“Today is the deadline for Coastal Development L.L.C., of New York, to buy the Trump Marina casino in Atlantic City,” said the Providence Journal. On May 28^th , the Trump Marina in Atlantic City was supposed to be a closed deal. That has not been the reality as banking issues dealing with the Trump Bankruptcy have now delayed the process.

Just the day before a statement came out about the upcoming deal with the Trump Marina that has been known for its access to gambling for many years. “We’re still working on finalizing the details, but the sale is not going to close tomorrow,” said Chief Executive Mark Juliano. “It will close when the credit markets improve a bit.”

“It is highly unlikely, however, that a deal will be made final any time soon. As of yesterday, Coastal still had not finished filing the necessary paperwork for interim casino authorization, which is required for casino acquisition in New Jersey.”

Currently the casion property will remain on hold until all paperwork is completed and all the t’s are crossed. “‘The application is not complete,’ Casino Control Commission spokesman Dan Heneghan said yesterday regarding Coastal’s application for the interim authorization.”

“I don’t think it was they couldn’t find the financing,” Juliano said, talking in a penthouse suite in the Trump Taj Mahal along the Atlantic City boardwalk. “It was that it was too expensive.” Later that week there was an incident at the very same location.

More than one situation has delayed the details on the closing of this casino area, as disclosed by the journal. “All talks between Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. executives and Coastal over the Marina deal came to a standstill yesterday when violence erupted at another Trump property, the Taj Mahal. A casino manager at the Taj was shot to death, apparently by a customer, about midafternoon…”

Microgaming has continued its streak by launching new online casino games every month. Each month, innovative games had been created for the entertainment pleasure of the players.

The June release of Microgaming online games will take a new look at some of the older games. Three online casino slot games will enter the rotation in June as well as one table game.

The game of tennis has been duplicated time and again both in video games and online games, and continues to draw in sports players. These games tend to be popular in the United Kingdom as Wimbledon has drawn major crowds and supporters for years. The new game is called Centre Court and promises to revitalize tennis games for those who wish to play.

Centre Court will consist of five reels and nine paylines. For the online gamblers, there will be tennis ball scatters and tennis photos and trophies to line up. The excitement comes when you open the free spins (as many as 18) to boost your payout by up to 5 times.

The second online slot is Flight Zone. Flight Zone allows the online player to be in the cockpit, flying a plane. The point of the game is to take on new missions where you have to fly the plane and go after the enemy. Once again, the free spins are where the action is as an online player can achieve up to 10 free spins in the game.

The third game to be released in online slot form is Monster Meteors. In this space themes slot machine you are attempting to find alien monsters. The jackpots are small as the maximum number of coins an online winner can receive is 50,000, that is of course unless you hit the free spins which could payout up to 750,000 coins.

International All Sports (IAS) has just revealed the sale of their Canbet online site. The company will be sold to Yin Khing Investments Unlimited.

Yin Khing is operated by Patrick Tay and Elson Yin and are based out of the British Virgin Islands. The price for the online service will come to $758,792.

Canbet is a gaming and wagering company based out of the United Kingdom. It was launched in 1995 and currently owns and manages licensed Racebooks, Sportsbooks, Exchanges, Casinos and Poker Rooms around the world.

The reason for selling off the online company was due to many changes that are occurring, including online gaming laws.

“The Canbet business has had a number of operational challenges particularly following the changes to gaming laws in the United States and unsuccessful strategies to grow our European sports operation,” said Barry Coulter, Chairman for IAS.

“The sale of Canbet presents an opportunity for IAS to refocus on our core Australian business. This transaction transforms IAS from a global operation into a more focused and profitable niche player in the Australian racing industry.”

Keeping this in mind, Cantbet austrailia will still remain under jurisdiction for IAS as one of its local interests. They also will continue to manage AusTote for the same reasons.

“As previously announced, several parties have been subject to standstill agreements in relation to trading in IAS shares,” read a statement from IAS.

“As a result of the Canbet sale and ongoing changes in industry dynamics, particularly the impact of advertising and product fees, the IAS board of directors has agreed to release all companies currently bound by standstill obligations.”

Due to the sale of the online casino gaming property, IAS will benefit by approximately $303,000 per month of which would have had to have been used for investing into the Canbet property. The sale will not be finalized until third quarter of this year.

Dragonfish has recently exploded onto the Spanish market by launching a new bingo website. ElCartonazo.com features two different types of bingo games, a 75 ball and a 90 ball.

“We are pleased to continue working alongside Daub to launch a truly localised bingo product in the growing Spanish market,” said Gabi Campos, Managing Director for Dragonfish.

