MGM Mirage and UNLV have had a good relationship for years, so I wasn’t surprised by this news, from Yahoo! Finance:

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and the Invent the Future campaign leadership today announced the largest corporate scholarship donation ever received in the institution’s 49-year history. With a $1 million gift from MGM MIRAGE, the university will establish the MGM MIRAGE Academic Excellence Scholarship Endowment. The funds will be used to underwrite scholarships for National Merit® scholars at UNLV.

“The MGM MIRAGE Academic Excellence Scholarship program will support UNLV’s efforts to attract the best and brightest students from Nevada and throughout the United States,” said UNLV President Dr. David B. Ashley. “The perpetuity of this endowment will allow us to continue attracting these talented students in the future.”

Established in 1955, the National Merit® Scholarship Program is an academic competition that honors individual students who demonstrate exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies. Less than one percent of the nation’s high school seniors are selected to become National Merit® scholars.

“At MGM MIRAGE, we believe education has the potential to uplift the lives of individuals and provide a foundation for a community’s growth and development,” said MGM MIRAGE Chairman and CEO Terry Lanni. “This gift reinforces our commitment to higher education in Nevada and helps enhance the academic reputation of UNLV.”

According to Lanni, MGM MIRAGE will consider providing additional annual gifts of $1 million to the UNLV endowment fund for the next four years.

MGM MIRAGE Endowment to Fund National Merit(R) Scholarships at UNLV: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

Actually, I was really unsurprised to read it because I was at the official announcement this morning. And I’m posting this because it is important to recognize when gaming companies give back to the community like this. This gift will really help UNLV attract top students, which in the end will benefit everyone–accept for the colleges they would have gone to instead.

Remember when I said, in my analysis, that the Internet Gaming “ban” actually legalized Internet and wireless gaming inside Nevada? Well, take a look at the next big thing to hit poker, from Pokernews:

A new wave of interactive gaming devices allowing casino patrons to play poker anywhere on a casino’s licensed property is on the way path to implementation, Progressive Gaming International Corporation [PGIC], a leading provider of technology and services to the brick-and-mortar gaming sector, has teamed up with Harrah’s Licensing LLC, an affiliate of Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., to develop and market the World Series of Poker® ‘Peer to Peer’ Texas Hold’em gaming system.

The new peer-to-peer system is designed to allow poker players to compete on a wired or wireless device, within the casino grounds, connecting to a secure Intranet server that controls and coordinates the action. Whether or not the system is designed to be all-computerized or will work in conjunction with a physically present, PokerTek-styled electronic table is unclear; both options are possible applications of the technology. The PGIC release notes that ‘players will be able to play within the casino property at a bar, restaurant, and even poolside.’ The idea is to create new gambling revenue from ‘unused gaming space,’ and to do so without displacing other revenue streams, such as slots or blackjack.

The system is also designed to be marketed to casino properties lacking the space to implement a physical poker room in other ways, and the announcement cites a ‘potential global marketplace of other 5,000 legalized gaming venues.’ The new system is also planned for submission to various jurisdictional overseers, such as Gaming Laboratories International.

Harrah’s Announces ‘Peer to Peer’ Remote Gaming Systems for Casino Properties | Poker News

This is the real future of remote poker gambling.

For those of you who live outside the Silver State, yes, today is a holiday. It’s Nevada Day. And yes, this is a real holiday. Seriously. Almost no one is working at UNLV today, and most state offices, schools, and even some businesses are closed. The parking lots, which are usually overstuffed (a sore point with many students and faculty) are absolutely empty today.

Don’t believe me? Check out the Nevada Day website. If you want to celebrate, you can eat pancakes, go on a ghost walk, or try your luck in a beard contest.

When I first moved here, I thought this was a joke holiday, but people really do take it seriously. Most people celebrate only by having Halloween parties (the holiday is now celebrated on the last Friday in October), but very few Nevadans (or at least state employees) would be willing to defile the sanctity of Nevada Day by working. Many of them figure that if Sandy Koufax didn’t pitch game 1 in the 1965 World Series because of Yom Kippur, there’s no way that they’re coming in to work on Nevada Day.

I guess that makes me an agnostic Nevadan. That, or I’ve just got a lot of work to catch up on.

Anyway, wherever you are, enjoy our celebration of the 142 anniversary of Nevada statehood.

I’m happier posting my reviews of other people’s books here (see the previous entry) than linking to reviews of my own work, but Tim Peters’ review of Roll the Bones at Card Player was so on-target that I can’t resist. Here’s a sample:

To what seems to be the majority of today’s poker players – the 20-somethings who have cut their teeth online – the phrase “back in the day” might easily refer to Chris Moneymaker, the first online qualifier to win the main event, back in 2003. Or, if they have a keen sense of poker history, they might think “old school” means Stu “The Kid” Ungar, who won his first World Series of Poker main event in 1980. But poker’s real history dates back at least 500 years – and gambling in general “is simply older than history,” writes David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (where else?), in this fascinating new book.

Schwartz has traced the roots of gambling back to the earliest forms of civilization. Here’s an early example: In Mesopotamia, some 7,000 years ago, the small hucklebones of sheep and goats (located just above the heel bone) were used to “cast lots,” an essentially religious practice for divination – predicting the future. “When Mesopotamian fortune-tellers filed down their hucklebones and marked them with insignia, they took the first steps towards modern dice,” he writes – hence the origins of “roll the bones,” an expression used by some old-time craps players. But it wouldn’t be too long before people transformed sortilege (the technical term for telling the future by interpreting thrown objects) into a form of gambling, and eventually people realized they could gamble on just about anything, from “rolling the bones” to sports, from lotteries to card games. “At every juncture of history, it seems, the gambler is nearby.”

In fact, Schwartz makes a pretty strong case that the impulse to gamble is a universal one – and that the desire to prohibit the activity is misguided and doomed to fail. Religious leaders have condemned gambling, but bingo accounts for a meaningful contribution to church coffers. Pharaohs, emperors, and kings all formulated laws against it, typically as they raked in gambling-related fees and taxes – not to mention lottery revenues. And with gambling legalized, in some form or another, in most of the United States, recent efforts to criminalize online betting seem particularly hypocritical. Card Player readers following this recent legislation will appreciate Schwartz’s history of gambling suppression; we can only hope that members of Congress and state legislators read the book.
…
When you sit down to play poker, in a cardroom or online, you’re taking part in a drama that spans human history, and Schwartz has written the definitive account of that history in Roll the Bones.
Card Player Magazine – The Inside Straight (scroll down for review)

I don’t think an author can ask for a better review. It’s great to see people who know and love gambling connect with the book like that.

