Well, look…if you live in Pennsylvania and are under 21, you can’t gamble.

In state-sponsored casinos.

Legally.

Of course, the hypocrisy…. we all know that kids under 21 gamble.

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board approved a $100,000 fine against Mount Airy Resort Casino for underage gambling violations that occurred in 2009.

According to a news release from the Gaming Control Board, 6 gamblers between the ages of 17 and 20 were caught playing slot machines at Mount Airy Resort Casino last year.

Wow. What a crime.Only six? C’mon now.

What a way to make $100,000.

Under Pennsylvania gaming laws, it’s illegal for those under 21 to use or operate a slot, and those under 18 are forbidden from the gaming floor.

The law has changed and now dictates that no one under 21 years of age can enter the gaming floor.

The Gaming Control Board described the violations that occurred at Mt. Airy: Two 18-year-old males accessed the gaming floor and played slots on July 18; an 18-year-old male played slots on the gaming floor July 29, a 17-year-old male gained access to the gaming floor and played slots on Aug. 19; a 20-year-old female entered the gaming floor, cashed a large bill at the main cashier’s cage and played slots on Sept. 10; and a 20-year-old male played slots and was served alcohol in the bars located within the resort.

So I guess the lesson is…

Well, you tell me.

Cos I think this is just a way of collecting revenue.

The story is set in the world of gambling…and horse racing.

Hoffman would play a career criminal (he’s done that before) involved in gambling.

Hey…the actor is 72 (can you believe it?) and has never done regular TV but this one, could be very very cool.

Dennis Farina, who previously starred on “Law & Order,” is also in the cast.

“Luck” will be written by David Milch, he of Deadwood fame and NYPD Blue.

I’ll keep you all posted on what happens and when it will hit the airwaves.

The Princess Casino Guyana exposed foreign dignitaries, the business community and the media to its $2 million investment recently. This, after more than a year of preparations.

“Ours was a soft opening and in about a week or two we will have the big one with speeches,” Operations Director Oguz Tayanc,” said.

Anxious to create employment and less dependence on traditional exports like rice, sugar, gold and bauxite, authorities have turned to the hotel and entertainment sector, setting up a gaming authority that said it was giving out two licenses initially.

Locals are barred from gambling at the facility unless they are registered guests at the 150-room hotel but the director acknowledged that marketing the entity in the small South American nation that attracts less than 300,000 tourists annually will be its greatest challenge.

Church groups had railed against the industry saying it will lead to further moral decay but authorities have insisted that safeguards like non-hotel guests will ensure it is only for tourists and foreigners.

I guess it’s OK for the rest of us to sink into moral decay.

But I digress.

The casino has more than 300 slot machines, 11 tables, two roulette tables, seven card games including poker and two Texas Holdems.

Nearby South American countries like Brazil, Venezuela and Surin already have casinos to attract foreign dollars.

Interesting things going on in the great state of Alabama.

Seems like the Governor’s task force on illegal gambling continues to lash out against illegal operations.

Well and good, we say.

The fight over bingo machine versus slot machine has been running rampant, but a change in the winds has been detected.

The Alabama Senate is meeting this week to discuss a proposed bill that would legalize gambling in Alabama.

It’s about time.

Twenty-one votes are required to move the Bill forward, but constituents are not entirely sure whether or not the Democrats in the state can manage to pull through and achieve the needed votes.

Legislators have tried this before, and failed.

We’d like to see voters cast their opinions on the issue.

Meanwhile, closing casinos in the state has NOT helped the local economies, and left many out of work. With the new found string of unemployment, the state is prepared to pick up the tab through taxpayer’s money. Legalized gambling,would not only reemploy these workers, but also generate tax revenue for the state.

We’ll check with our sources in Alabama and see if any progress is being made.

China plans to crack down on the online gambling industry, including the banks and websites that support it, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement posted on its website.

The statement clears says a campaign against the industry is in their plans.

From our correspondent in Hong Kong, I got this report:

The campaign will “concentrate on investigating major and important cases of online gambling, knock out domestic and foreign groups that organize online gambling, and severely punish the criminal elements”, the statement said.

The crackdown, to be conducted between February and August, was agreed to by eight government bodies including the Supreme Court, Propaganda bureau, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Gambling was banned in China right after Mao took over in 1949.

Oddly enough, China runs two lotteries.

Not that this has stopped underground and illegal sites run by nefarious syndicates.

The statement said it will severly punish those who run underground banks and third-party payment platforms that provide banking services needed for gambling.

As in pornography crackdowns, website operators will also be targeted.

The move is the latest in a series of curbs on the country’s relatively free-wheeling online world, one of the few arenas for people from across China to interact in large groups, share information and criticize the government.

China has banned Google’s Youtube since March 2009, when a Tibetan exile film documenting the injuries and death of a Tibetan protestor was published on the video sharing site.