“Dragonfish bingo software offers engaging and dynamic content and advanced chat and community features with the new great Dicciochat adapted specially to the Spanish market. This is one of many languages Dragonfish support and it’s a well proven formula that has brought great success to networks powered by Dragonfish.”

“We are very excited to launch ElCartonazo.com,” said Steven Parker, Director for Daub.

Daub is very familiar with online bingo as it has two other sites which are powered by Dragonfish. WinkBingo.com and PoshBingo.com. These two themed online bingo gambling sites appeal to the masses with their cute and quirky cheeky graphics. These sites have gained quite a buzz with online gamblers as WinkBingo has already draw in over 5000,000 members.

“Our team worked very hard with Dragonfish to create a unique and compelling experience for the Spanish market.

This latest online bingo site will revolve around the Spanish high comedy Los Morancos. By drawing in crowds with the popularity of the show, Dragonfish is banking on their staying power once they get to the online site.

“We are proud to be associated with Los Morancos, the popular Spanish comics. Their involvement has ensured the product is enticing and enjoys a continuous flow of humour and fun.”

Youbet.com has continued to dominate in the online casino market. Recently the firm has released their results for the first quarter of 2009 and the increased revenue numbers were staggering in comparison to other online casinos.

“We are pleased with our first quarter 2009 results as we are off to a strong start in spite of the difficult economy and in an industry that, according to Equibase, has shown a 9.3 percent handle decline on a year-over-year basis,” said Michael Brodsky, Chief Executive Officer for YouBet.com.

“Our handle and revenues increased considerably in the quarter as a result of our efforts in landing a significant amount of new global content for YouBet Express.”

The net income for Youbet.com increased by 51% to $1.2 Million and its subsidiary online company, Youbet Express has expanded its handle by 30% to $28.5 million.

Youbet is a top provider of technology and Pari-mutuel horse racing content. The California based company offers online wagering services to those in the United states as well as abroad.

As the summer approaches to us will be looking to acquire these top of the line hotel rooms at 1940s prices, but they will soon be shocked to realize that prices are going back up.

“Forward-looking business continues to improve, even as we look out to July and August,” MGM Mirage Chief Financial Officer Dan D’Arrigo said. “Thus far we’re able to firm up rates going forward as opposed to going the opposite way.”

Another aspect that plays into the summer slow down for the Las Vegas hotels and casinos is the increasing temperature that deters many tourists from vacationing there.

Right now is the prime time for hotels and casinos to raise their room rates as visitors have expressed their opinion and are willing to pay an additional $10 up to $50 more than they are paying now per room per night.

As a casino vacation destination, many weekend warriors will travel to Las Vegas to spend a couple nights in a cheap hotel and enjoy their time gambling. This is a common occurrence especially with residents of California who don’t mind the 4 Hour drive to spend a weekend away.

Ginny Tarantino is one of these weekend warriors who finds the summer and ideal time to capitalize on low room rates. Last week she spent $40 a night at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino merely because the price was right.

“Based on that rate I’d like to come back more often on weekends, or during the week if I get more time off from work,” Tarantino said.

Mark Capone lives in New York City and decided to spend $1000 for four nights at the Mirage rather than going to Aruba. He admitted that if the room rates at the casino and hotels were lower than we gladly go to Las Vegas and possibly even doubled the amount of times he traveled there.

“I think the hotels should look at making some of the amenities less expensive, like the spa and drinks,” he said. “In the end, someone’s going to go back home and say, ‘I only went out with $1,000 and I spent $4,000.’?” said Capone.

The MGM Mirage one of the giants of the Las Vegas strip for hotels and casinos have applied this strategy of balancing finances and occupancy to create a happy medium and generate more revenue.

According to Jim Murren, CEO for the MGM Mirage, “The weekends are consistently solid now. Even when we don’t have a major event we are able to occupy rooms at a solid level.”

As of January the MGM Mirage’s hotels and casinos add an occupancy rate of roughly 70%. This number ranks high amongst other cities however is shocking in one of the United States largest tourist cities. Las Vegas is used to conducting business at 90% occupancy rate.

In the past few months Las Vegas hotels and casinos are once again hitting the 90% mark, some even reaching 95% in the month of March and 97% in the month of April. Hotel Casino operators can breathe a sigh of relief as these numbers matched last year’s quota.

Although the occupancy rate has returned to normal, room rates still have not reached their peak and are affecting the revenues of the major hotels and casinos on the Strip. Many factors have to be taken into account when dealing with percentages as some of the rooms are not occupied due to renovations are remodeling. These factors have dragged down the MGM Mirage’s room rate 30% from this time last year.

