www.stuff.co.nz/national

TUESDAY , 05 DECEMBER 2006  
 
 
Bank notes, not coins were targeted by five armed robbers who stormed a Rotorua bar on Sunday and bashed patrons with their gun butts to convince them they were serious.

The masked men escaped with an undisclosed amount of money after they ordered the manager of the Ruck and Maul Tavern to empty 16 pokie machines.

Police said the robbers knew what they were doing after earlier checking out the bar and concentrated on the bank notes in the pokie machines, rather than the coins after ordering patrons at gunpoint to lie on the floor.

"My understanding is that they targeted the notes," said inquiry head Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Loper from the Rotorua CIB.

The robbery was well planned and the gang fled in a car stolen from a staff member to Kuirau Park where they had another getaway car waiting.

That car was possibly a maroon coloured Subaru station wagon which police were now hunting.

The robbers entered the bar about 8.30pm on Sunday. They had two firearms, one a cut down side-by-side shotgun and the other a single barrelled weapon, possibly a rifle, said Mr Loper.

"We believe they had sussed the place out. It was quite unusual to have so many involved – five of them."

During the robbery two staff members were hit with gun butts. One needed hospital treatment and stitches and the other had a swollen jaw.

He said the staff feared for their lives and believed the robbers would have no hesitation using the guns.

"It was driven home when a couple of them were assaulted in front of the rest of them.

"They had firearms there. We can only assume they were loaded and they were going to use them," Mr Loper said.

Mr Loper warned anyone hiding the robbers that they would also be charged once the five had been caught.

"Someone is going to know about this. Five of them makes it easier to be caught. Someone else knows who is involved."

He said the police also needed help to track down the getaway car the robbers used after they dumped the staff member’s grey Nissan Primera.

"We are looking for anyone who may have seen that Subaru," Mr Loper said.

Two of the robbers wore balaclavas and the others wore white paper face masks.

Mr Loper said one of the men in a balaclava was heavily built, between 167cm and 175cm tall. He also wore white gloves, light coloured footwear and a long sweatshirt. He carried a bag and the sawn-off firearm, probably the shotgun.

The second man was also solidly built, between 183cm and 188cm tall. He wore white gloves, a dark jacket and light-coloured pants, possibly jeans. He carried the single-barrelled firearm.

Anyone with information should call police on (07) 348 0099 or 0800 TIPOFF (0800 847633).  
 
 

http://www.agmma.com/pdf/World%20Count%20of%20Gaming%20Machines%20July-06.pdf

WORLD COUNT OF GAMING MACHINES 2006

Prepared For: Australian Gaming Machine Manufacturers Association
August, 2006
 
Please note, on page 11, the following appears…

"The following table shows the four countries for which VLT type machines were reported".

While Canada appears on this list, Australia and New Zealand DO NOT appear on it. I find this quite surprising as at least one game
operating on pokie machines in Australia AND New Zealand is IDENTICAL to one operating on VLT’s in Canada.

CARL FREIRE, Globe and Mail, 04/12/06, Associated Press

TOKYO — Gambling at pachinko was a lot more fun for Reiko Kuzuhara before she began to wonder whether maybe — just maybe — her losses were helping North Korea build nuclear weapons.

Pachinko, a form of pinball deeply loved in Japan, is an industry run by ethnic Koreans, and experts have long believed that the revenues are a vital source of hard currency for the North’s impoverished regime.

Now, as Kim Jong-il’s nuclear weapons program gathers pace, Japan’s attitude is hardening, and that includes shutting out the ferry on which money is believed to be hand-carried to North Korea.

"I really don’t like that the money I spend could be helping them with those sorts of things," said Ms. Kuzuhara, 55. "It’s making me think twice and cut back on how often I play."

Pachinko is an upright pinball game played at tens of thousands of brightly lit parlours across Japan. Success is measured in little steel payoff balls, which can be exchanged for cash or other prizes.

The machines rake in more than $200-billion (U.S.) a year, some of which finds its way to North Korea. Official figures put remittances from sources in Japan at $25.5-million, but the bookkeeping is murky and some think it’s closer to $850-million a year. No one knows how much is directly from pachinko.

