Rangers are facing stiff odds in their bid to build Britain's first super casino. The club want to create a Las Vegas-style gambling palace as part of a GBP 120million hotel complex at Ibrox. But they face 26 rival bids to host the giant 24-hour casino, including others in Midlothian and West Dunbartonshire.

Native American casinos are a USD 20 billion a year industry. But because many of the casinos are on sovereign Indian land, many state and federal laws do not apply to them. At the Thunder Valley Casino outside Sacramento, Calif., seven female former employees are having difficulty suing the company for alleged harassment and discrimination.

After the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) held the state monopoly for sports betting in its current form not to be compatible with the German Constitution last week, the legal situation is now going to be reviewed under Community law. The European Commission has sent letters of formal notice to Germany and six other Member States (Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden), requesting information on national legislation restricting the supply of sports betting services. The Commission will use the information to review the compatibility with the free movement of services, guaranteed in Article 40 of the EC Treaty. The Commission will check in particular whether the restrictions on the free movement of services are justified by the protection of the general interest and whether the measures are proportionate and non-discriminatory.

The European Commission has decided to send official requests for information on national legislation restricting the the supply of sport betting services to seven Member States (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden) The Commission wishes to verify whether the measures in question are compatible with Article 49 of the EC Treaty which guarantees the free movement of services.

Claims Southend Council will shell out GBP 80,000 a year to employ gambling counsellors have been rubbished. A Sunday newspaper said Southend was one of three councils to sign up to the scheme run by gambling charity GamCare which will advise those with gambling problems.

Astana - Administration of the town of Kapchagai in the suburbs of Almaty is preparing to conduct a poll on the issue of constructing a "Kazakh Vegas" in the neighborhood, as a REGNUM correspondent was told by an official in the administration.

Melco International Development and Publishing and Broadcasting may seek a separate listing for their HKD 8 billion City of Dreams casino resort complex to raise funds for construction. City of Dreams, to be built in Macau's Cotai reclamation area, is the flagship project of the joint venture between Hong Kong-listed Melco and Sydney- listed PBL and will open in phases beginning in late 2008.

Although Singapore likely won't match the size of Macau's casino market, the pair of sites offered by Singapore may end up being two of the most lucrative in the world. Limited competition and the scope of the projects being pitched to win the bids - and justify the huge land costs for Singapore's downtown Marina Bay and Sentosa island sites - should ensure healthy returns despite the big dollars winners will need to invest.

Macao's casino czar Stanley Ho has pledged to pass 5 percent of his 2005 net profit worth 4 billion patacas (500 million U.S. dollars) to the employees, local media reported Monday. The Macao Post Daily quoted Ho as saying that he will pass the amount to the staff in the form of a special bonus.

Antigua and Barbuda's Ambassador to the WTO, Dr John Ashe, met on Tuesday with Congressman Pete Sessions to discuss the current status of Antigua and Barbuda's WTO Internet gaming dispute with the United States. "The primary objective of the meeting was to brief the Congressman on the status of our WTO dispute with the United States," said Ambassador Ashe.

Toronto -- Ontario's First Nations communities have won a bigger share of the provincial gaming jackpot in a deal that could end years of litigation over the government skimming proceeds from a popular aboriginal casino. Starting in 2011, aboriginal communities will get a 1.6 per cent share of nearly CAD 6 billion in gross revenue collected annually from all provincial gambling, including casinos, lotteries and racetracks.

Atlantic City, New Jersey (AP) - A new player may be getting into the game in Atlantic City. Investment bank Morgan Stanley has agreed to buy a vacant, 20-acre oceanfront parcel and is shopping for a casino company to develop what would be the 13th casino here. Spokesman Mark Lake said Friday the Wall Street firm had reached an agreement to buy the site on the famed Boardwalk, but he wouldn't give details.