Flying Down to Rio for the Olympics? Don't Drink the Water!

News articles this Sunday are all full of dire warnings about the dangers facing tourists planning to enjoy the XXXI Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro starting this Friday and running through August 21.  Copacabana Beach, Ipanema — paradise immortalized in film and song. Sun, sand, bikinis, waves crashing on the sandy shore - an alluring image of a tropical Eden - and a misleading one. 

Just days ahead of the Olympic Games the waterways of Rio de Janeiro are as filthy and uninviting as ever. Contaminated with raw human sewage, teeming with dangerous viruses and bacteria, and the site of occasional body parts washed up on shore, not only are the 1,400 aquatic athletes at risk of becoming violently ill in water competitions, but tourists also face potentially serious health risks on the golden beaches.  An AP study shows viral levels at up to 1.7 million times what would be considered worrisome in the US. At these concentrations, swimmers and athletes who ingest just three teaspoons of water are almost certain to be infected with viruses that can cause stomach and respiratory illnesses and more rarely heart and brain inflammation according to the Las Vegas Sun. 

Athletes have been taking precautions taking antibiotics, bleaching oars, and donning plastic suits and gloves to limit contact with the water.  But what about the 300,000 - 500,000 foreigners expected to descend on Rio for the Olympics. How will they contend with high bacterial levels and sewage pollution?  Experts advise “don’t put your head under water.”  Swimmers who cannot heed that advice and ingest water through their mouths and noses risk getting violently ill.  Babies and toddlers playing in the sand risk dehydration and contact with hazardous viruses.  Tests over a 12 month period show levels at Ipanema Beach, the city’s most popular tourist spot, exceed those  that would close a beach in Europe or the United States according to the SD Union Tribune. Locals have built up immunity to pathogens in raw waste, but visitors are likely to be at risk.

In Rio the rich live on the flats; the poor live on the hillsides. And the poor are so poor that most don’t have modern waste management systems. So garbage and sewage roll down the hillsides in murky creeks into the world’s largest septic tank.  Sailing, rowing, canoeing, kayaking, open water swimming, triathlon  — about 1000 athletes — are all affected.

This is the first time they Olympic games have been held in South America. Water woes are not the only problem Rio faces. Besides unsafe beaches there are budget cuts, subways that may or may not be finished in the next 4 days, pestilence, corruption, and the Zika virus.  Athletes Bob and Mike Bryan posted on Facebook  this weekend they will not be competing because of health reasons — two of many who have cited similar reasons for dropping out of the games.

It should be interesting. We’re about to find out.


SPECIAL REPLY for NICK S:   I've tried to reply privately to 3 of your comments.  If you haven't received them, contact me at my g-mail address:  spin2win.jen@gmail.com. Thanks.


Thanks to Shamus for showing us what fun we can have Dancing in Rio.

SoCal Fire Season Starts Early This Year

The news today was full of stories of wildfires racing down a steep hillside through tinder-dry canyons in the Santa Clarita Valley near Los Angeles, burning more than 22,000 acres as it ripped through bush withered by 100 degree temperatures and years of drought. The Sand fire, named for Sand Canyon, is the biggest blaze, but not the only one,  to ravage LA country this year.  And it's still July. October is normally when we SoCal residents worry about the possibility of fires, and so fire season appears to be getting a two month jump on things this year.  Global warming, global fires, global destruction, what might be in store for the desert paradise in our part of the globe?

A week earlier the North Country news carried a story of the coming trial of a suspect accused of setting five brush fires in east and north SD county in 2014/15,  deliberately setting the fires because he hated two Indian Casinos and wanted to see them burn to the ground. The suspect, Jonathan Cohen, 45, supposedly admitted to a fellow jail mate that he set the fires, according to the report. He is accused of setting five small fires, four along Lake Wohlford Road in Valley Center near Valley View Casino, and one along State Route 67 as he was returning from Barona Casino and Resort. Though Cohen has not been charged yet, prosecutors believe he also set three other fires near Wildcat Canyon Road near Barona.  If convicted, he faces up to 11 years in prison.

