Casino Surveillance News

March 2010

Welcome to Casino Surveillance News,

the first online trade letter for Casino Surveillance and Security.

We are still here and still operating, though I am (still) occasionally a bit slow in getting posted.

This entire newsletter, including the keynote article and CSN News can be viewed at this page.

The full Newsletter, Including Keynote Article, is posted at this address:

It’s News Time:

(I will supply text of the news article if any of these links do not work. Email to inquiry@casinosurveillancenews.com)

Busts and Scams:

On February 2, President Obama told a New Hampshire audience, “You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.” The crack came not quite a year after a speech in Elkhart, Ind., during which Obama aimed a similar warning at bankers whose companies received bailout money. The earlier remark was responsible for approximately 3,000 lost jobs in Nevada, and over $300 million in lost income for Las Vegas due to canceled conventions. The New Hampshire remark not only reopened the political wound from last year, it also cut deeper by raising questions about why the president of the United States continues to use Las Vegas as an applause line in speeches about wasted money. See the story

A Clark County District Court ruled that Harrah’s Entertainment must turn over records to attorneys representing a high roller who allegedly owes $14.7 million in gambling debts. Businessman Terrance Watanabe, one of the biggest gamblers in Las Vegas history, alleges casino giant Harrah’s Entertainment not only kept him drunk but fed him drugs to induce his massive gambling losses. See the story

Harrah’s received preliminary state approval to acquire LV Strip casino Planet Hollywood, with company executives telling gaming regulators they plan to cut the property’s workforce by less than 5 percent. See the story

A Las Vegas man accused of counting cards at the Paris Las Vegas casino on the Strip is taking Harrah’s Entertainment to court in his bid to re-enter the company’s casinos after he was banned. See the story

Four men were ordered into pretrial detention by a Cambodian provincial court on Monday on suspicion of holding hostage and torturing two men suspected of cheating a casino. See the story

A mother and a daughter, each convicted of more than 30 counts of slot cheating in casinos in Clark County, have drawn some relief from the Nevada Supreme Court, which ruled there was insufficient evidence to uphold the convictions on 22 of the cheating counts. See the story

A man who won more than $9,000 at an Iowa casino can’t collect his winnings because he was banned from the casino 10 years earlier, the state Supreme Court ruled. See the story

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has fined The Meadows Racetrack & Casino near Pittsburgh $48,900 for violations that led the casino to pay $430,000 in false slot machine jackpots last summer. See the story

Other News:

MGM Mirage will divest itself from its holdings in Atlantic City by placing its 50 percent ownership stake in the Borgata resort and its vacant land holdings into a trust arrangement. New Jersey gaming regulators ruled that Hong Kong businesswoman Pansy Ho, MGM’s joint venture partner in Macau, was unsuitable. Ho is the daughter of billionaire Macau casino kingpin Stanley Ho, who is alleged by authorities to have ties to Chinese organized crime triads. See the story

A speeding auto crashed through the Laughlin, NV, Edgewater Hotel & Casino’s front doors, mowing down patrons and slot machines before finally coming to rest near the cashier’s cage. See the story

Native American gaming leaders are now calling for diversification in the leading income production for tribes. Brick and mortar casinos may not be enough to compete in today’s market, and other sources of income should also be considered now that capital has been produced by the casinos. See the story

That’s all for this month, Folks.

Sponsors for this newsletter:

Casino Surveillance Operations Manual and Gaming Glossary: inquire with booksales@casinosurveillancenews.com

If you cannot access the Internet site casinosurveillancenews.com from the computer where you receive the newsletter, please re-subscribe from your home address or other email address. Many of my subscribers may have