Online casino guide

28-year-old poker pro David “Chino” Rheem has followed his 2008 World Series of Poker final table appearance with a major win, surviving a field of 497 and a tough final six table to win the Doyle Brunson 5 Diamond Classic. His reward was a winner’s check for $1 538 730, bringing his career winnings to date to over $4 million.

Rheem and 496 others anted up a buy-in of $15 000 for the pleasure and experience of playing in the 6 day tournament, which was held at the Bellagio in Las Vegas this week.

The final table comprised Rheem, Amnon Filippi, Hoyt Corkins, Steve Sung, Evan McNiff and Justin Young, with the latter surviving to face Rheem in the heads up with the chip lead, but as so often happens this fluctuated frequently between the two survivors as they battled it out for the big money. In the end, though it was Rheem who prevailed, ending the game with a massive lead to take the main prize. Justin Young collected a very useful Christmas check for $936 760 for his second place.

Rheem has achieved two seven-figure cashes in the last five weeks for a total of $3.2 million, preceding the Diamonds event with a seventh placing in the 2008 WSOP final table. His previous best tournament cash was a $327 000 check for a second place against Allen Cunningham in a thousand dollar re-buy event during the 2006 WSOP.

The UK publicly listed gambling group Rank plc reported a quiet 15 weeks leading up to December 12 2008, and blamed a 7 percent decline in sales on public smoking bans and new gambling laws in Britain.

Sales at the Mecca bingo halls subsidiary dropped after admissions fell by 11 percent. Bingo revenues were roughly comparable to the same period last year, with a 5 percent increase in spend per head offsetting the fall in admissions. The Spanish bingo clubs continued to experience a difficult trading environment, with a 9 percent year-on-year decline in local currency. The company reported that overall Spanish admissions were down by 3 percent and spend per head declined by 6 percent.

Grosvenor casinos subsidiary saw like-for-like revenue growth of 4 percent, with spend per head up 16 percent while admissions were down 12 percent.

The online betting division, Blue Square, increased revenue by 1 percent, with income from the online bingo offering offsetting a decline in revenue from sports betting.

“Trading for the current financial year remains in line with market expectations,” the board said. “While the outlook for the UK economy in 2009 is uncertain, Rank has taken a number of key actions to strengthen the Group’s position and the board is confident in the Group’s longer-term strategy.”