On Tuesday, voters passed the measure, Issue Three, which would allow for companies to establish casinos in the state. The referendum passed by a margin of fifty-three percent to forty-seven percent. The measure would create zones for casinos to start up near the state’s major metropolitan areas of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo, and the state capital, Columbus. Also, the new amendment would set a one-third tax rate for casino operators and specifies how the influx of new government revenue would be spent.

Dan Gilbert, owner of the National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers, was one of the main backers of the referendum. He and his partners in the casino plan paid for numerous advertisements that promised an influx of over thirty thousand new jobs if the measure passed. With the diminished economy, the reduced tax base and a double-digit unemployment rate facing the state, voters appeared to make their decision based on such promises.

With his recent victory, Mr. Gilbert has announced that he is planning on “lighting (Ohio) up like Las Vegas”. After the state establishes its gaming board, he plans to break ground on new casinos in the state within the next twelve months. He estimated that he and his partners, including casino firm Penn National Gaming, Inc., spent over US$35 million on the ad campaign to get the measure passed.

Opponents to the measure are still expressing their dismay at what they see as a blight on the state. A spokesperson for one anti-gambling faction stated that the voters made their decision out of economic despair rather than on the merits of casino gaming. Another voiced their fears that the introduction of casino gaming would increase crimes such as theft, prostitution and assault in the areas near the casinos.

For Rushmore, this is the third season of the Blackjack Bowl, in essence making it Blackjack Bowl III. Unlike a normal slots or blackjack tournament lasting only a few days, or even a couple of months for that matter, Blackjack Bowl spans twenty-one months. No matter that the tournament has already started (there are roughly over 120 days left), because tt’s an ongoing tournament that awards cash winnings along the way, with a prize pool hovering around the $50,000 mark.

Blackjack Bowl III is broken into three stages, the first of which ia a collection of three weekly tournaments every Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Monday’s tournament is called the $7 Playoff and has a $7 entry fee. The prize pool is $25, with $15 going to first place, $7.50 going to second and $2.50 to third. Thursday’s tournament has a $14 entry and a $50 prize pool. Saturday’s contest has a $21 entry and divvies out $75 to the top three finishers. It may not sound like much, but this is just the beginning. Furthermore, and most importantly, the top winners get to move onto the second stage of the tournament. Think of the weekly tournaments as a great way to experience tournament action while winning a few extra bucks at the same time.

As mentioned, there is a second stage of the Blackjack Bowl III tournament, and it’s called the Bowl of the Week. This is when the prize pools start to sound more interesting. Every Sunday night, the Bowl of the Week takes place, offering a $1,000 prize pool, with first place pocketing $420, first runner up receiving $250, third place nabbing $150, fourth place earning $100 the fifth place finisher on the winner’s list getting $80. For players who did not win seats during the weekly qualifying tournaments, buy-ins can be had for $55.

The third stage of the Blackjack Bowl III fittingly is the Bowl of the Month. With a $2,000 prize pool, this tournament is double the pot of the Bowl of the Week, thus giving out double the winnings for the top five finishers. Like before the top five finishers of each weekly bowl will be given a free seat to the Bowl of the Month, while buy-ins can be had for $99.

As you might have surmised, all of this leads to the final event of the Blackjack Bowl III. This is the Blackjack Bowl, and has a massive prize pool of $21,000. Again, all the players who made the winner’s list for all the preceding weekly and monthly bowl tournaments will receive free entry into the ultimate blackjack tournament, with the top 12 finishers receiving cash winnings and $7,000 going to the first place winner alone. Even if you did not participate in any of the weekly and monthly blackjack bowls, entry into the grand finale can be bought with a $250 entry fee.

Ready to kick the dealer and casino out of the equation and get started competing in Blackjack tournaments against other players? We highly recommends Rushmore Casino.

A report appearing in Bloomergs news service this week seems to suggest that the gambling drought that has plagued Asia for a long time could finally be receding. Macau’s online casino returns for the first quarter of 2009 escalated, indicating resurgence from a slump prompted by the global financial downturn and visa restrictions obligated on visitors from mainland China.

In comparison to the last quarter of 2008’s 24.1 billion Patacas, this years first quarter’s earnings escalated by 8.1 percent to 26 billion Patacas ($3.2 billion), according to data obtained from the Macau Gaming Inspection Bureau Website. There was a 13 percent profit slump from the first quarter 2008, when the casinos reaped a whirlwind record 29.8 billion Patacas.

The global financial turndown and visa restriction forced by the Chinese authorities in an attempt to curb gambling by mainland citizens has really damaged business prospects for Macau Operators. The former Portuguese colony has seen casino earnings slump for three quarters in a row through December 2008.

One of the worst hit operators, Las Vegas Sands Corp., has indicated this month it is contemplating to resume construction of its building projects which stalled in Macau in November because of the anticipated windfall in casino earnings that are improving tremendously.

Authorities from Guangdong, Macau and Hong Kong convened in February to consider easing visa restrictions.

Mr. Begleiter’s closest competition is poker pro Prahlad Friedman with 382,700 chips. Mr. Friedman has never made a WPT final table, but he does have a WSOP bracelet from the 2003 US$1500 buy-in pot-limit hold’em event. He has also been featured on several WSOP broadcasts over the last few years, the most infamous of which involved a disagreement with poker pro Jeffrey Lisandro during the 2006 WSOP Main Event.

Another notable poker pro in contention for his first WPT title is Billy Baxter. Mr. Baxter has seven WSOP bracelets, with his most recent coming in the US$1500 buy-in Razz event in 2002. While most of his experience comes from draw poker games during the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Baxter does have experience at a WPT final table; he finished third at last year’s WPT Invitational and earned US$20,000.

