If you're in the market for a casino, Larry Woolf may be just your man. Woolf, chief executive of Navegante Group, is the former chairman and chief executive of MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Woolf and his son founded Navegante in 1995 after developing the Casino Niagara for the Canadian government.

Novomatic is pleased to announce that they have taken a license from IGT under the Burns cashless gaming patents issued throughout Europe. The purpose of this license is to facilitate Novomatic’s use and placements of TITO technologies across international territories. The license will allow Novomatic to implement TITO in the operations of affiliated entities of the Novomatic group of companies. It also allows for licensing where connected to an IGT EZ Pay® system.

Another successful market entry! Five Merkur suns are shining in Andalusia!

US boffins have created a poker playing robot that knows when to hold, knows when to fold, knows when to walk away and knows when to run. Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a smart learning program that can play a winning hand of Texas hold 'em.

It is a thorny issue where the stakes are high and even betting men are reluctant to put money on the outcome. So is poker a game of skill or chance? A crown court jury will decide in a legal test case that has repercussions for the exploding popularity of poker games in pubs. Pub poker is far from the popular image of spirit-swilling men sitting around a table in a smoke-filled backroom after closing time.

Ladbrokes, Britain’s biggest bookmaker, returns to the casino industry after a gap of more than five years when it opens the Ladbrokes Casino and Sports Bar at the London Paddington Hilton hotel tomorrow. The opening of the GBP 5 million venture comes at a time of heightened speculation that Ladbrokes, which recently sold its Hilton International hotels arm for GBP 3.3 billion, is actively seeking acquisitions in both the casino and betting arenas.

Alantic City - It was 7:24 a.m. Saturday when the announcement that the casino was back in business came over the loudspeaker at Caesars Atlantic City. About a dozen gamblers waiting at the top of the escalator on the second level clapped their hands with glee and headed for their favorite slot machines as security guards removed the velvet ropes from the gaming area entrance.

It's going, going and very nearly gong for the once all-conquering Rank Group. Once Britain's biggest leisure conglomerate, the final break-up of the business is close at hand. The City expects that within nine months Rank will disappear altogether with the sale of its bingo halls and casinos. And with it, around 70 years of business will be consigned to history. Rank is in the midst of selling the 121 Hard Rock Cafes it owns around the world. Though perhaps a brand from yesteryear - the Hip Hop Cafe sounds more contemporary - the burger restaurants still claim to lure 54 million people each year. A sale is expected to fetch up to GBP 540m on revenues of GBP 244.7m; the brand still has strong appeal abroad.

John Prescott was facing renewed pressure over his links with Philip Anschutz last night as it emerged that he discussed the tycoon's "entertainment district" project for central Los Angeles during their secret dinner at the billionaire's Colorado ranch. The revelation will add to the clamour for the beleaguered Deputy Prime Minister's resignation because it contrasts so starkly with the two reasons he gave last week for his hastily arranged visit to the 32,000-acre Eagle's Nest estate near Denver last year.

As we already mentioned in edition Nr. 32 of our newsletter “German Gaming Law updated”, the Federal Constitutional Court, in its sports betting decision of 28 March 2006 (case-no. BvR 1054/01), exclusively examined the case on the basis of German constitutional law. Referring to the concurrent examination of the justification of the state monopoly with Community law, the court affirmed the lack of justification of the limitation of basic freedoms granted by Community law, in particular the freedom to provide services, crucial for providing cross-border betting services.

As we already mentioned in our newsletter “German Gaming Law updated” no. 33, the Administrative Court of Munich (Bayerisches Verwaltungsgericht München), in its decisions of 7 June 2006, overruled several notifications issued by the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior. ARENDTS ANWÄLTE (www.gaminglaw.de) received the reasons of one decision (case-no. M 16 K 04.6138) today. In quintessence, the Administrative Court invokes the following reasons: The deficit in regulating sports betting as found fault by the Federal Constitutional Court has not been eliminated.

Any hopes Las Vegas casinos had of the federal government gently starting to loosen prohibitions on Internet gambling are likely stalled now that U.S. House Republicans have decided to target online betting as a cornerstone of their election-year American Values Agenda. The casinos have been watching on the sidelines as the online jackpot has become a lucrative USD 15 billion industry worldwide in just a few short years.