Handheld games latest Vegas rage

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2948386,00.html

Handheld games latest Vegas rage

By Fox Butterfield, The New York Times

Article Published: Saturday, July 02, 2005 – 12:00:00 AM PST

LAS VEGAS – No more need to fret about all that wasted time waiting in line for the buffet at your favorite casino. Or those tedious talks in a convention room just a few yards from the casino floor. Help is on the way to make it possible to gamble any time – in fact, all the time.
Gov. Kenny G. Guinn signed a law last month authorizing gamblers in Nevada to play slot machines, video poker, blackjack and other games on handheld wireless devices from public spaces in casinos. The spaces include restaurants, bars, convention rooms, even swimming pools. Hotel rooms, however, are off-limits, to make sure that minors do not get their hands on the new devices, which resemble personal digital assistants or tablet personal computers, depending on where they are being used.

Out by the pool of the Paris Las Vegas hotel and casino, close to the bottom of a 50-story replica of the Eiffel Tower, the idea had instant appeal. L. Dave Ross, a middle-age tourist from Tampa, Fla., said: “I have no moral objection to the device. Sure, I’d use it out here by the pool. Why not?”

After all, Ross said, “What do you come to Vegas for, except to gamble?”

The devices – which officials say are not likely to be in use in casinos until early next year – represent an important development in the rapidly growing world of gambling, said William Bible, the president of the Nevada Resort Association, which represents the major casino companies.

Traditionally, most casino operators regarded any technology that would allow people to gamble outside their “bricks-and-mortars casinos as a real threat,” Bible said. “They worried that it would cannibalize their business.”

But now, with the spreading popularity of Internet gambling, Bible said, “some companies see the new technology as a real opportunity for expansion.”

At the least, it allows the casinos to get a foothold into the realm of virtual gambling.

Internet gambling is illegal in the United States, under a 1961 anti- racketeering law. But casino companies in Britain, the Caribbean and Gibraltar have gotten around the law by setting up their Web servers and credit card operations offshore so that federal and state prosecutors cannot seize their assets and act to stop them. Prosecutors have also been reluctant to bring charges against individuals using their home computers to place wagers through the Internet, which has encouraged some people to participate in illicit online gambling.

In 2001, the Nevada Legislature authorized the State Gaming Commission to examine whether casinos here could enter the Internet gambling business. After a year’s study, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa concluded that without a clear new federal policy it would be legally dangerous for Nevada casinos to venture into online gambling.

But the just-approved handheld devices will be legal because they will not be linked to the Web, Bible said, and will be more like a wireless network with game programs loaded into them.

The devices were developed by Cantor Fitzgerald LP, the New York-based financial services company, for its bond trading operations and adapted for a bookmaking company it operates in the United Kingdom.

In 2003, Cantor’s company in London introduced the first handheld device that allows for wireless gambling in casinos in Britain, said Joe Asher, managing director of Cantor G&W (Nevada) LP, a Nevada affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald. “Since we spent a tremendous amount of money developing the technology, we were looking for other new applications, and so we approached Nevada.”