would be out of business. Oh yeah, all women working in the hospitality business would have to quit, and

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gambling & culture

Treasure Bay returns?

As longtime readers know, my favorite casino in the world was probably the Treasure Bay in Biloxi. There’s nothing much cooler than a riverboat casino that actually looks like a pirate ship. It also had the coolest carpet ever: a treasure map. When I heard that the casino wasn’t insured, I feared that, after being

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news about gambling

Non-profit no limit?

Texas Hold ‘Em is on its way to becoming America’s game. It’s all over the Internet, on television 24/7, and seemingly everywhere. Despite the fact that THE tournaments may violate the letter (and spirit) of the law, they are becoming increasingly popular. From NBC-4: hurches, school boosters and other nonprofit groups are calling the government’s

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gambling & culture

Rez dogs playing poker

I’ve gotten enough emails from people asking me to appraise yellowing prints of Coolidge’s “A Friend in Need” to make me regret putting that image in the UNLV online Gaming Art Gallery, but sometimes I get a neat email that makes it all worthwhile. Today, I got such an email from artist Roxanne Chinook: Coolidge’s,

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gambling & culture

Rockin’ in Rolla

If you’re in Rolla, Missouri next Tuesday and have some time to kill, come down to the Havener Center for a totally free lecture by your humble correspondent. From news@umr: Dr. David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, will present “A Brief History of Gambling” at 3

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what's new

Totally comped airfare?

When I first saw this, I thought, “Am I reading this right?” Unless Reuters is now printing fabrications or I’ve developed severe perceptual difficulties, it seems that Ireland’s Ryanair is thinking seriously about offering free airfare to everyone: Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by market value, believes revenue from inflight gaming and gambling could eventually do

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news about gambling

Matchbook mayhem

Casino advertising has come a long way, or maybe people are less susceptible to reverse psychology. This matchbook was once used to promote Harolds Club, a leading Reno casino: This image comes from the Nevada Casino Matchvcovers site. I’m amazed at the proliferation of casino collectibles out there. So, in the space of a matchbook,

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gambling & culture

Russian poker scene

Texas Hold Em, online and off, is all the rage in the United States. But its becoming more popular in other countries, as well. As the Moscow Times reports, there is a burgeoning poker scene in Russia: Fueled by Internet game rooms and television coverage of tournaments, poker has experienced an unprecedented spike in worldwide

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news about gambling

Is this a bust?

I got this one while searching Pravda for Russian gambling news. It’s a keeper. From FunReports: The police department of the Russian city of Ulyanovsk obtained information about an attack that a group of criminals was going to commit against a local business woman. The police decided to arrest the gangsters in the woman’s apartment,

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haphazard world

The lottery millionaire and the purloined plastic

Well, that was little more than a fancy way to lead into this story from the LV Sun about a woman who used a stolen credit card to buy a lottery ticket–and is paying the price: A Southern Oregon woman used a stolen credit card to buy a state lottery scratch-it ticket that was worth

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gambling & culture, haphazard world

CCTV voyeurs?

My lecture at the architecture school as part of the Graduate Lecture Series went really well last night. I got a chance to get some feedback on my “4 stages of casino resort evolution” idea and got to talk a lot about casinos, particularly my experiences in security and surveillance. When I saw this story

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atlantic city