On a related note, I’ve just scheduled a book event at the Global Gaming Expo. For those of you who don’t know, this is the world’s biggest gaming conference and exhibition. If you are in the business, you should definitely be there.

Here are the event details:

WHAT: Reading from Roll the Bones, followed by discussion and signing
WHERE: Las Vegas Convention Center, Room N110
WHEN: Tuesday, November 14, 1:30 PM

We should have books on hand, but if you’d like to get a copy before, visit your favorite bookseller, either online or in person.

If you can’t make that event but want to get a copy signed, I’ve got good news: the Center for Gaming Research will have an exhibit called “50 Years of Dining on the Las Vegas Strip” next to the registration area. When I’m not walking the floor, in session (I’m speaking on a marketing panel on Weds. at 3:15), or having a cheesesteak down at Las Vegas Subs in the Hilton, that’s where I’ll be.

If you haven’t already done so, you can still register for G2E here.

Giles Slade. Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Giles Slade opens this monograph with a flurry of astounding facts: in 2004, 315 million working PCs were thrown out in North America alone, and in the following year over 100 million cell phones joined them on the trashheap. That’s tons of electronic equipment–larded with non-biogradable components and toxic waste–filling up garbage dumps around the world.

What drives this rush to trash? According to Slade, it obsolescence, rather than failure. Your last computer likely didn’t wear out–you junked it because a faster, lighter, and spiffier one came out.

Since the Great Depression, it’s been clear that consumption, rather than production, drives the economy. With America getting more efficient at producing goods, it follows that, to precent another economic downturn, someone has to convince people to buy more goods.

Slade traces the roots of “repetitive consumption back to the beginnings of branding and packaging in the middle of the 19th century. Over time, the American ethic of thrift collapsed before social pressures to buy new, rather than save the old. The first several chapters nicely sketch the cultural changes–and their underlying economic drivers–that created the annual model change. Similarly, producers began obliquely discussing “planned obsolescene.” This could mean, in the case of automobiles, that the customer would decide on his own to buy a more up-to-date car in the latest model, or, in some cases, that internal components unable to be replaced would fail after a set lifespan. “Death dating” products was a controversial practice, but many in various industries (particularly consumer electronics) supported it.

The author is at his best when he is talking about the pivotal players–such as GM’s Alfred Sloan and RCA’s David Sarnoff–and the modern development of planned obsolescence. He also deftly handles the transition from mechanical obsolescence to psychological obsolescence–the thing that makes some people buy a new car every two years, despite the fact that their old one still works fine. Advertising and marketing efforts convinced the public that, in almost every case, newer was better. Slade uncovers just how our disposable goods, from razors to Razrs, came to be.

The book veers slightly in a chapter on “Weaponizing Obsolescence,” which details a compex scheme under which American counter-espionage agents allowed the Soviets to “steal” plans for technology that was designed to fail. While it’s a compelling story–you can easily see that this is a screenplay in the making–it takes the book a little off course, and might have been better as a standlone article or book in its own right. Also, there might have been more discussion of another force driving disposable electronics: rising wages and lower costs of finished goods. The parts needed to repair your broken DVD player are probably not expensive, but buying an hour of a trained mechanic’s time to repair it is likely more than the original cost. Therefore, it makes more sense to throw it out and buy anew than to get it fixed. Surely, that’s got just as much to do with the rise of disposabiltiy as clever marketing.

All in all, this is a good book that raises many troubling questions, particuarly this one: what are we going to do with all of our “obsolete” trash? I recommend it for anyone who’s interested in the history of technology, the economy, or consumer electronics.

I just got an email press release from MGM Mirage with some new details about Project CityCenter’s residential component. First, there is a “residential gallery” open at Bellagio, which I think has been open for a while now (it was there about a month ago, at least). Second, there are details–and names–for all of the residences in the project. From MGM Mirage PR:

CITYCENTER’S RESIDENTIAL OFFERINGS

Veer Towers

Designed by architect Helmut Jahn, Veer Towers will rise from CityCenter’s retail and entertainment district giving residents unprecedented access to the best of stylish city living. Distinctively designed as two glass towers leaning in opposite directions, Veer Towers represent a truly innovative architectural accomplishment. The 37-story towers will each house more than 350 modern condominium residences ranging from 500 to 2,600 square feet and available in studio, one-and-two-bedroom flats and penthouses. Atop each striking tower, residents and guests will enjoy an amenities floor featuring unparalleled view of Las Vegas complemented by an “infinity edge” pool, fitness center, spa, cabanas and a patio for outdoor entertaining. Steps away, residents can partake in upscale dining, lavish shopping, exhilarating nightlife and entertainment that only Las Vegas can deliver.

Vdara Condo Hotel

Vdara Condo Hotel will be the complex’s sole condo hotel and deliver the ideal balance of access and escape. Designed by RV Architecture LLC, the 50-story ebony tower will feature understated interior designs to complement its open floor plans and spacious windows with spectacular views of the city. Located between Bellagio and CityCenter’s gaming resort, Vdara’s tower will host approximately 1,543 residential units including studios, deluxe studios, one-bedroom suites and one- and two-bedroom multi-level penthouse suites, ranging from 500 to 1,850 square feet. Amenities and services for residents and guests will include a luxurious spa and salon, pool with cabanas for added privacy, a fitness center, a destination restaurant, 24-hour concierge service, state of the art conference and meetings facilities, in-room dining, housekeeping and valet parking. Residents also will have the option to rent out their units on a nightly basis unlike a traditional condominium.

The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas

The Residences at Mandarin Oriental will mix the prestige of an internationally renowned resort brand, unparalleled amenities and striking architectural design with a world-class hotel and residential experience. Designed by KPF Architects, The Residences at Mandarin Oriental will feature approximately 227 condominium residences situated on the upper floors of the 400-room hotel tower, with a private owner’s lobby and clubroom. Residences will be available in one-and-two-bedroom plans, or two-and-three-bedroom penthouses ranging from 1,000 to 4,100 square feet.

