Online Casino Edition – Casino News News about online casinos and gambling

February 21, 2013

New Jersey Casinos To Offer Bet Placing From Hotel Rooms For First Time

Filed under: Casino — Tags: , — OCE News @ 3:16 am

If you have ever had a casino and wish that you could place bets straight from the comfort of your own bed, you might be in luck. A casino recently announced that they are going to be giving that exact feature to patrons of their casino and hotel. It was announced that at The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, patrons of the hotel are going to be able to place bets from the comfort of their bed, utilizing their remote control and television set, starting on 18 February. This casino will allow guests with players cards to set up electronic accounts, and that up to $2500 per day, from the comfort of their hotel room. There will be slots available to them, as well is four different types of video poker, as the first games offered, and the company is expected to expand their offerings at some point in the near future. The casino also said that in the future they would like to expand their offerings to include handheld devices which would allow the patrons of the hotel to continue to gamble while they are walking around the location. It is not that this will give the patrons of the casino more opportunity to gamble, and the casino itself the ability to attract new business to the area on a more regular basis.

“This puts us in a position to leverage the technology into true mobile gaming and Internet betting later on,” said Tom Balance, the Borgata’s president and chief operating officer. “We’re moving forward with the future of gaming, and this is that first step.”

John Forelli, who is the casino’s vice president of information technology, stated that the technology had been design not only as an added amenity, but one that they thought could become a core marketing point for the company. They are preparing for the day when Internet wagering, and online gambling becomes acceptable, after either the states begin to pass their own legislation, or the federal authorities begin to pass their own as well. He went on to say that he did not expect the in room gambling to completely do away with the in person gambling at the physical locations.

Recently, the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie vetoed an Internet gambling bill, but went on to say that he would be willing to sign another one that came across his desk of some moderate changes to the bill was made. It will be interesting to see if online gambling becomes the norm over the course of the next decade, with many different companies scrambling to offer their own online solutions. With The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City developing their own hotel room gambling solutions and handheld devices, you can expect to see the space continue to grow over the course of the next two years and offer a high-quality service to many different people.

The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City is establishing their presence, as they prepare for online gambling to come to New Jersey, likely when the next bill reaches Gov. Chris Christie’s desk.

February 19, 2013

Stratosphere Owner Launches Completely Free Online Poker Website

Filed under: Casino — Tags: , — OCE News @ 3:15 am

It is absolutely no secret that online gambling is going to be the way of the future, whether it is done through the states, or done through free enterprise and allowing businesses to capitalize on the opportunities that are available to them. However, depending upon the company, there are multiple ways in which they are going about capturing a user base on the Internet in order to expand well in the future. Recently, the owner of the Stratosphere, who also owns Arizona Charlie branded casinos in the Las Vegas area have taken their first dip into the online realm. They recently launched a website which is going to allow anyone that would like to the ability to play online poker, completely for free on their website. Although this is a unique strategy, especially for a company that has made their living from paid poker, it certainly will be a great way for the company to attract a user base that is going to be interested in the services that they offer.

The company, American Casino & Entertainment, which owns the Stratosphere and various other properties throughout the Las Vegas area have announced the launch of their new online website, acePlayPoker.com. The companies have launched a number of different poker sites over the course of the last year, in anticipation of laws within Las Vegas that are going to allow for companies to conduct a limited amount of online gambling. Although nothing is set in stone at this time, it is thought that after some deliberation the laws will be approved in some manner, allowing companies to utilize the user base is that they are able to generate now by offering free games, and offer them upgrades into paid poker games, generating revenue for both the state, as well as the companies themselves. There’s also some word out there on the horizon about federal legislation that could be coming down at some point as well. Although many companies are in the dark at some point, most are expecting some form of legislation to come down the gives them the ability to offer poker and some other games with limitations attached to them. This is because the states themselves are not going to want to develop the poker software, and if the companies are able to put themselves in a good place with a solid user base, the transition to the legal online gambling is going to be a simple one.

Players are going to be able to win prizes including tickets to a variety of different shows and rides at the Stratosphere. Other prizes that are going to be offered include free hotel stays, and a variety of other prizes that are going to entice players to utilize the website. Although there’s no way to earn money by playing on the website at this time, it is thought that after legislation is passed that will be something that the company is looking to do in the future. The Nevada gaming commission has approved American Casino & Entertainment Properties as an interactive gaming operator, which means that once the legislation comes that allows them to utilize the online poker to their advantage, they are going to be one of the first companies that is allowed into the space.

February 17, 2013

Grocery Store Casinos Announce Expansion of Games and Promotions

Filed under: Casino — Tags: — OCE News @ 3:12 am

Grocery stores with casinos have become increasingly common throughout the Las Vegas area in recent years. However, the grocery stores that have gaming facilities are going to be undergoing a major overhaul at some point in the very near future. In the Las Vegas Valley, Golden Gaming is preparing to spend millions of dollars for the purpose of renovating all of the regions supermarkets that have casinos that are contained within them. The company is planning on upgrading more than 10 different locations that contain the gaming facilities. Some of the facilities that are going to be revamped by the company include Vons at South Durango Drive, and East Horizon Drive. In all, after the first 10 renovations are complete the company is looking to renovate more than 70 different locations over the course of the next two years and upgrade all of them.

This is not to be an extremely significant investment for the company, and is going to cost them millions of dollars, sometimes millions per site in order to do the proper renovations. The company is been making a number of changes to their structure, including the recently launched “Checkout Rewards” branding for their gaming salons. The salons are going to be aimed at offering greater privacy to the gamers that play there, rather than the level of privacy that is offered at their current locations.