"It’s very difficult to say how much cash is actually going from Japan to the North," said Toshio Miyatsuka, a North Korea specialist at Yamanashi Gakuin University in central Japan who has written a book about the pachinko industry. "But it does seem certain that a lot of it is winding up in the hands of the North Korean government and military, and that includes money earned from drugs and pachinko."

Japanese government records show that of $25.5-million (U.S.) reported to have been sent from Japan to North Korea during the 2005 fiscal year, more than 90 per cent was hand-delivered.

The banning of the Mangyongbong ferry from Japanese ports in July has almost certainly put a crimp in the cash flow. But government officials say it’s hard to track money delivered through third countries, in person or through bank accounts.

Officials in the pachinko industry say North Korea’s image problems and the sanctions have not been a business issue.

"We’re not hearing about anyone losing business because of the missiles or the nuclear test," said Takaaki Sasaki, spokesman for Zennichiyuren, an industry organization.

Still, the connection makes some Japanese players uneasy. "I used to play frequently, but I don’t go so often any more," Ms. Kuzuhara said. "I really don’t want North Korea using my money for bombs."

© Copyright 2006 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved

Some answers are provided on casino cheating

Paul Carpenter. Last Updated: December 3, 2006, The Morning Call

paul.carpenter@mcall.com

Let this be a lesson to anyone thinking of trying to cheat a slot machine in one of Pennsylvania’s new casinos.

Sections 1518 (a) (7) (i) and (b) (1) (ii) of the state Gaming Act provide prison terms of up to five years for a first offense, plus fines of up to $150,000.

Lehigh Valley Local Links Section 1518 (a) (7) (ii) says people who operate casinos may ‘’use a cheating or thieving device…in performance of the duties of employment.'’ No jail, no fine, no nothing.

If you don’t believe it, I’m sure the people at the state attorney general’s office will send you a copy of the law. That’s what they did last month when I submitted a list of detailed questions about whether slot machine casinos can defraud and cheat customers.

Spokesman Nils Hagen-Frederiksen did not answer a single question, but did send me a copy of the 82-page law plus all recent amendments.

Actually, I already had read all of that, but I felt I should mention at least part of it after he went to all that trouble.

I also sent my questions to state Sen. Robert ‘’Tommy'’ Tomlinson, R-Bucks, the chief architect of the legislation to allow slots, and to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. The people in Tomlinson’s office never replied except to say he received my questions. T

here was, however, a list of answers from Douglas Harbach, a PGCB spokesman.

Most of his answers were vague or simply said he did not know the answers, but he was specific about one item. I had asked if there is any law or regulation to prohibit casinos from defrauding customers by rigging slot machine computer programs so that tantalizing ‘’almost hit'’ displays frequently come up.

‘’Yes,'’ Harbach replied, and cited Section 461.7 of PGCB regulations, which supposedly requires ‘’random selection'’ on slot machine reels. (Incidentally, it also says this: ‘’The odds of any winning combination shall not exceed 50 million to 1.'’ So, unless customers have a copy of Section 461.7, they’ll never know the chance of winning a jackpot is 1 in 50 million, because the PGCB does not require casinos to reveal odds.) Anyway, I contacted one of the world’s most respected experts on slots and told him about PGCB Regulation 461.7.

Roger Horbay, of Elora, Ontario, is president of Game Planit Interactive Corp. and has served as a consultant for various organizations interested in slots, including the gambling industry itself. He looked at Regulation 461.7 and got back to me the other day.

Horbay said that in the 1980s, computerized slot machine programs were developed to frequently deceive players into thinking the spinning reels had come within one little click of a big payoff.

That specific program was outlawed in Nevada, he said, so the slots industry simply modified the programs to use ‘’unbalanced reels. Since it’s not from a secondary draw, it’s [legal]. It’s a random draw, so it’s OK.'’ But the deceptive ‘’near-miss'’ result is the same, Horbay said, and that is what Regulation 461.7 allows. ‘’Their regulations do not prevent [contrived] near misses,'’ he said, even though such fraud is illegal in places such as New Zealand and Australia. And so it goes.

The casinos can cheat you but if you cheat them, it’s off to prison.

By the way, one of my questions last month was whether there was any ban on casinos ‘’offering free alcoholic drinks to customers as a way of lessening their inhibitions and encouraging them to engage in reckless gambling habits.'’

