They are friends and then they’re not but it seems that at this very space in time Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are attempting to make up after Paris released a public apology to Lindsay for poking fun at her current theft charges. “I apologize to Lindsay for the comment that I made. I was joking around but it was thoughtless and unnecessary,” Paris told TMZ.
Paris and Lindsay haven’t always been the best of friends with reported past break-ups which eclipsed the media, well, the tabloid media anyway, but somehow these two always seem to make amends and this is yet another chapter in the lives of these two headline queens.
So the story goes that Paris has a new show called, The World According to Paris, where lucky viewers get an intimate look into her day to day life including jaunts down the red carpet, dating, parties, business, you name it. So, while the show hasn’t aired, according to the Toronto Sun, there was a clip released that surfaced on the Internet where Paris pokes fun at Lindsay’s current theft issues.
As you may know, Lindsay was recently sentenced to 480 hours of community service at the Downtown Women’s Center in Los Angeles as well as the city morgue, for walking away from a jewelry store without paying for a necklace, which is what led to Paris recent run of jokes. In the clip, while helping out in a shelter, Paris gives her earrings to a woman who mistakes her for Lindsay. After sharing a short conversation, Hilton responds to the woman by saying “I’m not Lindsay!” and follows by joking about Lindsay with an added voice over, “If I were Lindsay, I’d be stealing the earrings, not giving them away,” claims the Toronto Sun.
It seems that Paris is a true mean girl who followed her sassy commentary with an apology but will she remove the scene from her upcoming show altogether?
Celebrities have their picks – after suddenly having scratched Uncle Mo off their lists – and now it's time to pre-party. Yeah baby!
And of all the, ahem, "celebrities" in all the world, we never thought Kate Gosselin would be so smoking hot at the Barnstable Brown Derby party in Louisville on Friday night. Other celebrities among the party crowd included Larry Birkhead, you know, the guy who fathered a child with the late Anna Nicole Smith, as well as musicians Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry, Wynonna Judd, Miranda Lambert, Victoria's Secret model Marissa Miller and recently fired Celebrity Apprentice cast member, Nicki Taylor.
Meanwhile, former American Idol winners Kris Allen and Jordin Sparks performed at the Mint Jubilee celebration.
As of the writing of this post, more celebrities are descending upon Churchill Downs with giant hats from the world's top designers.
There's no word yet who the celebrities plan to bet on, but many are saying Dialed In has the best shot at winning the 2011 Kentucky Derby. Nehro is looking to be a top contender as well as Twice the Appeal and Pants on Fire, who is donning a female jockey this year.
One of the regulars at the poker game puffed on his panatela and declared that the Legislature's search for revenue finally might lead to giving voters another chance to legalize gambling in Texas.
We need the money, he said, and the odd alliance of religious groups and out-of-state gambling interests may not be as strong as they have been.
He countered my doubts by noting that big-time casino chains may want to make it easier for Texans who now flock to casinos in Las Vegas and Louisiana to stay closer to home. Well, I pointed out, Texas lawmakers are going to get an earful from gambling opponents.
Subsequent events indicate that the poker player may be on to something. Late last week, a House committee approved a measure that would offer Texas voters another opportunity to expand legalized gambling. The measure approved late Friday by the House Licensing and Administrative Services Committee tiptoes up to, but stops just short of, seeking approval to allow full casino gambling.
Texas always has had a strange relationship with gambling. Texas has attracted gamblers from the time the first human beings to arrive bet that they could survive here.
I love to tell about being dispatched to Las Vegas to cover the World Series of Poker in the mid-1980s. There were so many Texans either participating or just hanging out there that I wondered if there was anybody left back home to answer the phone.
"You want to have fun?" the freelancer joked. "Just stick your head in one of those rooms and holler ‘Hey, Tex' and watch 'em all turn around."
In Texas, you're never far away from a game of cards or dice or someone who will wager on which raindrop will reach the bottom of the window sill first or which high school football team will win on any given night in the fall.
The big selling point for proponents of expanding gambling's footprint in Texas is the millions Texans spend at out-of-state gambling venues. Why not keep that money here, they ask.
Part of the reason is that those out-of-state gambling venues want to keep that Texas money coming, and they hire some pretty fancy lobby talent to block gambling bills. Regardless of their intentions, religious groups who oppose gambling line up with the out-of-state gambling interests to thwart efforts to expand Texas gambling.
Proponents of expanded casino gambling are back with a familiar refrain that Texas gamblers will voluntarily add millions to the state's coffers if the Legislature and the voters will just turn them loose. The measure kicked out of committee Friday would — voters permitting — allow slot machines at racetracks and Indian reservations.
A proposal by state Rep. Mike "Tuffy" Hamilton, R-Mauriceville, and three colleagues — Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, and Carol Alvarado, D-Houston — proposed a constitutional amendment that would have asked voters to approve full casino gambling in the state. That would have taken 100 votes, and Hamilton, chairman of the licensing committee, said he didn't have them.
There is another measure asking for voter approval of casino gambling pending in a Senate committee. Sponsored by Sens. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, and Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, it has only the remotest chance of advancing. If there aren't 100 solid votes in the House for casinos, senators will be asked to take a politically risky and pointless vote. Without House approval, the proposed constitutional amendment goes nowhere.
Before the Friday House vote, gambling hadn't attracted widespread attention, but that doesn't mean there is a lack of interest.
Friday's vote moves an old and familiar struggle to the full House and thus gives Texans another look at their strange relationship with gambling. Texans love to drink as much as they love to gamble but resisted approving liquor by the drink until 1971.