The evidence is circumstantial, the informant a liar who has been paid for his testimony against other accused criminals in the past, much of what he claimed could have been learned from newspaper articles. A search of Cohen's home revealed matchbooks and lighters and a computer with searches of sites expressing extreme hatred of Indian casinos in San Diego County. The prosecutor pointed out that fires near Barona stopped last year after Cohen "self-expelled" himself - meaning he told the casino to ban him for his own good. You can read about what self-banning is HERE. The following spring Cohn started frequenting Valley View Casino - and fires began in Valley Center.  The trial is expected to last about two weeks. We'll see how it all turns out.  In the meantime, here's a film you might enjoy.

Next Big Trend in Casino Gambling - Table Game Stadiums

Sands Casino in Bethlehem PA has unveiled a new way to gamble hoping to attract the coming generation of young, tech savvy patrons - stadium seating at table games.  The casino has put itself at the head of what they hope will be the next craze in casino gambling. The hybrid games combine the ease and fast pace of a slot machine with the feel of a live dealer and are already common in casinos in Macau and Singapore, but are only recently finding their way to the US.

The Sands is so confident that the games will appeal to the new generation of players and they have already invested $5 million in removing its underperforming juice bar, Infusion, and are replacing it with a stadium-style setup of 150 seats and have hired 40 new workers to run it. Players surround live dealers in the center of the stadium seats and place their bets on slot machine style tables as the games are played live. Parx Casino and Mohegan Sun will also be playing the games on a smaller scale.

There are no chips and no cards are dealt to the players, but a live dealer in the middle of the stadium deals a hand that can be seen on video at each player’s machine. The games are fast because there’s no stopping to cash in money or pay off bets. It’s all done electronically and when you’re ready to cash in you push a button and grab your voucher.  The stadium terminals are programmable, allowing a choice of several languages including English, Spanish, and Mandarin. Their goal is to attract younger players and Asian ones. Bets will be more affordable. Now there are no $5 blackjack tables at the Sands and on Friday and Saturday nights the $10 minimum often goes up to $20 or $25. 

Will it pay off? Opinions vary. Sands already leads the state in table game earnings, raking in more than $225 million last year in blackjack, roulette, and craps - $70 more than second-place finisher Parx Casino.  But here’s the real reason why Sands could hit the jackpot with the new hybrids: TAXES.  Pennsylvania’s tax on slot machines at 54 % is among the highest in the nation. However, because table games require a casino to hire more workers — dealers, supervisors, pit bosses, finance people — to run them, the tax on table games is just 14%.  The new hybrid games allow Sands to run the whole stadium with just a handful of dealers, but they are taxed at the table game rates of 14 percent.

It always comes down to money, doesn’t it?  

Thanks to Matt Assad of The Morning Call for the news.

MGM Announces First Ever Mobile Slot Tournament this Summer

Most of the people who read this blog have been enjoying the Sizzling Summer Slot Tournament competitions on YouTube and Facebook for the last 3 weeks.  This Monday, July 18, the finals round will determine the winner. Shinobi took down Dr. Nick this past Tuesday in the first semi-final round and CT Slotters defeated SoSAMuk Thursday in the other match-up to see who will go head to head to win it all in the finals next week.  We viewers who like watching slot videos really love watching slot tournaments.  The championship game is Prowling Panther. You won't want to miss it. When it ends, you might feel inspired to do a little tournament gambling yourself, and MGM Resorts has a new easy way to do it.

Gambling on your smartphone at MGM Resorts:
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Recently gambling media released an article about MGM Resorts and the first interactive tournament to be offered by a US casino. Players at 9 Vegas resorts will be competing with other players on their mobile devices for the opportunity to win big prizes…a $10,000 minimum prize in fact. I’ve copied the press release below for those of you over 21 who think you might want to give MGM’s tournament a try.  If you can’t play in this one, I’m sure Slot Traveler has something good lined up for this fall you might get to play in instead. There’s a $5 entry fee for the MGM tournament and deadline is September 4. Here’s the press release with all the details:

LAS VEGAS, July 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MGM Resorts International (MGM) has launched a mobile gaming platform, easyPLAY® Mobile Tournaments, the first digital and interactive tournament to be offered by a regulated casino in the United States. Developed by mobile gaming tech company oneLIVE inc, the platform allows guests at nine iconic Las Vegas resorts to compete with other players in a variety of tournament games using their own mobile devices whether they are at the pool, sipping cocktails at the bar, or simply relaxing in their rooms.

easyPLAY® provides the opportunity for guests to win thousands of dollars in cash and other prizes by playing in regularly scheduled tournaments of classic casino games including slots, bingo and video poker as well as fun social, casual and console games.