The answer to that came this past week, when Gov. Ed Rendell signed legislation that specifically allows casinos to ply customers with as much free booze as they can guzzle.

Sen. Tomlinson, oddly enough, helped move that bill just one day after I asked him about the free drinks issue.

paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176 3Read and write comments about this article. | View Recent Comments The government in cahoots with the casinos to get as much money as possible but stop you from winning!?! Say it ain’t so!! Butcher-3802 at 12/03/2006 - 01:08:22 PM Papa told me that the house always wins. That, of course, is why they are in business.If our family played poker other betting games we used matchsticks or pennies. Sarah-1209 at 12/03/2006 - 10:50:18 AM Anyone who plays slots thinking they can make money is nuts. Slots should be for entertainment only. They are computers that have random number generators. They decide whether you are going to win or… Copyright © 2006, The Morning Call

	Author:	Wood, T. A., & Griffiths, M. D.
	Source:	Nottingham Trent University
	Published:	Apr 30, 06
	Full Document:
	The present report was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the GamAid and GamStop pilot services. These were evaluated between January 30th and April 9th 2006. GamAid is an online advisory and signposting service whereby the client can either browse the information provided, or talk to an online advisor. GamStop is a piece of software that is available for download from the GamStop website. It is a designed to prevent people from accessing websites where they are able to gamble. The evaluation is one of the first ever studies to evaluate the effectiveness of an online help service for problem gamblers. This study aimed to (i) evaluate the GamAid pilot service against its stated aims, (ii) evaluate client feedback in relation to the overall relevance and usability of the service, and (iii) determine if GamAid provides additionality to existing services. The evaluation utilised a between methods triangulation in order to examine both primary and secondary data relating to the client experience. In addition, members of the evaluation team posed as problem gamblers in order to obtain first hand experience of how the service works in practise and installed GamStop software.

To read full study go to http://www.responsiblegambling.org/en/research/library_results_details.cfm?intID=7484

Deal with Bear Mountain resort struck after dispute over sacred cave; needs province’s OK: Langford mayor 

Louise Dickson, Times Colonist; with files from Lindsay Kines

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Langford Mayor Stew Young, local First Nations and Bear Mountain Resort developers are taking a gamble a First Nations casino will smooth the bumps on Skirt Mountain.

The proposal for a small destination casino at the golf resort is contained in an agreement Young said has been initialled by the municipality, the developer and First Nations who have been meeting for the past two weeks to try to resolve their differences. The proposals will now be put forward to the province.

"They were good meetings," Young said yesterday. "Now it’s just a matter of how much the province will help move this forward. If we can partner with Bear Mountain and First Nations and if the province facilitates this economic development, it’s a win-win situation."

Officials at B.C.’s Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation referred calls on the matter yesterday to RCMP Sgt. John Brewer, an officer specializing in aboriginal relations. Brewer has been mediating discussions between the developer, First Nations and other players regarding a dispute last month over damage to a sacred native cave near the resort on Skirt Mountain.

Yesterday, Brewer denied that a deal has been reached.

"Nothing has been agreed to," he said.

Brewer said a purported copy of the deal, which was e-mailed to the Times Colonist, is actually a list of "discussion items" from one of the first meetings. The list makes several references to the development of a casino.

"I recognize some of those from the talks," he said. "Those were obviously just items that were thrown out for discussion."

The dispute flared last month when First Nations rallied at the resort to protest damage to a nearby sacred cave and the draining of a subterranean lake. The protest ended when both sides declared a two-week truce to work out their differences.

Brewer said the parties had hoped to announce an agreement by yesterday’s deadline, but bad weather forced the cancellation of a number of meetings. He said talks are expected to resume early next week.

But according to Young, if the province approves a casino licence, an agreement will be put in place to share revenues with First Nations and nearby municipalities.

"This is a way to help First Nations find other ways and means of helping their people in a private sector setting," he said.

"Finding economic development for First Nations is going to make relationships better. It’s going to make them feel part of the community. First Nations are our neighbours, just like another municipality right beside us."

First Nations will be given training and jobs at the casino, said the mayor.

