The Las Vegas-based company that develops, manages and owns casinos, attributed a majority of its 1^st -quarter results to record revenue of $22.6 million generated by its Rising Star Casino in Rising Sun, Ind.

Analysts expected earnings of $0.8 per share. “It’s a very newsworthy and positive 1^st quarter, as our Rising Star casino resort continues to exceed expectations and we closed … the sale of our interest in the GEM management agreement,” Full House Resorts Chairman and CEO Andre Hilliou said. Poker Room

Hilliou said the company also benefited itself from the close of its 50% joint venture with GEM in the FireKeepers Casino for $97.5 million. Full House used a part of the proceeds to pay off its outstanding debt of $25.3 million.

As of March 31, Full House had $38.3 million in cash and no outstanding debt.

“We started off the quarter with the major announcement of our acquisition of the Silver Slipper Casino,” Hilliou said. “We recently obtained financing for the acquisition, commenced the licensing process in Mississippi and expect to close on the acquisition in the third quarter.”

Hilliou said the $75 million acquisition will significantly change the face of the company, “from a casino management firm to an owner-operator of strong locals-oriented casinos.”

For the quarter, Full House reported revenue of $27.5 million from gambling, food and beverage, and hotel, up from $2 million in the same period in 2011. Operating income for the quarter was $46.3 million, compared with $5.8 million in the 1^st quarter of 2011.

Operating expenses for the quarter were $27.8 million compared with $4 million in the 1^st quarter of 2011.

Full House owns/manages casinos in Nevada, New Mexico and Indiana. The company’s Nevada properties include Stockman’s Casino in Fallon and a 5-year lease casino at the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort in Incline Village.

Full House reported its Nevada gaming properties posted $233,636 in net income for the 1^st -quarter, compared with $187,507 in 2011.

Full House also has a 3-year contract to manage Buffalo Thunder Casino in Santa Fe, N.M. The contract that took effect in Sept 23^rd, earned the company $500,000 in the first quarter.

Shares of Full House Resorts were unchanged Wednesday at $2.97 on the New York Stock Exchange’s AMEX market. Some 56,000 shares were traded, roughly twice the normal volume.

WPT hasn’t provided further details of events – other than the $4,000+$400 buy-in main competition, but it provide a few little teasers of what will be happening on the Mediterranean island at the end of July at The Merit-Grand Casino.

Participants can expect to see players like Mike Sexton, as well was the always popular and beautiful girls, on hand to entertain, delight and educate.

The opening festival of Season XI kicks off on Tuesday, July 31^st, for 6 days of action with the main event and 3 side tournaments until August 5^th and will be supervised by Matt Savage, who will do his usual stellar job of making sure the tour’s tournament structure runs smoothly. Poker Site

The main event will be split into 2 starting days, with a re-entry option available for Day 1b of the $4,000+$400 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament that guarantees a prize pool of no less than $1 million – so the Season XI begins with a thrilling event on an island that is considered to be among the prime holiday destinations in Europe.

All you poker players who enjoy a spot of merrymaking will be pleased to know that a VIP Players’ Party is also scheduled for Friday, August 3^rd. So, those eager for cash games can play 24 hours a day with buy-ins at levels to suit even smaller bankrolls. Additionally, the WPT will soon announce details of the many side tournaments included on the tour stop.

So, if you can’t make it to Cyprus to get in on the action, the main event final table will be streamed online ensuring that you don’t miss any of the battles.

Of course, while there will be a lot of money up for grabs during the poker festival, players – as well as friends and families – will still be able to enjoy all the activities that are available on this paradise island.

Having been a popular summer location for so long, Cyprus possesses an astounding assortment of exciting and relaxing outdoor activities, like snorkeling, jet-skiing and golf.

While there are many rooms available to competitors during the poker festival, the WPT is offering special deals with some of the more luxurious local hotels – for those who have the cash!

Meanwhile, poker fans in the USA will be delighted to know that the $100,000 buy-in Super High Roller event at this season’s closing World Championship will be recorded by Fox Sports Net to be broadcast over 3 episodes on the cable channel’s regional network.

