Casino Folk Pages

Please report over the net that this casino has refused to give me my winnings for the last five months.

They are a bad casino.

Source: http://www.philly.com

Casinos love high-rollers. But there are only so many million-dollar players out there.

So gaming houses are increasingly focusing on players willing to wager between $50,000 and $250,000.

A must-have at this Saturday’s $100,000 blackjack tournament at Resorts Atlantic City casino for high-rollers is $25,000 in available funds. Without this “internal qualification,” you cannot even get a seat at the tables, said Anthony Patrone, vice president of marketing for Resorts.

The prize: $100,000 winner takes all. The tournament is limited to 100 players.

“Gamblers like gambling in the casino, but given the opportunity to gamble against each other, they love that,” Patrone said. “It appeals to their competitive side.”

Patrone said Resorts now was “less willing” to chase business from seven-figure players because they can be volatile and fickle. “Luckily, there’s more of the six-figure players,” he said.

To accommodate their growing ranks, Patrone said, Resorts’ new hotel tower added 42 suites strictly for high-rollers. Before the new tower opened last summer, Resorts only had 16 suites for this coveted group and did not have the capacity to host such tournaments.

“The weight policy, which Borgata has said applies to about 160 cocktail servers and 50 male costumed beverage servers, gives the casino the power to suspend or fire anyone in those jobs who gains more than 7 percent of their weight.”

“Borgata officials say the seductively dressed female cocktail servers - officially dubbed Borgata Babes - are a key element of the casino’s brand image and that the weight restrictions are legal, fair and necessary.”

“”Here they’ve made a bold assumption that weight is associated with job performance. It’s an absurd assumption and it violates state and federal civil rights laws,” Urbano said.”

Read full story here

I don’t know much about American employee’s rights and law, but when I spend my money in the Las Vegas casinos I would prefer to see “the seductively dressed female cocktail servers” more than fat “costumed beverage servers” whose “weight is NOT associated with job performance.” According to McNally’s logic Broadway’s theaters have no right to fire dancers who gain weight.

Associated Press

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - A man who wants to tend bar at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa filed a lawsuit Tuesday to stop the company from enforcing new rules that ban costumed beverage servers from gaining too much weight.

James McNally’s lawsuit contends the policy is discriminatory. The case was remanded to federal court; no hearing date was set.

McNally, 34, currently works in police administration. His lawyers said he had standing in the case as a potential employee covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The weight policy, which Borgata has said applies to about 160 cocktail servers and 50 male costumed beverage servers, gives the casino the power to suspend or fire anyone in those jobs who gains more than 7 percent of their weight.

Borgata officials say the seductively dressed female cocktail servers - officially dubbed Borgata Babes - are a key element of the casino’s brand image and that the weight restrictions are legal, fair and necessary.

Under the policy, each of the approximately 210 workers will be weighed to establish a baseline body weight. Anyone who exceeds that weight by more than 7 percent will be suspended for up to 90 days, during which time they have access to a weight-loss program.

If they can’t drop the pounds, and have no legitimate medical excuse, the casino can fire them. Those who get pregnant - or have a condition responsible for the extra weight - can wear a “transitional uniform.”

Unclear is whether employees who refuse to be weighed will be disciplined. Borgata spokesman Michael Facenda declined to comment Tuesday.

Weigh-ins began Friday and will continue until all 210 have tipped the scales, according to Facenda.

Eric Urbano, an attorney for McNally, said a weight standard can be used only if it is “an indispensable aspect of administering a job task.”

“Here they’ve made a bold assumption that weight is associated with job performance. It’s an absurd assumption and it violates state and federal civil rights laws,” Urbano said.

Facenda declined comment on the lawsuit. McNally could not be reached for comment Tuesday. His home telephone number is unlisted, and Urbano would not say specifically where he works.

Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees international, which represents the cocktail servers and bartenders, has filed a grievance over the weight policy.

