Trump Plaza’s shutdown will signify as four Atlantic City casinos could be closed this 12 months. (Image: Lisa Andres/Flickr)
The casino industry of Atlantic City is presently facing an unprecedented freefall. After years of declining revenues, at minimum two casinos have already closed or plan to shut this season, and another is facing a bankruptcy that is second couple of years. And now, a fourth has said that they additionally be prepared to shut down in just a months that are few.
This is the fate that is apparent of Trump Plaza casino, as Trump Entertainment Resorts has said that they anticipate the venue to close on September 16. While the owners reportedly said that the decision isn’t entirely last, employees had been to get warnings of this expected closing on earlier this week.
‘Although [the] review hasn’t been completed and no final decision has been made, the company expects it will end the operations of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino on or shortly after September 16, 2014,’ the company told the Associated Press.
Trump Plaza Joins Other AC Closures
If the closure goes through as expected, the effect could be that as many as a third of Atlantic City’s casinos could close down this 12 months. In January, the Atlantic Club shuttered its doors, while the Showboat is planning to close in August. Meanwhile, the Revel happens to be in bankruptcy court for the 2nd time, and could potentially close if a customer for the home can not be discovered. That could keep the city with just eight casinos that are remaining when compared with 12 in the beginning of the year.
Based on an AP report, no buyer has yet come forward to take over the casino, and it is not yet known just what the long term could hold for the building following the resort closes.
The Trump Plaza was opened in May 1984. At that time, it had been a personal project for Donald Trump, though he now only owns a 10 % stake in Trump Entertainment Resorts and is no longer involved with the day-to-day operations associated with the company. The venue cost $210 million to create.
Loss of Casinos Could Help Remaining Resorts
Although the loss of as much as four casinos may seem apocalyptic for Atlantic City, there’s explanation to trust it might actually aid in the long run. The oversaturated casino market in the northeastern United States has hurt Atlantic City, with competition from Pennsylvania being particularly harmful.
But you can find still a lot of visitors to the populous city, and with eight casinos nevertheless active there, most gamblers will do not have trouble getting a resort that appeals to them. That means that there might be nearly as much gamblers as before, but that there will now be only eight casinos to separate those customers rather than 12.
That will be cool comfort to those who lose jobs due to the casino closures, however. If both the Revel and Trump Plaza had been to shut, that could suggest that nearly 8,000 casino employees need lost jobs in Atlantic City this season alone. That represents in regards to a quarter associated with the city’s gambling workforce.
Trump Plaza is definitely in the marketplace, but Trump Entertainment Resorts has had trouble finding a buyer that is interested. Final year, the venue was nearly offered for $20 million to a firm in California, but that deal fell through. If the Plaza near down, Trump Entertainment will operate just one casino in Atlantic City, the Trump Taj Mahal.
Poker Player Paul Phua Arrested with World Cup Gambling Ring
Paul Phua, who is denied he’s any links to arranged crime, was bought to post $2 million bail, along with giving up their $48 million private jet as collateral. (Image: bankrollmob.com)
Probably if you plan to set up an illegal sports betting ring, doing it regarding the property of a significant Las Las vegas casino with their very own sports book is not your most readily useful idea ever. But that reality appears to have eluded high-stakes poker player Paul Phua, who has been arrested along side A world that is illegal cup band running out of three luxury rooms in Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip.
The FBI broke up the procedure during the high-roller suites last week, where in actuality the gang of seven men and another woman had been running what the Gambling Control Board described as being a kind of high-tech ‘wire room,’ where illegal World Cup bets were being monitored by computers remotely associated with other people computer systems offshore.
The poker world knows Paul Phua, 50, as high-stakes poker player, a ‘wealthy Asian businessman’ and a figure that is prominent the fabled Macau big game; he is ranked #1 on the Hendon Mob’s Macau All-Time Money List. Three months he played in the Big One for One Drop tournament ago he came sixth in the EPT Grand Final High Roller Event in Monte Carlo and in 2012. However, in accordance with the FBI, he is Wei Seng Phua, a high-ranking member of the 14K Triad organized group that is criminal.
The ‘Wire Room’
The court heard Phua had been arrested in Macau in mid-June and faced with operating a gambling that is illegal there. After being released on bail, it appears he hot-tailed it over to Las Vegas to continue running the operation remotely.
Caesars became suspicious whenever Phua, or one of his associates, insisted that the casino install an unusual quantity of technical equipment within the suites, enough to support eight subscriber that is digital on top the normal WiFi access. Employees observed computer monitors that were hooked up to what appeared as if a sportsbook, and then to the computer stations, there have been three screen that is large, tuned into World Cup soccer games.
