Online Casinos Directory

All over the US states are making big gambling changes. They are trying to maximize their own revenue within the market while still maintaining control over gambling and how it develops in the state. Louisiana is another state that is bringing changes to the market. The state has Pinnacle Entertainment leading its gaming plan. Pinnacle of course is a popular casino development company that has seen many casino openings throughout the world. It is a successful company that has opened top notch casinos time and again. Now the company is looking to expand its plans for Louisiana’s Baton Rough riverboat casino. A riverboat casino of course is a casino that is built on the water. After gamers enter, the boat travels off dock and gamers are given an open-sea feel to their gambling fun. They can wager or entertain themselves on the deck of a casino. It overall is a great gaming time for anyone who participates in river boat gambling.

Pinnacle Entertainment is a company that has seen much success over the past few years and knows a good opportunity when they see it. The Baton Rouge river boat is something that they not only see the potential in, but want to seriously develop for the market. They want to build a bigger hotel for the casino and create more gaming stations for players to have fun at. The project’s original budget was $250 million and now Pinnacle Entertainment has elevated that number to just over $350 million. That additional $100,000+ is going to help to solidify it in the market and make it one of the premiere gambling locales not only in the state, but also in the neighboring areas. It is hoped that with the additional developments, the casino will draw in players from various neighboring states and be able to compete with their gambling markets. Considering that Pinnacle Entertainment is at the helm of the wheel for this development, most likely that isn’t going to be a problem. The company knows how to build gaming floors that people love, build promotions that draw them in and create promotions that are lucrative for every level of gamer.

Missouri has long been debating the question of gambling. Not that it is undecided on gambling—it has casinos. But the problem was getting takers on the licenses it has open. Pinnacle Entertainment was the latest company to pull out of the gaming license they fought for. They originally were pining for the President in St Louis Missouri. The company wanted to open up the riverboat for renovation and develop it to what its former grand life of gambling was. In its glory days the riverboat was a thing to be watched. It was a glorious gaming center that offered a wide range of games for the market. If you loved gambling and loved riverboats, visiting the President was without a doubt a huge event for you. Originally the market was excited that Pinnacle Entertainment was the company showing interest in the reconstruction of the casino. Pinnacle being an expert at gambling centers, was the sure-fire company to turn things around. Unfortunately it was not to be. Pinnacle Entertainment quickly abandoned the license and moved on to different pursuits—namely pursuits they already had on the table. The project was scrapped though, leaving the gaming license without an alternative holder.

Pinnacle pulled out of the deal. Three months prior it already opened a casino in suburban St Louis costing a whopping $380 million. The company bought the President out of its bankruptcy about four years ago. The biggest issue of course is funding. Pinnacle took a huge hit when the gambling market declined as a result of the recession. There were people from all over who stopped visiting casinos. They had to—the economy was horrible, unemployment was up, house values were down and jobs were sparse. Customers were forced to cut back on their gambling and that seriously stifled casinos everywhere. Pinnacle was forced to opt out of the one gaming license they had hold of and only time will tell whether or not that was a good idea, or if the company is going to suffer an even greater loss by walking away from the gaming license they already were in possession of.

The world of gambling is expanding. In Louisiana the operators of Regional Casino Pinnacle Entertainment recently said that they are putting more money into their riverboat gaming world. Riverboat gaming of course has been around for a long time. It is exciting to take off on a large boat and have access to a casino floor and the open sea. It has been a standard in the world of gambling and millions of gamers visit various riverboat casinos around the world for their gaming needs. The riverboat in Baton Rouge is now the casino that is going to benefit from more development money. Pinnacle Entertainment announced that it is fueling $100 million into the location and hoping to create the project by December of 2011. It may take some time for development, but gamers are growing in numbers and the company is confident that it will be able to sustain them as gaming numbers grow. The key is to keep on building gaming outlets and building them better than the ones before.

Pinnacle Entertainment is a leader in the world of casino development. The company has put millions of dollars into various projects throughout the world market. It has had much success in the world due to its aggressive growth and direct marketing techniques. In total the company is going to be fueling $357 million on the development. The company will be funding the project with current cash flow it has. The company has a huge revenue flow and that is projected to continue growing as more gamers enter the market. The CEO of the company announced that research has shown that residents travel out of the Baton Rouge area for their gaming—that’s horrible news. Pinnacle Entertainment is hoping that their new development will bring those customers back into the local market, rather than continuing to fuel cash out of the economy. Louisiana like other states has been struggling since the recession. This means that a good riverboat casino development would be great news that would bring a huge benefit to the state in the form of tax revenue dollars and jobs to the local market.

The President Casino in St. Louis, Missouri had bad news for its employees earlier this month. The casino closed down completely on July 1st and that of course meant that the 200 workers employed there moved to the unemployment line. It was a difficult time to watch because the workers rallied so hard prior to the beginning of the month to save their jobs. They consistently picketed outside the venue in the hopes that they would gain enough public support to turn things around. The employees were not just hoping for the casino operators to change their minds. They realistically understood that due to the economy and the lowered revenue, it may be impossible for the casino to stay open. What they were hoping for though was to be reassigned to one of the parent company’s other casinos in the area. That never happened and it has left two hundred workers scrambling.