Texas legislators might well ask voters to approve casino gambling sometime in future, but it won't be this year.
I was hoping the full casino amendment would make it. It's not that I'm eager to gamble in a casino — quite the contrary — but a gambling debate is interesting. A gambling debate provides insight into the Texas character — not to mention characters.
Like a friend of mine once said: "I don't really like to play poker. I just like the talk."
While state lawmakers debate an expansion of gambling, Minnesota residents seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of having more gambling options. That’s the finding of a new poll by the Star Tribune Minnesota, in which 72% of Minnesota residents said they would like to end the monopoly on gambling currently hold by Native American tribes in the state.
There was, however, some disagreement among Minnesotans over how much additional gambling they’d like to see in the state. While 37% of respondents said they’d favor all kinds of expansion – including slot machines at bars and restaurants, downtown casinos in Minneapolis, and converting racetracks into “racinos” – many others favored only some of the proposed changes.
Among those ideas, adding slot machines to the Running Aces and Canterbury Park racetracks was the most popular, attracting an additional 20% of voters. Another 12% said they’d like to see a downtown Minneapolis casino, while a casino at the Mall of America and the introduction of slots in bars and restaurants each garnered 8% of the vote.
According to a report in the Star Tribune, Native American groups were disappointed in the results of the poll, if not entirely surprised.
"A lot of people don't [see] the full impact of what tribal gaming has done for the economy in this state, and so they’re misinformed." said John McCarthy of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association. “I guess that would be my bottom line.”
The group, along with other tribal interests, has lobbied against the proposed changes, saying that they will cost local communities thousands of jobs. However, only 23% of those polled agreed that Native American groups should be able to keep the exclusive rights to gambling in Minnesota.
While the proposals have generated plenty of interest and debate in Minnesota, it’s likely that none of these bills will pass anytime soon. While several pieces of legislation have been debated, none appear close to passage; neither Republicans nor members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (the state equivalent to the national Democratic Party) appear strongly behind any of the proposals in question.
It looks like Simon Cowell and his American Idol sweetheart Paula Abdul are coming back together again for the upcoming U.S. version of The X-Factor. After Paula's show Live to Dance was cancelled after just one season, it seems that rekindling the love/hate relationship that they once shared just seemed like the logical choice.
So are you ready for another round of the bickering duo? If you’ve been a fan of American Idol and its original panel of judges, then you just may remember the infamous relationship between the once rumored couple – Paula and Simon. The two cut each other down every chance they got but deep down it was all for show or at least we think.
Tonight was the first round of auditions for Cowell’s new X-Factor series which he personally adapted for U.S. audiences and according to the LA Times, when Simon and Paula walked on stage, they were greeted by a crowd that was intensely happy to see the two reunited and were greeted with chanting from the crowd, “We love you Paula.” Sorry Simon….
Paula and Simon are also joined by the other two judges including L.A. Reid, the famous record producer from Def Jam Records and British pop-star Cheryl Cole.
If you want to catch the season opener of the show, you’ll have to wait until September 2011 and from the sounds of it, the Simon and Paula reunion should be fun to watch.
A South Korean man and woman were each sentenced to more than a year in prison on Monday for a card-game gambling scheme last year that defrauded a Connecticut casino of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Prosecutors said Young Su Gy, 60, and Wookyung Kim, 34, traveled to the Foxwoods Resort Casino from South Korea to play Macao-style midi-Baccarat, a game in which the house dealer handles the cards.
Several times last fall, Gy used a so-called holdout device in his sleeve with which he could switch cards in and out of a game to his advantage, prosecutors said.
A holdout device can be a slight-of-hand trick or a hidden mechanism to hold and hide a card.
Kim meanwhile acted as a so-called blocker, distracting casino staff from observing Gy's use of the trick, authorities said.
Both of them wagered on the games and made thousands of dollars at a time, prosecutors said.
"Through this scheme, Gy and Kim were able to defraud Foxwoods of several hundred thousand dollars," said David Fein, U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, in a statement.
In U.S. District Court in Hartford, Judge Alvin Thompson sentenced Gy to 18 months in prison and Kim to one year and a day in prison for cheating the Uncasville, Connecticut-based Foxwoods, a casino complex operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.
They also got three years supervised release and were ordered to pay restitution of $870,505.
They had faced the possibility of 20 years in prison.
The two were arrested in November, and in February they pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and theft from a gambling hall on Indian land.
They admitted causing losses of between $400,000 and $1 million to Foxwoods.
The Texas Legislative session is starting to wind down. But that just means we have to be on guard so that we do not get tired and let bad legislation slip out through the cracks! The following is an email that I received from Donna Garner about the two bills bills trying to be pushed out of committee that would open the door for expanded gambling in Texas. We can take action now to stop these bills!
ACTION STEP: Please contact your Texas Legislators and tell them that we do not want any expansion of gambling in our state. Ask them to vote against both Rep. Hamilton’s HJR 147 and Rep. Hilderbran’s HB 254. Hilderbran’s bill is making rapid progress and is on the General State Calender for this Tuesday, on 5.10.11.
Hilderbran’s bill makes Texas horse racing derbies possible; and, of course, the next small step would be a piece of legislation to open the way for racetrack casinos (“racinos”) at those horse racing derbies.
We do not want any expansion whatsoever of gambling in Texas because the net loss to communities outweighed the benefits 3 to 1!
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Rep. Mike Hamilton (R - Mauriceville) is the chair of the House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee and was appointed by Speaker Straus.
