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Stations Casino Files for Bankruptcy
Las Vegas-based Station Casinos Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, making it the latest casualty in the recession-wracked gambling industry.
Despite months of haggling, the company failed to reach a prearranged agreement with all its lenders. Bondholders control $2.3 billion of the company’s $5.7 billion in debt.
The company’s 18 casinos are separate entities wholly owned by Station and aren’t part of the bankruptcy filing. They will continue to operate as usual, a Station official said. All of the debt is held by the parent company.
However, senior secured lenders did agree to allow the parent company to borrow up to $150 million from its noncasino subsidiaries, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The lack of an accord with bondholders could mean a long haul in bankruptcy court. But “all the lenders are on board” with the move to file, said Station Chief Accounting Officer Tom Friel.
After months of negotiations with no formal pact, Mr. Friel said “we feel it’s helpful to have the formal court process to resolve some of the issues. You’ve got a whole bunch of different constituencies who have a bunch of agendas on how they want the world to be. This will hopefully help us move closer to getting a deal done,” he said in an interview.
Station is the latest victim of a gambling industry bled by borrowing and a prolonged slump in consumer spending. Already this year, a number of smaller casino companies, including the Las Vegas Tropicana and Trump Entertainment Resorts in Atlantic City, filed for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, larger companies like Las Vegas Sands Corp., MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., struggled to reduce debt and slash costs as tourism and corporate spending shrank.
The Station filing marks the financial downfall of one of the oldest and best-known casino companies in Nevada, and a stark reversal of fortune for its founding family, the Fertittas.
The company, founded in 1976 with one casino, expanded by catering to locals who worked or lived in the Las Vegas area. Its Western-themed properties, with names like Gold Rush Casino and Texas Station Gambling Hall and Hotel, are aimed at budget-minded gamblers.
In recent years, as Las Vegas began catering to luxury travelers with more lavish offerings, Station opened several high-end resort casinos off the Las Vegas Strip.
Online Casinos in Costa Rica Face Tighter Regulation
Costa Rica is responding to criticism of its regulations over online casinos by an international organization which guards against money laundering.
After receiving criticism from an international policing group, Costa Rica is advancing legislation which will result in stricter controls over online casinos and Internet gambling sites operating from the country. Rules governing the online casino industry were tightened last year, but deemed insufficient by the Financial Action Task Force.
The nature of the new regulations is unknown, but a bill proposing stronger government oversight, and adding two percent to the existing tax,is working its way through the Costa Rican legislature.
The Financial Action Task Force is a body supported by thirty-two national governments designed to combat international money laundering and terrorism. The US and the European Commission are both members. The organization has existed since 1989, and advises nations on how to prevent money laundering.
Costa Rica will use the dded tax to offset declining government revenues and expanding operating costs. Additionally, it is expected online casinos will have identical requirements as land-based gaming venues, including such measures as licensing.
It is estimated there are 250 online gambling sites currently operating from Costa Rica.
PPA Granted Friend of the Court Status in Funds Seizure Case
By Jennifer Newell | July 17, 2009 at 8:33 am
It was only days ago that action was finally taken in the case of online poker funds transfers that were seized by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York. Account Services filed a motion with the court to retrieve approximately $13 million of seized monies, and the Poker Players Alliance hailed the action. And soon after, the PPA took its own next step to participate in the process by asking to become a “friend of the court” in the Account Services filing.
Account Services filed its motion on July 10 and contented that the seizure of the millions of dollars was unlawful, noting that poker is not considered illegal gambling under federal law and that Account Services merely held money and assisted in transfers of funds that belonged to poker players and were not subject to seizure. The action to seize the funds by Assistant U.S. Attorney Arlo Devlin-Brown of the Southern District of New York was unlawful, the motion contended, and the funds should be returned to Account Services.
The PPA’s involvement in the case came when the organization filed its own motion, this one in the Southern District Court of California, to participate as amicus curiae, which would allow the PPA to become a friend of the court in the Account Services motion. And within days, Judge Jeffrey T. Miller granted the request, giving the PPA standing to file an amicus curiae brief by August 7, 2009, for the hearing to be held on August 21.
PPA Executive Director John Pappas said, “As the voice of online poker players, PPA should be granted the opportunity to provide evidence and legal briefings on why online poker is a game of predominant skill and not considered illegal gambling under the law. Recent rulings in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Kentucky and Colorado all affirmed that poker is a game of skill. PPA was actively involved in representing the rights of the poker players in each of these cases and should be able to do so at the federal level. Any action contesting the government’s seizure of players’ funds will help protect the rights of U.S. internet poker players, and we will explore every legal avenue to ensure that our members’ voices are heard and their rights are protected.”
