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EELEX 2008 - Москва, Россия

В эти дни, с 9-го по 11-е сентября, в московском выставочном комплексе "Крокус-Экспо" проходит 17-я специализированная выставка EELEX 2008. В отличии от 16 предыдущих "Элексов", где главным организатором выступала компания "Уникум", эту выставку представляет компания SMILE EXPO. Из постоянных участников выставки, производителей и дистрибьютеров оборудования для казино и непосредственно игровых автоматов, на экспозицию приехали от силы 10%, что не удивительно в свете тенденций последних лет. Количество посетителей и площадь стендов была, наверное, как никогда мала. На фоне проходившей рядом огромной выставки стоматологических компаний эта разница в размерах казалась особенно болезненной.

Единственный на всю выставку стол для игры в блэкджек представила компания "ВЕК". Хотя представлен был даже не стол, а интегрированная в него система идентификации и каунта чипов от французской Bourgogne et Grasset. Несколько производителей пытались привлечь внимание к своим стендам оборудованием и программным обеспечением для спортивного покера. Федерация спортивного покера России, а также Федерация спортивного покера Москвы соседствовали, и даже проводили покерный турнир, не вызывающий однако прежнего ажиотажа посетителей. Львиную долю выставки занимали стенды различных медиа изданий, которые, впрочем, сиротливо демонстрировали голые стены и поговорить на них было абсолютно не с кем.

В рамках выставки прошла конференция по российским игровым зонам, на которой выступили представители от "Азов-Сити" и необозначенной правительством, но самородившейся татарской зоны "Камские поляны". Их выступление, однако, всерьез воспринято не было, и скорее вызывало у собравшихся невеселые усмешки, нежели походило на диалог бизнеса с властью. Какие либо представители оставшихся трех зон на выставке никак себя не обозначили и никакой информации о себе не давали, т.е. речи о российских игорных зонах, за исключением "Азов-Сити" не велось.

В целом выставка EELEX 2008 полностью отразила нынешнюю ситуацию и настроения российского игорного бизнеса. Стаффрум искренне надеется, что 17-й EELEX не был последним в российской истории.

Jail For Gang Who Mugged Casino High Rollers

A ruthless gang of muggers who robbed high rollers as they left Mayfair casinos with their winnings have been jailed for a total of 30 years.

The brutal thugs, all Kurdish asylum seekers from northern Iraq claiming benefits, preyed on middle-aged businessmen they had spotted cashing in their winnings at top London casinos in the early hours of the morning.

They followed their victims home before beating them up on their doorsteps and snatching tens of thousands of pounds in cash.

One victim, a man suffering from cancer, lost more than £40,000 cash when the mobsters sprayed him and his daughter with CS gas before punching and kicking them to the ground and grabbing his cash.

In another robbery the victim had a plant pot smashed over his head.

Yassin Rashid, 35, Soran Bisary, 37, and Zana Karim, 32, were each given 10-year jail terms after being convicted of conspiracy to rob.

They had denied the charges, forcing their traumatised victims to give evidence against them.

However, a jury found them guilty following a trial at Wood Green Crown Court in north London.

Jailing the trio, Judge Peter Ader said: "None of the victims will ever forget these incidents when they were attacked outside their homes and overpowered by your gang.

"These were not chance events. These were high winners who were being targetted by you and the intention was to rob people who had a great deal of money on them."

Karim was also convicted of possessing a prohibited firearm, namely a CS gas canister, and was given an extra 12 months' jail to run concurrently.

After the gang were jailed, Detective Constable Daniel Candler said: "I'm very pleased with the result which shows just how serious these offences were.

"Three vicious, cowardly and cynical men who preyed on vulnerable victims and were not afraid to hurt women have been taken off the streets and are now safely behind bars."

Rashid, a member of several gambling clubs and casinos, was the gang's mastermind and spotter, the court heard.

He would spend hours in casinos and would identify suitable victims while the others waited outside.

The gang targetted two high rollers at the same casino - The Sportsman, near Marble Arch - on the night of September 1st last year.

First, Aipeng Wen was spotted cashing in his chips and was followed to his home in Golders Green, north London. The gang rushed him as he parked his car and stole nearly £4,000 plus his wallet and car keys.

Rashid then returned to the same casino where he picked out Masaaki Feduchi and again trailed him as he took a taxi home to North Finchley.

Right outside his front door they attacked him and wrestled him to the ground as he refused to let go of his bag, containing £8,000.

One of the gang grabbed the victim's terrified wife, Yumiko, put his hand over her mouth and shoved her back inside the house while the others continued to beat her husband until he surrendered his winnings.

A month later the gang targetted Slovakian businessman Zdenko Kos, who later told police he had cashed in "at least £40,000" in chips when he left the Palm Beach in Mayfair.

Rashid had been observing him at the gaming tables for three nights in a row.

As he arrived home with daughter Katja, the pair were both sprayed with CS gas, which left them with streaming eyes and breathing difficulties. Both were physically assaulted before Katja's bag, containing the cash, was cut from her arm and the gang fled.

Rashid and Karim, both of west London, and Bisary, of Enfield, north London, all arrived in the UK as asylum seekers and were living off a raft of state benefits at the time. Two of them were also working as illegal taxi touts

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Casino Cheats !

Notice the obvious mistake on roulette:



Las Vegas in the old days was like Moscow was in the nineties, cheats were taken on a journey to the local forest and didn't return:

Original M.I.T. Blackjack Team Member Mike Aponte Talks 21

Casino Chips - Possible Health Hazard...?