The Harmon Hotel & Residences

Designed by Foster and Partners and operated by visionary Andrew Sasson’s The Light Group, The Harmon Hotel & Residences will define hip, exclusive living on the Strip and offer the highest standard of service and luxurious amenities for guests and residents. Each room will be unique and offer stylish and fashionable design elements. The hotel’s pool deck will be perched 100 feet above the Strip providing full views of world’s most dynamic street below. Residents will have full access to all hotel amenities including a private lounge in the lobby, dining, the hippest retail offerings in Las Vegas, the luxurious spa (with in-room services available), pool deck, valet parking, in-room dining, housekeeping and much more. The Harmon’s elegant tower will boast 400 hotel rooms and approximately 228 condominium residences from 800 to 4,200 square feet available as one-and-two-bedroom flats and penthouses. The Harmon Residences will be released for sale in mid-2007.

THE COMMUNITY

Residents and guests to CityCenter will enjoy the urban community’s gaming resort and retail district. Designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli, the iconic 60-story, 4,000-room hotel/casino will become the focal point of the Las Vegas skyline. At the heart of CityCenter, the retail and entertainment district by Studio Daniel Libeskind will feature high-end retailers, fashionable clubs, gourmet restaurants, galleries and more under a crystalline canopy of unprecedented brilliance. For the interior architecture, David Rockwell and Rockwell Group will create an experiential environment to complement the overall city scene.

To inquire about residential opportunities at CityCenter, which is scheduled to open in late 2009, please call (702) 590-5999, or toll-free (866) 708-7111. CityCenter’s Residential Sales Pavilion will open in January 2007.

That’s a total of 2,698 residential units, including the condo hotel. I really like the name “Veer Towers,” because the towers do look like they are veering. I don’t know what a Vdara is, but it should be a nice place to live. Actually, it looks like a screen name. Maybe it’ll start a trend, and we’ll start getting high-end residential towers with names like ‘vgsdude77″ and “qtgrrl474.” As long as there’s no “maf54,” people should be fine with it.

And the infinity edge pools on top of the Veer Towers should be really, really neat.

As of today, the South Coast has become the South Point. From the LVRJ:

The corporate gaming world didn’t suit Michael Gaughan’s tastes.

But this morning, he gets to be his own boss again.

Gaughan, who built Coast Resorts into a locals’ casino giant before selling the business to Boyd Gaming Corp. for $1.3 billion two years ago, takes over as sole owner and operator of the 10-month-old South Coast. In July, Boyd agreed to trade Gaughan the property in exchange for his stock in the company, valued at $512 million.

The casino is getting a new name — Michael Gaughan’s South Point — and a slight makeover. Signs will change gradually, but new gaming chips and other casino equipment, advertising and the Web site already bear the new name.

The 63-year-old Gaughan said he was never comfortable in the corporate environment, although he remains close with Boyd Gaming Chairman Bill Boyd. The chance to run his own “joint” has given the gaming industry pioneer a passion similar to one he felt in 1979 when he opened his first casino, the Barbary Coast.

“I’m having a good time. I’ve got a little bit of a spring back in my step,” said Gaughan, who resigned his position as a director of Boyd Gaming in the transaction.

He also agreed to give up control of the Coast Casinos brand, which included the Barbary Coast, Gold Coast, Orleans and Suncoast. Boyd Gaming has since agreed to trade the Barbary Coast to Harrah’s Entertainment in a Strip land swap.

“This is actually tougher than opening up a new place,” Gaughan said. “You have to empty out all the slots, change out all the chips and take down all the stuff while keeping it open.”

Most of the modifications happened early this morning, beginning shortly after midnight.

The South Point’s 2,200 employees became Gaughan’s workers upon the transfer. He said he asked Boyd for permission to take about 70 key corporate employees with him.
…
When he decided to cut his ties with Boyd Gaming, Gaughan had to give South Coast a new name.

He wanted to keep “South” in his casino’s title and toyed with “South Strip.” But he didn’t think that name would work if he ever decided to take the brand elsewhere.

Going from “Coast” to “Point” seemed like the easiest solution, he said.

“Five letters; that’s the cheapest way to change out those big signs,” Gaughan said, adding that his name will only appear in the property’s advertising and not its exterior signs.
reviewjournal.com — Business – MAKING A POINT

Gaughan’s been successful with virtually everything else he’s done, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if he really turns the erstwhile Coast around. With all the new construction down there, I’ve got to think that in a few years it will be a real live spot.

In other news, I wasn’t tabbed for jury duty–this time. I’m supposed to wait for another summons, and then go through the reporting/not reporting lottery again. Fun stuff.

If you don’t see any posts for the next few days, I am probably sitting in a jury box in the Clark County Regional Justice Center. Yes, it’s my turn to do my civic duty–I need to call tonight to see if I report tomorrow.

I think they should just have us spin a wheel or shoot dice to see if we get selected. If you’re curious, here are some interesting details about Sin City jury duty I’ve gleaned from the friendly summons that arrived in my mailbox a while ago:

Proper clothing must be worn, and it doesn’t include shorts, haltertops, muscle shirts, hats, or jogging suits. Huh.
You can buy drinks and snacks at the snack bar, but you can’t take them into court.
You can bring a book, magazine, or pesonal work, but not a local newspaper.
After the second day, you get $40 a day. You only get mileage reimbursed if you live more than 65 miles from the Regional Justice Center.

I know–it sounds like such fun, you envy me already.

Look for a boom in electronic table games soon–IGT is now in the field, and we’ve seen what they’ve done in the slot zone for the past 20 years. From the LVRJ:

Slot machine giant International Game Technology took the initial steps Monday to enter the electronic table game business with plans to develop blackjack and roulette tables that don’t require the presence of a dealer.

Reno-based IGT, the gaming industry’s largest slot maker, said it was acquiring the technology for those products from Novomatic AG, an Austrian-based gaming company. No purchase price was announced.

In a separate deal, Novomatic will supply IGT with equipment parts for the electronic roulette game.

