Casinos

George Hardie once ran the world's largest card club. In its prime, the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens was a second home to some of the top poker players in the country. It had a reputation for clean games, and folks liked to boast they could go there to vie with legendary card players Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan, as well as celebrities such as Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

Pope Gregory I first identified the Seven Deadly Sins -- and suitable punishments for their commission -- around AD 600, 1,400 years before Las Vegas would earn the moniker Sin City. But the nickname is certainly fitting. Today, no one who practices gluttony amid the mountains of food at the famous buffets is forced to eat rats or toads. Nor is someone indulging in lust smothered in fire and brimstone.

A new report showed Nevada's major hotel-casinos posted their highest profit in fiscal 2006: a combined $2.1 billion before federal taxes. The report released Thursday by the state Gaming Control Board also showed that the 274 resorts had $5.4 billion in earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization, compared with $4.5 billion in the previous fiscal year. The resorts had $24.08 billion in total revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, compared with $21.

A small casino company with former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca as one of its primary investors is seeking a Nevada gaming license. Las Vegas-based Full House Resorts is asking Nevada gaming regulators to approve its $25.5-million purchase of Stockman's Casino and Holiday Inn Express in Fallon, a town about 60 miles east of Reno. The Gaming Control Board is scheduled to take up the matter Wednesday in Las Vegas. Full House operates the Deadwood Gulch Resort in Deadwood, S.D.

Gamblers bet a record $170 billion in Nevada casinos during 2006, and the clubs set another record by winning $12.6 billion of the total, according to a state report released Friday. A breakdown of the win shows that the Las Vegas Strip accounted for $6.7 billion of the total. That's also a record -- but it wasn't enough to fend off booming Macao, the Chinese territory that apparently eclipsed the Strip for the first time with 2006 gambling revenue of $7 billion.

MGM Mirage, the world's second-largest casino company, plans to develop a new community about 25 miles south of Las Vegas that will include a casino, hotel, stores and housing. The development in Jean, Nev., is a joint venture with Jeanco Realty Development and will be built on 166 acres of mostly undeveloped land owned by MGM, the Las Vegas-based company said Monday. MGM will close the 302-room Nevada Landing Casino, one of two hotel-casinos it owns in Jean, by April 18 as part of the plan.

Ever since casino gambling began here in 1978, revenue at the gambling halls has been on a one-way trip -- straight up. But this year, for the first time, annual revenue from Atlantic City's casinos could decline. The industry faces increased competition from slot machines in neighboring states, new restrictions on smoking and the closing of one casino. The first monthly revenue figures of the new year were down, raising concern that it could be the start of a yearlong trend.

JUST inside the Flamingo casino a few steps off the Strip, a trio of pink-felted $5 blackjack tables attracts a raucous crowd of enthusiastic players. Booze flows freely, and the piped-in music rocks. As the dealers snap and slap cards out of the plastic table shoes, the players' chip stacks accordion up -- and mostly down. Losing in Vegas is often considered par for the course, but it's happening at the blackjack tables at an accelerating rate. And it's easy enough to see why.

The casino company that bears Donald Trump's name said it had hired an investment firm to help it explore strategic alternatives that could include a sale. Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. said it had retained Merrill Lynch & Co. to assist in identifying and evaluating capital structure, financing and other options.

Workers in the recently shuttered Nevada Landing casino in Jean found loose change totaling nearly $10,000, or 675 pounds, while dismantling the property's roughly 800 slot machines, a manager said. "There is money that has been soaking in Long Island iced teas for 18 years," said Chris McBeth, who oversaw technicians as they removed video poker machines from the casino's bar and broke down rows and rows of slots. As they completed work Friday, workers had counted $9,454.38.