Dwan, a 25-year-old from New Jersey, might have lost a huge sponsorship deal after the events of Black Friday last April, but is believed to have added an amazing $3.86 million to his bankroll – from just one hand!

Yes, that’s $3.86 million from just one hand!

The cash game specialist was in the Chinese special administrative region when he took down the pot – against a wealthy Chinese businessman during a No-Limit Hold’em game with the blinds at approximately $1,300 and $2,600.

And even when, the exact details of the hand are still not clear, there has being revealed that Dwan held ace-ten against his Asian opponent’s ace-two on a flop of A-10-2 while playing in The Big Game at StarWorld Hotel’s Poker King Club.

However, it was also stated that, while the pot was certainly the biggest of the night…it’s not known whether Dwan left a winner or not at the end of the session. Play Poker Online

Now, that would be incredible. But, as we all know, high stakes games can result in massive swings as hands escalate almost out of control and beyond belief.

Either way, it looks like Dwan now has 2 incredible records, with this massive pot dwarfing those – which are thought to be about the $2 million mark – won by dynamic Dane Gus Hansen and Englishman Sam Trickett in Macau recently.

What is the second record? Dwan also took down the largest pot in TV history when he picked up $1.1 million against 8-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Ivey during the Million Dollar Cash game in 2010.

What is even more amazing is that this huge pot in Macau wasn’t even played out during the highest blinds as earlier games had seen them set at $3,850/$7,700!

But also fellow American Andrew Robl has been in Macau recently, along with Trickett and Hansen. The Las Vegas pro was only there for a short time, but he did also confirm his participation in the $1 million buy-in The Big One for One Drop charity tournament that will be staged during the 43rd annual WSOP in his home town.

While no one hand will surpass Dwan’s triumph in Macau, the One Drop winner in Sin City is already certain of picking up more than $12 million, so expect the likes of Robl, Dwan, Trickett, Hansen, Team Party Poker Pro Tony G, Daniel Negreanu and Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier to be going all-out for victory.

In all, 3.5 million tourists came to Las Vegas in March, a lot more from March 2011′s 3.4 million total. Up until today, 9.76 million people have visited the city, a difference of 3.6% from 2011′s 9.42 million from January until May.

“Visitation is up again, for more than 2 years, and that’s obviously good for the destination,” said Scott Russell, senior manager of research for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Play Poker

Citywide, March’s hotel and motel occupancy combined was up 1.1%, with hotel occupancy, specifically, rising 1%. Up until now, total citywide occupancy increased 0.5% and hotel occupancy by 1.3%.

The weekend stays in March dropped down 0.9% from 2011, and midweek occupancy increased 1%. Overall, Las Vegas had 4.1 million occupied hotel-room nights in March, 2.5% more than 2011.

However, the average daily room rate, for the 1^st time since May 2010, was lower than 2009 $107.21 compared with 2011′s $111.13 rate, a 3.5% decrease. In a year-to-date comparison, however, the average rate went up 3.6% from $105.99 in 2011 to $109.84 in 2012.

Russell said there are “several things at play” to determine the lower average daily rate in the month-to-month comparisons, and pointed to the Conexpo-Con/Agg show, with 120,000 attendees, as a major reason for the decrease. The triennial show won’t return until 2014.

“Not having that large show … that was probably the lion’s share of that difference,” Russell said.

Convention attendees typically spend $1,273 in very trip to Las Vegas trip compared with a leisure traveler’s average spend of $676. Conventioneers also stay almost a full day longer. Room rates on convention days for the larger shows tend to soar.

Although the total number of conventions and meetings held in March was up 34.6% at 2,302 from 2011′s 1,710 events, convention attendance dropped down 3.9% at 513,010 from 2011′s 533,579 total.

Year-to-date, convention attendance is up 0.5% and total conventions and meetings held are up 37.1%.

The average daily number of vehicles coming into Las Vegas went up 0.9% in March, from 101,223 in 2011 to 100,273 in 2012. And from those, the number was up 7.9% to 40,304 vehicles from 37,354, when coming Southern California on Interstate 15.

Tullio Marchionne, the company’s corporate secretary, said the company has closed on the sale of Riviera’s property, and that the proceeds from the sale will be reinvested in the Las Vegas property.