Speaker Straus (R - San Antonio) and his family have made their fortune from gambling interests.
Legislation that involves the expansion of gambling will normally come before the Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee (L&A).
Rather than get someone else to float the gambling bill, Rep. Hamilton (the Straus-appointed chair) filed HJR 147 himself. This bill, if passed, would open the door to the expansion of gambling in Texas including video slot machines, casinos, gambling, and race tracks.
Hamilton wants a full racetrack casino (“racino”) at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie and also five luxury casinos (one per county) in Tarrant, Harris, Dallas, Bexar, and Travis Counties. (4.28.11 -- Ft. Worth Star-Telegram)
In Oct. 2009, Global Gaming, a Chickasaw subsidiary, made a deal to buy Lone Star Park racetrack in Grand Prairie. Global Gaming also wants to build a race track in Amarillo.
In January 2010, Global Gaming bought bankrupt Remington Park which is located in Oklahoma City. Remington Park is a track-plus-casino (a.k.a., a “racino”). The Chickasaws were able to turn Remington Park around by the expansion of video slots that are not only profitable in themselves but also allow the track to increase prize money payouts.
The Chickasaws want Texas to change its video slot laws and to expand gambling at horse tracks, and the Chickasaws have hired high-paid lobbyists to influence our Texas Legislature. (5.7.11 -- Dallas Morning News)
It is clear that both the Chickasaws and Speaker Joe Straus would find it beneficial for Texas legislators to vote for the expansion of gambling in Texas.
STRAUS’ GAMBLING INTERESTS
One of our biggest concerns over Straus as Speaker was his long-standing business interests in gambling. He and/or his family own Retama Park in Selma (near San Antonio), Laredo Downs, Valle de los Tesoros Park in McAllen, and Austin Jockey Club.
Texas Observer Andrew Wheat wrote on 4.8.10, “Texas House Speaker Joe Straus III’s family could earn tens of millions of dollars if lawmakers and voters agree to let racetracks install slot machines (VLT’s).”
Retama has been losing money for several seasons, and it is not hard to imagine that Straus desperately wants to keep his family out of bankruptcy. It is also common knowledge that land has already been bought in Austin along FM 1625 at Texas Highway 45 and Old Lockhart Road to set up a racetrack called Longhorn Downs; Retama Entertainment Group (Straus’ family) is to manage it.
SNIPPETS OF ALARMING STATISTICS
Professor Earl L. Grinols, who is one of the leading economic experts on gambling in the United States, concluded that in the Midwest and South [including Texas], gambling caused a net loss to the community by removing gambling dollars from the local economy, and the local taxpayers had to pay for the “increased crime, personal bankruptcy, domestic violence, lost workdays, child abuse and other social costs from problem gamblers.”
According to the New York Times (7.29.10), the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that the social costs of gambling outweighed the benefits by 3 to 1.
Electronic gambling (e.g., slot machines) is one of the most dangerous forms of gambling because it preys on pathological gamblers.
Video Slot Machines are known as the 'crack cocaine' of gambling because of their addictive nature…The addiction cycle is shorter - about 1 year to become addicted.
Failing race tracks would become major slot machine casinos, also called ‘Racinos,’ overnight.
Seven states have quantified their costs of gambling addiction, bankruptcy and crime averaging $13,000 per person.
YOUNG men and ethnic minorities are being lured into betting shops by a high-speed gambling machines.
An analyst at Glasgow University has found that advances in technology are opening up the market to people less familiar with the pitfalls of the addiction.
Professor Gerda Reith, one of the country’s academics to have researched the issue, said that though betting itself is not inherently dangerous, some people’s reaction to it is harmful.
While it was once older, working-class males who frequented betting shops, young people and those from non-gambling ethnic backgrounds are increasingly drawn in. The research comes 50 years to the month since high-street bookmakers were legalised by statute, the 1961 Betting and Gaming Act.
Professor Reith, whose study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), said the shift was due largely to the rise in real-time electronic gambling machines.
In her study of attitudes to betting she writes: “Under the Act, the newly licensed betting offices were required not to encourage loitering. Today’s attractive, comfortable premises are a world apart from that.
“In particular, their touch-screen Fixed-Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) that allow players to bet on the outcome of various games and events are encouraging new types of customers and new styles of play.”
As well as the younger men and ethnic groups, who prior to assimilation in Scottish culture may have been less disposed to gamble due to cultural factors, she said more hardened punters were also changing their habits.
“A proportion of older gamblers are also attracted to FOBTs, a change from their traditional bets,” she said.
Profits from FOBTs, first introduced in 2001, now outstrip over-the-counter horse racing, greyhounds and football.
“Compared with some forms of gambling such as horse races or even casino table games, betting machine games are extremely quick, the stakes are high and the losses can very quickly become higher,” Professor Reith said.
But while it has become increasingly easy and attractive to bet, Professor Reith cautioned against knee-jerk opposition to gambling.
She said: “Gambling itself is not dangerous, it is how people deal with it that can cause harm. That said, some types of gambling are more risky than others and FOBTs seem to be one of the products most associated with harm at present.
“For example, we have evidence that some older betting shop customers who did not have problems with gambling in the past are more likely to develop problems when they start to use betting machines.”
Previous research by Professor Reith suggested that problem gamblers got into difficulties because of environmental factors, rather than pure genetics.
Problems with gambling can also fluctuate through a person’s life, she said, meaning that someone previously not at risk could become troubled, or vice versa.
