Chipsahoy.net Casino News

Wednesday, 21 March 2007 – The NETELLER Plc Group (LSE: NLR), the leading global independent online money transfer business, today announced that it has signed agreements with each of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (“USAO”) and Navigant Consulting, Inc. (“Navigant”).

On 8 February 2007, the Group announced that it was in discussions with the USAO to manage an orderly return of funds to US customers and that it was contemplated that a forensic accounting firm would be engaged, at the Group’s expense, to assist in this process and to examine the Group’s financial position.

The Group is pleased to announce that on 20 March 2007, it signed agreements with the USAO and Navigant which, among other things, outline terms and a timeline under which NETELLER will work toward the orderly distribution of funds to its US customers. Per the agreements, the Group anticipates that within the next 75 days it will announce a plan by which the funds will be distributed to US customers. Navigant will also provide a report to the USAO on the Group’s current financial condition.

“We continue to be committed to returning funds to our US customers and working with the US Attorney’s Office,” said Ron Martin, Group President and CEO. “Progress, while not always visible to the outside observer, has been steady and these agreements mark a milestone in the process.”

NETELLER is continuing to cooperate with the USAO’s investigation, under the advice of its legal advisers and in accordance with court orders in the Isle of Man.

Further updates with relation to the US situation will be made as soon as there are any material developments. In the meantime, US customers should visit updates.neteller.com for more information, including newly updated FAQs that provide additional clarity, where the Group is able, around certain issues currently being raised in a number of public forums. Additionally US Customers can contact NETELLER Customer Service on the web or by phone at 1-888-258-5859.

Research has suggested that the gambling sector could boost advertising revenues by up to £250 million after new rules allowing betting shops, casinos and gambling websites to advertise on television. Global Betting and Gaming Consultants said that companies would spend 5 per cent of their estimated £5bn turnover on advertising.

The scheduled hearing of NETeller’s two former board members, Stephen Lawrence and John Lefebvre, has been rescheduled for 16 April according to an announcement by the United States Attorney Office in New York. Both the prosecutor and the defendants agreed on the delay, but no further information as to why was released.

The Las Vegas Strip’s first mass-market casino-hotel was imploded early Tuesday in a hail of fireworks to make way for Boyd Gaming Corp.’s $4.4 billion megaresort.

The casino opened July 2, 1958, billing itself as the world’s largest resort hotel with 1,032 rooms. It was credited with being Las Vegas’ first mass-market casino, thanks to cheap rates and loss-leading food and drinks.

Hundreds of people partied beneath tents and on makeshift patios before Boyd chairman Bill Boyd’s four grandsons pushed a plunger to detonate the former Stardust casino. The blast generated a massive dust cloud that chased the on lookers into cars, buses and nearby casinos.The implosion turned a 32-story tower, gutted to its barest concrete and steel over the past three months, into the tallest building ever knocked down on the Strip.

428 pounds of explosives where used to destroy the casino’s two towers. Twenty water cannons sprayed the dust cloud, which blanketed the area in gray ash, and the main drag of the 24-hour gambling area was temporarily shut down.

The clean up of the site was expected to take up to two months.

The Stardust became as famous for its stellar, 188-foot sign and marquee as its mob connections. The Strip institution was the inspiration for the 1995 movie “Casino,” in which Robert De Niro played a character inspired by Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who ran the casino-hotel in the mid-1970s.

But as regulators cracked down on skimming in later years, Boyd was brought in as an operator in 1983 and bought the Stardust in 1985 when the owners lost their gambling license.

The new mega casino is set to open in late 2010 with more than 5,000 hotel rooms, a production theater, concert venue, shopping mall and more than 1 million square feet of meeting space.