The Seneca Gaming Corporation is still in the process of the construction of a temporary casino in downtown Buffalo in spite of a lawsuit seeking for prevention a city casino from opening. The preliminary cost of the casino the construction of which began in November last year is $3 million. It is being planned to open the doors in March.

The future of casino gambling in Buffalo is very uncertain. Last month the 45-page ruling by U.S. District Judge William M. Scretny threw out the National Indian Commission’s approval of the nation’s gambling ordinance. A review of the process was ordered by the court.

As for the parties who started the suit, they strongly believe the casino will not open its doors. Their opponents, vice versa, expect their great project to move forward.

The temporary structure will house 124 slot machines and a snack bar. Seneca Gaming is also planning to open 50 vacancies. And as soon as the casino gets the green light, they’ll welcome their players.

Karen Fisher who has successfully been in the gaming industry for more than 25 years working for GTECH Corporation, Harrah’s Entertainment, Konami Gaming, Station Casinos, Universal Distributing and WMS Gaming, has been named Vice President of Business and Product Development by Las Vegas Gaming, Inc.

Her task will be to evaluate business and product opportunities, strategies to enhance business growth. Karen’s experience is not limited with ownership and operation an administrative services business. She is known to be very successful in development and distribution of slot products and technology initiatives. She has also been one of the first “to lead ticket in/ ticket out deployments on casino floors”.

LVGI’s product, Portal Vision (TM), has recently been named one of the Best Consumer Service Technologies for 2006 in the fourth annual Gaming & Technology Awards. So, Fisher will build on the momentum of its launch.

An unbelievable thing happened to Rajesh Modha, a 44-year old pharmacist from Northampton: within three days he has won twice. His first winning totaled £63,000, and his second winning – £25,000. This happened in Betfair Casino, when he was playing the online slot machine Cash Inferno.

What makes this event amazing is that the odds of the same player to win two jackpots like that are ten million to one. Modha himself cannot believe that he has won, and has done it twice, as the first time he was sitting and watching the game, but the second time it was out of the blue.

Modha’s winnings are supposed to arrive next week. He is planning the purchase of a new BMW.

Kiwi Gaming has recently introduced a Japanese version of its online casino – FastWin Casino. That didn’t take long after the release of two single player versions of Mahjong in the World Mahjong federation and Japanese rules.

Now Japanese players can also enjoy a traditional table, a wide selection of slots, video poker and arcade games offered by FastWin Casino in their own language. This selection of features will introduce the world of bonus rounds and sizeable progressive jackpots to Japanese players.

Besides, Japanese players can win money playing the very first real money online version of the popular Japanese slot game pachinko. Every time a ball falls in the catcher, you win, and you can win up to 1,500 times your bet.

February is going to be a very special month for the Everest Casino players. Current slot club members will automatically take part in the promotion called the Sweetheart Challenge. Fourteen of the online casino’s most popular games are included into it. All the members have a chance to win their share of $5,500 in cash prizes. And any time a player wagers on any of these games, they accumulate points.

Eduardo Santos, Everest Casino’s property manager claims that besides getting cash prizes for participation, their players’ names will be placed on the leader board. No doubt, it’s a great motivating point. Thanks to a great variety of games Everest Casino offers, more and more people are able to take part in this sort of competition.

GSM is the company representing more than 82% of the world’s mobile phone users. That is over 700 GSM mobile operators in 217 territories and countries. Having become interested in Spin3, the leading wireless casino system that is powered by Microgaming, GSM awarded Spin3 with the Associate Membership of Global Trade association GSM. This membership will give Spin3 the opportunity to act as an application provider for the GSM family of technology platforms.

Spin3’s mobile casino games will be displayed at the 3GSM World Congress Barcelona, February 12 – 15, 2007 (booth no. 7C34).

Since 2000, the time beinternet.com – an online gaming group that is based on the Isle of Man – appeared, it has reported a pre-tax profit for the first time. It totaled £182,000 within the period of six months leading up to November, 2006. The corresponding period in 2005 was not successful at all, as the company lost £599,000.  Its turnover has also grown by 53% to £43.6 million, while in 2005 it totaled only £28.5 million.

Such great improvement can be explained by the new strategies put in place by the new management team and no contact with the US market and the passing of the UIGEA of 2006.

Thanks to the profit, betinternet.com may now consider an acquisition deal.

After the enormous success of the two International Gaming Conferences & Expo in San Jose, Costa Rico, and Dublin, Ireland, one more is being planned to take place in Cancun, Mexico. The gathering is scheduled for May 7 – 9, 2007, at the up market resort of Fiesta Americana Condesa Cancun.

Being worried about the future of the gaming and gambling industries, leaders will discuss the question which can be defined as “What’s Next?” Cynthia Pagano, Assistant Director of Conferences for the IGCE says: ““In a society such as ours where gambling is pervasive, lotteries are held in almost every state… Nevada is burgeoning and busting at the seams, wagering is a near obsessive pastime of the populace, odds are published in all of our media, the intention of the government to curtail the activity, with emphasis on the Internet, demands a multitude of questions and answers to determine what is next”.

In the next three years gatherings may take place in Prague and Bangkok.

Macau is genuinely interested in the development of the gambling sector what is proved by the number of owned casinos and those planned to be opened. Currently Macau has 24 casinos. And it is being planned to open some more: Grande Lisboa, Venetian, Crown Macau and MGM casinos. The interest comes from the gaming revenues. Thus, in 2006 their gaming and gambling revenues amounted to 55.884 billion patacas. With further development of this sector the figure will definitely rise. It is expected to be approximately 65 – 70 billion this year.

The Macau government applies both direct and indirect taxes on the gambling sector. The direct tax that totals 34% is applied on gaming and gambling, while the indirect tax of 4% is applied on each table and slot machine in a casino.

There are six casino operators in Macau, and Stanley Ho who actually owns Grande Lisboa, is a dominant figure there.

The casino revenues cannot but amaze. So, the Sands casino in Macau has given 58.75% of the operating profit of Las Vegas Sands. The operating profit in the Sands casino totaled $413 million. Thus, it is considered to be the largest gambling venue in the world. As for the Venetian casino, its operating profit totaled $289.9 million.

A $100,000 guaranteed holdem poker tournament offered by Everest Poker www.everestpoker.com took place on the 27th of January, 2007. The tournament appeared to be very popular as more than 1800 players from all over the world participated in it.

The tournament buy-in was $100 + 9 or 25000.00 + 2250.00 Summit points what says that players at all levels could take part in it. What concerns Summit points, they represent a special Everest Poker’s Loyalty program. Thanks to them players are able to enter tournaments at no direct cost to them.

The winners are already known. They are: BigBroiler with $36, 500, Davethebest with $21,900, bourse07 with $16,425, superboy1975 with $12,775, patrickkkk with $8,213, Darace with $6,388, Freakflyer with $4,563, jedi9 with $3,194, Ashtavakra with $2,281, and Sterti66 with $1,825.

With the success of the $100,000 guaranteed holdem poker tournament, Everest Poker is planning to offer more events of this type. The next $100,000 guaranteed holdem poker tournament will take place on the 10th of March, 2007.

To find out tournament schedules, visit http://www.everestpoker.com/.