Other casino and hotel managers have refused to lower their rates during this downturn economy. Phil Ruffin, owner of the treasure Island Hotel and Casino will continue to raise his rates throughout the economy. As other hotels and casinos lower their rates in effort to make vacations more affordable to others who are also struggling with this economy, Ruffin declared that he would not lower his rates.

“I’m not going to give rooms away. That’s a heads-in-beds philosophy,” Ruffin said. “I don’t want the $50 customer.”

Heading into Memorial Day weekend many patrons of land-based casinos witnessed a huge drop in prices for room rates. In fact the Las Vegas casinos and hotels saw the lowest drop and room rates since 2002 when the economy was at another all-time low.

Now that the holiday weekend behind us the hotels and casinos are beginning to pick up their rates again. The MGM Mirage received word from their executives that the demand was high enough to raise their current rate. It is the hope of the executives that by raising the rates, the profit margin could see an upswing by 2010.

Tourists are very well aware of the changing room rates and one can bet that if the casinos and hotels raise their rates, the public will be equally aware. Judy Del Vecchio, stayed for five nights with her husband at Monte Carlo suite. She spent $631 for the entire weeks stay.

“This recession has scared people — they have a whole different way of thinking,” Del Vecchio said, “They’ll come if they know they’re getting a bargain. If they keep rooms low, people will come out here and get lost in all this and spend money they never thought they’d spend.”

As Del Vecchio and other tourists can attest, when rates are low in Las Vegas it is a convenient place to vacation, however there is a balance, and once rates rise again, other options may prove to be more cost effective.

The times have actually seen Las Vegas Hotel and Casino room rates rise as high as $500 a night, but then they also were witness to low occupancy during those times. Now they have lowered their prices in order to raise the level of occupancy within the hotel casino. During Memorial Weekend, some places gave away rooms in order to keep gamblers there spending money in the casinos. Once they are there they will spend in the casinos and the food areas, as well as souvenirs.

Million-2-1 is in the news again with a new partnership in place. Recently it was released that Million-2-1 partnered with Riley’s limited in an effort to increase the marketability of the online company for online bets with snooker and pool.Now the International Game Technology (IGT) subsidiary is at it again, this time with Trinity Mirror and Bluestar Mobile. Million-2-1 will now be the exclusive provider of mobile gaming for these companies. With the new technology in place instant downloads are available on Trinity mirror’s mobile online websites.
“We are delighted that Trinity Mirror has chosen Million-2-1 as its exclusive mobile game content provider,” said Chris Sheffield, Director and General Manager Remote Gaming for IGT-UK Group.

“Offering Trinity Mirror’s players instant access to play popular land-based slot games through their mobiles will be an appealing proposition.”

The expansion into the online mobile network will increase Trinity mirror’s database therefore making more games available for their players. This is an area of expertise for the division of IGT as its company currently encompasses all aspects of the online casino industry including SMS prize competitions, lotteries and mobile marketing.

With this new agreement Million-2-1 will now be marketed through national press advertising including the daily mirror in the daily record. The Scotland advertising companies will continue their online marketing as will Trinity mirror.

As with many companies, the online companies decide to go with partners that will provide the largest selection of online titles that will simulate casino games for their players. Through Million-2-1, players will have access to traditional casino games such as poker, blackjack and roulette as well as top online casino games such as Elvis Top 20, Hi-5 and Ooh Aah Dracula. Future titles also include Rainbow Riches, Cleopatra, Monopoly and Cluedo.

According to a report in Las Vegas, Nevada, “the Palms has begun offering seller-backed financing to some 150 potential purchasers in the 599-unit Palms Place development.”

George Maloof, president of the Palms said on Thursday that the purpose of this plan is to assist those that have paid at least 20% of their down payment on their condos. This support will allow them the ability to acquire financing was not previously available.

With the downturn in economy it has been difficult for many homeowners to secure bank loans through traditional methods. Las Vegas in particular has been crippled by the economy as their main source of income, land-based casinos have frequently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Therefore trying to sell condos on the strip can be a challenging task.

“The problem is nobody seems to be lending,” Maloof said. “We’re trying to create an opportunity for people who bought condos but can’t find financing. We want to try and get them closed.”

In an attempt to keep the strip populated and provide possible housing for local casino employees, Maloof said that the interest rates would lie between 4.25% and 7% dependent on the down payment.

The condo purchasers will also be offered 30 months of payments devoted to the interest only in an attempt to help out owners until the market hopefully it’s a turn for the better.

Unlike the casinos in the area, the Palms recently paid off nearly 90% of what it borrowed from the banks in order to construct the high-rise. This reliability gave banks the opportunity to put their trust in the situation.

“We have relatively little debt,” Maloof said. “The goal is to get these units closed.”