Electronic table games allow multiple gamblers to play traditional games but in a dealerless format similar to a slot machine.

Gaming analysts said the announcement gives IGT an additional product to increase overall sales and a way to bring table games into gambling jurisdictions that only allow slot machines, such as Delaware and Pennsylvania.

American Indian casinos, as well as gambling halls in Europe and Macau, China, have also been viewed as locations for electronic table games.

reviewjournal.com — Business – IGT adding to slot games

I saw a lot of these in Macau, but haven’t seen them so much out here. My prediction is that as labor continues to be a huge cost for casinos, and players get more used to electronic interfaces, electronic games will become more common.

I’m not a big Stones fan, but I couldn’t resist the title. No, it’s not a typo: there really is such a thing as a baang, and baangs are big business in South Korea. From the Washington Post:

When a South Korean police squad cracked down on illegal computer gambling, they did it by literally smashing hard disc drives with hammers.

It took more than a dozen men and an excavator to destroy 670 computers seized from illegal Internet gambling salons in the southern city of Ulsan.

“There are more computers like that in our office waiting for disposal,” said Byeon Dong-ki, an officer at the Ulsan Police Agency.

South Korea’s myriad Internet cafes used to be a choice youth hangout in this ultra-wired country. The cafes soon became the cradle of the nation’s booming online gambling industry that now threatens to overwhelm video console games.

Just a few years ago, the cafes known as PC baangs were full of teenage boys slaying virtual beasts in the virtual universe of multiplayer online games, standing next to grown-ups staring intently at Asian checker screens, contemplating their next move.

Now the industry faces a formidable competitor — adults-only video casino bars, which are thriving across the country, where gambling is mostly illegal.

Only one of the country’s 17 legal casinos allows locals to gamble. Nevertheless, money-betting video games have mushroomed in recent years, first with virtual horse races and then video slot machines.

While no real cash is allowed to change hands, the government allowed gambling arcades a huge loophole by letting them give out “gift certificates,” which could then be easily exchanged for cash after payment of a 10 percent commission.

A boom soon followed amid suspicions that some operators had begun to unlawfully reprogram games to allow higher payouts and win more gamers.

“People come here for money, not for the fun,” said a young employee behind the counter at Whale Story, an adult game parlor in Seoul. “PC baangs are for kids,” said Park, who declined to be identified by his full name.
…
Arcades devoted to “Sea Story” reportedly had annual sales of more than $15 billion. The culture ministry also said that the value of gift certificates issued in South Korea over the past year totaled 30 trillion won ($31.5 billion).
South Korea Web cafes take hit from video gambling – washingtonpost.com

First of all, remember that this is a country where there are professional Starcraft players. You read that right–this article talks about the game’s popularity there. So there’s definitely an appetite for video gambling. Combine that with the seemingly-inherent human urge to gamble, and you can see why gambling baangs would be big business.

I’ll come clean–I just get a kick out of writing “baang.” I’m visualizing it as a Batman TV-show style graphic.

You have hopefully noticed that I’ve made a few changes on the site, mostly cosmetic stuff, in my continuing mission to find a formula that is readable without being bland.

The changes include a new page background (hit refresh if you still have the old one) and moving the random image to the sidebar (just below the Roll the Bones news). I’ve also brightened the background of the content to plain old vanilla #FFFFFFF. I’d been shying away from this, thinking that too much bright white would induce eyestrain, but I think that the combination of a darker page background and soft tan accent tones should cut down on that.

I’ve made the changes in the blog pages, and plan to roll them through the rest of the site.

Since I’m traveling to Foxwoods for the big East Coast launch this Sunday (2 pm at the Storyteller), I probably won’t get to it this weekend.

The site really has come far in the two years I’ve been running it. Anyone with me from the start remembers the white text on blue background, which was a good look, I think.

I’ve also got my AmazonConnect blog up on the main page.

All you people who get really worked up over gambling online, click over to the article and bang your chest at the denoument. It’s from Yahoo!News:

It was getting late on Oct. 12, the night before a sweeping anti-Internet gambling bill would be signed into law. Paul McGuire was at his computer, enjoying one last hurrah on PartyPoker, a site that had pledged to kick off all U.S. users as soon as the law left
President Bush’s desk. “It was kind of like that last party before summer ends when you’ve got to go back to school,” says McGuire, a 34-year-old New Yorker and author of the popular “Tao of Poker” blog. “They were playing loose because it was the last night.” Maybe for some.

Not McGuire, whose online handle is “Dr. Pauly.” At 11 p.m., he simply closed down his PartyPoker account, withdrawing thousands of dollars in winnings accumulated in recent weeks. He later wired the funds to an offshore account with NETeller, an Internet bank registered in the Isle of Man, and opened new accounts with two other poker sites — both of them privately owned.

So much for the U.S. crackdown on Internet gambling. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is designed to halt the flow of the roughly $6 billion that flows each year from U.S. gamblers to foreign Internet casinos by officially barring credit card companies and other U.S. financial institutions from processing illegal wagers. The Justice Dept. has long maintained that online poker gambling, like sports betting, violates terms of the 1961 Wire Act.

But within hours of the new bill’s signing, McGuire was back online, betting on hands of Texas Hold ‘Em — and he was not alone. He’s now wagering through PokerStars.com and FullTiltPoker.com, both licensed by the Canadian Mohawk territory of Kahnawake and happily taking U.S. customers. (PokerStars also has a license with the government of the Isle of Man, where it is headquartered.) Both sites saw record numbers of players the weekend following the law’s adoption, according to Louisiana’s Casino City, which monitors traffic on online poker sites in its trade journals.

Indeed, the new law will do little to stop online gambling, say gamblers, betting companies, and industry analysts alike. Instead, the law will drive out regulated, publicly traded companies like PartyGaming, the Gibraltar-based parent of PartyPoker, and make way for private gambling companies and banks based in nations where such industries are loosely policed at best. As a result, the new law could ultimately make billions of dollars in U.S. online gambling transactions more difficult to trace, and increase the likelihood that funds end up in criminal hands. “It leaves an opening for some of the more unscrupulous companies coming in from unregulated places,” says Frank Catania, past director of New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement and president of Catania Consulting Group (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/12/06, “Betting Against Online Gambling”).

