The Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday unanimously rejected a concept of allowing casino customers to use their debit cards to buy ticket in-ticket out vouchers that can be gambled on slot machines. The proposal, which had been requested through a partnership between Global Cash Access and slot machine giant International Game Technology, was denied by commissioners for several reasons. The most prominent concern by the five-member panel was they didn't see the need for that particular system to be established.

Victorian Gaming Minister Tony Robinson has dismissed claims a deal has been struck to award a state lotteries licence to global gaming consortium Intralot. The Victorian government is in the middle of a gaming tender that could see Tattersall's lose its lottery monopoly in the state, if Intralot is allowed to enter the market. The tender process has attracted several controversies, and is the subject of an upper house inquiry.

Brussels, Belgium: Belgium's gaming commission took international gambling Web site Unibet to task on Wednesday over its game allowing gamblers to place bets on when the country's political crisis will come to an end. The commission said it filed a complaint with the Brussels prosecutors office claiming Unibet's game of chance on when Belgium's deeply divided political leaders will form a new national government was against the law. Elections were held June 10.

Pinnacle Entertainment announced that the Louisiana Gaming Control Board has approved its plans for a hotel and gaming entertainment project on more than 222.5 hectares of land that the company owns or has under contract in Baton Rouge. The master-planned development requires various other approvals, including a local-option referendum in East Baton Rouge Parish, which the company will seek to put on the ballot in February 2008, and adherence to certain conditions imposed by the Louisiana Gaming Control Board.

Britons are no more addicted to gambling than they were eight years ago, a surprising new report has found. The survey by the Gambling Commission said around 32 million people took part in some type of gambling activity in the past year - a million down on the 33 million who gambled in 1999. If the number of people playing just the National Lottery are discounted, the findings showed the number of gamblers betting in other types of games had increased by 2% from 46% to 48%.

Macao (Xinhua) -- The government of the Macao Special Administrative Region has collected 18.36 billion patacas (2.295 billion U.S. dollars) in direct gaming taxes in the first eight months of the year, seeing a notable year-on-year rise of 47.2 percent. The statistics issued Wednesday by the Finance Services Bureau (FSB) showed that the gaming taxes accounted for 73.4 percent of the government total revenue in the period.

The owners of all four of the state's pari-mutuel race tracks will be among the bidders for the three commercial gaming licenses proposed by Gov. Deval Patrick earlier this week. Raynham Park, Plainridge Racecourse in Plainville, Suffolk Downs in East Boston and Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere all said they plan to bid for the 10-year licenses, estimated to go for at least USD 200 million.

Following a sustained attack from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) regarding its restricted Internet gambling market, French officials have initiated talks in Brussels to consider the opening up of the industry to foreign competitors. A spokesperson for the French government said it wanted to show they were open to discussions. Meanwhile, gambling monopoly Française des Jeux said that talks would give them the opportunity to put an end to the “unfair competition from internet gambling sites”.

Boston - Gov. Deval Patrick is preparing to unveil a proposal as early as Monday to bring three full-scale casinos to Massachusetts, a plan he hopes will generate hundreds of millions in revenues and thousands of jobs. Gambling opponents are already mobilizing against the plan, which they say won’t be the cash cow Patrick hopes and will end up costing the state money while destroying its character.

By a vote of 7-0, the Metro Council voted Wednesday to file a lawsuit and use any legal means necessary to get information about the economic impact of Pinnacle Entertainment’s proposed riverboat casino project in south Baton Rouge. Pinnacle had released an economic impact study in May, but declined through its lawyers to release a revised study that it recently submitted to the Louisiana Gaming Control Board.

American billionaire and gaming tycoon Sheldon Adelson said Wednesday he wanted to set up variations of Las Vegas-style strips around the world, with Asia alone having room for several more casinos. "What I'd like to do now is different mini-Las Vegas's, I call them, in different parts of the world," Adelson said after receiving a lifetime achievement award for enterprise at the Forbes Global CEO conference in Singapore.

Tallahassee, Florida (AP) - Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and the Seminole Indians are close to a deal allowing the tribe's casinos to offer Las Vegas-style slot machines -- possibly even card games -- with the potential to generate more than USD100 million a year for the state. Crist, who took office in January, has made progress in negotiations with the tribe, unlike his predecessor, Gov. Jeb Bush. Bush adamantly opposed gambling and was at an impasse in talks when he left office.