Bear Mountain is also proposing to help the Tsartlip band develop 23 acres of land they own in the development by using their expertise and contributing $6 million to sewer and water infrastructure. The parties are calling on the province to contribute $2 million for the infrastructure. The land, which is not reserve land, is useless to the Tsartlip unless services are put in, said Young.

The sacred cave, which was at the heart of the conflict, will be destroyed, said Young. A healing ceremony will be held at the cave, then development will proceed. If any artifacts are discovered, they will be displayed in Bear Mountain village.

Another proposal suggests the province give the Songhees $1 million to help them develop land at the Spencer Road interchange.

Other proposals include identifying sacred sites, creating a sacred site display in the Bear Mountain village and giving First Nations the right to gather firewood at Skirt Mountain.

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2006 

Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun, Saturday, December 02, 2006

Some countries come with travellers’ warnings: Expect culture shock. There should be one for people travelling the route from Las Vegas to southern Utah, a drive that might be called From Sodom and Gomorrah to Purgatory and Beyond.

The name suggests itself because it follows the route Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, took on his last trip.

Jeffs, who was also one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted, was arrested on a hot night in August with the lights of Las Vegas shimmering in the rearview mirror of his red Cadillac Escalade.

He was heading north to where he is now imprisoned at the Purgatory Correctional Center near St. George, Utah, awaiting trial on two charges of rape as an accomplice in that state and six counts of sexual conduct with a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor in Arizona.

The polygamous prophet’s journey spans the yin and yang of modern America from hedonism and schlocky materialism to conservative theocracy.

When you’re flying into Las Vegas, one of the first views is of a black pyramid and sphinx. Inside the terminal, there are flashing, clanging rows of slot machines, the silent scream of posters advertising the Thunder from Down Under (male strippers from Australia), magicians, Celine Dion and the strangely blaring strains of one of Vivaldi’s four seasons.

I don’t know whether Jeffs, the polygamous prophet, stopped to go to a show or to gamble. But that wasn’t my plan.

On the way toward Interstate 15, there’s a two-storey lion, a massive replica of the Statue of Liberty and a larger-than-life version of the Disneyland castle, which itself is a cartoonish take on Neuschwannstein in Bavaria.

Saturday night in the last-chance gambling town of Mesquite, Nev., at a garishly lit casino-hotel, scarcely a slot machine didn’t have someone hunched over it smoking and drinking beer or watered-down cocktails.

Too many had oxygen tanks beside them. They punched away without seeming to notice whether they were winning or losing. When gamblers weren’t stuffing tickets into slots, they were grazing the buffet or gorging on gargantuan portions of prime rib.

The going rate for a hotel room is $29 a night to service gamblers who lack the funds or fortitude to drive the 90 minutes to Vegas.

There’s a "family-friendly" casino with a movie theatre, bowling alley and a kids’ arcade to get them primed for graduating to the real thing. But this is Nevada, where even gas stations have slot machines, right next to the beer.

Yet here on the edge, Utah’s influence bleeds in. Wal-Mart sells liquor, but it has a whole section of DVDs and CDs bearing the LDS seal of approval. LDS is what Mormons prefer to be called. It’s an abbreviation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But outside Mesquite, as you’re driving across the desert and through spectacular Virgin River Gorge, it’s easy to conjure images from old westerns of good guys and bad guys, whose states of grace were apparent by the colour of their hats. Following a modern prophet, I also couldn’t help but think of the biblical one who wandered 40 days and nights before hearing God’s voice.

It’s no wonder Mormons feel at home here. The LDS dominates the state’s culture and society, just as the white temple seems to glisten as you approach St. George.

It is the oldest temple in Utah, predating Salt Lake City’s by more than 20 years.

At the temple visitors’ centre, a young Japanese missionary shows me photos of the interior. If I were a Saint, I could see the real thing, but I’m not.

She points out a genealogic chart linking Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush to Joseph Smith, the church’s founder. The message? We are all one, linked to God through the Saints. Even Jews. Posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims has landed the LDS in some very hot water.

After the noise and bustle of Nevada, St. George feels abandoned. Brigham Young, who led the Mormons out of Illinois, spent his summers here on the cusp of the Grand Canyon. When the cities were being built, Young decreed that streets should be wide enough for a man to turn his oxcart. So main streets are wide, too wide to feel comfortable on.