Online Gambling Goes Underground – Yahoo! News

This is exactly what everyone predicted would happen: the law won’t stop online gambling, but it has crippled the publicly-traded companies with U.S. exposure.

After a few months of this, you’ve got to think that Congress will appoint a committee to seriously devise a national policy on Internet gambling that will actually address the concerns of all involved.

And yes, that was a really lame Celine Dion joke in the intro. I just had a mental image of these habitual online poker players transferring funds into new ewallets while over-emoting.

I discovered this book while looking at the Barnes and Noble page for Roll the Bones. Apparently, people who buy my book there also buy this one, along with histories of happiness and night-time. Being interested in Venice, I thought I’d give it a read, not really knowing what to expect.

Author John Berendt doesn’t tell a story, so much as paint a portrait in The City of Falling Angels–appropriate, perhaps, since the American view of Venice is so colored by art and architecture. The reader gets a protrait of a Venice that is simultaneously cosmopolitan–the playground of nobility, titled and untitled–and provincial–Berendt’s Venetians are often distrustful of outsiders, and frequently resentful of the millions of tourists who throng the city, bringing traffic, environmental decay–and money. Though it was once the seat of an empire, Venice today is as much a tourist town as Las Vegas or Orlando.

Berendt interweaves several stories throughout a surpisingly quick 414-page read. The investigation and rebuilding following the catastrophic fire at the Fenice opera house is the book’s main story, and the author does a great job of bringing several voices–and his own shrewd eye for controversy–into the mix. Along the way, the reader is introduced to a host of characters, from Venetian counts to ne’er-do-well subcontractors. And the reader sees, through Berendt’s prism, the engimatic character of Venice. Count Girolamo Marcello tells the author, in the preface, that “everyone in Venice is acting…Venetians never tell the truth. We mean exactly the opposite of what we say.” Unravelling a mystery (was the Fenice fire arson, or just plain negligence) is a necessarily difficulty task in such a city. Marcello’s quote makes you wonder, on every page, just what is real, and what is only a facade.

There’s some neat stuff on the inner workings of the Venetian social scene. If you go ga-ga over palaces, counts, and princesses, this will have you positively weak at the knees. If not, it’s a not-so-offensive look at how the other half lives.

On a related note, you might be surprised to know that, even though the city houses architectural and artistic treasures that seem removed from the grind of mundane politics and petty rivalries, the conservators of Venice’s heritage are not at all disinterested in the power and perks that access to them–and the city’s exclusive social set–can provide. The stories Berendt tells of machinations at the Guggenheim, and the travails of Ezra Pound’s lifelong mistress, Olga Rudge, are both fascinating tales of personal rivalries, and dispiriting anecdotes of arrogance and power-hunger.

One of the book’s strengths is that it shows many sides of Venice: readers get to know Archimede Seguso, an incomprable glassmaker and artist, and Massimo Donadon, who made his fortune from selling a better rat poison.

I don’t know if this is an accurate picture of what Venice is “really like.” I don’t know if that matters. One thing’s for sure: it’s not the story of the guy washing dishes in a hole-in-the-wall restuarnt–it revolves around some of the city’s wealthiest and most famous citizens. But it is a compelling read, filled with interesting (if not always likeable) characters. If it was more tightly focused, I would say that it’s non-fiction that reads like a novel, but as it is, it’s non-fiction that reads like very well-written non-fiction.

The book is hardly a travel guide to the city (nor was it meant to be), though it does give intriuging backstory for some of the city’s landmarks. Watching Globe Trekker’s Venice show (which was coincidentally on the week I read this), I was thrilled to see many of the places Berendt describes in living color. So if you are thinking of travelling to Venice, and are of a literary bent (if you read book reviews, I’ve got to assume you are), this makes a fun read, maybe combined with a more straight-forward history of the city. It’s definitely recommended.

The Russian State Duma–their version of parliament–voted down a bill that would have created a new regulatory framework for Russian casinos. Existing regulation, it seems, is something of a slapdash affair. From RIA Novosti:

The bill’s doom does not mean gamblers and casino proprietors have several more years to enjoy the absence of related legislation, some happily drawing super-profits, others squandering their money, as before. The fate of the Russian gambling business is sealed, bill or no bill. Debates on the issue have been raging for years, with numerous arguments for and against. The State Duma discussed bills, one after another. Authorities took the hard line in some parts of the country. For example, all casinos and slot machine halls were closed within two days in Chechnya and North Ossetia. Now, President Vladimir Putin has issued a final verdict. He likened gambling to drug addiction and alcoholism in a public address, and offered the State Duma a bill of his own to fetter the vice.

Recent research by the Moscow Serbsky Psychiatry Institute produced some sensational revelations: gambling has become an obsession with more than two million Russians. Moscow, with its enormous number of slot machines, has 330,000 compulsive gamblers. The owner of just one slot machine makes an average profit of $10,000 per month. Gambling business tax returns have struck a seven billion ruble mark, roughly $260 million.

Many Russians hate gambling. State Duma member Vladimir Medinsky, author of one of the legislative amendment draft versions, went so far as to say concrete walls topped with barbed wire ought to be built round “casinos and other such filth” to keep young people and old-timers away. Another parliamentarian, Anatoly Aksakov, offered a package of Civil Code amendments envisaging incapacitation of gamblers.

The casino lobby fought back. The state regulation bill took so long to appear in parliament for its second reading partly due to a huge number of proposed amendments providing legal loopholes for proprietors to continue reaping their fabulous profits. Now, President Putin’s draft bill leaves no room for compromise. It envisages a complete ban on Internet gambling throughout Russia, and proposes to establish analogues of Las Vegas by 2009 – areas of legalized gambling under strict state control. As the presidential blueprint has it, there will be no more than four such gambler’s paradises in the entire country.

RIA Novosti – Opinion & analysis – Gambling to be exiled in Russia

I did an interview with NTV, a Russian TV channel, a week or so ago, and was struck at how anti-gambling the questions were. At one point, the reporter asked me whether gambling was “less uncivilized” in Las Vegas, now that all gamblers didn’t lose everything they had and blow their brains out (his words) at the tables.