When play restarts on Monday, seventy-three of the two hundred seventy-nine who began the tournament will take their seats. Only the final twenty-seven survivors remaining will see a return on their investment, with the last six to make their appearances on the TV final table. The final table for the WPT Legends of Poker US$10,000 buy-in Main Event will start Wednesday 26 August and will be broadcast early next year.

The top prize will be US$1,009,000 and an entry into the US$25000 buy-in World Poker Tour Championship Event at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

While the sale won’t be official until it is ratified, 39% of stockholders have already given their blessing. WPT President Steven Lipscomb was playing it coy with reporters last month, but he released a statement on Monday supporting the move, saying that Gamynia’s resources would help the WPT to “realize its full potential.” The Tour’s current but soon to be former owner, WPT Enterprises, announced that they will use proceeds from the sale toward non-poker related business ventures.

WPT fans that were concerned about the future of the tour can rest easy. Gamynia is expected to take an aggressive approach toward revitalizing and expanding the brand. They’ve already tapped leading marketing and consulting firm Hardway Investments (the same people that brought us Titan Poker, Europa Casino, and Casino Tropez) to helm the brand’s comeback. Since Season Eight of the WPT is already underway, there won’t be any major changes until Q4 when the sale is finalized.

The latest supporters to sign up for the bill are Representative Paul Hodes from New Hampshire and Representative Edolphus Towns from New York.

The bill is currently on hold in the House Financial Services Committee until September this year due to pressure of more urgent work connected with the global economic crisis, but as recently as last weekend Congressman Frank, addressing players at the World Series of Poker, urged all interested parties to maintain pressure on their representatives by writing to them in support of the bill.

Jones has previously held a number of senior management posts in the leisure industry, including Chief Executive of Pizza Hut UK (while at Whitbread plc), Chief Executive of Yates Group plc and most recently as Executive Chairman of Premium Bars and Restaurants plc.

Mecca Bingo runs 103 clubs and employs 3 000 people. Jones left Premium Bars and Restaurants in October 2008 after three years running the company.

“Mecca Bingo has faced a number of challenges in recent years but, having stabilised performance we are now seeking to move forward, broadening our customer reach through product and service innovation,” said Ian Burke, CEO of Rank Group. “Mark’s extensive experience in the leisure retail sector will be invaluable to us as he leads Mecca Bingo into this new phase in its development.”

I get the part about fairness. If bars, at least the smoky-dive kind, justly complain that having to leave to have a cig will likely depress their trade, why shouldn’t casinos, which already get an immensely valuable special privilege (being able to offer legalized gambling) on no more basis than that their owners are of a favored ethnicity, be exempted? Said Kaufert to the Appleton Post Crescent:

“ ‘It’s a fairness issue,’ said Kaufert, a Neenah Republican who has been contacted by constituents regarding the reach of the ban. ‘A statewide ban should truly be a statewide ban. There shouldn’t be pockets where people don’t have to comply with the state.’”

Though my question would be: If the smoking ban is an unthinkingly stupid law (and it is), aren’t pockets of legal immunity better no chance at all to defy the prohibitionists?

Look, some people like to smoke, even if you and I don’t, and smoking is legal. The ban is predicated on a number of faulty ideas, one of them that in no place should there be an expectation of smoky air. That’s why the law bans any new cigar bars – if you’d think there was a place you’d expect to find smoky air, it would be a cigar bar, yes? – and the calculation is plainly that there should be nowhere in the state that people bothered by smoke say, “I like that place, but the trade-off is that it’s smoky, so maybe I won’t go.”

Every Wisconsin casino I’ve been in – about a half-dozen, though I don’t gamble – has been at least a little smoky. Tribes say they install big-time ventilation, and I’m sure they do, but in places dedicated to the vices of gambling, drinking, staying up too late and, at the buffet, gluttony, that the scent of yet another vice lingers in the air is no surprise.

Tribes, plainly, think the majority of their gamblers are OK with this. If they thought there was any advantage in it, they’d be smokeless in an instant, but they are obviously attuned to the fullest kind of democracy: the preferences of the majority of their paying customers. Why impose on them what shouldn’t have been imposed on bars and hookah lounges in the first place?

Don’t bet on it for this fiscal year.

Casino revenues have dipped 33 percent since last year, according to the latest figures provided to the Greenville City Council by council financial consultant Steve Osso.

The average monthly gaming revenue for the city has been $136,196 for this fiscal which ends Oct. 1.

The average for last fiscal year was $203,877, according to Osso’s report that was presented at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

And it’s not just the economy that’s causing the decline. A big chunk of the city’s gaming revenue has been lost to the county.

Harlow’s Casino Resort and Hotel, the newest casino kid on the block — located outside city limits — has sucked market share from Jubilee and Lighthouse Point casinos, said Tom Dashiell, Harlow’s assistant general manager.

The other two gambling houses are located at the Cityfront on Lake Ferguson.

According to state and county tax structure, Greenville and Washington County share a four percent tax on casinos within Greenville and outside of it.

Of that four percent of casino profits, Greenville gets two thirds from casinos within the city, while the county gets one third. For those casinos outside the city, Greenville gets one third of the four percent and the county gets two thirds.

Because Harlow’s is locate outside the county, Greenville only makes revenue on one third of four percent of its profits.

Unfortunately for Greenville, but to the county’s benefit, Harlow’s, which opened in 2007, now has 60 percent of the casino market share within the county, Dashiell said.

Harlow’s, however, may likely have new competition, as plans for a downtown Delta Blues Casino are underway.

“They say more casinos are coming down,” Dashiell said, “which means our slice of the apple may be getting thinner.”

As of April, casino revenues had decreased in Mississippi by 7.9 percent.

Representatives of Jubilee an Lighthouse Point did not return calls from the DDT.