(We will pause and that means you can observe smirk time now).
Acting on a tip-off from Caesars, undercover law enforcement agents monitored task into the rooms through the entire month. They raided the suites on July 9, seizing gambling records, computer equipment and other evidence.
All eight defendants appeared in court on Monday and were charged with at least one count of the unlawful transmission of wagering information and of operating an illegal gambling company. Paul lightning link slot app Phua’s Las Vegas lawyer, David Chesnoff, denied the web link to crime that is organized said that Phua would fight the charges.
‘ This will be a very advanced, intelligent individual who wants to defend himself,’ said Chesnoff.
$2 Million Bail for Phua
US Magistrate Judge Bill Hoffman set the bail for Paul Phua at $2 million, together with his $48 million jet that is private collateral. Phua’s son Darren Phua, 22, also allegedly a known person in the gang, was ordered to publish $500,000 bail. Both defendants were ordered to be electronically monitored and to stay on home detention within the custody of a doctor that is local had befriended Phua senior through the poker community. According to Chesnoff, several poker players, including Andrew Robl, were rallying around to simply help upload Phua’s bail, with Robl apparently willing to pay $1.5 million.
Among the group was another poker player, Malaysian national Seng Chen Yong, 56. In April 2012, Yong placed 4th in the Asian Poker Tour Manila for $ 439,379, coincidently a year before Phua also placed fourth in the tournament that is same. Yong and his son Wai Kin Yong were both detained as flight risks.
An ongoing investigation is being conducted by the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Nevada Gaming Control Board. If found guilty, the defendants could confront five years in prison. And undoubtedly the wrath of the Triad.
Bart Tichelman Daughter Charged in Bing Executive Overdose
Bart Tichelman’s daughter Alix has been faced with voluntary manslaughter in the loss of A google executive. (Image: Shmuel Thaler/AP)
Medications, prostitution plus the death of a major executive that is corporate such as the components of a made-for-TV film. However in this case, the story is all too real, and also possesses astonishing connection to the world of gambling.
Alix Catherine Tichelman, a model who police say had been also a high-end prostitute, has been charged with manslaughter in connection because of the death of Forrest Tim Hayes, a Google executive. Tichelman is accused of injecting Hayes with heroin on his yacht, then leaving him to die associated with the resulting overdose. Hayes died on 23, 2013 november.
That charge was passed down in Santa Cruz Superior Court last week, along with costs of control, administration and transportation of drugs, also destroying evidence, doing prostitution, and agreeing to prostitution. Tichelman did not enter a plea.
Security Footage Shows Tichelman on Yacht
Police allege that Tichelman had a relationship that is ongoing Hayes inside her role as being a prostitute. Protection footage from Hayes’ yacht, the ‘Escape,’ allegedly shows Tichelman stepping over Hayes’ human body and consuming from a glass of wine without doing any such thing to assist him after she had presumably inserted him using the ultimately fatal heroin overdose. Fingerprints on the glass of wine helped to determine Tichelman, as did her tattoos that are distinctive which she had shared on social media records.
Tichelman had been arrested week that is last authorities lured her to a Santa Cruz hotel. Reports state that police led her to trust that the client that is rich ready to pay her $1,000 for sex.
While the present cost linked to Hayes’ death is manslaughter, the situation could get even worse for Tichelman should the investigation generate more proof.
‘then we’ll certainly evaluate that when that’s presented,’ said prosecutor Rafael Vazquez if the evidence shows that murder can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. ‘She knew the act was dangerous to life that is human she acted deliberately and in conscious disregard for human life.’
Tichelman is Daughter of CEO Poker Player
Tichelman may be the child of Bart Tichelman, the CEO of SynapSense, A folsom-based company that manages Internet data centers throughout the planet. He is also a poker that is successful with more than $430,000 in career competition earnings. Most of this came in one cash that is major a victory in a 2008 World group of Poker Circuit event in Tunica that earned him $425,595 in prize money. Bart Tichelman is still active in poker today, also cashing in a World variety of Poker event within the last weeks that are few.
Alix Tichelman was once linked with Dean Riopelle, a former fan whom died just two months before Hayes. Riopelle passed away of the heart assault, but police are now apparently reopening an investigation into their death because the circumstances were very similar to those of Hayes.
There’s also another connection with a death that is similar Tichelman’s past. She once dated Warren Ullom, an Atlanta singer whom ended up being convicted of the manslaughter that is voluntary of girl whom died after a lethal dose of heroin.
Tichelman was understood for modeling under the pseudonym of AK Kennedy, as soon as said she enjoyed modeling her to play a character because it allowed. She also saw by herself as a journalist and poet, sometimes posting dark poems to Facebook and other social media sites.
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