I simply had to say that there was no record of a time when corpses littered the streets (as they would if all gamblers promptly suicided).

People have said that Macau was a den of iniquity before 2002, but from this story it seems that Moscow is the real 21st century Dodge City.

Humans have been using money for 7000 years, maxiumum, but their brains have been evolving for far longer than that. So how do we handle money, biologically speaking? And how can this be connected to gambling? This article from MIT’s Technology Review says how:

According to new research by Mauricio Delgado, a neuroscientist at Rutgers University, our brains interpret losing money the same way they interpret pain. Delgado and his collaborators used functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technique that indirectly measures brain activity, to watch the brains of volunteers as they played a gambling game that resulted in either money loss or a painful shock. Volunteers rated both experiences as equally unpleasant, and in both cases, a part of the brain known as the striatum, which is involved in picking out the most rewarding objects or actions in our environment, became active. “Perhaps the way we learn about losing money is similar to how we learn to avoid shock,” says Delgado, who presented the research this week at the Society for Neurosciences conference in Atlanta. According to Read Montague, a neuroscientist at Baylor University who also studies neuro-economics but was not involved in the current research, the findings show that older brain structures shared by all animals–not all of which deal with currency, obviously–can be used to make decisions about abstract symbols, such as money.

A second study found that certain gamblers release dopamine–a brain chemical linked to pleasurable sensations, such as food and sex or taking drugs–when gambling. Arne Moller, a neuroscientist at Aarhus University Hospital, in Denmark, used positron emission tomography (PET) to image dopamine concentrations in the brains of pathological gamblers as they played a gambling game. The findings could eventually help design specialized treatments for gamblers. “Gambling is like a parasite that learns to grow in our liver,” says Montague. “It’s a totally irrational behavior that takes advantage of the frailty of our decision-making systems.”

Technology Review: How does the brain learn about money?

I’ve got to take issue with the contention that “gambling is like a parasite that grows in our liver.” The basic human impulse to face risk is not irrational. If it was, humanity about have died out millennia ago, because the mere act of surviving entails risk.

Gambling is a way of compressing that risk into small, discrete, socially acceptable packets. You put your money down, spin the wheel, and hope for the best.

When done in moderation, there is nothing irrational about this. Most people get more enjoyment out of staking $20 on roulette than letting the $20 sit in the back and collect interest: you have an immediate payoff, and you should be able to handle losing $20. Though you’ve got to face a 5.3% house edge, you’ve got a decent chance of winning (on a straight-up even money wager, that is), so the risk is in line with the reward.

Spending one dollar on the lottery, where the odds are greater but the exposure less, is also rational, if you get enjoyment from playing.

The irrational part comes in when pathological gamblers (the group that Montague is studying) place bets whose payoff is out of line with the risks. Would you bet everything you own on an even money proposition, even if you had a 60% chance to win? Mathematically, it might be the right thing to do, but you simply have too much to lose. It is therefore not rational to wager everything you own, or to chase your losses.

So while Montague is correct, in the narrow sense, he’s painting gambling with too broad a brush. Most people are able to balance risk and reward, and can gamble responsibly. It is the few who can’t do so who act irrationally. But is that because of something inherent in gambling, or within the individual? Most behaviorists would say the latter.

It’s like saying that there is something inherently pathological about food because some people make a few trips too many to the buffet and become morbidly obese.

One of the things that sets Roll the Bones apart from 99% of the stuff that’s out there about gambling is that, like my other work, it was written from the viewpoint of someone who thinks that people who gamble and people who run gambling operations are basically rational, intelligent people (at least to the extent that the broader population is). It’s hard too believe how controversial that stance is in some circles. Growing up in Atlantic City and living in Las Vegas, it seems obvious, so it’s hard for me to understand how people, in this day and age, could seriously believe otherwise.

Another piece of the Strip’s past is gone forever…but was it a valuable piece of history, or just some landscaping that had outlived its usefulness? You be the judge, since this LVRJ article presents both views:

Four of the five original statues that once stood in front of Circus Circus, Las Vegas icons photographed by thousands of visitors each year, have been hauled away and buried in a landfill by the hotels new management.

The statues represented the most publicly visible surviving work by the artist Montyne, who lived much of his life in Las Vegas and died here in 1989. The best-known of the statues, of an acrobat balancing on a single finger, was a self-portrait. Montyne, who used only the single name in both private and professional life, also traveled the world as a stage and circus performer specializing in feats of balance and strength.

The late Jay Sarno, founder of both Caesars Palace and Circus Circus, and considered to have originated in those hotels the heavily themed resort concept that dominated the gaming industry for decades, commissioned Montyne in 1967 to sculpt the statues. They were erected the following year, when Circus Circus opened, and were removed about three months ago.

Montynes surviving son, Lamont Sudbury, said the destruction violated one of the terms of Sarnos agreement with his father, that Montyne and his family would have first right of refusal if the statues were ever to be sold or otherwise disposed of.

“I would have loved to take The Balancer and put it in the cemetery where my dad is,” Sudbury said. “But they didnt even call us. The only way I learned about it was when a friend of mine went over there to show the statues to one of his business associates, and they were gone.”

The other statues that were removed included one of a young female acrobat gracefully balancing on a board atop a cylinder. The person who posed for that statue was Montynes wife, theatrical assistant and favorite model, China, who remarried after his death and still lives in Las Vegas. Also removed were statues of Gargantua, the “Worlds Largest Gorilla” once exhibited by the Barnum & Bailey Circus, and of a male lion. Only one of the five is left: a clown.

Sudbury said he was told by Circus Circus executives that the four removed statues were hauled to the landfill at Apex, a few miles north of Las Vegas, and buried there.

reviewjournal.com — News – BURIED TREASURE

A while ago I was wondering how long the statues would last. I didn’t know anything about their provenance or value. Still, I’m surprised that it took three months for people to notice that they were gone.

Do you want to know just what the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition” is? I’ve printed out all 107 pages of the “Security and Accountability For Every Port Act of 2006,” AKA, the SAFE Port Act, and, skipping ahead to page 94, I’ll summarize the relevant bits for you.

Section 801 of the SAFE Port Act says that this section can be called the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.” Good for us.