Guests 21 years of age or older can participate in easyPLAY® tournaments from any mobile device, personal laptop, or the new InteractivePro™ Tables located throughout MGM Resorts' properties at one of the following resorts:

ARIA Resort & Casino

Bellagio

MGM Grand

Mandalay Bay

The Mirage

Monte Carlo

Luxor

New York-New York

Excalibur

Games include popular titles from oneLIVE's Charter Content Providers Spin Games LLC of Reno, Nevada and Touchstone Games Limited from the United Kingdom. In addition to the games currently available, additional unique tournament games will be added in the near future.

The first of many large contests is the All Summer Long Winner Takes All Progressive Slot Tournament. Guests who enter the tournament with a $5 entry prior to September 4 will have the opportunity to spin the wheels to win the minimum grand prize of $10,000.

"The introduction of easyPLAY® Mobile Tournaments at our MGM Resorts properties gives our guests an exciting, new opportunity to play their favorite games while enjoying the best Las Vegas has to offer," said Tom Mikulich, Senior Vice President of Business Development for MGM Resorts International.  "The tournaments are extremely user-friendly, provide players with a variety of game options including slots and bingo, among others, and bring an element of competition that our guests will enjoy whether they are sitting at a bar enjoying a drink or simply hanging out by the pool."

UPDATE: To return to the sizzling summer slot tournament mentioned at the start of this post: it's all over and Shinobi has been declared the winner.  Great game, great play, WooHoo West Coast.

Change is Coming. You Can Bet On It.

Not so long ago, if you wanted to gamble in a casino in the United States, you had to head to Nevada or New Jersey. But in the 1980s, federal gambling laws changed to allow American Indian tribes to operate casinos.  In the 1990s, states like Iowa and Illinois introduced riverboat gambling. The arrival of the internet made it easy (though not necessarily legal) to bet online, and tight budgets encouraged more and more states to loosen laws on gambling.

Today, 24 states offer commercial casinos, which generated $40 billion in revenue in 2015 alone, according to the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Indian casinos operate in 28 states, according to the National Indian Gaming Commission. Only a handful of states shun gambling outright, including Hawaii and Utah, though a few others have very limited wagering opportunities. South Carolina has one bingo hall, which is operated by the Catawba tribe, and one company that offers gambling cruises, which sail three miles offshore to international waters where gambling is legal. In Alaska, you can play pull tabs and bingo, but there are no table games. The state doesn’t even have a lottery.

Those exceptions aside, in most of the U.S., gambling has become a fact of life. Yet that doesn’t mean gambling laws are the same everywhere. States have different rules about the types of gambling that are permitted, and don’t even necessarily agree on what constitutes gambling. And laws on gambling are always evolving, as the games people play change and lawmakers search for new sources of revenue. All that means avid gamblers need to stay abreast of changes in regulations. Here are five states where laws on gambling may be changing soon.

1. New York

In 2015, the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that sites like DraftKings and FanDuel were illegal in the state, a big blow to the burgeoning industry. But in June 2016, the state’s legislature passed a bill that would legalize fantasy sports betting. If Governor Andrew Cuomo signs the bill, the sites would again be allowed to operate in New York, though they would pay 15% of their gross revenues in tax,  according to the Wall Street Journal.

The online fantasy sports industry has been lobbying for laws that legalize its business, which operates in a grey area in many states (many regulators say fantasy sports qualifies as gambling, while the industry says it’s really a game of skill). Tennessee, Virginia, Indiana, and Mississippi, and Colorado are among the states that have recently passed new laws regulating fantasy sports.

2. Pennsylvania

Lawmakers in Pennsylvania are considering expanding legalized gambling in the state in order to solve some of the state’s budget woes. In late June, the state’s House of Representatives brought gambling to the internet but not to bars, allowing slot machines at airports and off-track betting parlors. Daily fantasy sports would also regulated and taxed according to the legislation.