The government began blocking Twitter, Flickr and Facebook last summer.

Could Russia someday become the new hotbed of gambling?

Right now, it would appear not. In fact, recent Russian laws have impeded the building of gambling casinos in or near major cities.

They say it is a safety factor. Locating casinos in remote settings.

Well, I don’t know about that one.

Take Orakul Casino, which is about 60 miles from a small city called Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia.

The casino just opened and according to published reports, about 500 people showed up. The casino lies in Above City, a gambling zone in that part of the country. The casino has 200 slot machines and 10 table games.

Despite the small turnout (who can get there at this time of year?), casino owners are adamant — they are convinced there is a market for gambling in Russia and in fact, they plan to start construction of a four-star hotel this summer.

“There’s a lot of gambling people here in the region,” Valery Saparin, marketing director for casino operator Royal Time, told Russian news agency TASS. “We hope that a lot of people will be drawn to us in the near future.”

In a brief opening ceremony, the official permission for activities to organise gambling games in the Azov City zone was presented to the Royal Time president Rashid Taimasov.

New Russian laws limit legalised gambling to Azov City, the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea, the Altai region of Siberia and the Primorsky region of Russia’s Far East.

Here’s an ironic twist that I came across, while surfing the net recently.

Remember how Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear railed against the online gambling biz…saying it would corrupt minors? As if young kids would be playing poker online every day (instead of texting).

Right.

OK. Here is the twist.

Seems like Beshear wants to expand LEGALIZED gambling in his state.

He is lobbying legislators to pass laws that would allow racetracks in the bluegrass state to have slots.

Let me repeat this. It’s OK for adults to gamble…at his racetracks. But not online.

It’s all about money.

LOOK, I am all for freedom, online and in brick and mortar casinos.

I am all for slots.

But quit being a hypocrite, Governor.

This is all about money and generating revenue. Pure and simple.

Slots would bring in millions of dollars.

The revenue would also tremendously help an ailing horse racing industry. The racing industry in Kentucky is storied, but has come under some difficult economic times as the economy in the US has slipped.

The tracks have been pushing for new ways to help them stay financially viable.

So quit harping on online casinos, Mr. Beshear.

Last year,by the way,  Beshear received national and international attention when he tried(unsuceesfully) to seize 141 online gambling domain names.

I’m loving what’s going on in Pennsylvania these days. [What's going on in Florida with Gov. Crist's failed deal with the Seminole tribe is also pretty funny.]

Ok…look, Pennsylvania needs to raise money for education. So the Guv…Rendell that is, decides that gambling is the answer.

So, playing blackjack, craps or roulette at Mount Airy Casino Resort will help educate future doctors, in a way.

Administrators and members of the board of Commonwealth Medical College said they welcomed this  funding stream during a press conference at the school’s temporary location at Lackawanna College, near Scranton, Pa.

Legislation signed by the governor last week provides a share of the table games revenue from Mount Airy.

Officials expect that the college will initially receive $500,000 to $600,000 per year, but if Mount Airy increases the number of table games from an initial 75 to 150, the college could see as much as $1.2 million.

Other beneficiaries will include the Tannersville campus of Northampton County Community College and community colleges in Chester and Erie counties, a hospital in Bucks County, libraries in Allegheny County and development and water projects in Montgomery County.

The table games revenue at the medical college, a private school funded mostly by student tuition, donors and state grants, is critical to the college, said the school’s dean and president.

With a steady stream of funding, and not a one-time grant, more long-range planning can be done, he added.

So let’s get this straight. All of us who love to gamble are now doing the patriotic thing. We’re supporting education.

Awesome.

This is crazy. Online gambling, online casinos are being created by the hundreds these days.

Good ones. Cools ones.

Honest ones.

In Europe, many countries are making their own laws regarding online gambling, ignoring European Union trade agreements in the process.

Belgium (see their FLAG above) is the country now where legislators have enacted laws in an effort to regulate online gambling in the country.

I’m all for regulation.

Just let me play.

Belgium lawmakers felt that the current Internet gamblingsystem was being corrupted by organized crime. They believe that regulations would keep the crime out of the industry, but what they have come up with is in direct violation of EU agreements.

We’re talking mostly about online poker.

Some of the top online poker players in the world live in Belgium.

With the new laws in place, major poker sites such as PartyPoker, Full Tilt, and PokerStars, would not be permitted to accept players from Belgium.

That means that the top players could only play while putting themselves at risk of arrest.

How crazy is that?

The US, the biggest online gambling market in the world, has been in violation of EU agreements since they enacted the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in  2006. U.S. lawmakers, however, are trying to overturn the UIGEA and set up a regulated Internet gambling industry in the country.

I’ll keep you posted on their progress.