Marchionne explained the project to the state Gaming Control Board on Wednesday. Regulators often get updates from property executives during licensing matters. Internet Poker

Monarch Casino & Resort Inc., owner of the Atlantis in Reno, is acquiring Riviera’s Black Hawk property for $76 million in a deal announced in September.

“We want to improve all of the public areas within the casino,” Marchionne said.

The company has already started painting the property’s exterior and relocating the hotel’s front desk closer to the convention’s center entrance. A greater emphasis will be put on the convention area, as the project also includes plans to build a porte cochere at that convention entrance.

Marchionne said the company already refurbished the hotel rooms with expenses between $20 million to $22 million in 2007, just before the economy tanked.

“Life in the neighborhood is a struggle,” Marchionne said, referencing the nearby Fontainebleau and Echelon sites. “We are an island.”

But he added that his team thinks the worst has passed and the company expects everything to improve in 2013 as the economy picks up.

Board members unanimously approved a recommendation to license Marchionne as an officer following a suitability hearing. The Nevada Gaming Commission will consider final approval of the license at its May 17^th meeting.

Some board members also questioned Marchionne about why Riviera failed to register 34 employees, something that only happened after an internal audit. Once the error was discovered, Marchionne said 2 of those employees had already been laid off, 1 was on medical leave and 2 were fired. The remaining 29 were registered with the state, and the company revised its human resources policies to prevent a similar occurrence.

The board also inquired about an incident in which Marchionne was arrested while being the general manager of a casino in Greece. He said a regulatory misunderstanding led to officers arriving at the casino one night demanding to arrest an entertainment director because of the music that was being played at the casino. Marchionne told officers to arrest him instead — so they did. He was exonerated the next day.

“And we thought our entertainment tax was tough,” quipped board Chairman Mark Lipparelli.

Board member A.G. Burnett commended Marchionne for stepping up and protecting his employee.

The company’s new strategy was illustrated by Monday’s announced sale of its Harrah’s St. Louis property to Penn National Gaming for $610 million. The transaction came 1 week before the company opens Ohio’s 1^st casino, the $350 million Horseshoe Casino Cleveland.

In addition to Cleveland, the company is building the $550 million on the Strip, a $400 million casino in Cincinnati that is the leading bidder for casino developments in Baltimore and Boston. Poker Bonus

“We need to go out and keep our balance sheet healthy in spite all this growth,” said Loveman.

He called Cleveland a “great underserved” casino market. The nearest casinos to the Horseshoe Cleveland are in Pittsburgh and Detroit. By 2013, Ohio will have 3 casinos, including the Hollywood Casino Toledo, owned by Penn National.

As for St. Louis, there are four casinos in the metro region, one owned by Ameristar Casinos, two owned by Pinnacle Entertainment and the Harrah’s property.

“That market is very heavily developed. There is tremendous capacity,” Loveman said. “So we can take that $610 million and redeploy to these high-growth emerging markets. I think that’s a pretty good trade and that’s what justified the deal.”

Fitch Ratings Service gaming analyst Michael Paladino told investors earlier this week that the sale of Harrah’s St. Louis improved Caesars liquidity. The company has almost $20 billion in long-term debt, but reinvestment would outweigh the loss of cash flow from the property, he said.

“It will allow Caesars to more aggressively reinvest capital into its existing properties or pursue higher-return investments,” Paladino said. “Fitch believes reinvestment of proceeds in Caesars’ business is the more likely scenario.”

Loveman said the St. Louis deal fit 2 standards: the casino was in an over-saturated market and Penn was willing “to pay us a handsome price” for the property.

“There were other markets we might have considered, but the demand for those assets was not sufficient,” Loveman said.

The Horseshoe Cleveland opening also marks another change in the Caesars business model. The company will manage the casino and owns 20% of the joint venture with Rock Gaming of Detroit holding the majority ownership stake. The partnership will have the same arrangement when the Horseshoe Cincinnati opens in 2013.

Opening the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland Monday gives Caesars a new gaming market and its 13^th state in which the company runs a casino. Through the company’s Total Rewards loyalty program, Caesars already has identified 80,000 potential customers for the Horseshoe who live within a 70-mile radius of the casino.