Related link:
Casino is right!…

By Doug Tsuruoka

Betting chips, usually made of plastic or fired clay, are getting a new ingredient: silicon.
Over the last five years, various casinos have tested the idea of adding radio frequency identification tags to their betting chips. The RFID tags send data to a dealer’s personal computer, making it easier to track the amount that individual players are betting in games like blackjack or roulette.
Some early tests didn’t get far. One problem was the cost of RFID chips, which had been priced at several dollars apiece. They’ve also been a bit slow, taking several seconds to kick out data.
Now Progressive Gaming International — a Las Vegas-based developer of gaming technology — has come up with a cheaper, faster RFID betting chip.
The new chips cost $1.25 each, down from about $4 three years ago. That makes them more affordable for casinos, which use tens of thousands of chips. And the chips’ data can be read in milliseconds, rather than the several seconds it took three years ago.
“We have much higher speeds and much lower costs,” said Russel McMeekin, chief executive of Progressive, which has $90 million in annual sales.
Hard Rock’s Gamble
Ten gaming tables at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas began using the new chips in late December. Analysts say it’s the first major test of faster RFID chips at a big casino anywhere in the world.
It’s a sign that RFID technology, already used to track Wal-Mart inventory and Pentagon supplies, is getting a better foothold in the gambling world.
About 100 casinos worldwide use slower versions of Progressive’s RFID chip. “RFID betting chips are a brand new tech for casinos that could lead to mass adoption,” said Dave Bain, an analyst at Merriman Curhan Ford & Co.
Progressive, which changed its name from Mikohn Gaming on Jan. 4, is in the midst of a turnaround. It earned 7 cents a share in the third quarter, compared with a loss of 32 cents in the year-ago period. Sales jumped 16% to $25.7 million.
The company’s only been profitable in three of the last 13 quarters. But investors are betting on a bright future. Its shares are trading above 10, double what they were a year ago.
Progressive’s faster, cheaper chips are a response to requests from big casinos in gambling centers like Las Vegas. The volume and pace of bets in these spots is much higher than at smaller casinos, making RFID betting chips a better way to track play.
Gaming tables with Progressive’s system have antennas installed under the table surface. The antennas pick up signals from the chips and the system displays the information on the dealer’s computer screen instantly.
The RFID chip transmits more than just the amount bet. It also indicates the identity of the player. This way, dealers know if a player is a regular patron and entitled to special prizes or favors.
Progressive charges its customers an $8,000 one-time fee per gaming table for the system. There are additional costs depending on the data features used. And casinos pay anywhere from $3 to $6 per table per day as a user fee to Progressive.
Progressive expects to have 10,000 gaming tables at casinos worldwide using its RFID chip system in five years. That represents a quarter of all casino gaming tables in the world, McMeekin says. The firm doesn’t make complete betting chips. It sells the RFID tags that casinos affix to the chips they already use. “It’s a small RFID tag about the size of the tip of the baby finger that’s embedded in the gaming chip,” McMeekin said.
Progressive gets its tags from Infineon Technologies, a German company that makes RFID chips.
Overseas Opportunities
McMeekin sees Russia and China as two potentially huge markets for RFID betting chips.
Legalized gambling, he says, has grown by leaps and bounds in Russia. Gambling in China, meanwhile, is booming in the ex-Portuguese enclave of Macau, which has a longtime casino industry.
Casinos in both countries are thirsty for new technology that makes their businesses more efficient, McMeekin says. “Gambling markets like Macau can be very big (for RFID),” Bain said.
One big selling point: RFID could help thwart cheaters.
One ruse among scam artists is to sneak extra chips onto a gaming table after winning to boost their take, Bain notes.
This form of cheating is common in Macau, which — unlike the U.S. — still relies on manual playing systems.
“If someone sneaks an RFID chip onto a table, everyone will know,” Bain said, noting that the chip would show up immediately on a dealer’s PC terminal.
Progressive’s next project: a system that reads playing cards as they’re dealt in blackjack and other games.
It would rely on an optical image reader to recognize individual playing cards, McMeekin says.

onlinecasinoreports.com

Youґve probably already noticed it one most online casinos –the box that displays the payout rate bring offered. If the online casino you play at is good quality then they hopefully display their payout rate somewhere on the website as well. But what exactly is the payout rate, how important is it to the over online casino gaming experience and why should you be so concerned with it? In short, it may be the most important factor in choosing an online casino. The payout rate of an online casino indicates whether the establishment is offering the player good odds and also offers some insight into the fair gaming policies of that specific online casino.

The payout rate of an online casino is usually display on the homepage on the payout percentage page. Youґll notice a number, usually in the 90ґs although each online casino has its own payout rate. Itґs important to note a few things when examining the payout rate. First, an honest casino should display an accurate payout rate. How can you tell whatґs accurate? You should see the payout rate fluctuating every month. If the payout rate stays the some then something is wrong. The outcome of the game is determined by random number generators therefore the wins and losses should not be the same month after month. The other thing to check for at the online casinos is that the payout rates are actually verified by a 3rd party auditing house like OPA or eCOGRA.

An honest online casino will want to display their honesty. Therefore they will hire a 3rd party auditing company to double check the integrity of the software and all the financial data thereby verifying if the payout rates displayed are accurate. You can usually find these 3rd party verification forms right on the home page of the site. If your favorite online casino is not displaying any verification forms you may want to contact them and find out why. This is an important part in recognizing the legitimacy and fair gaming policy of the online casinos. Therefore you should take it seriously.

Once youґve done all your homework youґll find the overall gaming experience much more pleasurable because it means you can play all your favorite casino games with peace of mind. Itґs better to find out first and then enjoy the fun of online gambling rather than playing first and finding out about these important aspects of the game later. The more homework you do in the beginning about the online casino the better off youґll be in the long run. Be sure to check out our online casino directory and search for the casinos with high payout rates. Remember the gold rule: the higher the payout rate, the better your chances of winning. Good luck.