We have another big week of gambling news! This time it takes us to Las Vegas, where things are moving in the right direction for the city’s COVID recovery. Also, mobile and online gambling news from New York state, and police raids on gambling dens in Arkansas!
Hello friends! Thanks so much for streaming another edition of This Week in Gambling, where we have gambling news from New York all the way to Arkansas! But first, it’s this week’s big story!
On our last show I told you that the Governor of Nevada plans to have casinos in his state operating at 100% capacity with no social distancing by June 1st. And you gotta admit, that’s a pretty ambitious goal. This week Nevada took a big step towards reaching that goal when the Governor, along with the Gaming Control Board, announced that casinos will be allowed to go to 80% capacity beginning on May 1st… and that includes lowering the social distancing from six feet down to just three feet!
Just how desperate are Las Vegas casinos to get back to full occupancy? Well, the Cosmopolitan just announced that they’re willing to pay their employees cash just for getting a COVID-19 vaccination! And they’re willing to fork out up to a million dollars! Employees receiving the vaccine will get a $50 bonus, each! But that bonus becomes larger and larger when more employees get inoculated… all the way up to $500 each if every employee gets the vaccination!
Meanwhile, gambling news down in Arkansas, the SWAT team was called out just to conduct a couple of small raids on two illegal betting parlors. After the SWAT team moved in a total of five people were arrested, 12 gambling machines were confiscated, and they found $60,000 in cash. Personally, I think calling out the SWAT team for this was just a bit of an overkill. I mean, c’mon! It’s Arkansas, people! I bet you could have got them good ol’ boys outa that trailer just by offering them a 12 pack of beer and a couple of tickets to the monster truck rally! Just saying…
Two weeks ago I came out here and told you all that online sports betting legislation had passed in New York state, and now the Governor has made it official by signing that bill into law. That means that residents of New York should be able to place online and mobile sports bets in time for the next Super Bowl. With New York now joining the ranks of the regulated, there is a majority of states (27 of them to be precise) where sports betting is legal.
Speaking of sports, we have a new game review to share with you this week for the Nothin’ But Net 2: Multiplayer Challenge Mode from GameCo. This is a follow-up to their popular Nothin’ But Net casino skill game. In this version players compete head-to-head for cash prizes! You can watch this video, along with hundreds of other reviews for both online and land-based slot machines, when you visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.