This year's winner of the World Poker Tour championship was Tuan Le, walking away with $2,856,000 in winnings. That is just an amazing amount of money, and a testament to poker popularity.
Le's previous big win in the WPT was just 6 months ago when he won $1.5M at the 2004 WPT Finals in Mashantucket. He's had an amazing run in the last year.
You can read more about it at the Las Vegas Vegas Blog.
Wynn Resorts, the newest casino on the Las Vegas strip, will open its doors to the public next week.
Steve Wynn, the CEO of Wynn Resorts, says, "the building is dandy". He is excited about the employees he's hired to work there, as he expects them to provide some of the best service available on the strip.
The Hotel-Casino will open on April 28th. More information can be found here.
Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts, reportedly received a paltry $4.8million in compensation last year, including a $1.8M salary, a $2.7M bonus, and extras.
This is surprisingly low, when newcomer Gambling Information site, Cruzino.com, paid its CEO over $8.3million in 2004. Cruzino.com's CEO reports, "I'm flattered to be compensated more highly than Wynn, as he deserves it much more than I do. Unfortunately, I gambled away all of my 2004 compensation in a gambling rampage that lasted only 4 hours on January 1, 2005. Next year, I think I'll invest in Wynn Resorts."
The Stratosphere's thrill ride left 2 girls stuck high above Las Vegas for over an hour on Wednesday until around 2am in the morning. Nobody was hurt during the incident. Casino officials have re-opened the thrill ride after concluding that the cause was the ride's auto-shutdown feature due to high winds. Winds at that time were estimated to be as high as 55mph.
I hope the girls were treated to a nice free buffet!
According to this article, a known gambling addict is fighting his $130,000 in debts to the Borgata after he claims that the Borgata gave him a free limo ride to help his restore his credit so that he could gamble again. Kind of a funny story.
Hot-tempered Chris Shelton, a contestant on "The Apprentice" was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino (more info). He posted bail.
I guess Trump was right - he does have a temper!
The Little River Band of Ottowa Indians in Manistee, Michigan, and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odowa Indians of Petoskey said that they are withholding payments to the state of Michigan from casino profits.
They apparently have an agreement with the state to pay 8% of their profits to the state, as part of a 1998 agreement, which also offered the Indians an exclusivity agreement with "electronic games of chance". The state now allows a Club Keno game, which the Indians claim violates the agreement and hence they no longer owe the state the 8%. The funds are used by the Michigan Economic Development Corp for stimulating economic and job growth in the state.
Conclusions:
* The Indians are probably technically right
* Governments are incompetetent when it comes to business - why the heck did they give an exclusive agreement in the first place?
* Its not about benefitting the impoverished, underprivileged Indians, its just about getting as much money as you can get.
Well, to all those involved, you are getting what you deserve!
Sadly, the number of articles about Poker games being terminated and arrests being made is on the rise. It would be interesting to get some official crime statistics for Poker related arrests, but I bet its through the roof. Either that, or the press about these arrests is through the roof!
Just check out these articles:
And there are many many more!
Trump is certainly believed to be the all-successful businessman. But, for the Hotels named in his likeness, that just isn't the case.
New Jersey courts this week approved Chapter 11 reorganization plans to help the company come out of bankruptcy. Donald Trump will relinquish the bulk of control for Trump Hotels as part of the reorganization, and Trump Hotels will be renamed to Trump Entertainment Resorts. The hotels will be taking a $500 million loan to revitalize its Atlantic City casinos, including building a new 1300 room tower at the Trump Taj Mahal.
See also: OCN
In a recent article from Motley Fool, a comment was made asking if the recent poker craze is no more than a fad. Perhaps. But I personally believe it is just beginning to see the early stages of a long-term growth period.
Poker is available everywhere these days. You can play on-line, you can play at your local card room, you can play in casinos that until recently didn't have a card room. You can buy computer software, you can play on your Palm PDA, and of course you can play in your own living room with professional quality gear.
But saying poker is simply a fad is like calling any other addictive activity the same. If that were the case, would there be a Starbucks on every corner? Would Las Vegas continue to build more casinos every year? Would the number of porn sites on the internet grow year after year after year?
It is probably safe to assume that poker sites, like any other genre of websites, will eventually see some smaller players disappear either by merging with bigger sites or by not attracting enough players to remain profitable.
But in the meantime, as sites continue to compete for your dollars, you can expect to continue to see a variety of come-ons to attract you to their site. Bonus deposits will probably be around for some time as will tournaments awarding the winner a seat at a major poker tourney. The sites that will flourish are the ones that come up with unique promos found nowhere else or who strategically market their product.
For now, enjoy the ride - Poker is not going away anytime soon!
According to Poker Gazette, the folks at GSN are planning to launch a Casino Oscars show in December. Oh joy!
There has been a lot of press lately about the price of casinos doing business in Illinois. If you don't believe that taxes hurt business, you should definitely read this article!
Under their current tax system in Illinois, businesses making over $25M pay 27.5% in taxes just to the state. As their profits increase to $100M, they pay 50%. And above $250M, they pay 70%.
The end result is that the state becomes uncompetetive to other states. Those tax rates are just too high. The next highest state is Indiana, which tops out at 35%; half of Illinois. If you were a multi-million dollar business, you'd definitely think twice about growing operations in Illinois!