Many of the supermarkets that contain these games actually contain older machines, which is thought to be one of the main upgrades that they are looking at changing. The new salons will have completely enclosed rooms along with updated games in modern decor. The ideas to make for a more comfortable and relaxing environment for the people that are going to be playing there.

The company first acquired the market share on the grocery store gaming parlors last year. Prior to their ownership, the stores had been known by their biggest competitor at the time, Affinity Gaming, which was formerly known as aHerbst Gaming. Golden Gaming as a company is also the largest owner of bars and pubs throughout the entire state. In all, it owns more than 40 bars and taverns with gaming equipment throughout the Las Vegas area. Most of the company’s locations have Artie received an update to the software and the machines, greatly improving them over what was there previously.

However, they are planning to make new adjustments to the machines and software in order to make the environment is comfortable as possible for the people that enjoy playing some games while they are out doing their shopping. The addition of the new software will make it easy for people to trade the points that they earn for the ability to spend at the grocery store. Even the stores that the company owns that do not currently have any gaming equipment are going to be receiving at least a few machines themselves, in order to entice more players to play while there at the grocery store, and earn a little bit fo extra money for all of your shopping efforts. This is a practice they are looking to grow moving forward.

February 16, 2013

Facebook Graph Search To Impact Casinos

Filed under: Casino — Tags: — OCE News @ 3:21 am

The new Facebook Graph Search may impact many online and off-line casinos. The new Facebook Graph Search links social media users to possibly millions of opinions of people that have had experience with some service or product. This would, of course, include casinos. The danger, experts say, is that the Facebook Graph Search could cause negative reputations for companies.

Casino marketing experts seem to agree that casinos will need to spend more time on customer service than ever before unless they want to be at risk of losing business due to a bad rep. In the past, a few unhappy customers could post on Twitter or Yelp and, generally, not too many people would see the post. With the new Facebook Graph Search, a new type of search tool that actually goes through people’s Facebook profiles to see what they are saying about companies, all of that has changed.

In simple terms, until now, someone could read some casino reviews and then decide as to whether or not they valued those reviews. Now, because of the way Graph Search works, those same people will see what all of their friends on Facebook say about a casino. The average Facebook user is estimated to have about 130 listed friends. And those friends have friends and so forth and so on. A few negative comments about a particular casino can explode into a huge mess in no time at all.

One of the problems that many casinos have is that they are behind in their customer service technology making it difficult for customers to voice their displeasure about something directly to the casino. Now, they can take that displeasure and post it to Facebook profiles and the issue could be read by potentially thousands of other people. Many modern casinos still use paper cards for customer feedback and this could mean trouble for them as more and more people turn to the Internet to voice their opinions. Casinos that want to fight back will need to make it much easier for their guests to give them feedback.

According to casino marketing gurus, casinos will need to act fast to take measures that will improve their customer and guest service. The key, of course, is providing great service to every customer so they have nothing but good things to say. But, the other key is making it easy for those who have issues to get those issues addressed quickly. This is really the only way to combat what might be a huge problem for some casinos in terms of their reputations. Those who act fast will probable be able to avoid a lot of the possible consequences. But for those that put it off, remember, once a negative comment is posted it is there forever! This is one time that being proactive can really pay off for casinos, both online and brick and mortar establishments. On the other hand, great comments about a casino will remain online as well, and that can mean a lot of new business.

February 15, 2013

Pinnacle Entertainment Sees Record Revenue Throughout 2012

Filed under: Casino — Tags: — OCE News @ 3:12 am

Pinnacle Entertainment is celebrating a record turnaround after reporting record revenue throughout the year of 2012. After a few down years following the 2008 financial collapse, the company is happy to see their revenue rising at a rapid rate once again, leading to this record year. The company also announced that they are going to continue to move in on plans that would allow them to acquire Ameristar Casinos later in the year. That would allow the company to own its first properties throughout Nevada, which is a goal that the company has been attempting to achieve for the better part of the last decade.

Pinnacle, a company which currently operates out of five different states at this current time reported a net loss despite the record revenue that they posted. Their net loss was a total of $42.2 million, or $.72 per share. The total revenue that the company was able to generate was $301.6 million for the fourth quarter. The company had earnings of $25 million or $.40 a share and revenue of $275.8 million during the same quarter of last year.

In 2012 as a whole, the companies lost a total of $31.8 million, which comes out to about $.52 per share. Total revenue of $1.2 billion was seen by the company throughout the year, which was nearly a 5% increase over the previous year. Although many analysts tape that the company vastly under perform the expectations that have been set by them, pinnacle attributed many of its gains to record revenue performances.

The company is thought to be acquiring AmeriStar for a total of $869 million. The deal was first hinted at during the month of December, and since that time there has been a bit of a stall in the negotiations between the two companies. With a property in Nevada, Pinnacle would increase the number of properties that they own, and add a very important state in Nevada to their list.

The earnings report had a number of different highlights including the fact that executives say that their due diligence of the deal with AmeriStar currently indicate that the acquisition of the company would be a very good fit for Pinnacle Entertainment , the company that is looking to expand in hopes to become profitable at some point here in the very near future. In the earnings report, the company also said that they are beginning to see some real customer loyalty throughout the Louisiana market, which has been incredibly noticeable during the opening of a few recent properties there in the state.

The company also signed an agreement to sell off all of its current land owned by the company in the Atlantic City area for a total of $30.6 million overall. This was not a choice by the company, and instead was part of a financing contingency that the company had signed in previous years. That land sale is expected to go through near the end of the first quarter of 2013, although no exact date has been placed on the sale. The company also opened a new covered parking area at its River city property in St. Louis, as was reported on the earnings report.

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