LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Casino operator Harrah's Entertainment Inc. posted an 18 percent rise in quarterly profit on Wednesday as Las Vegas pulled in business but Atlantic City showed signs of weakness.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - Two construction companies said to have a history of associating with members of the Gambino crime family were granted licenses to work in New Jersey casinos Wednesday, against the advice of state investigators.

LOS ANGELES - A gambling initiative would provide millions of dollars less for local governments and also less money to the state than the new compacts Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed with five tribes, according to a state report released Tuesday.

NEW ORLEANS - Gamblers lost Dollar 2.1 billion at Louisiana's state-licensed casinos during the state's last fiscal year, an increase of about 5 percent fueled by growth at the downtown New Orleans casino and at slot-machine casinos at race tracks.

FRENCH LICK, Indiana (AP) Donald Trump beat two other casino groups including one backed by hometown basketball hero Larry Bird for the bid to build a casino in this struggling community where movie stars once vacationed.

An attorney for the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma asked a federal judge Monday to force the state of Kansas to return cash and gambling machines seized when officials shut down a tribal casino in Kansas City.

In a city that delights in having the biggest, fastest and tallest of pretty much everything people can think of, it's no great surprise that just weeks after the announcement of the MGM-Mirage-Mandalay merger, a Dollar 7 billion deal that made the biggest casino company in the world,

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Harrah's Entertainment Inc. is near an agreement to acquire Caesars Entertainment Inc. for roughly DOLLAR 10 billion, including debt, creating the largest casino operator in the world, a source close to the situation said on Wednesday.

Las Vegas Sands on Monday released new details about its planned DOLLAR 1.6 billion Palazzo casino resort on the Strip at Sands Avenue and started marketing a $ 975 million credit package to provide financing for the project.

Las Vegas Gaming Wire. A surge in convention attendance powered another record for local tourism in May, when Las Vegas welcomed more than 3.2 million visitors for the third consecutive month.

Moscow, July 12 – Presentation of all latest Gauselmann Group gaming products took place on July 8th in Moscow club “Apelsin”. The hosts of the event, the well-established slots manufacturer Atronic International and Unicum Group of Companies, the exclusive distributor of Atronic products in Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, introduced to Russian operators “Casino of the Future”, equipped with innovative gaming solutions.