Atlantic City (AP) - Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino will eliminate smoking on its casino floor, bringing to six the number of Atlantic City casinos that will ban smoking while gambling. No timetable was announced, but other casinos said they expected to the changes to take effect at their own facilities by next spring. All 11 casinos here must tell the state by Saturday how they intend to comply with a partial smoking ban enacted by the Atlantic City Council in February mandating that at least 75 percent of the casino floor be smoke-free.

Atlantic City, New Jersey (AP) -- Smokers may soon be out of luck: At least five of Atlantic City's casinos are making gambling areas smoke-free. The move comes in response to a law passed in February requiring gambling floors to be at least 75% smoke-free. The city's 11 casinos must tell the state by Saturday how they plan to comply with the law.

Atlantic City will soon become the next testing ground for what many are calling the next generation of slot machine technology. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission last week approved testing of server-supported gaming in Atlantic City casinos. It means that tests will now be conducted of systems that download game content and peripherals from a central server to terminals on the floor. The “server-supported” gaming approved differs from “server-based” gaming in that the game logic will still reside at the slot terminals on the floor.

Atlantic City, New Jersey -- Panels separating from a wall at the Tropicana Casino and Resort may look bad, but engineers have found no structural problem, a state gaming enforcement official said. Earlier this month, a state gaming inspector filed a report with the U.S. Labor Department warning that a column was bowing and part of a wall was bulging at the casino. The inspector, Lewis M. Springer Jr., is not an engineering expert, but said the column appeared to be under "enormous stress."

Atlantic Cit, New Jersey - Full- and part-time card dealers at the Tropicana Casino and Resort have approved a bid to unionize. The dealers voted 626-157 on Sunday to join the United Auto Workers, the union said. "Workers are on a roll in Atlantic City," said Joe Ashton, director of UAW Region 9, which includes New Jersey. The UAW has been pushing hard to organize workers at all of Atlantic City's 11 casinos. It has won elections at four gambling halls and lost at two others.

Atlantic City (AP) -- Two Atlantic City casinos, blaming increased competition and a partial smoking ban for sinking profits, are offering buyouts to managers to avoid layoffs, according to a published report today. The president of Resorts Atlantic City and Atlantic City Hilton, both owned by Colony Capital of Los Angeles, said the managers are being offered one week's pay for every year of service with the casinos.

Newark, New Jersey - Net income at Atlantic City's 11 casinos fell 34 percent in the second quarter, giving the industry its second consecutive quarterly drop, the state Casino Control Commission reported Friday. Net revenues fell 6.1 percent and gross operating profit dropped 19 percent in the April-June period for the seaside gambling halls, which have been hurt by competition from new slot parlors in New York and Pennsylvania.

Atlantic City - Donald Trump thinks his casinos and others in town deserve a smoking break. Trump wrote to Mayor Bob Levy and City Council President William Marsh on Wednesday calling on the city to repeal a partial casino smoking ban that he claims is scaring away business. In his two-page letter, Trump said gamblers are fleeing Atlantic City en masse for competing casinos in Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut that don't have smoking restrictions.

Tropicana Casino chief Fred Buro, who had overseen the layoffs of about 1,000 employees at his Atlantic City casino this year, confirmed yesterday that he was fired by Columbia-Sussex Corp. He said the termination occurred late Wednesday. Columbia-Sussex announced Buro's replacement yesterday. "I was asked to leave," Buro, the Tropicana's president and chief operating officer, said yesterday. He declined to go into the specifics, saying only that he was in the process of getting an attorney.

Atlantic City, New Jersey - It was a high-tech variation on one of the oldest tricks in the book, dating back to the Wild West saloon days _ cheating unsuspecting poker players by rigging the game. But the tools in a scam broken up by New Jersey State Police were decidedly 21st century, including tiny video cameras and earpiece radio receivers designed to be undetectable, and laptop computers.

It was a plot straight out of the Hollywood. A daring gang of gamblers attempted a sophisticated, high-stakes heist on a casino frequented by the stars. But this time the plotters were caught: police in New Jersey have just released details of how they smashed a plot to rip off gamblers playing in a GBP 1m poker tournament.

Gamblers here may soon be able to try to bluff a computer while playing a hand of poker. The state Casino Control Commission gave permission Wednesday for the city's 11 casinos to test electronic gambling machines that would replace some poker and roulette dealers. The main reason? Pennsylvania and Delaware slots parlors, which are already laying a beating on Atlantic City casinos, have them.