Studies have estimated that as many as 3.5 million adults in Britain have experienced difficulties with gambling behaviour at some point in their lives.
Excessive betting is linked to financial problems, divorce, crime, loss in productivity and even depression and suicide.
A spokesman for Coral bookmakers said the industry recognised there had been a “cultural change” in betting but that it wasn’t likely to result in more people becoming dangerously addicted to gambling.
He said: “In the last decade there’s been a move from people just betting on horses and greyhounds to betting on more popular mainstream things like football, Big Brother and X Factor, which all, of course, hold a massive appeal to younger people.
“And, of course, the advances in technology have changed things. Younger people are more likely to use the internet, gambling machines or bet from phone devices.
“The UK has one of the most stringent gambling industry guidelines and we’re well regulated so I don’t see it as a problem.”
Whitney Houston is making headlines again and unfortunately it’s not because of her amazing singing career but it seems that the songstress has willingly checked herself into an out-patient rehab program to help her get cleaned up for an upcoming role in Terry McMillan's Getting to Happy, which is a sequel to the 1995 hit novel turned movie, Waiting to Exhale.
Whitney developed a drug problem during her tumultuous marriage to R&B singer Bobby Brown and her drug issues were brought out to the open after a very candid Oprah interview back in 2009 where she revealed that she and Bobby would sit around watching television while consuming mounds of cocaine.
“We were lacing our marijuana with base (cocaine). We weren’t on crack. We weren’t on no crack stuff. We weren’t buying $20 jumbos. We were paying money. We were buying kilos and ounces and ounces. We would have our stash,” she told Oprah.
It seemed that her junkie days were new behind her but maybe just maybe Whitney was just in need of a mental refresher before starting her next big project, hence the rehab stint.
Apart from being one of the highest selling female singers in the U.S., Whitney is also somewhat of an actress with the release of the cheese ball hall of fame winner, The Bodyguard. Also, during the height of her drug addiction and marital issues, somehow she also managed to release Waiting to Exhale and The Preacher’s Wife, which actually did fairly well. Now, after almost six years of the movie’s release, Whitney will be starring in the sequel to Waiting to Exhale – Getting to Happy, where she will star together with the old cast including Angela Bassett and Loretta Divine.
Let’s just hope that Whitney can pull it together for this one and for the sake of her daughter Bobbi Khristina who also seems to share a similar problem.
This summer, 46,000 property owners in the Valley will receive an average of $128 in tax relief from gambling revenue.
The average homeowner in Pennsylvania will see a $200 reduction in property taxes this year.
The districts will receive the funds in two equal installments in August and October.
Pennsylvania Department of Education spokesman Tim Eller said the calculation for each school district “is based on average daily membership, relative wealth and tax burden, which is governed by the law.”
The state has a total of $612.1 million to give its 500 school districts this year. Last year, $616.5 million was available for tax relief.
The drop in revenue came despite an increase of 8.3 percent in revenue produced in the state’s 10 casinos.
In a letter last month to Secretary of Education Ron Tomalis, Budget Secretary Charles B. Zogby said, “Delays in facility openings and continued increases in non-taxable promotional play have contributed to the decline in projected revenues.”
Eller said four more casinos are to be opened in the future, with two scheduled to open in 2012.
“Between these four,” he said, “additional property tax relief will become available.”
The governor’s office reports on its website, “When all 14 gaming facilities are up and running, the average amount of property tax relief for each homeowner is expected to rise $300.”
The 2004 Gaming Act established the Property Tax Relief Fund, which provides funding to school districts to be used to reduce property taxes. The fund was created as a way to channel revenue generated through gaming into the hands of taxpayers.
For every dollar produced as revenue from slot machine play, 55 cents is returned to Pennsylvanians, with 34 percent going to property tax relief, 12 percent to the horse racing industry, 5 percent to the Economic Development and Tourism Fund, and 4 percent to local and county government.
After 25 years of marriage, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver have shockingly announced they are splitting up.
They recently released the statement: "After a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion and prayer, we came to this decision together. At this time, we are living apart while we work on the future of our relationship. We are continuing to parent our four children together. They are the light and center of both of our lives."
The couple added, "We consider this a private matter and neither we nor any of our friends or family will have further comment."
TMZ reports that Shriver moved out of the couple's L.A. mansion months ago, frustrated with Arnold since he's been wanting to get back into the movie biz. TMZ also reports that Maria has been unhappy with Arnold's big ego, as well as his womanizing. When Arnold first ran for governor of California, he was accused of groping women on the campaign trail, while Maria vehemently defended him. Reportedly, she feels unappreciated and has complained to friends that she's felt ignored by Arnold for years.
Maria and Arnold called their split "amicable" and just Saturday, they attended their nephew's college graduation together. The two married in 1986 and had four children together.
They have not yet stated who will live in their L.A. mansion and how they will deal with custody issues. Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, recently lost her father, who she adored, and has taken to both Facebook and YouTube to talk about "transition." Maria had particular trouble with the decision to split due to her religious views.
Charges last month by U.S. prosecutors against the Canadian founder of PokerStars, a major Internet gambling company, has attracted considerable attention. Rather than being an isolated episode, this forms part of a larger ongoing debate about whether this industry is based on virtual vice or innovative virtue.
On the surface, the stigmatization by the U.S. government of Internet gambling appears to be fully justified, a campaign directed at murky offshore operators with a myriad of regulation and surveillance gaps, allowing for criminal penetration across a huge spectrum of associated abuses ranging from fraud to money laundering.
