The MGM Mirage Aria casino at the CityCenter in Las Vegas has opened up a brand new poker room. This room, the Ivey Room, is a high-end poker room that will be home to all sorts of different poker competitions. The room will be reserved for high-stakes poker games as well as high-value poker tournaments.

The room was opened on May 22. A celebrity poker tournament worth $250,000 was held at the room. The entrants were also able to compete against poker legend Phil Ivey. Entrants could have received a bonus $250,000 if they beat Ivey in a heads-up match.

The poker room will only feature one table. This is a table that will be reserved only for high-stakes matches. It will also be home to nationally televised tournament matches. It is also expected to be the final table for many tournaments in the near future.

The Ivey Room was named in honor of Ivey. He has won seven World Series of Poker bracelets. He has also won nearly thirteen million dollars in assorted tournaments throughout his career. Ivey has stated that he predicts a good number of major poker events will move from other major casinos around Las Vegas to the Ivey Room at the Aria.

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Kevin DeSanctis, the CEO of the upcoming Revel casino in Atlantic City, announced that he will be a bidder for a large part of the Revel project. He has stated to the East Coast Gaming Conference that he will be putting his name in to help with getting the remaining construction work to be finished on the casino.

DeSanctis has stated that he is looking to get a bid in as a means of finding another investor who will be funding the remaining construction work for the Revel. He has been consulting a Chinese bank in recent days about getting a billion dollars in financing to finish the job.

The announcement comes a month after Morgan Stanley announced that it would be pulling out of the Revel plan. The investment giant had invested $1.2 billion in the casino

The Revel will be located on the Boardwalk of Atlantic City. The exterior construction is almost completed on the casino. The interior construction is expected to take at least a year to handle. The casino was supposed to have opened this year but its open date has been pushed back to 2012. This is due to concerns about the funding for the casino and the ongoing slump in the Atlantic City economy.

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The Rhode Island House Finance Committee will review a bill that could end up expanding the state’s two slot parlors. This bill, which will be reviewed on May 20, would end up allowing the parlors to expand to include full casino games.

This bill will allow for the addition of various slot machines and table games at these casinos. The bill would go to the voters of Rhode Island if it is not shut down by the House.

Increased competition from Massachusetts for gambling revenues is the main factor in this bill. Two new casino resort licenses have recently been approved in the commonwealth. Thousands of new slot machines in the race tracks there have also been approved. This bill could be used to allow Rhode Island to be more competitive with Massachusetts.

The bill would impact Newport’s Newport Grand and Lincoln’s Twin River Casino. Both venues have video lottery machines but no table games. Twin River is also looking to relieve itself of its greyhound racing activities.

Two major concerns have come up with this bill. Some lawmakers are looking to focus more on helping Twin River recover from its bankruptcy. Also, voters have not been keen to gambling expansions in the past. They voted against the construction of a West Warwick casino in 2006.

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Casino Gambling Revenues Fell in 2009 The American Gambling Association has released a report stating that revenues from casino gambling declined in 2009. Casinos around the United States received $30.7 billion in revenues in 2009. This is a 5.5% decline from the $32.5 billion revenue total from 2008. The main reason for this comes from the recession in the United States. The recession has caused people to cut back on gambling expenses. Travel expenses to get to casinos have been cut as well. Eight of the twelve states that have casino gambling sites experienced declines in revenues. Some of these states are places where the recession has hit people the hardest. In Nevada gambling revenues went down by 10.4% from 2008. Meanwhile, revenues in Mississippi went down by 9.4%. New Jersey, which has been facing a great deal of competition from Pennsylvania, experienced the greatest revenue decline. Revenues fell by 13.3% in 2009. There were a number of factors as to why the four states that received revenue increases did so. Pennsylvania was able to get an increase after a few casinos opened in the state. Colorado revenues increased as table game hours were expanded and betting limits were increased. The other two states that experienced increases in gambling revenue were Indiana and Missouri.

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Fifteen Parties Have Entered the Bid for a New Missouri Casino

The Missouri Gaming Commission has announced that it has gotten a great deal of interest from a number of parties that are interested in getting a Missouri casino license. Fifteen parties have sent letters to the Commission with an interest in acquiring a license that will be opening up later this year. These include such notable casino companies as Isle of Capri Casinos and Blue Sky Development.

All fifteen groups have consulted regulators and the Commission on this deal. Their cases will be heard during the Commission’s meeting in Jefferson City on May 18. The Commission will also accept new inquiries of interest until this date.

The license in question will be the one that will be open after the President casino in St. Louis closes. The state only allows for thirteen casino licenses. The thirteenth license will be open after the President closes.

There is no information as to where the new casino will be located. Missouri law states that all casinos in the state must be on either the Mississippi or Missouri River. St. Louis and Cape Girardeau have been cited as two of the main possible sites for this new casino. The towns of Sugar Creek, Louisiana and West Alton have also been openly interested in this casino.

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The Canadian Gaming Summit this year is attracting gambling executives from all over the world, but internet gambling and the possible legalization of the online casinos in the country seems to be the main topic of the gathering. Government officials in Canada estimate that the country’s residents spend over $1 billion yearly at the online casinos and just as politicians from anywhere in the world – they would like to get the tax piece of this pie, as well, something welcomed by the online casinos and offline casinos alike. The online casinos would be more than happy to operate under full legality in the country, while the land-based gambling establishments would gladly explore the online gambling road to more revenues. “By legalizing online gaming and regulating it, we’d be putting money back into the coffers here at home. The customers are way ahead of government and regulators. We think it’s high time Canada has that debate, so that is why we’re talking about it here,” Paul Burns, vice-president of the Canadian Gaming Association, was quoted.

Cleary both the online casinos and the offline casinos are looking forward to full legalization in Canada, but the road will be long and hard. Opposition to online gambling, as well as local casinos, has long been in place throughout the country and will continue to push against gambling expansions in the future. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission at this time remains the only road to a form of licensing of the online casinos in Canada, although still miles ahead of the USA, where online casinos and other forms of online gambling are frowned upon by politicians.

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