Second Airport for Vegas, Bad News For Atlantic City & More

The probability that Las Vegas gets a second airport is at the moment quite high, due to the increasing demand to accommodate the large influx of tourists that will populate Las Vegas when it hosts the Super Bowl within the next decade. Plans for the proposed airport, which is set to be located in the Ivanpah Valley between the cities of Jean and Primm, were first laid out 20 years ago but were placed on the back burner at the height of the recession in 2010.

Clark County Commissioners have approved an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for the proposed project as the number of visitors and attractions in Las Vegas continues to peak year after year with the fear that airport operations, as they currently stand, will become unsustainable in the imminent future.

Development in the valley has been increasing for a while as Project Neon has been underway for 2 years and its completion is not expected before summer 2019 . This involves a massive construction project set to smoothen the traffic flow in the valley by widening four miles of highway near Downtown Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Strip.

However, if the EIS decided to carry on with the construction of the second airport, chances are that it will not be finished in time before the Super Bowl is hosted in Las Vegas.

Atlantic City’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority Bashed in Audit Report

Atlantic City’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) have had their first meeting since New Jersey State Auditor Stephen Eells’ office issued a negative report on their poor state of funding and their mismanagement and abuse of tax funds.

The state audit report claimed that the CRDA “did not always ensure an effective and effiient use of funds.” It has to be said that the CRDA underwent multiple transitions as recently the Atlantic City’s gaming industry suffered numerous financial blows and plummeted to bankruptcy. The agency even lost 1.25% of the gross gambling revenue it had previously set apart.

Chairman of the CRDA, Robert Mulcahy, addressed the claims made in the audit report and said that the CRDA is audited annually and blamed the chaos of the state changes for the agency’s deficiencies. The most damaging of findings in Eells’ audit report was the lack of financial accuracy, which involved: overpaying vendors, losing money coming in, and feeble contract negotiating authority.

The CRDA’s strong ties with the controversial Miss America organisation has also put the Authority on shifting grounds as the CRDA has agreed to raise the funds for Miss America, without determining the economic effect the pageant has had on Atlantic City. New Jersey Assemblyman, Vincent Mazzeo, has stated that the agency “needs to seriously rethink and prioritize how it spends its money.”

Pennsylvania Ban on Gambling Contributed is Officially Lifted

The law that barred casino operators and employers from contributing to political campaigns has been officially lifted. This step provides the gambling industry in Pennsylvania with a lot of political influence as well as lobbying power, seeing that the commercial casino revenue in Pennsylvania is second only to Nevada’s.

On Wednesday, US District Judge Sylvia Rambo claimed that the provision was unconstitutional and scrapped the legislation. She said that the ban incorporated a category of individuals and companies that was too wide. The initial ban was to eliminate corruption and significantly lessen the influence of the gambling industry in political decisions. The law went so far as to prohibit even petty cash contributions of $1. According to Judge Rambo, the ban should have a targeted and more definite scope of the individuals and companies that ought to be banned from donating to political campaigns.

Pennsylvania is home to 12 operating casinos and another one that is currently under construction. The industry has produced $3.2 billion in gaming revenue in 2017, of which $1.4 billion were paid to the state in taxes.

Russian Police Detain 100 people for Illegal Gambling Operations

An underground casino network in Moscow came to light after Russian authorities carried an operation involving several investigative offices. After a long investigation and more than 80 searches of companies and private homes, authorities arrested 100 people, including the leader of the criminal organisation, a certain A. Bazhanov.

This operation unravelled one of the largest criminal syndicates in Moscow, which was announced on Wednesday by the press service of the Investigative Committee of Russia, the country’s main anti-corruption institution. The Ministry of internal Affairs and the FSB, the Federal Security Service (the main successor organisation of the KGB) were also involved in the investigation.

It was revealed that this intricate criminal network included 15 illegal casinos and gaming hubs in Moscow, which operated under the trademark of Panorama LLC since May 2016 and offered illegal gambling services outside Panorama’s official grounds. The betting company was also operating under a number of different brand names, such as GreenBet, UnionBet, and WinLine. Members of the criminal organization managed to carry on with these unauthorized procedures thanks to the use of highly-sophisticated equipment.