Yet, when looked at more closely, the story is quite different. Although some murky practices exist, the Internet gambling industry has been driven over the past decade by entrepreneurs coming out of the world of finance or high tech who have an incentive to move the industry into the mainstream. If some of these individuals want to avoid the personal spotlight, as witnessed by the image of Isai Scheinberg the founder of PokerStars (who formerly worked for IBM Canada) guarding his privacy, it is not because they want to operate their business in a complete shroud of secrecy. Internet gambling firms may be located offshore but they do not operate on the same logic as so-called tax havens. As witnessed by the pictures of Scheinberg’s son playing poker with a group of celebrities, the world of Internet gambling thrives on publicity not secrecy.
Moreover, unlike tax havens, Internet gambling entrepreneurs seek out offshore sites not because they want to but because they have to given the intensity of U.S. official stigmatization, a campaign targeted in an extraterritorial fashion with the passage of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
Scheinberg is not the first major corporate executive to be targeted in this fashion. The chair of a large U.K.-based firm, Sportingbet, was arrested at Kennedy Airport in New York in September 2006. The Indian software wiz, based in Gibraltar, who revolutionized the way poker is played online with PartyGaming agreed to a plea bargain in December 2008. And the two Canadian founders of Neteller were arrested in the U.S. Virgin Islands on the basis they were facilitating online gambling.
Nor is this a storyline exclusively about individuals being targeted by the U.S. government. When one of the pioneers of the Internet gambling business was charged and convicted under the older Wire Act, Antigua, the small offshore country where his company was based took up his cause through a protracted WTO challenge. This highlighted the fact that the Internet gambling industry was integral to the “real” economy of a small Caribbean state, not simply a fictional site of convenience as with tax havens.
Constant analogies have been made between the worlds of gambling and finance, with speculative practices such as credit default swaps commonly viewed as gambling practices by other names. Yet the stigmatization of segments in the two industries has been translated into action in very different ways.
Judicial action directed at the institutions responsible for the worst financial collapse in 80 years has not been conducted with anywhere the degree of intensity found in the campaign against Internet gambling. The real murkiness of the Internet gambling story relates to the motivations of the U.S. government spending so much time and effort on a campaign of stigmatization against a niche industry that has become an innovative, globalized, technology-driven service industry.
If it is a campaign driven by special interests, whether by the professional sports leagues (with their own associations to Las Vegas based casino capitalism) and individual U.S. states with well-developed betting structures in place, it is self-serving. If alternatively, it is an authentic morality-driven campaign, it reveals just how exceptional the U.S. is in how it defines its priorities according to the embedded tenets of social conservatism even in the years of the Obama presidency.
It’s that time again for the nail-biting experience of waiting around to find out what Lindsay Lohan’s sentencing outcome will be after being accused of stealing a $2,500 necklace from an L.A. jewelry shop. As of this morning, TMZ has been waiting outside the courthouse as her attorney Shawn Holley enters the plea of “no contest.”
And the verdict according to Judge Stephanie Sautner is as follows:
For the charges of Count 1 Grand theft:
Placed on probation for 3 years
Required to serve 120 days starting June 17
480 hours of community service
Enroll psychological counseling
Stay 100 feet away from Kamofie & Co
Pay court fines of up to $200
Enroll in Shoplifters Alternative Course
The judge did mention that due to overcrowding in the county jail, she may be eligible for house arrest but that decision is up to the sheriff. Judge Sautner also touched on the subject that she was not referring Lindsay to a drug rehab program because she feels that her issues are not linked to substance abuse but may be more of a psychological nature.
It doesn’t seem that she got any special treatment today, but let’s just see if she if she ends up on house arrest. If so, one stipulation of the sentence was that she cannot complete her community service while on house arrest. Oh, and three years of probation time means no more misbehavin’ for Lindsay.
An appeals court decision upholding most of the bribery convictions against former Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy will determine how bribery charges are presented in Alabama's gambling corruption trial starting June 6.
Bill Clark, defense attorney for former Democratic state Sen. Larry Means of Attalla, said the ruling Tuesday by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirms what the trial judge indicated during a hearing last week.
During that hearing, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said he believed prosecutors would need to show an agreement by a senator to take an official action in return for campaign contributions, but he said he wished the 11th Circuit would rule quickly in the Siegelman and Scrushy case because it also involved campaign contributions and would provide guidance for next month's trial.
As soon as the 11th Circuit's decision came out Tuesday, Thompson gave attorneys in the gambling corruption case until Friday to give him their views about how the 11th Circuit's ruling impacts the upcoming trial
In 2006, Siegelman and Scrushy were convicted of bribery charges involving Siegelman appointing Scrushy to a hospital regulatory board in return for arranging $500,000 to Siegelman's unsuccessful campaign for a state lottery.
In the gambling corruption case, Country Crossing casino owner Ronnie Gilley and two of his lobbyists have pleaded guilty to offering legislators millions in bribes that would be disguised as campaign contributions. In return, the legislators were supposed to vote for legislation designed to keep electronic bingo casinos operating.
VictoryLand casino owner Milton McGregor and two of his lobbyists are scheduled for trial June 6 with two present state senators and two former senators who voted for pro-gambling legislation in March 2010. They have pleaded not guilty to charges accusing them of swapping votes for campaign contributions.
In Tuesday's ruling, the 11th Circuit said a close proximity between a campaign contribution and an official action is not enough to prove bribery. The appeals court said there has to be an agreement that an officeholder will take some official action in return for a contribution. The court said the agreement must be explicit, but it doesn't have to be in writing or overheard by a third party.
