Poker cards and chips hot in the holiday shopping season

You no longer need to guess what your beloved ones want to receive as X-Mas gifts. You bet you are going to make them happy! :-)

John Seewer, Associated Press, verbatim from http://www.azcentral.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
With poker's popularity growing because of televised tournaments, retailers are betting that playing cards and chips will be among the must-have items during the holiday shopping season.

Stores are showcasing displays of casino-quality chips and gaming tables with holders for drinks and betting chips.

"I'm not a big poker player, but I know a lot about it because it's such a hot item," said Kmart spokeswoman Caryn Klebba. "It seems like the teenagers are in love with it." advertisement




Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk said the renewed interest in poker may make a deck of cards the top stocking stuffer of the holidays this year.

Poker, which was introduced to much of the country by riverboats on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers in the 1800s, is now seeing another surge thanks to tournaments being televised on cable networks.

"The World Series of Poker" on ESPN along with Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown" and the "World Poker Tour" on the Travel Channel are among the hit new shows.

Few networks were interested in poker until the World Poker Tour turned into an overnight success a year ago.

PokerStars.com, a popular Web site that offers poker online, estimates based on anecdotal research that from 50 million to 60 million people play poker at least once a month.

Games range from high school students gathering in basements on weekend nights to organized tournaments.

Noah Campbell, 25, started a weekend tournament in Toledo this year that draws a combined 80 players on Friday and Saturday nights, with the money going to charities.

He spent at least $2,000 buying tables, cards and chips. Campbell said many of his friends are buying their own supplies too - including high-end chips and cards.

"They want to emulate what they see on TV," he said.

Sears, Roebuck and Co. sells a $99 gaming set that comes in a portable velvet-lined case with a chrome handle and 300 chips and two decks of cards.

Georganne Greece, a buyer for the company's game room group, said expectations are that poker supplies will see a huge surge in sales in the coming months.

"It's somewhat in its infancy," she said. "But early indications are that we're going to sell through most of this product - even the high-end items."

Most items began arriving at Sears stores in the middle of August. "We saw it fly away," she said.

Books written by some of the game's best-known players, such as Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson, have been top sellers at Borders bookstores, said Beth Bingham, a spokeswoman for Borders Group Inc.

Hellmuth has a second book, "Bad Beats and Lucky Draws," coming out in November. He's also working on a couple more for next year.

In the last year, Borders has added 20 percent more poker-related books. "It's not just the book titles," Bingham said. "There's a lot more products - we're carrying poker games, a Texas Hold 'Em game."

Restoration Hardware, the furniture and home decor retailer, sells playing cards and all the extras - mechanical card shufflers, playing card coasters and shot glasses.

The retailer, just like any good poker player, had a little luck on its side, too. It began stocking gaming items a few years before the poker boom.

Dave Glassman, a spokesman for the Corte Madera, Calif.-based company, said at first the items "didn't get much visual importance in the store." But the company was well-positioned to capitalize when poker shows on television began drawing fans.

Now the items are front and center inside its stores and catalogues.

Crate & Barrel spokeswoman Bette Kahn said poker's elevation is a testament to the power of television.

It's hard to say whether card playing will stick around, she said. "It may not be a fad. They've played poker for years and years," Kahn added.

Nevada leading the way in gaming exec training

I suppose this isn't a surprise. But the article provides a useful overview of gaming exec training in US.

-----------------------------------------------------------
By Christina Littlefield, verbatim from www.lasvegassun.com

As casino gaming becomes legal in more and more states, primarily through the spread of tribal casinos, the need to train more casino executives is growing, a keynote speaker at the Global Gaming Expo said Monday.

But efforts to offer more courses in casino management are typically met with resistance outside of Nevada, said Thomas J. Brosig, faculty fellow at the private Tulane University and co-founder of Grand Casinos.

Only 17 universities and community colleges throughout the nation offer courses or programs in casino management, Brosig said, with UNLV, UNR and the Community College of Southern Nevada leading the way. About 350,000 to 400,000 people work in the industry nationwide, Brosig said.

Although casino executives spend most of their time in the non-gaming ends of the job, such as running restaurants, entertainment and hotels, Brosig said casino management courses are stigmatized by the same prejudices that people have toward the gaming industry as a whole.

Even in Mississippi, where legalized gambling employs about 12,000 people and accounts for 10 percent of state revenue, lawmakers there typically view the gaming industry as promoting immorality and have refused to allow Mississippi's public institutions to offer courses in casino management, Brosig said.

Whereas hotel executives are usually admired, Brosig said, hotel and casino executives are typically despised and lumped together with the mobsters who controlled the industry a generation ago. Lawmakers also often dismiss the need to educate casino executives, he said.

"Legislators think that when we're teaching gaming we're teaching people how to deal blackjack," Brosig said. "But what we're really doing is teaching people how to think like a CEO in an industry that has its own unique attributes."

After failing to convince officials at the University of Southern Mississippi to allow him to offer casino management courses there, Brosig brokered a deal to start an associate's degree program at Tulane's branch campus in Biloxi.

