Mobile Gambling First Tests at Venetian in Vegas
This year, field trials will begin at the Venetian Hotel-Casino for the nation's first mobile gambling devices, handheld gadgets that will enable guests to play video slots, poker, blackjack and roulette from almost anywhere on the property.
The development promises to be the next big innovation in casino technology since the advent of coinless slot machines, an opportunity to allow gamblers to keep playing through lunch at the buffet, during a meeting in the convention center or perhaps while waiting for "Blue Man Group" to start.
The only places the law prohibits their use are in hotel rooms and parking garages because all gambling in Nevada is supposed to occur in public spaces.
"The surveys show that visitors spend an average of 3.5 hours of their days in Vegas gambling in the casino," said Joseph Asher, managing director with Cantor Gaming, a New York-based company operates several online casinos and already has mobile gaming devices for sports betting in Britain. "This will give them an opportunity to gamble when they?re otherwise not allowed to gamble."
Asher said the first wave of the devices will be converted PDAs with 3-by-2-inch color screens, the brand of which he declined to disclose. Gamblers will have to show proof that they're over 21 and put a security deposit down via credit card, but any money wagered must come from either cash or from a line of credit with the hotel, per Nevada law forbidding charges to credit cards for gambling funds. Unlike actual casino gambling machines, it's likely gamblers will be able to bet in any denomination they wish, though Asher said minimum and maximum limits, if any, have yet to be set.
Cantor will be the first to a field trial in large part because they were the guiding force behind legalization of mobile gaming in Nevada during the 2005 Legislature. The law that passed in that session charged the Nevada Gaming Commission with devising regulations for the practice, which it completed this spring along with issuing the first license to field test such devices to Cantor.
The potential is enormous for Cantor, which has an exclusive deal with the Las Vegas Sands Inc., the owner of the Venetian. LVSI is building an attached Vegas megaresort, the Palazzo, which will combine for 7,100 hotel rooms and become the largest contiguous property in North America when it?s completed next year. LVSI also is completing several megaresorts in the Chinese province of Macau and recently won the only license to build a casino-hotel in Singapore.
July 26, 2006
Posted By Tom Jones
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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