Misiones SA already has an important part of the building ready so contractors and owners think the casino may open in three months. Presently, the roof and the facade are almost ready and the interior and parking lot are still under construction.

The casino will have a huge parking lot with access to the brewery yard. Inside the building there will be a fast food parlor and a lot of slot machines.

On Monday, Linda M. Kassekert, chairwoman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, ordered the 12 casinos in Atlantic City to cease gambling operations. The order came after Governor Corzine decided to shut down state government due to a dispute with legislators about his plan to increase the state sales tax.

Today, at 8 a.m., all the casinos were closed. Minutes before the deadline, punters were still playing at the slot machines. “What else can you do down here besides gamble?”, said Janice Sidwa, 60, who was in the middle of a trip to the city.

Scott Mauger, superintendent of Belleplain State Forest in Cape May County, has become very unpopular these days. The reason is simple: he had to tell hundreds of arriving campers that the campground might close due to the state government shutdown.

Not only Belleplain, but also Bass River State Forest and Parvin State Park may close. People traveling from distant states will be affected by this decision. The first effects for gamblers occurred after the suspension of state lottery and horse racing.

Even though the unfortunate result Katrina left on Biloxi, it has one single positive aspect. Two months before the hurricane, the city signed a business interruption insurance policy that covered casino tax revenue losses for six months. The coverage cost Biloxi $92,000 dollars and stands to gain $10 million dollars.

As this policy cannot be renewed, Mayor Holloway is trying to get a new one with no luck yet. The only insurer that has offered a suitable policy charges more than $1 million dollars and covers the city only if a category 5 storm hits Biloxi and 50 miles around.

eCOGRA, e-Commerce Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance, has taken another step towards its objective for 2006: to approve 100 online casinos and poker sites. After certifying 12 additional sites, nowadays eCOGRA reaches 85 sites which have achieved independent management control, represented by the Play It Safe seal.

There are seven websites run by Tusk Investment Corporation in Australia, and other five owned by Vegas Partner Lounge group which have received the Play It Safe seal due to their fair play and operational practices.

The French Lick Resort & Casino will open in November, and managers are working to hire some 1,000 people for jobs such as dealers, slot representatives, chefs, waitresses, hotel concierges, cashiers, auditors and golf groundskeepers.

About 700 jobs remain to be filled for the resort, and 350 jobs are available at the casino, according to an article published by Gambling Magazine. About 2,000 people attended the first day of a job fair at the West Baden Springs hotel Friday.

The Illinois Gaming Board approved a new policy to require all casinos to ask players who are 30 years old or younger for an identification card. The purpose of this measure is to prevent addicted gamblers registered in the “self-exclusion program” from entering the casinos.

The program started in 2002 and, by signing up, players with gambling problems agree to ban themselves from the casinos in Illinois. “The Gaming Board is showing its commitment to the issue of problem gambling”, Aaron Jaffe, Chairman of the Board, said.

In a recent article, Standard & Poor stated that Macau may beat Las Vegas as the world’s most important gambling market in the next years. Nowadays, Macau’s economy has had a remarkable growth due to its many gambling facilities, and it is expected to increase even more in a very near future. China could also become the second largest gambling site after the United States.

The article, “Macau Versus Las Vegas Strip: Which will be the bigger winner?”, describes the building peak in both gaming centers and analyzes their tendencies regarding visitors, incomes, providers versus demand dynamics and regulation risks.

The Hazard Games division of the Tourism Company in Puerto Rico will establish next July 1st new regulations for casinos, which will try to offer a more secure environment for players, according to an article published today by Yogonet.com.

The new laws will come into effect in several phases and will give the government more power to grant licenses to casinos employees, as well as better internal controls for the operation and a mechanism to identify and help problem gamblers.

Professor Peter Collins, director of the center for the study of bets and commercial gambling in the University of Stanford, has recently suggested to the government’s Casinos Consulting Panel that they should allow the building of eleven Las Vegas-style casinos, one for each region, according to an article published today by Yogonet.com.

In a conference, Collins said: “I don’t know anybody who thinks that one single license is the right thing. There is no convincing argument to support the existence of just one license.”