| Just
when you thought innovative, interactive slot
machine play had reached its technological zenith,
leave it to the gambling world's most flamboyant
business personality to tease us with a provocative
announcement.
Steve
Wynn, the man single-handedly responsible for
transforming the Las Vegas Strip into a mega-resort
landscape, said at a meeting of the Nevada Gaming
Commission in Carson City last month that he and
a partner are developing a "rather radical
new machine that is quite a breakaway thing".
As
reported by Thomas J. Walsh of the Reno-Gazette
Journal, when asked after the meeting for details
about the new slot, Wynn responded by saying "I
can't talk about it. It's a secret."
Wynn
is developing the new slot machine in conjunction
with his Japanese partner, Kazuo Okada, chairman
and president of the Tokyo based Aruze Corporation,
which also is partnering with Wynn on his $2.4
billion resort project currently under construction
on the Las Vegas Strip.
Okada
owns the Universal Distributing Company of Nevada
(UDN) which also has a plant in Japan that reportedly
is bigger than United States based slot machine
developer and manufacturer International Game
Technology.
The
new slot machine has been dubbed the "Wynn
Machine". Wynn himself said: "I'm interested
in a machine that says 'Wynn' and that makes everybody
else say 'wow'."
UDN's
website says the company distributes gaming devices
in more than 40 countries using "distinct
amusement elements of the Japanese pachislot tradition
into casino gaming machine designs, game liquid
crystal display computer graphics, character design
and animation".
Wynn
doubts his radical new concept will be ready for
the opening of his new mega-resort next year because
the machine will have to be tested by the Nevada
gaming control board and commission.
Poker
News: Ben Affleck became the first movie star
to win a major poker tournament when he pocketed
$356,400 for capturing Commerce Casino's California
State Poker Championship on June 20. Affleck bested
a field of 90 players for the $10,000 buy-in event
that also brought out Tobey Maguire. The victory
earned Affleck a $25,000 seat in the World Poker
Tour Championship to be held next April at the
Bellagio in Las Vegas which will be covered by
The Travel Channel. Commerce Casino in Commerce,
California, is the largest poker casino in the
world with more than 200 tables.
Harrah's
Entertainment reports that the recently concluded
World Series of Poker, which was held at the Horseshoe
Casino in downtown Las Vegas, attracted a total
prize pool of $49 million, a new poker tournament
world record. The original field of 2,576 players
paid $10,000 each to participate in the championship
event. ESPN had 14 cameras focused on the last
day of action which saw Greg "Fossilman"
Raymer, a corporate patent attorney from Stonington,
Connecticut, win the final pot of the night, a
whopping $25 million in chips, to earn the $5
million first prize, the largest prize in poker
tournament history.
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