Pinnacle Entertainment owned the President Casino and also is owner of a wide range of other casinos in the state. Employees of the President Casino hoped that their union would help them to fight for their jobs—even if it meant moving to a different location. The best the casino owners could do was to hold a job fair for workers and encourage them to move outside of their comfort zones for future employment. If employees are placed elsewhere, it will be by their own doing. Also, employees will not necessarily be able to move to lateral positions. For example, a manager at one casino may not be hired as manager at another casino. He or she may end up as a cashier or other position outside of management.

Pinnacle Entertainment continues to commit to helping the workers with job placement. They are hoping that it will help to ease the strain of losing their jobs. Officials of the company reiterated their hope to find all their former employees with better positions elsewhere. It may take some time, but hopefully employees will have the resources to move to other jobs quickly, without having to fall back on unemployment or other forms of help.

It is uncertain how Las Vegas plans to deal with online gambling. Nevada gaming regulators may clamp down on contractual relationships between the state’s casino operators and non-gambling arms of the Internet gaming industry. Online gambling has become a major source of new revenue for Las Vegas, but not in the traditional way. Several years ago, the World Series Poker, which is owned by Harrah’s Entertainment, set self-imposed guidelines prohibiting online gamblers from qualifying to the tournament through the Internet. The move reduced the number of entries into the tournament’s $10,000 buy-in main event by more than 27 percent from its peak year.
This method of recruiting in not unique to the WSOP. Last month, The Venetian held the inaugural event of the newly created North American Poker Tour, which is sponsored by PokerStars. In the $5,000 buy-in event that was taped for airing on ESPN2 next month, 872 players entered, including 25 who qualified through PokerStars.net. Gaming Control Board member Randall Sayre said he is drafting a letter to the casino industry that sets guidelines for entering into deals with Internet gaming businesses. “We don’t have a policy and clearly the board needs to boil down exactly what that policy needs to be,” Sayre said. “Some gaming licensees play carefully by the rules and others do not. I do not believe the board can remain silent on this any longer.”
Veteran gaming attorney Frank Schreck agreed that the control board needs to set rules for dealing with Internet gaming businesses. He said responsibility for complying with regulations falls on the casinos. “There is a lot of confusion right now in the industry and there needs to be some regulatory guidelines,” Schreck said. “All we’re asking is to tell us what is permissible.” Legally, internet gambling sites cannot accept bets from Americans. In the 2006, the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act became law which made it a crime for banks and other financial institutions to process transactions used in online gaming. Several Web sites, including PokerStars and FullTilt, created two Internet portals. One location is designated as a .com and accepts wagers. The second site, designated by .net, does not accept wagers and serves as an introductory and tutoring location for potential gamblers. However, the .com locations are easily accessed through the .nets. “Oftentimes, there is very little difference between the dot-nets and dot-coms,” Sayre said. “This is something that has been tolerated but the board needs to ask itself if this relationship is reasonable

It is not uncommon for high ranking officials in the Las Vegas gaming community to more from resort to resort.  There is no surprise, then, Pinnacle’s new CEO has a history in Las Vegas.  Former Harrah’s Entertainment executive Anthony Sanfilippo has been named president and chief executive officer of regional casino operator Pinnacle Entertainment, the company announced Monday. Sanfilippo, 51, replaces interim CEO John Giovenco, who had been operating the Las Vegas-based company since November. Giovenco will continue to serve on Pinnacle’s board of directors. Pinnacle hopes Sanfilippo’s storied background will help.  Sanfilippo, who was also named to the company’s board of directors, spent more than 25 years with Harrah’s, managing and developing casinos in regional markets, including Louisiana, Missouri, and Indiana where Pinnacle operates resorts. He also worked for Harrah’s in Nevada. Since June 2008, Sanfilippo served as CEO of Multimedia Games, a gaming equipment provider. Perhaps as a show of good faith to a new relationship,  Pinnacle announced that Sanfilippo is purchasing 125,000 shares of the company’s common stock at $8.64 per share, which was the closing price on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

“A majority of his compensation is linked to Pinnacle’s future performance,” the company said in a statement. “Our priority will be to fully leverage the portfolio of quality regional gaming properties that Pinnacle possesses with a commitment to offering a world-class guest experience in order to capture increasing share of this demand,” Sanfilippo said in a statement. Sanfilippo had a number of duties in his previous position and Pinnacle hopes they will be found beneficial in his new position.  At Harrah’s, Sanfilippo was president of Harrah’s central and western divisions, overseeing the operations of more than two dozen casinos. Sanfilippo was also involved in Harrah’s growth, including the acquisitions of Horseshoe Casinos, the Grand Casino & Hotel brand, Players International and the Louisiana Downs racetrack. Sanfilippo was also president Harrah’s New Orleans. In addition, Richard Goeglein was named Pinnacle’s permanent board chairman. Goeglein had been interim board chairman since November. Dan Lee, Pinnacle’s former chairman and CEO, resigned in November after a public dispute with a St. Louis elected official.