Bar owners and others also wanted to make video gaming terminals (VGTs) legal, but that proposal was stripped from the bill. Casinos were opposed to allowing bars to operate VGTs.

3. Nebraska

Nebraska is currently home to four small Indian casinos, but pro-gambling advocates hope to place a measure on the ballot in November 2016 that would legalize gambling at horse racing tracks in the state, the Lincoln Journal-Star reported. The hope is to capture some of the gambling money Nebraska has lost to neighboring states like Iowa in recent years. Supporters of the new law say additional casinos could generate up to $100 million in tax revenue for state and local governments. Religious leaders in the state are opposed to the bill

4. California

Unless you’re in Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware, playing online poker for money in the U.S. is illegal. But efforts are underway in California to change the laws on gambling and legalize online poker in the Golden State. The state legislature should vote to legalize online poker in August, though the law faces significant opposition from some American Indian tribes that operate casinos.

Past efforts to legalize online poker in California have gone nowhere, and it’s possible that this one will also stall. Though the latest law contains some compromises (a share of online poker revenue will go to racetracks, which were initially opposed to the law, for example), “the bill faces long odds,” Darren Heitner, an expert in sports law, wrote in Forbes. Specifically, some tribes want to ban online poker companies that previously operated illegally from doing business in the state for up to 10 years and force them to pay a $60 million fine; the law as currently written calls for a shorter ban and a smaller fine.

5. Florida

The Florida Supreme Court is currently weighing whether horseracing tracks are allowed to install slot machines if approved by local voters, or if slots are only allowed if approved by the state legislature or a change to Florida’s constitution, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Currently, slot machines are only permitted at casinos operated by the Seminole tribe and in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. If the court rules in favor of the racetrack, tracks in other parts of Florida will likely move to add casinos, expanding access to gambling in the state.

Nothing is as certain as the uncertainty of the gaming industry in this country. This report came from a site called cheatsheet that appeared on the web today, July 10. Who knows what we’ll read this time next month. Whatever it is, stay tuned and I’ll pass it on as soon as I can. 

Harrah's Southern California's a Set for Reality Show Premiering Tonight

First the disclaimer. I do not - and will not - ever watch the reality show I am writing about, but I do live in Southern California and am interested in news from San Diego County, especially news related to gaming and the many casinos in this part of the state. This morning I found an article in the entertainment section of the San Diego Tribune about a new reality show which formerly aired on Bravo premiering tonight at 10 pm on WEtv.  The show is called the Million Dollar Matchmaker, and since love is the ultimate gamble, it seems fitting that the new dating season of the reality show was filmed at Harrah's Resort Southern California -- formerly called Harrah's Casino Rincon after the Native American tribe that owns the casino that Harrah's manages for them. The show will showcase the hotel, spa, and resort along with other locales throughout San Diego. You might want to tune in to see the local sites even if you don't care about the matchmaking going on.  California is a beautiful state with some glorious mountain views even where you aren't treated to the fabulous Pacific Ocean. 

There are two promo films online and a first-look film on wetv.com if you want to see what the fuss is all about. Harrah's lavish 2,400 square foot two-bedroom 3 1/2 bath doubled-balconied Presidential Suite serves as base for the show. I have spent a lot of time at this casino and never knew such a suite existed on the premisses. The article in the paper says rates start upward of $5,000 a night.  It is the base for matchmaker Patti Stanger. The resort's vice president and general manager Darrell Pilant says Harrah's is happy to have the series showcase the resort and San Diego on the TV series. I guess they would be. Has to be good for business, all this free publicity.

The show formerly aired on Bravo. It centers on professional matchmaker/therapist Stanger and her Millionaire Club, a professional matchmaking service she founded in 2000.  Why millionaires would need a yenta is beyond me - I would think the wealthy men would be fighting the girls off - but what do I know.  The article says a promo clip shows Stanger dressing down some of her male clients. In one case she buttons up the shirt of a chest-baring Casanova type. Her clients seem to have spent a lot of time with their plastic surgeons, but you watch and be the judge of how much of what you see on Reality TV is actually Real.

Maybe the Million Dollar Matchmaker will inspire you to visit the Southern California resort and win your own million dollars. Winning tonight's half a billion dollar lottery prize is about as likely.

Happy 4th of July