Anyone who had the dream of becoming a croupier will now have the opportunity to learn every trick of this trade at the first casino training school in Scotland. The project will be launched this year, and the learning center will be located in Glasgow.

The syllabus includes roulette, blackjack and poker, among other games. The course has a duration of ten weeks, during which the most renowned gaming experts in the city will teach the candidates all they need to know about every casino game.

The group called West Warwick Citizens Against the Casino, which has 800 members, has launched a website to show their disapproval of a proposed casino.

The Narragansett Indian Tribe, together with Harrah’s Entertainment, were allowed to build and run a casino in West Warwick through a constitutional amendment approved by the Rhode Island General Assembly.

Ten months after George Clooney announced that he would invest in Las Ramblas Casino project in Las Vegas, the media confirmed that the famous Hollywood actor would no longer participate in the future casino investment. The casino will be a luxurious condo-hotel with 4,000 rooms, plush restaurants and the most renowned brands.

Currently, the construction has come to a halt, and the failure of this project has been made evident with the sale of 25 acres of property to a condominium company of Las Vegas.

The Casino Advisory Panel revealed a shortlist of eight possible sites to host the first Las Vegas-Style super casino in the UK. Blackpool, Wembley Stadium, Cardiff, Glasgow, the Millennium Dome, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sheffield are on the list and were chosen from 27 applications.

The Gambling Act allows the construction of only one super-casino, with permission for up to 1250 unlimited jackpot slot machines.

The Mayor of Monte Hermoso, Alejandro Dichiara, declared that the Academia de Casinos de la Provincia would be launched soon, after Engineer Franco Laporta, from the Lottery and Casino Institute of Buenos Aires (IPLyC), confirmed his approval.

This academy will offer training courses for Roulette Croupiers, Card Games Dealers (Blackjack, Poker and Craps), Assistants, Cashiers and Machine Assistants that will be taught by Monte Hermoso Institute professionals, so as to provide qualified staff for the city Casino.

Five years ago, when all its competitors were betting on Macau, Harrah’s Entertainment decided to stay out of the race for a gambling license in the flourishing Chinese enclave.

Now, the casino operator lost its bid to build a new casino in Singapore and its chance to be part of the most dynamic gambling market.

"It's a concern", said Alberto Lopez, Harrah's spokesman. "It's an area of concentration.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. was awarded a license to build the first casino in Singapore. Last year, the country eliminated the ban on casino gambling and decided to award two licenses to operate casino resorts at Marina Bay and on the island of Sentosa.

Las Vegas Sands, which already runs the Sands Macao in Macau, China, obtained permission to open a casino at Marina Bay. According to Singapore Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar, the complex will be built on a 509-acre site and will cost more than $3.16 billion.

Next year, Valencia will have its first casino run by Cirsa group, the giant gambling operator that owns the Monte Picayo de Puçol Casino in the Comunitat Valenciana and the gaming hall opened last year in Gandia.

Cirsa together with their business partners, Gesfesa and two other local companies, are considering to locate the casino next to the Palacio de Congresos. However, this was not the first location thought by Manuel Lao, who owns Cirsa.

In casinos everything is designed to encourage players to stay gambling as much as possible. The objective, according to psychiatrists, is to create a state of trance in the players. If you’ve been to a casino in Las Vegas, you have surely seen it: the lights, the music, the absence of clocks, the position of slot machines or roulettes.

“The tricks casinos use are numerous and almost imperceptible”, assured to BBC the psychiatrist Angels González Ibáñez, responsible for the Program of Pathologic Gambling in the Mataró Hospital (Spain).

Spanish online gambling companies achieved 80 million euros in incomes, which is 162% more than bets registered in 2004. Online purchases generated a total of 1547 million euros during 2005, which means 74% more than the previous year, according to the last study on online commerce by the Telecommunications Marketing Commission (CMT).

This number confirms the trend for this kind of online commercial transactions, as it duplicates the 890 million euros registered in 2004.