Las Vegas (AP) - Major gambling companies' ledgers have told the same, sinking story for a year: Fewer people are visiting casinos, their trips are getting shorter and they're not gambling as much. Casino construction has slowed or halted from one end of the Las Vegas Strip to the other, more than a dozen projects across the U.S. and abroad have been modified or dropped, and more than 40,000 new rooms in Las Vegas planned by some of the industry's biggest players are on hold.

Manila - The effects of the world financial crisis will likely drive Asia's gaming capital, Macau, to halve the number of jobs open to foreign workers, the Blas F. Ople (BFO) Policy Center said Tuesday. "The Macau administration is looking at a possible 50-percent reduction in foreign workers in private security and cleaning agencies for 2009. There is also some pressure for it to preserve high-paying jobs such as that of pit managers in casinos for jobless residents"...