“We have a dominant American operation,” Loveman said, “We are so much bigger than anyone in the US. This gives us a big leg up when a tremendous amount of customers we know will be in the building.”

By New Years Eve, the Palms should have refurbished rooms, new bars and updated clubs. They have already rolled out $3 million onto the casino floor.

“We’re an independent company so we have to step up to compete with the big guys,” said Richard Strafella, the Palms’ vice president of casino operations. “We’re trying to spread out the investment, make intelligent decisions and make the upgrades count.”

In 2011, the Nevada Gaming Commission licensed Leonard Green & Partners and TPG Capital as majority owners of the Palms. The property was developed and previously owned by the Maloof family, who now hold a 2% share with an option to buy an additional 7.5 percent stake. Las Vegas Poker Tournaments

The new sports book took a little over 2 months to be built. The almost 10,000-square-foot space operated by Cantor Gaming includes 1,290 square feet of high-definition TVs and 93 carrels. It’s decorated with red leather furniture and features marble floors and hand-stitched leather walls.

It also includes 2 poker rooms: a large, open space with 7 poker tables for regular play, and a small, glass-enclosed poker room for high-limit games.

“You’ll see a lot of the professional players come in,” Strafella said. “It gives them privacy and protection but the public can still come and see them play.”

The hybrid sports book-poker room is the 1^st of its kind in Las Vegas. Poker rooms and sports books are usually next one another but not attached.

The developers wanted customers to feel at home, like they are sitting in their living room playing poker and watching a game with friends.

“A poker player folds 8 or 9 hands out of 10,” Cantor Gaming CEO Lee Amaitis said. “They can watch the other players, but it gets boring. This way, they can bet on a game.”

“Las Vegas has opulent resorts,” Amaitis continued. “Why not have great sports books?”

The Palms’ new ownership also allows customers to bet on NBA and WNBA games. Basketball wagering was prohibited at the Palms before, because the Maloof family owns the Sacramento Kings.

Nolan started with Gaughan in 1970, when El Cortez became the best and biggest Vegas spot for slot manufacturers to debut games. Nolan said Gaughan was the only owner who knew and understood that volume could outdo percentage, and he showed guys like Kirk Kerkorian and Benny Binion his figures when they wised up. He made Nolan, a 21-year-old greenhorn, a slot manager after only 3 weeks of working. Every morning they walked up Fremont, hitting the casinos Gaughan which many times included the Showboat, Golden Nugget, Plaza, Boulder Club, Gold Spike, Las Vegas Club, Western and others. Free Poker Games

“Any customer, any employee could go up and talk to Gaughan anytime they wanted,” Nolan said. “And that was the difference, because a lot of owners then didn’t even live in this town, but Gaughan was right here.”

Jackie Gaughan is a man of the people, which is the reason why he still plays cards among them. Mike Nolan says this of the old days, when he and Jackie used to make the rounds on Fremont.

These days, Gaughan usually heads to the office and sits at his desk. The walls are crowded with tons of black-and-white photos of him with other Vegas elite and his wife, Bertie. A still of Dorothy and Glinda the Good Witch from “The Wizard of Oz” fits just as well as a glass case that displays chips, matchbooks and the name tag of a former employee named Flo. Executive assistant Linda Button, an El Cortez veteran of nearly 40 years, jokingly said they wanted to make sure Flo didn’t come back.

At lunch, Gaughan joins Epstein and Nolan at Cafe Cortez for the “Circle of Knowledge.” They tell stories about a heavy guy called Tiny and a disabled guy named Lucky and about the mysterious onion-flavored watermelon that will haunt Food and Beverage Director John “Civi” Civitello forever. They do comic voiceovers of “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and they do a lot of talk of shop. El Cortez, said Civitello, is like a country club for them and for the regulars, where the staff knows from their names, how they like their eggs and to when to cut them off.

And the conversation continues. If you want to check more, come back to the fourth part of our report.

“I could set my watch by looking at who’s at the bar,” he said.

