Two casinos in England’s Midlands region have been acquired by an independent operator after going into administration.

Casino 36 Ltd., which runs the eponymous Casino 36 in Stockport, paid an undisclosed sum for the Castle Hill casino in Dudley and The Rubicon in Wolverhampton. Both are located in the conurbation surrounding Birmingham, Britain’s second city.

Construction has started on a 50km-long bridge linking Hong Kong to Macau.

The 73bn yuan ($10.7bn) project is expected to cut driving time from Hong Kong to Zhuhai to just one hour, and with Zhuhai already linked to Macau by another bridge, it will potentially open up Macau’s casinos to many more Hong Kong visitors. It currently takes four hours to make the journey.

CityCenter is open. MGM Mirage’s grand project on the Las Vegas Strip welcomed the first guests to its Aria resort and casino in mid-December.

The casino is a 150,000-square-foot facility with 1940 slots and 145 table games, while the 61-storey hotel has just over 4000 rooms. Cirque du Soleil will stage a resident production.

New York City’s suburbs could get a new Indian casino following federal recognition of the Shinnecock tribe on Long Island.

Following a three-decade fight in court to be acknowledged as a legitimate tribe, the Shinnecock Indians are likely to gain their new status after a public comment period of six months at most. They would then be able to run a Class II casino on their territory.

Singapore’s Weike Gaming Technology is to enter the European market with the launch in Spain of its multiplayer Baccarat, Blackjack and Poker games.

The gaming machine and systems maker will offer its five-player Revo Baccarat and Blackjack and ten-player Poker Pal X to Spanish casinos before turning to other European territories.

Visitor numbers in the exhibition hall at November’s Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas were up about seven percent on 2008.

Overall attendance – including exhibitor staff – was about 26,000. That figure was down about 3.5 percent on the previous year, but organisers said the drop was largely because of a decline in the numbers of exhibitor staff, who represent about one in six of attendees.

Harrah’s Entertainment was poised to take over the Planet Hollywood resort and casino in Las Vegas as we went to press.

A Harrah’s subsidiary had filed an application for approval of the move with the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

British operator Genting Group appears to be embracing electronic gaming, closing one conventional casino in favour of an electronic-only site and opening an electronic-only betting office next to another casino.

JCM Global and Bally Technologies have both been victorious in patent infringement cases at US federal courts, as we reported last issue.

In the JCM case, a federal district court judge upheld the verdict delivered by a Las Vegas jury in January that found MEI’s CashFlow SC series of bill acceptors had infringed patent protection on JCM’s removable stacker mechanism.

Server-based gaming (SBG) is allowing casinos in developing markets to catch up with their counterparts in the developed world, according to BetStone, which supplies an SBG platform.

The firm said that recent industry events such as Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas and SAGSE in Buenos Aires had showed that “casino operators are no longer viewing this technology in a conservative way, but want the best technological fit”.

JCM Global is to continue as exclusive provider of currency-validation systems to eight venues operated by Ameristar Casinos in the US.

The deal includes sites in  Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Nevada.

Two new casinos in Pennsylvania pushed gross gaming revenue in the state up by nearly 27 percent in November.

The state’s nine casinos with slots brought in $166,293,583 during the month, up 26.73 percent from November 2008, according to the State Gaming Control Board.

Ladbrokes has chosen Evolution Gaming to manage live dealing on its LadbrokesCasino.com Website.

Evolution Gaming will provide 24-hour streaming video of real dealers from its Latvia studios, allowing Ladbrokes’ customers at Baccarat, Blackjack and Roulette tables to interact with live croupiers.

Industry veteran Robert van Enkhuijzen has set up his own consultancy to help gaming and amusement firms develop new markets and new business opportunities.

“Although the gaming market is global it is still full of complexities and I see my task as supporting and accompanying my clients in understanding the requirements, challenges and indeed potential stumbling blocks in each individual country,” said  van Enkhuijzen.

Two Ohio residents learned that it pays to read the terms and conditions after their lawsuit against online gaming operator Party Poker failed.

A federal court in Ohio rejected their class-action claim that they and others had lost money playing with Party Poker because other players had colluded against them. They claimed that Party Poker was aware of the collusion but did not act to stop it.

The second annual International Casino Conference (ICC) on 25 January will cover issues including regulation, casino design, new products, the role of social media, and loyalty programmes.

Clever Duck Media has named the finalists for the 2010 International Gaming Awards.

Nearly 300 entries were received from 30 countries for the prizes, which will be presented at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in London on 25 January. Tickets for the event, where Francis Lui of Galaxy Entertainment and Mitch Garber of Harrah’s Interactive will take the stage, were almost sold out as we went to press.

Britain’s new responsible-gaming charity the Great Foundation will present its first awards at IGE on 26 January.

They “will recognise those gaming organisations whose donations [to the foundation] have exceeded reasonable expectations”, it said.