The funds seized by the Southern District of New York affected poker players across the United States, though many of the online poker sites from which money was being transferred reimbursed players for their inconveniences. However, with more than $30 million being seized, some of which occurred without warrants, the court cases to retrieve the funds are only beginning.
Why Europe Dominates Online Gambling Market
Leading international business magazine profiles Europe’s dominant online gambling sector.
Underlining the continued dominance of European companies in the online gambling sector, leading world business magazine The Economist has published a story explaining why, although it has come up short in other Internet business venues, the European Union’s online gambling industry is dominating the world market.
In an article called “Stacking the Deck,” the magazine emphasizes why London-based Betfair is “the eBay of sports betting” and why the vast majority of popular iGaming destinations are run by European companies.
It’s not just because Europe is such a large market, with about 40 percent of the world’s gamblers. It’s also due to other factors, such as United State’s legal issues surrounding the industry because of 2006’s disastrous UIGEA laws. But even above and beyond this, EU companies have demonstrated a remarkable ability to key into players’ preferences.
“America ought to be the natural home of this burgeoning field,” the article explains. “But it has arrested industry entrepreneurs and ordered banks to halt payments to online-gambling firms.”
That isn’t completely different than the EU’s situation, though. Only 13 of the 27 EU member nations technically approve of online gambling, and seven have attempted to outlaw it altogether. “Dutch banks face prosecution if they transfer money to online-gambling firms abroad, and Germany, Italy and Spain are trying to get internet service-providers to block access to gambling websites.”
Anti-Gambling Politicians: What Are Their Real Motives?
Online Casino Advisory uncovers interesting details about Barney Frank’s biggest foes in the fight to legalize online gambling.
In his quest to overturn the United States’ online gambling ban, the UIGEA, Rep. Barney Frank has found his biggest opponent to be fellow U.S. Representative Spencer Bachus, who is joined in his anti-gambling rhetoric by Alabama Governor Bob Riley, another politician staunchly in favor of banning gambling in all shapes and forms. These two figures have lobbied hard to criminalize online gambling, under the argument that it’s harmful to individuals, families, and society in general.
Since both these politicians are from Alabama, OnlineCasinoAdvisory.com’s Tom Weston decided to take a look at that state’s track record with problem gambling, to see if these efforts were sincere or just for political show.
What he found is very illuminating. Governor Riley has apparently assembled a special task force to raid bingo halls, illegal in Alabama, and “has sworn the state will accept no legal gambling”. Yet, the state provides absolutely no funding to treat the victims of problem gambling.
“According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, Alabama is ‘void of problem gambling resources.’” Weston writes. “There is no state program to educate the public about the signs of compulsive gaming, nor are there programs to treat members of the community suffering from the disorder.”
Both politicians claim that such resources aren’t necessary, because if gambling is illegal, there can be no problem gambling. However, statistics disagree. Weston quotes Keith Whyte of the NCPG, who has said that states where gambling is illegal have roughly the same incidence of problem gambling as states where it’s legal, “much as dry counties still have alcoholism.”
“Further, Whyte says he ‘never met a problem gambler who said he had a hard time finding a place to bet,’ regardless of the law under which the gambler lived.”
What’s more, Rep. Bachus has so far failed to even sign up as a sponsor for a new proposed law called the Comprehensive Problem Gambling Act, which would be the first law to address problem gambling on a federal level.
So, are Bachus and Riley really concerned about problem gambling, or is it all a political show? Weston maintains that, according to rumors, Bachus is cynically courting the strictly anti-gambling Christian conservative coalition for political support without actually following through on their larger social goals. Voters have to draw their own conclusions, but the statistics don’t seem to be on the side of these Alabama politicians.
UIGEA Challenge Heard in U.S. Circuit Court
U.S. Internet gambling ban appears “likely to withstand” challenge, according to Law.com.
Yesterday, the legal challenge from iMEGA (Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association) to the constitutionality of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) was heard in the United States’ 3rd Circuit Court in Philadelphia. Although no official judgment has been determined yet, according to an early assessment at Law.com, the three judges hearing the challenge unfortunately appeared likely to uphold rather than overturn America’s online gambling ban.
iMEGA’s legal challenge, as argued by law professor Stephen A. Saltzburg of George Washington University and New Jersey attorney Eric M. Bernstein, was on the grounds that the law was too vague to be implemented fairly. But the justices appeared to reject that logic.
“I’m struggling with what’s vague about that,” 3rd Circuit Judge Kent A. Jordan said, responding to Saltzburg’s claim that the UIGEA is flawed because online gambling websites can be accessed from all countries, not just the websites’ home countries. Jordan said that it didn’t matter where else a transaction was taking place; it mattered only if the conduct was taking place in the legally defined area, and that notion is clearly definable and not vague at all.
“It may be difficult to prove where the bet was placed, but that doesn’t make the law unconstitutionally vague — that’s a question of proof,” Judge Dolores K. Sloviter agreed.