"It's a positive result," Clark said.
Attorneys for the other three present and former senators charged in the case either declined comment or did not return phone calls.
Federal prosecutors also declined comment, but the ruling by the 11th Circuit largely reflects views that Justice Department attorney Barak Cohen outlined in the court hearing last week. He argued that a bribery agreement could be expressed through winks and nods by two knowledgeable parties, and the 11th Circuit agreed that "knowing winks and nods" would work.
Tom Sizemore is being questioned by police in relation to the disappearance of his 25-year-old girlfriend, who some say, was last seen with Sizemore. Sizemore, who was once in a volatile relationship with the notorious "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss, was a past patient of Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab.
There is currently an active investigation into the disappearance of 25-year-old Megan Wren, Sizemore's latest girlfriend who had been living with Sizemore for six months prior to her disappearance on March 31st.
Sizemore was questioned recently in her disappearance and law enforcement says the actor has "been very cooperative." However, Megan's family has tried to contact Sizemore for answers, but he doesn't return their phone calls. There is no word on whether or not he's a person of interest in the case.
Sizemore has been in films including Saving Private Ryan, Blackhawk Down and Pearl Harbor, but has been mostly in the press lately for his substance abuse problem and brushes with the law. He has been battling drug problems since he was 15, and was convicted in 2003 of assault and battery against Fliess. Sizemore was sentenced to 17 months in jail and four months in drug treatment for repeatedly failing drug tests while on probation on March 25, 2005. He was also arrested on drug charges in 2007 and 2009.
Back in 2010, another of Sizemore's exes, Jinele McIntire, who is the mother of his two children, got a restraining order against Sizemore after she says, Sizemore "punched me in the face and head repeatedly. My ear started bleeding… punched me in the stomach with such great force, it took my breath away."
Jinele also claims Tom "threw a long knife (it looked like a kitchen knife) on the floor of the bathroom."
TMZ reported that the temporary restraining order was granted by the judge the day it was filed.
Some of the world's biggest casino operators are betting that Chinese moms and pops who like to gamble and also want to shop and dine will turbocharge growth over the next few years at Macau, the world's biggest gambling destination.
Macau, located on the Southern tip of China and an hour away by ferry from Hong Kong, has so far relied heavily on China's young and wealthy for casino revenues, which totaled about $24 billion in 2010 -- well above what Las Vegas earned.
Galaxy Entertaiment Group's new $1.9 billion resort that is set to open on May 15 and Sands China's upcoming casino are targeting China's burgeoning middle class, rather than the high-rollers it's used to pulling in.
The potential shift of growth drivers from the volatile VIP segment, which brings in 70 percent of the gambling revenues, to the so called 'mass market' is a welcome development for Macau, which has been focusing on diversifying its economy away from gaming.
The development also comes with its challenges, as Macau visitors have focused mainly on gambling and less on leisure activities such as shows and shopping.
"The VIP market depends on a few number of people, the mass market is a big number. We encourage and we prefer the mass market growing faster," said Manuel Joaquim Das Neves, Director of Macau's Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ).
SKY-TOP WAVE POOL, CINEPLEX
The casino market in Macau, the only place in China where casino gambling is legal, is likely to double in size to $50 billion between 2013-2015, according to Goldman Sachs .
Galaxy's new resort will have features such as a sky-top wave pool, a 350 ton man-made beach, and a multiplex cinema.
"I think Macau as a destination resort will continue to grow and that will continue to bring in guests in every segment in enhanced numbers to Macau," Michael Mecca, President and Chief Operating Officer of Galaxy, told Reuters.
"With the scope of properties in Cotai, there is much more of a focus on the mass market," he said, referring to the city's Cotai strip, modeled as Asia's answer to Vegas' neon alley, where the new casino resorts are situated.
Galaxy, nearly 20 percent owned by private equity firm Permira , competes in the former Portuguese colony with billionaire Sheldon Adelson's Sands China, casino magnate Steve Wynn's Wynn Macau , MGM Resorts International's Macau venture and Stanley Ho's SJM .
Ho, dubbed the "Macau gambling king," for his dominance prior to the opening up of the gaming market in 2002, has an empire that still controls around 30 percent of Macau's market.
JUNKET SYSTEM
Macau's VIP sector depends on the highly murky junket system, -- licensed middlemen who extend millions of dollars in credit to mainland gamblers and assume responsibility for loan repayment, often indelicately, authorities say.
Such revenue streams are vulnerable to the availability of credit, suffering if China's clampdown on excess liquidity trickles down into the opaque junket system.
"The thing that keeps me up at night in respect to buying Macau casino shares is the junket system. We simply don't have a great deal of disclosure on who these guys are and where they get their money from," said Philip Tulk at RBS in Hong Kong.
The rising prowess of the Chinese consumer, underscored by rising income growth, and an appreciating currency is prompting international investors to place wagers on Macau casino operators, especially those with greater exposure to the mass market.
Tulk of RBS is eyeing mass market growth at 30 percent in percentage terms over the next 3 years, compared with 15 percent for VIP growth in 2012 and 12 percent in 2013.
Joanna Yang, buyside analyst for fund manager RCM in Hong Kong, said it was favourable for casino operators to have a decent mass market share given higher potential margins.
"Definitely so far we have seen mass market growing pretty decently and with the supply coming on stream then we should be expecting the mass market to grow faster," Yang said.
Fund managers including BNP Paribas, RCM and Fidelity are among the top mutual fund net buyers of Macau casino stocks, with Sands China, SJM and Galaxy among the top buys. Fidelity and RCM Asia Pacific are the second- and third-largest institutional owners of SJM, according to Thomson Reuters data.
SHARES SOAR
Infrastructure developments will strengthen mass-market growth in the coming year with the high speed rail network between Guangzhou and Zhuhai dramatically reducing travel time for visitors and the expansion of Macau's key Gongbei border gate that straddles Guandong province.
In the longer term, the construction of a light transit railway and a bridge connecting Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau, due for completion in 2015, is set to boost arrivals further.
Galaxy's shares have surged more than 300 percent over the past 12 months, compared with the Hang Seng Index's roughly 17 percent gain in the same period. Other casino operators have also rocketed, posting double and triple digit increases on stellar gaming revenue growth.
"We are encouraged by first quarter GGR (gross gaming revenue) data confirming an accelerating trend of mass-market GGR growth, up 9 percent on the quarter, outpacing 5 percent on the quarter for VIP," Goldman said in a note.
Analysts, though cautious of short-term profit taking in the near term due to rapid share gains, are upgrading their forecasts.
Full-year revenue growth for the industry is seen between 27-35 percent, with expectations of further demand and better supply conditions due to an increased number of hotel rooms and key infrastructure developments.
The increase in hotel room supply over the next 9-12 months, adding 8,200 rooms, or 41 percent of supply, by will be soaked up easily, said Aaron Fischer, director of consumer and gaming research for the CLSA brokerage and investment group in Hong Kong.
The risk of strict visa restrictions is slim, with the
Primarily focused on the Nordic online gambling market Betsafe is a private gaming company which offers sports betting, casino and poker to a large number of players.
Online gambling business Betsson has acquired its rival Betsafe in a deal valued at €60 million (£52.2 million).
The Betsson Group is a Swedish gambling Group with over 40 years in the business. The Betsson Group is specialized in Internet gambling and is listed on the OMX Nordic Stock Exchange in Stockholm, Mid Cap. The firm employs approximately three hundred people in a number of locations. Betsson offers a wide range of first-class online gambling products and games in a safe and user-friendly gaming environment. Betsson’s product portfolio is varied and extensive including, a Sports Book, Casino, Live Casino, Poker, Games, Scratchcards, and Bingo.
Betsson Malta Limited is licenced by the Malta’s Lotteries and Gaming Authority under the Remote Gaming Regulations clause. Betsson Poker is powered by Ongame Network Ltd, which has a network license issued by the Gibraltar Government. Betsson Euro Tables is an online poker service belonging to a network, arranged and operated by Entraction Network Ltd. in compliance with the applicable laws of Malta. The Live Casino Games are operated by Evolution Gaming under a license issued to Evolution Gaming by the Alderney Gaming Control Commission.
According to a company press statement, the purchase details how Betsson is to pay an initial €32.5 million in cash and shares and a subsequent €27.5 million payable based on 'the development of the acquisition and the integration thereof during 2011'. The deal is beneficial for both firms which are licensed in Malta and are present on the Ongame poker network.
Pontus Lindwall, Chief Executive Officer of Betsson, commented that the acquisition will be creating synergies such as integration of platforms and supplier contracts. Lindwall continued, “We strengthen our position in the Nordic region as well as our organisation when merging two profitable companies, each of which has proven its ability to gain market share in a highly competitive market.”
Ashton Kutcher sent coy tweets to his 6.2 million fans last night, implying that he'll be the guy to replace the embattled Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men. After Kutcher simply tweeted, ”(-;” followed with “What’s the square root of 6.25?” (answer: 2 1/2), news quickly broke that he landed the coveted gig Sheen was fired from over a month ago.
Sheen has said that the show would be "lame" without him, but Ashton Kutcher is close to a deal to takeover Sheen's role.
The show's creator Chuck Lorre, who Sheen has publicly feuded with, has reportedly written a storyline introducing Kutcher.
British actor Hugh Grant passed on the job because it would cause "creative differences." Jeremy Piven, Rob Lowe and John Stamos were also in talks to takeover the role.
Kutcher has been making movies, most recently, the critically panned, Killers, but is used to the sitcom format as he became a big star on That 70's Show. CBS and Kutcher’s reps declined to comment on Kutcher's potential new gig, but a deal is said to be all but signed. The exact dollar figure he will be paid is not known but a source says Kutcher is getting a “huge payday” to join the hit sitcom, though speculation is that he won't be making nearly the $2 million per episode Sheen was making. Sources say CBS is hoping 33-year-old Kutcher will attract a younger audience, and his 6 million followers on twitter doesn't hurt.
Actor Matthew Perry has never been shy about sharing his battle with prescription drugs as well as his numerous stints in rehab and it looks like it might be that time once again as he opens up about disappearing for a while to continue his recovery process.
The good news is that Perry isn’t checking into rehab this time around due to a relapse but simply to reinforce all of the positive behaviors he’s picked up over time. His first public battle with addiction dated back to 1997 when according to People Magazine, the star checked in twice followed by a second stint in 2001 where he was in serious need of help after developing an addiction to Vicodin and booze. According to Perry he was taking in an “insane amount of pills” which included up to 30 a day followed by a quart of Vodka.
It’s been a long road for the Perry who now stars in his own sitcom Mr. Sunshine which he created, produced and stars in along with West Wing star, Allison Janney who plays his boss as the two plus a few other quirky characters manage the day to day happenings of an arena in San Diego.