One of Brosig's first steps was to send Tulane officials to Las Vegas to learn about UNLV's program, and UNLV worked with Tulane to help the school develop the program in Biloxi, he said. UNLV even co-sponsors some of the seminars Tulane offers, Brosig said.

"They've been a tremendous help," Brosig said, noting that UNLV's nationally known program in casino management serves as a blueprint for other institutions. "They've had a great openness to sharing information."

UNLV is the only institution in the country to offer a bachelor's degree in gaming management, Stuart Mann, dean of the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, said. UNR offers a minor through its business college.

There are about 2,500 students in the college's hospitality management program, which includes gaming, and 400 to 500 graduate each year, Mann said.

"Most institutions that have anything at all about gaming management have an introductory survey course," Mann said.

The university prides itself on being a pioneer in advancing casino management training, Mann said, but faculty are generally willing to share information about the program with others. The hotel college gets about two to three calls a year from different institutions, Mann said.

"We don't feel that we are in competition," Mann said. "There is plenty of room for other institutions to graduate students in the industry. Our reputation stands on its own, we are in the best in the nation."

Global Gaming Expo: Insiders: Slots Not Slowing

by Rod Smith, Las Vegas Gaming Wire - Verbatim from www.casinocitytimes.com

Despite grim prospects for several Nov. 2 ballot initiatives aimed at legalizing or expanding gambling, manufacturers and industry insiders at the Global Gaming Expo's opening sessions were betting slot machines sales will enjoy a big surge in the next two years.

Their arguments, however, have shifted. Rather than state fiscal crises driving expansion, the "domino effect" -- don't let neighboring states tax your residents -- will keep overcoming local opposition to new gaming, they said.

Specifically, because Pennsylvania enacted a law in July to allow slots at tracks, neighboring states -- especially Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky and New York -- are expected to hustle to keep their residents from driving across state lines to gamble, Orrin Ediden, executive vice president of WMS Gaming, told a packed meeting room of G2E attendees at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

There's at least a 50-50 chance Florida will move to legalize slots at tracks, despite vocal opposition from Gov. Jeb Bush, to head off competition from new resorts likely to be created around expanded racetrack operations with casinos in the Northeast.

There's also likely to some growth in table games, with West Virginia already moving to expand casino operations in anticipation of the rush to add slot machines around the Mid-Atlantic region, said Tim O'Leary, business development manager of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Atronic Americas, a slot machine manufacturer with operations in Las Vegas.

Slot makers and industry insiders also agreed that while two ballot initiatives in California are likely to fail, the push behind new compacts to expand tribal casinos will only grow, adding to the push for the expansion of manufacturing operations.

Altogether, there was general agreement that over the next two years, racetracks and tribal casinos will order 150,000 more slot machines, possibly even 175,000 units, increasing the number of slots in use in the United States from 650,000 to 800,000 by late 2007.

The main driving force will be the entry of Pennsylvania into the racino business. That will be followed closely by an expected response from New York and added slots at California's tribal casinos.

Pennsylvania alone is expected to offer up to 61,000 slots at tracks within the next two years, although the state's top gaming regulator has yet to be named and regulations have yet to be adopted.

While Roy Garrett, director of new business development at the Bally Gaming and Systems division of Alliance Gaming, said projections for Pennsylvania may be optimistic because of regulatory delays, he expects at least 45,000 new slots to come online.

The expansion in Pennsylvania is virtually certain to draw a proportionate response in Maryland, which has been slow to legalize slots at tracks, and from there the dominos will keep falling, said Bill Bartolomay, director of new market development at WMS Gaming.

"Ohio will be a tough sell as long as Gov. (Bob) Taft is there, but it'll be examined closely. New York is the most likely to move because it'll get penalized the most by Pennsylvania," he said.

The experts agreed other states should learn from the example in New York, where slots at tracks were authorized after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when the state needed money to pay for lost revenues.

New York track operators retain 20 percent of the money played in slots, while they will keep 48 percent in Pennsylvania.

As a result, the tracks in Pennsylvania will add a broad range of amenities, in effect creating new destination resorts with which the modest slot operations in New York will be hard pressed to compete.

Other states where chances are improving for expanded gaming include Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Texas.

In Illinois, for example, Gov. Rod Blagojevich seems to have suddenly realized he needs the support of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to be re-elected. Daley wants casino gambling in Chicago and expanded gaming in Illinois.

In Indiana, talks have bogged down over how much gambling should be expanded and when, rather than whether there should be an expansion or not.

In Iowa, a 1998 moratorium has been tagged unconstitutional by the courts and discussion is under way on how to move toward limited expansion.

In Michigan, the main issue is how severely to limit any expansion that does occur, and in Texas, the issue is where legalized gambling will get its foot in the door.

But there was one conclusion on which all the manufacturers -- happily -- agreed. Whatever the momentary setbacks, they see few limits on the expansion of slot machine operations in the United States, especially in the near term.

Updates about G2E

Considering the feedback received on this topic, I can tell that's the hottest event of the week. We'll keep monitoring news, gossip, trends at the Global Gaming Expo. As you may imagine, participants are literally flooding the media with press-releases, so as usual we'll provide to you the stories we consider more interesting, filtering the noise for you.

Stay tuned, news coming soon!