Justice Jordan added that just because gamblers took issue with the way state laws were drafted, “that doesn’t mean this statute is vague.”
The Law.com article concludes that iMEGA’s challenge is likely to fail, at least at this stage.
Belgian Online Gambling Poses Trade Violations, Says EU
Nation becomes latest in list of countries notified of trade violation status by European Commission.
Last week, Belgium joined France and the U.S. on the list of nations notified by the European Commission that its operations are in violation of international trade agreements. Apparently, the Commission (which is the regulatory arm of the European Union) believes that Belgium’s trade violations are based on its attempts to block foreign operators out of its tightly regulated Internet gambling market.
The European Commission recently rejected a new draft of Belgian law that sought to maintain these strict regulations. According to PokerNews.com, the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), the powerful organization that represents a number of well-established European Internet firms, has been vocal in supporting the European Commission’s claims against Belgium.
How Belgium reacts is unpredictable; France has reacted to similar pressure by making plans to open its online gambling market to foreign competition, while the U.S. has so far basically ignored all comments from the European Commission.
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Russian gambling halls shut down in most cities
MOSCOW (AP) – Thousands of casinos, slot-machine parlors and betting halls across Russia shut down Wednesday, complying with sweeping new restrictions that require all gambling business to relocate to four remote regions of the country.
The law, which went into effect at midnight Wednesday, was estimated to put than 400,000 people out of work at a time when Russia’s economic crisis is deepening and unemployment is rising.
Russian TV said more than 40,000 workers were affected in Moscow alone, at 30 major casinos and some 500 smaller-scale gaming halls and slot-machine parlors. Russian news agencies reported that Moscow police were checking gambling halls across the capital to make sure they were closing.
The law, passed three years ago at then-President Vladimir Putin’s initiative, confines gambling to four special zones in far-flung regions of Russia, most thousands of miles away from Moscow.
Despite widely publicized complaints by elected officials about the bane of gambling, it’s unclear how much support the restrictions have among regular Russians.
Officials at some of the businesses said they would reopen as market research companies, or would rent out their valuable, often-centrally located real estate.
Still other businesses were trying to skirt the law by retooling themselves as poker clubs – arguing that should be considered a “game of chance” – or as places for Internet gambling, where patrons place bets but computer servers are located offsite at the distant gaming zones.
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has criticized such efforts to circumvent the law.
“When you sit at casino and you play poker or preference, it’s a casino …. but when you play poker at a poker club, it’s considered a sport?” he said.
Preference is a card game similar to bridge that was hugely popular in pre-Revolutionary Russia and remains widespread today.
When lawmakers signed the casino closure law in 2006, the move backed the image Putin wanted to project: that of a clean-living, workaholic president. But analysts say the government also saw a chance to weed out a criminal element involved in the casino business.
Under the new law, casinos and slot machines will be allowed to operate only in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea; the Primorsky region on the Pacific coast; the mountainous Altai region in Siberia; and near the southern cities of Krasnodar and Rostov, host to the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
But construction at most of the sites is still in its early stages, meaning it will be months or years before major legal gambling resumes in Russia.
Many experts say the law will just drive gambling underground, and criminalize it even more than it already was.
Illinois Casinos Sue Blagojevich Seeking $267 Million
Four Ilinois casinos say former Governor Rod Blagojevich took campaign money from a track owner to levy a tax on them subsidizing tracks, and they are suing to recover the gambling revenue they were forced to sacrifice.
Four of Illinois’ nine operating casinos have banded together in a lawsuit against disgraced former Governor Rod Blagojevich and race track owner John Johnston. The gambling venues say the two conspired to swindle them out of $89.2 million that Blagojevich funneled to race tracks in exchange for campaign contributions by Johnston.
Blagojevich signed Racing Acts in both 2006 and 2008, giving three percent of the casinos’ gross to state horse racing tracks. Casino attorneys say the ex-governor made the decision in return for payments of $125,000 and $100,000 to the politician’s campaign fund, “Friends of Rod Blagojevich.”
The Empress Casino in Joliet, Harrah’s Casino in Joliet, Hollywood Casino in Aurora, and the Grand Victoria Casino filed the suit and named The ex-governor, the track owner, the campaign fund, and the race tracks as defendants. Casino representatives said at the time that the fees were a result of political double-dealing, and paid only under protest.
Records show that Johnston’s two payments to the campaign fund were made each less than thirty days after Blagojevich signed the acts.
The suit is seeking triple damages, in the amount of $267 million. But the $89.2 million already paid is being held by the state treasury, and the casinos want assurances the money will be frozen until the case is heard.
In order to hold the funds, the casinos’ lawyers have asked for an injunction, fearing that the tracks would never be able to repay the money if its dispersed and then judgement is found against them.
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