It’s as if the apocalypse has occurred, the Saints have been lifted up and only we few gentiles and apostates remain.

It’s common here for strangers to ask if you’re LDS. I embraced the practice, doing it defensively to prevent offence. But waitresses seem to know that I’m not one and bring me coffee unbidden at breakfast. Caffeine isn’t part of the Mormon diet, nor is alcohol. "Jack Mormons" like Eddie, the truck driver, do indulge. Strangely, he apologized to me for imbibing vodka and orange juice in the hotel bar. But state law induces guilt. To serve liquor, the bar is a private club that sells $4 temporary memberships to passersby.

Unlike the bountiful buffets in Nevada, Mormons stockpile food in preparation for the end of world. Both the state and the church have the beehive as their symbol.

At Deseret Books, there are Mormon action figures, but nothing about polygamy. It’s been part of Mormon doctrine since the 1840s, although it was banned in 1890.

Warren Jeffs’s ancestors and others broke with the mainstream church over that. Over the years, they have distilled the beliefs into a tyrannical form of fundamentalism. The arranged marriages of under-age girls has put Jeffs in Purgatory as he awaits his earthly trial.

No current cultural references can prepare you for this slice of the American heartland. CSI or Las Vegas don’t begin to portray Nevada any more than Big Love provides any useful insight into ordinary Utahns.

Yet no other two states more vividly illustrate what French philosopher Alexis de Toqueville described as Americans’ warring desires for individuality and religion.

They crystallize what de Toqueville warned of. Too much individuality can lead to decadent, libertine materialism, while too much religion can lead to zealotry and fanaticism.

dbramham@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Dec. 2, 2006. 01:00 AM, RYAN NAKASHIMA, ASSOCIATED PRESS, Toronto Star

LAS VEGAS–Smoking bans are snuffing out casino revenue, but gambling experts hold out hope that more marketing and investment can lure customers back.

Since the province of Ontario imposed a smoking ban in public places in May, casinos along the border with the United States have suffered a revenue drop of 10 per cent to more than 20 per cent, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. vice-president Karl Gagesch told a gambling conference last month.

"Short-term pain," said Gagesch, who was part of a panel discussion. "Long term, we think we’re going to be okay."

The largest impact has been at Casino Windsor, which laid off more than 300 employees over the summer as American smokers stayed in Michigan and New York to gamble, he said.

Visitation was also hurt by a strong Canadian dollar and tougher border security, he said.

Gagesch said the province hopes a $400 million refurbishment plan for casinos along the border will help reverse the trend. Casino Windsor also began allowing sports betting in September to compete with Detroit casinos, which can’t match the offering.

"The overall plan there is to create different reasons for American customers to come over the border," he said.

A similar smoking ban at three Delaware "racinos" — race tracks that also offer slot machines — also had a negative impact, with slot machine revenue down 10 per cent to 19 per cent since the ban was imposed in 2002, said Richard Thalheimer, an economist and president of Thalheimer Research Associates.

Slot revenue has since rebounded, he noted, mainly because of the introduction of more slot machines.

Karen Blumenfeld, a member of the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution (GASP), heralded the panel’s openness to adapting to a wave of anti-smoking legislation sweeping both countries.

"It’s not the gloom and doom," she said. "I’m very relieved that the industry is now embracing these changes."

Even anything-goes Nevada voted last week in favour of banning smoking at bars that serve food, and around the slot machines at supermarkets, gas stations and convenience stores starting in December. Casino floors, however, remain exempt.

A similar Colorado law enacted July 1 left casino floors open to smokers, but applied to bars and restaurants. That won’t stop the casino industry from adopting more non-smoking table game areas, said Lois Rice, executive director of the Colorado Gaming Association.

"What we’ll be interested to see is how the expansion of non-smoking table game areas in our properties will affect revenue," she said. "Whether table game revenue will increase because we’re able to draw more non-smoking patrons or whether it will decrease. So that’s something we’re going to be watching very closely."

The panel was one of many gathered at the Global Gaming Expo, an annual convention that this year was expected to draw nearly 30,000 attendees and feature 780 companies. Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved.