Texas Governor Slams State Regulator’s Online Gambling Ambitions

Not on his watch: Texas Governor Greg Abbott offers a resounding ‚no‘ to online gambling.
Texas officials must stop their line of inquiry into legalizing online gambling, Governor Greg Abbot said this week.
In a page to your Chairman of this Texas Gambling Commission, Abbot said that the continuing state prohibition on gambling expansion is in place to protect citizens and he ‚supports it wholeheartedly.‘
Abbot’s veto comes in light of news that the state regulator was gathering information on the feasibility of adopting new gambling games in Texas, in particular recreations betting and daily fantasy sports. In October, commission administrator director Gary Grief joined staff on a fact-finding objective to Delaware to examine hawaii’s online gambling operations.
‚In light of constant pressures that are external expand the footprint of gaming in Texas, it is timely and necessary that I provide direction on prohibiting all such expansions without express authorization and direction by the Texas Legislature,‘ composed Abbot in a letter dated November 9, 2015.
‚Please ensure this direction and intent is strictly enforced among the staff associated with Texas Lottery Commission.
Please additionally notify the administrator staff and director that any request to journey to gather details about gaming possibilities being prohibited in Texas ought to be denied.‘
Gambling in Texas
The only forms of gambling currently legal in Texas are the state lottery, charitable bingo and raffles beyond the parimutuel betting at horseracing and dog tracks and the state’s one Indian casino.
Perhaps the lottery, which brings in $2.2 billion every two years for public training, is under risk and its abolition happens to be debated in the legislature every year since its 1991 inception.
In 2013, lawmakers voted by 81-65 to scrap the lottery, before realizing that plugging that $2.2 billion hole with raffles and bingo may be a stretch regarding the imagination.
A hastily assembled ballot reinstated it.
Opposition in the Legislature
The idea of gambling expansion does not sit well with the conservative and Christian sensibilities of the large the main legislature, and a bill to liberalize gambling this year ended up being summarily quashed.
‚that we may serve as a resource to the legislature should they decide to consider these other forms of gaming,‘ Texas Lottery spokeswoman Kelly Cripe said of the reasoning behind the recent mission to Delaware though we may not offer these games, we want to be knowledgeable of the industry so.
‚that it’s the Texas Legislature that sets policy. even as we continue our mission to generate revenue for Texas, we are really mindful and respectful‘
However, this week Cripe told the Dallas Morning News that her organization would stick to the governor’s wishes.
Fontainebleau Resort Goes on the Market for $650 Million
Carl Icahn, that is ready to market the house he rescued from bankruptcy for the $4 million revenue. (Image: businessinsider.com)
Fontainebleau, the big, committed $3 billion Vegas Strip megaresort that never ended up being, is up for sale.
Carl Icahn, the billionaire corporate raider who rescued the unfinished project from bankruptcy in 2010, is asking $650 million for the property, based on CBRE Group, which has been hired to broker the offer.
The one caveat for potential purchasers: you will have to complete building it yourself.
Fontainebleau was one of a few huge developments conceived before the global economic downturn of 2008 that were devastated when recession hit during the construction stage. The tower was never ever finished, and the resort stays only 70 percent complete.
Fontainebleau had grand tips: named for a magnificent chateau that is french was once house to the kings of France, its tower would, at 730-feet, end up being the tallest in Vegas.
Investment Possibility
But, like experience Atlantic City, no project better symbolizes the financial crash that ravaged the casino industry from 2008 to 2011, during which time Las Vegas ended up being famously dubbed ‚Ground Zero of the financial downturn.‘
Work started regarding the property in 2007. Developers Fontainebleau Resorts of Miami, spent $2 billion before being forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as lenders, spooked by the depression that is economic bailed on the project.
In 2009, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase, canceled $770 million in construction funding april.
But Vegas is now on the up, and Ichan obviously believes that Fontainebleau is not a doomed folly to economic shortsightedness, but an exciting investment opportunity.
‚I think Las Vegas nevertheless has an amount that is fair of to perform,‘ said Icahn, who paid around $150 million for Fontainebleau. ‚But I’d rather sell it than take the time and energy to create it out, which we have been considering doing,‘ he told the Wall Street Journal this week.
On the Up
The visitors have came back to the city in their droves and room rates are in record levels. Meanwhile, other jobs that were abandoned throughout the crisis that is economic including the Echelon and the vegas Plaza, have discovered new owners who are willing to invest in their development.
Next door towards the Fontainebleau, the Frontier, which closed down earlier this is to be redeveloped into an extension of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s Convention Center District year. The future unexpectedly looks bright for the end that is north of Strip.
‚Las Vegas didn’t simply have recession, it had a depression,‘ John Knott, executive vice president of CBRE Las Vegas told the nevada Review Journal.
‚We’ve come a way that is long. Gaming companies are spending in and properties that are renovating. Neighborhood gaming numbers are starting showing enhancement. New projects are bringing vibrancy to our community.
We believe the recession is behind us now.‘
It’s estimated Fontainebleau would take another 2 yrs to perform.
Hacker Group ‚Anonymous‘ Targets Terrorists Over Payment Processors
Cyber hacking collective ‚Anonymous‘ announced it is pursuing ISIS following the terrorist militants claimed royal vegas flash casino free slots to have killed over 130 individuals in Paris final Friday. (Image: americasfreedomfighters.com)
Call them Terrorist Haters Anonymous, if you will. Nevertheless the team that lives up to its name is for once about to bring straight down the criminals with their own boy that is bad skills.
Yup, the vigilante collective known as ‚Anonymous‘ is going to war, and they’re planning by having a kind of cyber-Robin Hood promise this time.
The Internet hackers posted a video declaration against terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) over the week-end, claiming the self-proclaimed perpetrators responsible for the assaults in Paris will be ‚hunted down‘ and stopped in their cyber songs.
Online communications, apparently now mostly moved onto gaming platforms in a ‚peer-to-peer‘ mode that is inaccessible to police without obtaining warrants, were the mode that is primary planning these global and lethal attacks, in accordance with media sources.
Gaming World Knows DDoS Attacks All Too Well
The gambling community has also become familiar with other (often unidentified) proficient computer hackers disrupting operations at both land-based and online casinos while obviously no one would mind if Anonymous succeeds at disabling its victims and greatly hindering their operations.
In 2009 and 2010, two separate incidents compromised popular online gambling payment processors Moneybookers and Neteller, with an untold wide range of addresses, emails, telephone numbers, birthdates, and password hints taken.
Final year, Iranian hackers angered by Sheldon Adelson’s pro-Israel place infiltrated network servers at the billionaire’s Sands Bethlehem resort in Pennsylvania, effectively shutting down the casino. Plus in July, a series of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) assaults sent four Internet gambling enterprises offline in nj-new jersey for some 30 moments.
Hackers have mostly been a force that is disruptive costs victims vast sums of bucks every year to defend, however for now the masterminds are putting their skills to good use by going after ISIS, friends condemned by all 28 member states regarding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Yes, ISIS Tweets
ISIS is just a radical group that resides in the Iraq desert, primarily Ramadi, a city it captured once US forces withdrew from the area. ISIS‘ war-ravaged head office isn’t without technology, the guerrillas possessing the capacity to distribute its messages and claims of responsibility online, because it has reportedly done about the Paris attacks.
Distributed through Twitter, ISIS called the bombings and mass shootings in Paris that left more than 130 dead a ‚blessed attack‘ as well as the ‚first of the storm.‘
Anonymous responded in its own Internet message, a movie showing an agent donning the group’s Guy Fawkes mask saying, ‚Anonymous from all around the world will hunt you down … we shall introduce the operation that is biggest ever against you.
‚ The French individuals are stronger than you and will turn out of this atrocity even stronger,‘ the hackers concluded.
Consequential Outcomes
The Anonymous collective’s wishes to disrupt the online operations of ISIS could be significant. The line that is first of recruitment is done through the Internet, the group maintaining a 24/7 social media presence that utilizes its sympathetic followers to spread its messages and viewpoints.
‚As part of its quest to terrorize the world, ISIS has learned an arena no terrorist group had conquered before: the burgeoning world of social networking,‘ authors Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger wrote within their book on Islamic extremism, ISIS: hawaii of Terror.
A report in March by the Brookings organization found upwards of 2,000 pro-ISIS Twitter reports that were highly active, tweeting an average of 50 communications each day. Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iraq were the top three reported locales of the tweeters, but concerning to Americans is the known fact that the United States was 4th.
Twitter does not reveal why or whenever it chooses to disable an account. ‚Is it ethical to suppress political speech, even when such speed is repugnant?‘ Brookings asks.
Anonymous is planning to answer that question on its own terms. Gamblers can only hope that other cyber that is such turn their attentions somewhere else as well.
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