Section 802 starts getting substantive. It declares that Chapter 53 of title 31 (not Section 31, so Star Trek fans everywhere can calm down) of the United States Code–that’s federal law–will be amended by adding “Subchapter IV–Prohibition on Funding of Unlawful Internet Gambling.”

The new section 5361 (of title 31, remember), starts with a preamble, saying that Congress, an investigatory apex, has found that internet gambling is primarily funded through payment systems, credit cards, and wire transfers. Congress has also found that Internet gambling leads to debt collection problems. Also, nothing in the new law alters any existing law banning or permitting gambling within the US.

Section 5362 defines a bet, chiefly as risking something of value on “a contest of others, a sporting event, or a game subject to chance,” with the expectation that, if you win, you win something of value. This includes, specifically lotteries (and obviously sports betting) but not poker. It doesn’t include:
a) buying stocks legally,
b)insurance,
c) banking,
d) games where you don’t risk anything but your time, or free credits
e) fantasy sports, where the result is NOT based on the performance of a single team, or combination of teams. Fantasy football is kosher, parlay cards are not.

This section further defines these terms: betting business, desginated payment system, financial transaction provider, Internet (wow!), interactive computer service, restricted transaction, secretary (of the Treasury), and state.

It further defines unlawful Internet gambling, which means, surprise, using the Internet to place, receive, or transmit a wager that is illegal under federal or state law.

This does not include intrastate transactions that are specifically legal within that state, and use appropriate age and location verification systems (which are not defined).

It also does not include specified horseracing transactions “allowed under Federal law,” or bets on tribal land, subject to federal law and state compacts.

So betting within states, within tribal lands, and on horseracing across state lines might be legal, but betting on sports across state lines is definitely prohibited.

Section 5363 ( is the meat of the bill. This declares that no one in the betting business can knowingly accept credit, EFTs, checks, or any other kind of payment, for gambling reasons. Period.

Section 5364 charges Treasury and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System with developing policies and procedures that will let payment systems (banks, etc), identify and block “restricted transactions,” i.e., bets. This is long on responsibility and short on specifics, so it seems that Congress has ruled, and it is up to the money guys to figure out just how to identify gambling transactions.

Notably, one subsection indemnifies anyone who blocks a transaction that is actually restricted, or that they “reasonably believe” to be restricted. In other words, if your credit card company won’t send funds to someone, and you are hurt (if, for example, you lose out on a auction), you can’t sue them, if they say that they reasonably thought it might be a gambling transaction.

This section will be enforced by federal bank regulators and the Federal Trade Commission.

Section 5365 lays out the Civil Remedies that U.S. district courts–and states–can seek.

The feds can apply for injunctions to block what they think are restricted transactions, and so can states’ attorneys general. On Indian lands, the feds have enforcement authority, but nothing in this law supersedes the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

“Interactive Computer Services,” (we call them web sites) can be subject to “relief” if they don’t remove, or disable access to a link to a site that violates this act. This can be done after they are served notice and given a chance to block access. Sites don’t have to “affirmatively seek facts” (in other words, they don’t have to jump in the Batmobile and start looking around Gotham for links to gambling sites), but when told that they have to shut down access. They aren’t considered to be violating the Wire Act (section 1084 of Title 18) unless they are the people actually running or owning the gambling website.

Section 5366 tells all the scofflaws, in plain black print, that, if you violate section 5363, you can go to jail for as long as 5 years and fined; you can also be subject to a permanent injunction that prevents you from accepting bets.

Heading into the homestretch, section 5367 declares that, 5362 (2) notwithstanding, financial transaction providers, site owners, and service providers are liable if they actually own or control gambling sites, as opposed to just linking to them or processing their payments.

Section 802 then wraps up with a bang. In this case, it’s a “technical and conforming amendment” that amends the table of contents for good old section 53 of title 31.

But wait! There’s more! Section 803 finds that the feds should work with foreign governments to see if Internet gambling can be used for money laundering “or other crimes,” and encourages the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering to study how Internet gambling is being used for money laundering.

Finally, the Secretary of the Treasury is charged with submitting an annual report to Congress on any deliberations between the U.S. and other countries concerning Internet gambling. This, I would assume, means the Antigua/U.S. WTO case, and anything else that crops up.

And that’s it.

After about an hour of reading and summarizing, I’m done. I’ll leave further analysis to others; comment away.

As expected, the Internet Gambling Prohibition is driving a lot of companies out of the field. From CBS News:

British-based online gaming companies began cashing in the chips of their U.S. operations Friday as President Bush signed a bill aimed at restricting Internet gambling in the United States.

Sportingbet PLC and Leisure & Gaming PLC both sold their U.S. operations for a token $1 while World Gaming PLC directors resigned, leaving the company in the hands of administrators.

Congress caught the gaming industry by surprise late last month when it included a provision in a bill aimed at improving port security that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to settle payments to online gambling sites.

The measures supporters include the National Football League as well as conservative and antigambling groups. Some banking groups lobbied against it.

U.S. residents account for about half of the estimated $15.5 billion in net win from wagering that operators of online betting sites were expected to generate this year, according to the betting research unit at Nottingham Business School. The total amount bet online is substantially higher, it said.

Analysts said the U.S. legislation is cleaving the industry in two. On one side are the London-based companies that are pulling out of the United States. On the other are private offshore companies located in the Caribbean that are still doing business with U.S. customers through third parties.
Online Gambling Knows When To Fold Em, Brit Betting Firms Sell U.S. Operations For $1 As Bush Signs Law Restricting Internet Gambling – CBS News

Many companies have announced their intentions to stay in the US market, but you’ve got to wonder how they’ll be able to accept cash from and pay winnings to players. Still, there gamblers are very inventive, so there are probably hundreds of alternate payment plans already circulating.

Are online poker sites in the United States in the post-ban world, or out? Card Player has a few answers:

In the past few days, we have received definitive confirmation that the following companies are not pulling out of the United States: Full Tilt, Bodog, Full Contact Poker, Doyle’s Room and the Doyle Brunson Network, and Absolute Poker are all in! We also have good authority that Ultimate Bet’s intention is to accept US customers. As a matter of fact, many of these sites have rewarded US players by offering specials for their customers. Please visit this page to examine and cash in on the bonuses.

