Casino News Today

If debris plummeting from the shot-down U.S. spy satellite hits his casino, the general manager of Seminole Casino Coconut Creek in northwest Broward County, Florida will give away $1 million to a lucky gambler through a random drawing.”The Navy hit the satellite in just one shot, so we’ll give our patrons one shot at winning a big pile of money,” said Steve Bonner.

The Pentagon noted debris not burned up on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere within 24 to 48 hours, “should re-enter within 40 days” in football-sized pieces.

To give it a better chance of meeting its million dollar target, Bonner even painted a 100-foot bull’s-eye on the roof of the casino, which includes two restaurants and an ultra-lounge. It is one of seven casinos owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which last year purchased Hard Rock International for nearly one billion dollars.

“It’s a crazy idea, probably more than one in a million chance but who knows, anything’s possible,” said three-time-a-week patron, Mercedes Isabel, a resident of Coconut Creek.

If the drawing for a million dollars takes place, “I’ll be here,” she said.

So the casino players in South Florida will look toward the sky, wait and see. The odds of a spy satellite piece crashing into it must be more than a few million to one, but that’s why it’s called gambling. And in this case, players will only need to show up to win.

The Seminole Casino Coconut Creek opened in March 2000. In April 2007 a $32 million expansion was completed, including a new valet portico entrance, the unique multi-station 290-seat Fresh Harvest restaurant, Nectar ultra lounge and additional space accommodating a total of more than 1500 electronic gaming machines. Future plans call for expanded casino space, a 1500-room convention hotel with indoor amphitheater and more restaurants, retail shopping and nightclubs.

The casino is located just east of State Road 7 (U.S. 441) and north of Sample Road on 40th Street. For more information call 954-977-6700; fax 954-970-7721; write to: 5550 NW 40th Street, in Coconut Creek, 33073; or visit www.seminolecoconutcreekcasino.com.

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Here we are again. Another inconceivable, unfathomable moment in the life of the NCAA, and I’m left stupefied. The NCAA is, beyond the shadow of any man’s reasonable doubt, the most hypocritical organization in sports.

Last week, the University of New Mexico’s athletic department announced a $2.5 million sponsorship deal with a tribal casino hotel. Let that sink in, folks.

An institution of higher learning signed a marketing deal with a company built around gambling.

And not a peep from the NCAA.

Now, if that’s not enough to make you tear your hair out, consider this: The casino/hotel is located on tribal land 25 miles west of Albuquerque, where the university is located. Not so long ago, the NCAA — and president Myles Brand, in particular — blew a gasket and demanded the end of member institutions using “hostile and offensive” Native American nicknames. He went as far as saying no NCAA championships would be played at any university using such a nickname.

Yet here is New Mexico, an NCAA member institution, making millions from a development corporation that owns a casino on Native American soil.

Many believe that tribal casinos are a way for others to make millions, while most of the Native Americans living near the casinos see scant profits. Since tribal sovereignty is the legal basis for gambling on Native American land, tribes aren’t bound to disclose profits or how the money is spent. All we really know is this hotel/casino just so happens to glamorize and glorify the NCAA’s unspeakable sin, gambling.

At a press conference announcing the deal, New Mexico president David Schmidly said he saw no problem with the university’s marketing deal: “They don’t do any gambling on sports events or things of that nature, so I think it’s a win-win.”

Gambling is gambling. There are no shades of gray — only black and white.

Go into any locker room on any campus in the country, and there are countless NCAA posters plastered all over the walls about the ills of gambling and how one mistake can end careers and destroy programs.

Yet, we’ve heard nothing from Brand about New Mexico’s utterly inappropriate revenue-generating relationship with a casino. That, ladies and gentlemen, is hostile and offensive.

Meanwhile, the University of North Dakota, per NCAA rules, has two years to gain approval from the state’s Sioux tribes to use the nickname Fighting Sioux. Or else.

There’s nothing like the foul stench of hypocrisy.

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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A wealthy casino operator is defending an eye-catching $1 million contribution to a political group that worked to elect a pro-gambling governor in Kentucky.

William Yung III, who heads Crestview Hills-based Columbia Sussex Corp., has essentially placed a huge bet that newly elected Gov. Steve Beshear will be able to get the state’s long-standing prohibition against casinos lifted.

“I make no apologies for helping get Steve Beshear elected,” Yung told The Associated Press in an interview this week. “I’ve got a First Amendment right to spend my money any way I want to spend it.”

Beshear is proposing an amendment to the state constitution that would allow up to seven casinos to be built at Kentucky horse tracks and five others in communities along the state’s borders with Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia. That many casinos, he said, could generate $600 million a year in tax revenue for a cash-strapped state government.

The proposal is a long shot in a Bible-belt state where lawmakers have rejected numerous other casino proposals over the past decade. If it passes, Yung would open a casino on a northern Kentucky site he bought just last month for $7 million.