That loyalty stems from Gaughan’s standard of interest. His customers always got the best deals, and his employees always got generous pensions. He paid for many funerals, even stewarded the ashes of those without families (which made the hotel basement an interesting place). In the old days, Gaughan pretended not to see when server Liz Butler socked patrons who got fresh. That’s probably why she still enjoys the same job after 4 decades, of course without the right hooks. Free Poker Online

Like Vegas itself, El Cortez is a charming blur of aesthetics and demographics. Through major renovations, from painting the entire exterior to gutting the Ogden House to make room for the swank Cabana Suites, administrators have made sure not to lose the essence of the place. And while diving into current pop culture, from DJs spinning in the Parlour Bar to lively feeds on Facebook and Twitter, they never forget that longtime regulars are the casino’s lifeblood.

The secret: Alex Epstein.

The 27-year-old Columbia grad is the only woman on the executive team. Most of her coworkers  in high-level meetings have been longer in the industry but, she’s been alive for more than holds her own. She’s naturally driven, but her extra motivation comes from the desire to prove that she has advanced as the executive vice president for herself, not because she’s Kenny Epstein’s daughter.

Like many Vegas natives of her generation, she was determined not to get sucked in. She was bound for medical school, but her heart wasn’t in it, so she came home to regroup just as her father was taking over El Cortez.

“East Fremont had been dedicated. DCR (Downtown Cocktail Room) had just opened; Beauty Bar was here. There was this underground vibe to downtown, this local’s scene that I really found attractive coming from New York,” she said.

El Cortez Executive Vice President Alex Epstein is a Las Vegan lover of its nostalgic heart. She moved back to town after college and has steadily built a reputation as one of downtown’s key advocates, contributing with time, resources and ideas to philanthropy projects and creative endeavors and business ventures that are firing this renewal.

Her first major project was managing the overhaul of the Cabana Suites, but she made her mark as a downtown advocate when she coordinated the use of a shuttered Fremont building, which owners Jennifer and Michael Cornthwaite turned into the community space Emergency Arts.

And this interesting report continues, so be sure not to miss our next edition.

“The biggest thing that we’ve been doing is engaging at any level possible, in any way,” she said. “Everything that happens, we like to be a part of.”

That includes sponsoring First Friday and hosting such events as Project Dinner Table, the Neon Museum’s Boneyard Bash, a tech start-up convention and a Tweet-up on downtown’s future. El Cortez is a founding partner in Vegas StrEATS, the festival of food, art and style that is held every 2^nd Saturday in Gaughan plaza. The property just supplied a neighborhood charter school with casino throwaways so students could make art, and is collaborating with the Mob Museum to make plaques for vintage suites dedicated to Bugsy Siegel and his brood, who owned the El Cortez before Gaughan. Free Poker Tournaments

Given his many philanthropic endeavors, Gaughan must be proud of El Cortez’s co-founding of Downtown Cares. It was born in 2011, when the Moonridge Group approached Alex Epstein about a day of volunteerism, a one-off event that would touch the city beyond the revival zone. More than 200 people showed up to renovate a senior center ½  a mile from El Cortez, and many asked for a next feel-good gig.

Alex Epstein said the plan is to hold 3 Downtown Cares events every year.

“There are a lot of glamorous, exciting things happening downtown, but there are some other areas that have been forgotten and neglected that deserve to be cared for, too. So we really want to get people who care about downtown to care about all the things happening downtown,” Alex Epstein said. “It’s not a planned community; it’s not being gentrified. It’s a collective of small, individual businesses and residents coming and demanding something. It’s not building it and they will come, but the opposite. People are coming, and now we’re going to be able to meet the demand.”

While Gaughan enjoys his deserved and long overdue retirement, Alex Epstein has taken over his Fremont rounds. Sometimes she walks with El Cortez Social Media Manager Jack Thalgott, who said the area’s rebirth is  so new and organic that it’s impossible to describe and even more difficult to predict.

Fortunately, widespread casino renovations and new businesses include nods to old downtown, from the relics on display at the 107-year-old Golden Gate to Mob Bar’s hip take on a speakeasy. David Schwartz, director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research, is in the beginning stages of an oral history project on El Cortez.

If you want to read about the last part of our report, be sure not to miss the 6^th part of this article.