The Phoenix, AZ-based ABC affiliate ABC15 has discovered that the casino chips most popularly used in Las Vegas (and many other places) contain seemingly eye-popping amounts of lead. They tested the “clay” casino chips used in major Strip casinos like Caesars Palace, The Mirage, Mandalay Bay, and many more, and they found enormous quantities of lead.
How much lead? “Over half of the tested chips maxed-out the swab’s detection limit at 10-percent lead. That’s more than 160-times the lead the EPA legally allows in paint,” says the article.“Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook looked at our lab results. ‘I am very surprised by the high levels of lead that you found in these poker chips. Very surprised. It’s shocking. I’ve never heard of any other consumer product having this kind of lead content.’” Apparently not even toys from China.
Anyone who’s played with these chips knows that they are all covered with a thin layer of nastiness that coats your hands after a few hours. I thought it was just general railbird funk, but apparently it’s railbird funk combined with a powder chock full of lead. Tasty. For those that like eating in the cardroom, apparently your sandwiches have benefited from a yummy secret ingredient.
While not shocked, I can’t say I’m pleased. I’ve spent thousands of hours around these things, inhaling the dust. There’s no reason they need to be made of such a large quantity of such a toxic material. So be careful. Don’t take the chips home and let your kids or dogs chew on them, don’t grind them up and snort them, and always make sure the filter on your gas mask is clean before coming to the cardroom.

You can read 'Gaming Partner's International''s answer here.

The Good Old Days....!

I started working in Casinos back in 1985. I worked at a Builder's Merchant from Monday to Friday, and went to the training school at the weekends. The casino was the Silhouette Club in Southampton, England, and had a Night Club on the ground floor and a Casino on the first floor. My teacher was Dave Denison, who was actually a School Teacher during the day and Casino Manager during the night. We had 8 trainees, of which just two of us qualified to start work in the casino. We were trained in roulette and a little blackjack. I'll never forget my first game of roulette. My Inspector basically shadow dealt for me because the game grew very quickly. I basically span the ball, cleared the layout and chipped up. The Inspector counted and made the payouts. I kept hitting clear numbers and wiped virtually everyone out.

After a few months, I started to deal on Blackjack which was a nice change, because things are more relaxed. After dealing for about 9 months, we started to get a game on the Punto Banco table, and an Inspector trained me up to do the payouts. It was great fun, and also a welcome relief from the crazy roulette games. On Saturday, we used to work till 2am, because of Government legislation. Ah the good old days. I remember doing double shifts every week. We worked from 2pm till 9pm, 1 hour break usually taken in the Pub getting tanked up, then we worked from 10pm till 4am. Some dealers used to get pissed in the break, but they never got sent home. The Pitboss would get them to chip all night. The problem was that after about 1/2 hour of chipping you wanted the toilet real bad, and the sadistic PB would deliberately leave you chipping for at least a couple of hours, before getting a break.

I'll never forget the first time I saw 'Card Counters'. One afternoon two men and a young lady came to play blackjack. They kept winning and eventually the Manager dealt to them, shemmy shuffling the cards after each shoe. They left having won a substantial amount of money. I was intrigued and start to find out all about card counting. I find it strange that there are casino games where the player can play honestly and beat the house over a long period of time. Card Counters win at blackjack, and consequently get banned from playing in the casino. There was one player called Jeff Lisandro, who is a professional poker player, and also a talented card counter. He got banned from the 'Metelitsa' Casino in Moscow for card counting, and they actually changed their shuffle, because he successfully used the shuffle tracking system, whereby you keep track of the bunches of high and low cards when they are being shuffled, and cut away the low cards. When the cards are consequently dealt, Jeff places big bets straight away, knowing that big cards will be dealt.

In Moscow, there was a player called Sergey Karas who invented a system to win at Casino Stud Poker, where you can buy cards. He would play two boxes and over a couple of days play win big. It was like the player and casino reversed roles. Sergey and his cronies played all over Russia, and the former Republics of the Soviet Union, eventually getting banned. I was the General Manager at a casino in Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan, and who should walk in to the casino for a little punt? You guessed it - Sergey. I met him at the entrance to the casino. He had already paid for the entrance and was holding the lucky chips in his hand. Needless to say that he didn't play in my casino. I allowed him to lose the lucky chips at the roulette table. He asked me to recommend a casino where he could play in Astana, so I recommended the opposition of course.

There was a team of Punto Banco players in Moscow that pooled their funds, and they won a lot of money. They played a type of martingale system, whereby stakes were increased to cover the previous losses and produce a modest profit. To beat them, you had to literally break every player, which would be a sum in the millions...! The casino shouldn't have let these people play that way, but in Russia life isn't that simple.

There was a roulette player called Simonian. He was from Armenia and a very dangerous player. He could turn $20k in to $1 million bucks, and very quickly. He was amazing to watch. A casino opened in Moscow, called Kutuzov, and they gave Simonian credit, a widely practiced system in Moscow, due to the huge sums of money involved. Simonian won $1.5 million in two visits and the casino banned him.

A casino is a difficult and dangerous business. When I worked in Naberzhnie Chelni in Tatarstan, one Mafia guy who played at our casino, was opening his own casino on the ground floor of a block of flats. He had invited a management team from Samara (Russian town - south of Moscow). He invited me for the opening of the casino, and I complimented him on his courage to open a casino without any experience or knowledge of the business. I said that even with over 20 years of experience I'm very apprehensive about opening my own casino, particularly in Russia. Needless to say that within a few months the casino closed.

The good old days....!