“Absolutely, we’re gambling on it,” Yung said. “We don’t know if it’s going to pass or not.”

Yung may have worsened his odds with the land purchase and the political contributions, including a $10,000 donation to help pay for Beshear’s inaugural party on the Capitol grounds. Casino opponents seized on his investments, claiming he is using his riches to buy his way into a new and potentially lucrative market.

Political contributions of $1 million or more are becoming common in state-level elections, said Rachel Weiss, spokeswoman for the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Beshear, who raised and spent about $6.8 million on his campaign last year against former Gov. Ernie Fletcher, insists Yung’s contributions bought him no favors. Yung would have to apply for a casino license just like anyone else, Beshear said.

“It would be naive for anybody to believe that a $1 million contribution to a fund that helped elect a pro-casino governor is not going to position the contributor in a favorable way,” said John Mark Hack, head of the antigambling group Say No To Casinos.

After Beshear took office in December, Yung’s privately held company, Columbia Sussex, paid $7 million for a site in northern Kentucky to build a casino. Yung called the property “prime real estate” that he can easily resell if Beshear’s casino proposal flops.

Columbia Sussex owns 13 casinos and 80 hotels in the United States and beyond, pulling in revenues of some $3 billion a year.

Hack contends Columbia Sussex is looking to Kentucky to open a new casino because the company is under fire in other states. The New Jersey Casino Control Authority refused in December to grant the company a new license to operate the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, and regulators in Indiana are threatening to take similar action against Casino Aztar in Evansville.

Immediately after taking control of those casinos from Aztar Corp. on Jan. 3, 2007, Columbia Sussex began slashing payroll, eliminating cocktail servers, security guards, hotel room cleaners and even locksmiths. Its largest union howled in protest, and said the cuts left the Tropicana understaffed and filthy — concerns echoed by its patrons.

Yung contends the problems were the result of a work slowdown unionized workers when the company began reducing jobs to bring staffing levels at the Tropicana in line with similar casinos.

Columbia Sussex has put both the Tropicana and Aztar casinos up for sale. Yung said he hopes to have buyers identified for both by the end of April and the sales finalized in June. More than two dozen potential buyers have expressed interest.

After the company announced the proposed sale, the Indiana Gaming Commission suspended an investigation into complaints at Casino Aztar similar to those raised in New Jersey. If ownership changes, the agency said, there would be no need for an investigation.

Nevada gambling regulators, also reacting to the New Jersey sanctions, began a probe of Columbia Sussex, which has six casino-hotels in Nevada, including the Tropicana on the Las Vegas Strip.

Yung, a Kentucky native, said none of that has anything to do with his interest in opening a casino in his home state.

Beshear had made legalizing casinos a centerpiece of his campaign against former Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican who had been politically weakened by political scandal. Beshear pulled off a lopsided victory, and claimed it reflected broad-based support for legalizing casinos.

Casino opponents, however, say Beshear’s victory was the result of distaste for Fletcher, who, along with 13 associates, was indicted in 2006 for alleged violations of state hiring laws. Fletcher pardoned his associates and reached a deal with prosecutors to have the charges against him dropped.

“Donald Duck could have run against Ernie Fletcher and been elected governor,” Hack said.

Yung’s $1 million contribution went to the Kentucky political group Bluegrass Freedom Fund that ran devastating television ads capitalizing on Fletcher’s legal woes. Internal Revenue Service records show Yung’s contribution accounted for a third of the $3 million the group spent during the governor’s race.

“I have done absolutely nothing wrong. Steve Beshear’s done nothing wrong. Nobody associated with us has done anything wrong,” he said. “It’s just pretty sickening politics.”

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COACHELLA, Calif., Feb 21, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Grammy Award-winning artist, Boz Scaggs, and his band will hit the road in 2008, performing the best known songs of his career, hits that are constantly requested like “Lido Shuffle,” “Look What You’ve Done To Me,” “Miss Sun,” “Jo Jo,” “Heart Of Mine,” “Lowdown,” “Harbor Lights,” “We’re All Alone” and many others will be showcased throughout the tour. Now the tour is coming to Spotlight 29 Casino on April 19.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050203/LATH047LOGO)

Born in Texas and raised with an abiding respect for a wide spectrum of American roots music, Scaggs has combined rock, jazz, R&B and blues to create a trademark sound. With an extensive and distinctive career that has spanned 30 years and many accolades, Scaggs continues to prove himself as one of music’s most creative and original artists.

Boz will be releasing a new studio record in April, 2008.

Tickets for Boz Scaggs are $65, $55 and $45 and are on sale now at Spotlight29.com and at the Spotlight 29 Casino Gift Shop or by calling (800) 585-3737. Show time is 8 p.m.

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