Card Player learned moments ago that PokerStars has made a decision to continue accepting US customers even if the President signs the current legislation. Bravo for PokerStars!

We have strong reason to believe that this afternoon, PokerStars customers will receive answers to their e-mails stating that PokerStars will remain doing business in the United States.

Card Player applauds PokerStars and all the other online sites for their informed decision to continue offering poker games to United States citizens.

As a poker community, let’s begin right now, before the bill is signed, by supporting the companies that have not abandoned US players.

Poker News – Good News: The Tide is Turning

Poker Stars has this to say (via Casino City Times:

PokerStars has received extensive expert advice from within and outside the U.S. which concluded that these provisions do not alter the U.S. legal situation with respect to online poker. Furthermore it is important to emphasize that the Act does not in any way prohibit you from playing online poker.

Therefore, our business continues as before – open to players worldwide including the US. You may play on our site as you did prior to the Act.

PokerStars believes that poker is a game of skill enjoyed by millions of players and we remain committed to providing you a safe and fun environment in which to play. We value your loyalty to PokerStars, and look forward to continuing to serve you with the best online poker experience, as we have for the past five years, six billion hands, and 40 million tournaments.

I don’t know what kind of advice Poker Stars is getting: the law says, rather unambiuously, that “gambling” includes any game “subject to chance.” You can see the relevant part of the law here.

As I said last week, Congress could have said “primarily of chance,” and left poker out of the ban. But “subject to chance” means that chance only has to be a small part of a larger game which can include skill.

I think that there are great reasons to argue against the ban–Congress should definitely convene a non-biased committee to study Internet gambling and reccomendations about legalization and regulation. But anyone who’s ever even looked at a pair of cards will tell you that poker, though in many regards a game of skill, is definitely subject to chance. How else could so many of the recent WSOP champions have come from nowhere to win?

I wouldn’t stake my freedom, or my financial security, on aruging before a jury that poker is a game entirely of skill, not subject to chance. I’d be interested in hearing the legal opinions that Poker Stars received. There may be another reading to the law that I’m not seeing here, because it looks cut and dried to me.

As I’ve said before, the key isn’t trying to argue your way around the law: it is to develop a new revenue model, like a subscription-based service, that might actually be legal.

For those who say it can’t be done, and that online poker is doomed without the current model is scrapped, answer this question: where was the online poker industry 15 years ago? There was nothing written in stone saying this is the only way that players can play for money, and sites can profit from this desire. We need people who can rethink everything here. Whoever can be the first (or the first to do this well) will become the next industy leader.

And if you’re wondering whether I’ve got a plan, the answer is definitely “no.” I’m a historian/author, not an online business whiz. I can’t even figure out how YouTube makes money, let alone how to re-imagine online poker in the post-SAFE environment.

But if you think you’ve got the answer, I’d be happy to come on board as a consultant.

Those of you who were at the World Series of Poker last summer might have seen the booth for Poker Face 2. For those who didn’t, here are some excerpts of story in the Baltic Times explains a bit about the photog and the book:

In November 1983, Ulvis Alberts, a photographer who had snapped some of the iconic images of his time – Christopher Reeve grinning widely from his swimming pool, a young Tom Waits, an elderly Fred and Ginger – arrived in Riga. “It was another world, another satellite – no pun intended,” he says. “Think of it: Hollywood! Photographer! In Riga, Latvia. It doesn’t get any better than that, in terms of getting attention, much of it unwarranted.”
…
He shuttles between spending a few months at his home outside Seattle and months at one or another apartment in Riga. He loves the “cocktail of Riga” and keeps changes of clothes in various suitcases left at friends’ places throughout the city.
Recently, Alberts had the idea to publish a book at a printing press in Cesis. “Poker Face 2,” the sequel to a book he published 25 years ago, combines images he took of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas in the late ’70s and ’80s, when it was still a fringe event, with images he took at the poker gathering in the last few years, when it started to enjoy a massive televised audience and celebrity guests like Ben Affleck and Jennifer Tilly. The book is selling online for $275.

The negatives were scanned in the United States and sent electronically to Latvia. About 40 people put the book together, he says. They were doing a lot of work for a little bit of money – “That’s the story of Riga” – and there was one issue that he says made the experience “consciously a little uncomfortable.”
“What did some of these guys think was going on here [in these photographs]? Guys with fistfuls of money. What the f— was going on in America?”
…
Then he turned his eye to the World Series of Poker, which was still a relatively obscure event. Jack Binion ran the tournament at his Horseshoe Casino, and it attracted some modern brilliant outlaws.
There’s Doyle Brunson, a former basketball star in high school, who, after suffering an injury, grew obese and turned his immense energies to becoming the godfather of poker.

Stu Ungar, a prodigy of the game, won the tournament three times. The other characters in the book are generally middle-aged, wearing cowboy hats and boots, but Ungar is a kid in a jumper and a floppy haircut, raking in his chips.
Ungar died young in the late ’90s, after his cocaine habit caught up with him and stopped his heart. And one of the stranger photographs in the collection shows Jack Binion, older, craggier and wiser, embracing the young 20-something, whose eyes are closed.

“It’s the best photograph of Stu I have,” says Alberts. “He looks like a choir boy. He looks like a kid who should be in church. So I used it for that reason. Jack is kinda there hugging Stu. Of course they were close, because Stu brought a lot of publicity to the Horseshoe Casino.” He cropped the picture from a much larger setting and we are left with a melancholic connection between steady, wise old age and brilliant youth doomed to be misspent.

The newer photographs, representative of the multimedia age, have their own poetry too. There’s a series of photographs of Jennifer Tilly being particularly emotive and one of an older Doyle Brunson flashing the wryest of smiles.
Many of the poker players are old and need to move around in electric wheelchairs. Alberts points out a lonely photograph of one empty wheelchair plugged into a wall socket being charged in a hallway at 4 a.m. The chair is a black silhouette against the dim light of late night with some televisions on the side. “It just spoke to me,” Alberts says.
Snapshots of Las Vegas

UNLV Special Collections has a relatively rare copy of the original Poker Face, and I ordered a copy of the new one to round out the collection.

If you’re into poker past and present, Poker Face 2 is a must-have.