Mashantucket, Connecticut - Two of the world's largest casinos are getting a lot bigger this week, betting that they can draw more visitors by becoming entertainment destinations even as the gaming industry suffers nationally because of high gas prices and the weak economy. Foxwoods Resort Casino, run by the Mashantucket Pequots Indian tribe, will open its USD 700 million MGM Grand this weekend.

Fort Hall, Idaho (AP) - The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in southeastern Idaho plan to build two new casinos on the Fort Hall Reservation, officials said. "Idaho is one of the fastest-growing states in the country, and tourism is growing in southeast Idaho," Richard Kutch, a member of the Fort Hall Business Council, told the Idaho State Journal. "The tribes want to capitalize on that." Groundbreaking for the first casino, the Blackfoot Satellite C-Store Casino near exit 89 of Interstate 15 on the Fort Hall Reservation, is planned for May 15 with completion expected in September.

The Navajo Nation is getting into the gambling business. The Window Rock tribe plans to build its first casino in Church Rock, N.M. Construction is expected to begin in April and the casino is slated to open in mid-October, tribal leaders announced Thursday. To fund the project, the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise is expected to receive a USD 35 million loan fronted by the tribe's Land Acquisition Trust Fund. Fast track construction is planned where phases are managed and awarded throughout the construction schedule rather than upfront.

Miami (AP) - The Seminole Tribe of Florida is about to start hiring workers for blackjack and other card games it plans to soon offer at its casinos, even though the compact with Gov. Charlie Crist allowing the games is being challenged in the Florida Supreme Court. The tribe will begin running print advertisements Friday that pitch job openings for 3,650 dealers for blackjack, baccarat and pai gow, which is a form of poker.

Las Vegas (AP) -- A major policy change this year by the Department of Interior will slow the growth of the multibillion-dollar Indian casino industry, which has gained controversy for developments in communities far from reservation land. The change, made in a series of letters and a memo issued in early January, essentially rejected 22 applications for new off-reservation casinos, by hinging their approval on a single criterion: the distance from the reservation.

The Squamish Nation is in talks with Toronto-based Boardwalk Gaming and Entertainment Inc. to build a small gambling hall on the Sea to Sky Highway. The community gambling centre will have up to 150 slot machines and a bingo hall, said Greg Walker of the B.C. Lottery Corporation. Squamish’s mayor, Ian Sutherland, confirmed that negotiations between Boardwalk and the District of Squamish for the gambling centre...

A slot machine casino approved but unbuilt at Dania Jai-Alai is too risky a bet -- for now. A spokesman for Boyd Gaming, owner of the fronton, announced Wednesday that South Florida market conditions -- including a ''prohibitively high'' state tax rate, the continued poor performance of three other Broward casinos and competition from Seminole Indian casinos -- mean the company will indefinitely postpone plans to develop a slot-machine casino at the jai-alai property.

The Bush administration told Congress Wednesday that Indian tribes face long odds in winning federal approval for casinos hundreds of miles away from their reservations. Along with 10 other tribes, The Mississippi Band of Choctaws received a letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in January rejecting the application for a casino in Jackson County, almost 200 miles from the tribe's reservation in Neshoba County.

The voters of California are being asked to vote, once again, on Indian gaming. But unlike the prior two elections, the question is not whether tribes can have casinos. Rather, it is whether a few tribes may more than double their existing operations, creating some of the largest casinos in the world. The political players have also changed. California voters first approved tribal gaming at the general election on November 3, 1998.

The Mohegan tribe, which owns one of the most successful casinos in the country, is looking to make a move in Atlantic City. The fact executives from the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut have been eyeing the Tropicana in A.C. has been widely reported since that casino was forced to put itself up for sale in December. But the Mohegans also have been speaking with Trump Entertainment Resorts about purchasing Trump Marina...

Sacramento – In what may be a referendum on the future of Indian gambling in California, Propositions 94 to 97 ask whether four of the state's wealthiest tribes should be allowed to expand their gaming operations, perhaps dramatically, over the next 23 years. Underscoring the stakes involved, the heavyweight matchup already has burned through nearly USD 120 million, with more spending on the campaign to come before the Feb. 5 election.

Hollywood - They didn't get this far without a little gamble in them. The Seminole Tribe, which defeated the state and federal governments in court three decades ago to usher in the Indian casino era, said Thursday it will immediately install Las Vegas-style machines at its Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood. The games go public Monday, just two days before a crucial Supreme Court hearing on whether a deal approving the new games is even legal.