Mr. Sunshine got off to a strong start with high ratings, but there is no word as to whether the show will continue for a second season. I suppose it’s a good time for Perry to take some time off and recover.
In the summer of 2000, John Gregory was an Ontario Provincial Police detective, respected for his undercover work investigating illegal gambling. That was before he was fired. It seems the 29-year veteran had stolen $16,000 from the force, money he used to support the gambling habit he'd developed. The father of six had already burned through more than $100,000 of family savings.
Around the same time, 66-yearold Pearl Byrd, a longtime supervisor with a solid employment history in Connecticut's Department of Social Sevices, was convicted of embezzling more than $187,000 from her employer -money she poured into the slots at her local casino.
This spring in Ottawa, Father Joe LeClair, the charismatic pastor of Blessed Sacrament parish, voluntarily resigned after an investigation raised questions about the source of his gambling money. Le-Clair, who'd received more than $137,000 in credit card cash advances at the Casino du Lac-Leamy in 2009 and 2010, confessed to saddened parishioners that he did indeed have a significant gambling problem.
Anybody see a thread? I mean, apart from the shared problem that upended these three lives?
Here it is: like countless others in our brave new world of legalized gambling, all three were otherwise conscientious citizens who became unlikely addicts after a degree of exposure to gambling. Some fateful number of casino visits created the monster in Byrd and LeClair, while repeated job-related exposure did it for the undercover cop.
Did they know better? Undoubtedly. Yet it's easy to imagine them saying, "Just one more hit (or hand, or roll of the dice). I'll make it all back."
That's the magic thinking of addiction, the kind of disordered thought that pits the giddy power of irrational hope against human nature's capacity for common sense -and wins. No "harm prevention" strategy in the world is a match for it. In the case of slot machines, it's abetted by electronic wizardry that goes straight to the brain, scrambling normal patterns and pumping up the desire to bet just one more time, again and again.
In a society where gambling opportunities are either governmentsanctioned or government-run, exposure is difficult to avoid. From promotions for the next mega-lottery to glitzy come-ons for the exciting glamour of the nearest casino, the allure of "gaming" (as the sanitized version now has it) is ubiquitous.
And exposure to gambling, in all its brightly-lit mainstream appeal, is breeding more and more problems.
Seriously, can you picture any of those people -the detective, the office supervisor, the priest -slinking down alleyways looking for a little backroom action? Of course not.
There are more gamblers now -and more resulting tragedies -because there are more easy opportunities to gamble. It's no accident that Nevada, where legal gambling has been king for 80 years now, has the highest pathological gambling rate in the United States. (At six per cent of the adult population, it's roughly double both the U.S. and Canada's.)
Which should raise concerns about the likely expansion at Ottawa's Rideau Carleton Raceway. Currently restricted to racing and slots, the facility is set to add table games next fall if the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission approves. The recent enthusiasm from provincial and municipal players suggests a go-ahead is in the works.
It seems that Ontario and Ottawa are losing gambling revenues to Quebec and Gatineau, which is unacceptable. Provincial coffers will not be denied, no matter how many tales of loss, woe and tragedy end up as sidebar casualties.
Yes, everyone knows that gambling is profoundly stupid, a foolproof way to lighten your wallet.
But it is also a willing suspension of the rational. Flashing lights, jangling noise and crazy hope trump what the head knows, every time.
Nor is it selective. The most unlikely people -detectives, supervisors, priests -are testament to that.
Everyone who gambles is, over time, a loser, though certainly not everyone who gambles is an addict. Problem gamblers are a small percentage of the overall population. But they are a growing minority, both in numbers and in the negative impact of their personal and collateral damage. And they're growing because gambling availability is growing.
The conclusion is inescapable. Anyone who operates and expands gambling facilities is complicit in the increasing tragedies occasioned by gambling. That includes our government.
But because government is so vast and amorphous, countless bureaucratic layers and accountabilities overlapping one another, no individual ever has to take responsibility for decisions that destroy lives and wreak incalculable social damage. Too bad.
So Rideau Carleton will no doubt expand. And once again it will be a win-win situation, for both province and municipality. But it will be a losing proposition for everyone else. That includes those unsuspecting first-timers lured down Albion Road with the promise of uncomplicated fun. Because such fun can turn out to be very complicated indeed.
Paris and Lindsay haven’t always been the best of friends with reported past break-ups which eclipsed the media, well, the tabloid media anyway, but somehow these two always seem to make amends and this is yet another chapter in the lives of these two headline queens.
So the story goes that Paris has a new show called, The World According to Paris, where lucky viewers get an intimate look into her day to day life including jaunts down the red carpet, dating, parties, business, you name it. So, while the show hasn’t aired, according to the Toronto Sun, there was a clip released that surfaced on the Internet where Paris pokes fun at Lindsay’s current theft issues.
As you may know, Lindsay was recently sentenced to 480 hours of community service at the Downtown Women’s Center in Los Angeles as well as the city morgue, for walking away from a jewelry store without paying for a necklace, which is what led to Paris recent run of jokes. In the clip, while helping out in a shelter, Paris gives her earrings to a woman who mistakes her for Lindsay. After sharing a short conversation, Hilton responds to the woman by saying “I’m not Lindsay!” and follows by joking about Lindsay with an added voice over, “If I were Lindsay, I’d be stealing the earrings, not giving them away,” claims the Toronto Sun.
It seems that Paris is a true mean girl who followed her sassy commentary with an apology but will she remove the scene from her upcoming show altogether?