Macau’s SJM (Sociedade de Jogos de Macau) gaming company informed this week that it will launch a project to rebuild Macao’s landmark casino resort Hotel Lisboa. The company said the rebuilding project, covering an area of 17,500 sqm, will be kicked off in 2009 and is expected to be completed in 2012. To ensure the quality of the new landmark casino resort, SJM will hold an international architectural design contest, in a bid to select the best architects for the project, according to the company’s press release.

During last year, players left USD 840 million of gross income in Panamenian casinos. This figure registrates a 13.5% growth with regards to 2006, when the total income was USD 740 million. The numbers show that the campaign performed by different trade unions in order to prevent players to go to casinos has had little effect. Antonio Alfaro, president of the Association of Games of Chance Administrators (ASAJA), confirmed that the increment of players is stronger month after month.

Las Vegas Sands tycoon Sheldon Adelson, the first outsider to open a casino in Macau and whose company won a license to open the first casino in Singapore, now hopes to keep winning in Massachusetts. Like other Las Vegas operators, Adelson is closely watching Governor Deval Patrick’s campaign to bring casinos to Massachusetts. The governor’s legislation would license three resort-style casinos, which he says would generate USD 400 million annually in tax revenue and 20,000 jobs.

The vice-governor of Chaco, together with other provincial authorities and a businessmen, evaluated the chance to build several casino hotels in strategic points of the province, with the aim to combat clandestine gambling and generate new jobs. Last Monday, there was a meeting with the Juan Carlos Bacileff Ivanoff, the Deputy Minister of Legal and Technical Issues, Pedro Augusto Miró; Deputy Minister of Tourism, Ignacio Saife; president of Recrear, Chaco Jorge Glibota; a businessman from Chaco, Rodolfo Galizzi and political consultant, Andy Rivas.

New York: The Galaxy Entertainment Group had no business entering the casino business when it made its bid for a gambling license in Macao. Competing in Macao, after all, meant going head to head with Stephen Wynn, who practically invented modern-day Las Vegas, and Las Vegas Sands, parent company of the Venetian, which over the last several years has opened two properties in Macao, including the world's largest casino resort. This month, the MGM Mirage opened its giant Macao property.

When a float depicting a portion of the USD 1.8 billion Palazzo rolls down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, Calif., this morning to kick off the 2008 Tournament of Roses Parade, it will promote an open casino. After a few days delay getting through the Clark County permitting process, Las Vegas Sands Corp. opened the casino portion of the Palazzo on Sunday evening, just in time for the busy New Year's Eve holiday.

Das Bundesverwaltungsgericht hat entschieden, dass der Schweizer Casinoverband bei dem Entscheid. ob die von der Loterie Romande betriebene "Tactilo" - Automaten auch künftig verboten sind, als Partei zugelassen. Das Verfahren wird nach Ansicht von Experten noch längere Zeit in Anspruch nehmen und mit einem Entscheid wird bestenfalls in diesem Jahr gerechnet. Die Eidg. Spielbankenkommision (ESBK) ht vor einem Jahr entschieden, dass der Betrieb von Tactilo- oder Tchlot-Automaten in Gaststätten und an Kiosks zu verbieten sind.

Hotel Casino Aurora del Sol will be inaugurated during the upcoming days in the council Santo Domingo Este, with an investment of USD 20 million, and will offer 350 direct employments, plus 1,500 indirect jobs. This touristic project will be the first of its kind in the Eastern zone and will have a hotel with 46 rooms and four executive suites. Besides, it will have three conference halls available with room for 50 to 300 people and two restaurants.

Macau’s casino industry will likely see record gross revenues of USD 10 billion in 2007, an increase of 46.5 percent over last year, The Macao Post Daily reported this week. The casinos’ gross receipts were expected to reach USD 1.03 billion in December. The casinos’ gross receipts were expected to reach USD 1.03 billion in December, the daily quoted a senior official of Macao’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau as saying.

Secretary of Tourism of Guanajuato, Sergio Rodríguez Herrera, considered that the decision to install a casino to operate in a permanent way in the city of León, will be a decision of the whole society and not just a sector, because "casinos are not a bad thing”, although they should operate under certain rules and should be regulated by the authorities. In a press conference offered in León, in which it was released the cash audit of the state related to tourism...

A bill that proposed opening casinos on Taiwan's outlying islands with the consent of the majority of the island's residents failed to clear the legislative floor yesterday. The bill was an amendment to an act regarding the development of the outlying islands. It did not curry enough votes to pass, as 84 of the 149 legislators who were present voted against it, while only 57 voted in favor and eight abstained.

Tropicana Entertainment plans to sell its Casino Aztar in Evansville, as part of the fallout from the denial of its Atlantic City license last week. In addition, the company is selling the Tropicana in Atlantic City, and has already signed a contract to sell a casino it owns in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Word of the sales came as the company made a crucial interest payment Monday on its credit agreement, and said it was working on reaching an agreement with its lenders that would prevent it from filing for bankruptcy.