Domino was one of several hip-hop celebrities to sit down at the final table in ACES, the new poker movie sponsored by online casino Aces.com. Hollywood director Daniel Zirilli brought in old pal and platinum recording artist Domino for the roll. Scott Kusmirek, drummer for the platinum-selling rock group, the Gin Blossoms, also played a cameo role in the sexy poker movie.

Aces.com is no stranger to the music industry. Snoop Dog and other stars at the Radio Music Awards in Vegas hung out at Aces.com's backstage poker table. One of them even ended up winning $32K playing cards with the free money Aces.com had put in their account.

"This movie is full of great music," said Rene Quesada, Aces.com's Manager. "It's cool they got these hip hop stars to play in the high stakes game in Rio at the end. Talk about poker faces."

Domino's Sweet Potatoe Pie was a pop and R&B hit from his self-titled 1993 debut LP. Three years later, Domino delivered his less successful second album, Physical Funk. Dominology followed in 1997. D-Freaked It marked his long-awaited follow-up in summer 2001.

Zirilli has directed three music videos for Domino including Money is Everything, Long Beach Thing and his first number one platinum hit Ghetto Jam which quickly became the number one MTV music video in the world at the time.

Zirilli founded PopArt Film Factory in 1990, and has directed and produced over two hundred music videos for artists including The Rolling Stones, Redman, Scarface, Master P, Najee, Cypress Hill, and recent Oscar winners Three 6 Mafia.

What happens in Vegas, happens at Aces.com where online gamblers can find ALL the gambling options they enjoy in Las Vegas: casino games, poker, sports betting and horses. New players each receive a free copy of the ACES the Movie DVD.

In another first for the online gaming world, Bodog, the pre-eminent brand in online gaming and entertainment, is proud to announce its promotional partnership with Sierra Entertainment's Scarface: The World Is Yours . The hotly anticipated video game based on the classic Scarface film is set for release on the PlayStation ®2 computer entertainment system, the Xbox ® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC this fall.

The video game is being developed by Radical Entertainment, a Sierra Entertainment studio, through a licensing agreement with Universal Studios Consumer Products Group. Sierra Entertainment is a division of Vivendi Games.

"Bodog is proud to be on the frontline of the emerging convergence of video games and mainstream entertainment by supporting Scarface: The World Is Yours," says Calvin Ayre, Founder of Bodog, who will appear as a non-playable character in the game. "For so many, Scarface is the quintessential underground anti-hero. We are pleased to be part of this groundbreaking video game."

As part of the relationship, Bodog will be spotlighted in numerous segments of the game, including branded video poker, blackjack and slot machines from which players can win in-game points; various "billboards" in the game world will feature Bodog Music, Bodog Battle of the Bands and Calvin Ayre; and the Bodog brand will be seen on the "Stampede" all-terrain vehicle in the game.

Additionally, Bodog Music artists Bif Naked, Neurosonic and Britt Black will each have a song in the game.

As part of the relationship, Bodog will conduct an online promotion and contest via its Bodogmusic.com web site where selected winners will receive free copies of the game and the grand-prize winner will receive a trip for two to "Live Like Tony Montana" at the Bodog Compound located in Costa Rica.

Scarface: The World Is Yours will plunge players deep into the seedy underbelly of 1980s Miami as they become Tony Montana and rebuild his fallen empire while seeking vengeance on his enemies.

Harrah's Entertainment Inc. won approval Tuesday for its plan to sell two riverboat casinos now based in Lake Charles to another gambling company that wants to move one of the boats elsewhere in Louisiana.

Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. plans to buy both casinos and use one as part of an expansion of its existing Lake Charles casino hotel, L'Auberge du Lac. The company wants to move the other casino to another parish, possibly East or West Baton Rouge, though the company has not decided on a location, said Wade Hundley, Pinnacle's president.

The Louisiana Gaming Control Board unanimously approved the $70 million sale of the two casino licenses.

Moving the boats still requires approval in a referendum from voters in Calcasieu Parish -- for one boat's movement within Lake Charles - and from voters in the parish Pinnacle chooses for the other boat.

Hurricane Rita badly damaged the boats. Both have been out of operation since the storm hit last September.

Pinnacle and Harrah's announced an agreement in May to swap the remains of Pinnacle's Biloxi, Miss., casino, which was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina, for the Rita-damaged Lake Charles site.

As part of the deal, Pinnacle will pay Harrah's $70 million for the casino licenses and Harrah's former Lake Charles hotel, which will not reopen, the Las Vegas-based companies said.

Pinnacle also agreed to a noncompete clause under which the company said it would not open a gambling hall in either the New Orleans or Shreveport-Bossier City markets - where Harrah's operates casinos -- for five years. If Pinnacle does open a casino in one of those areas, it would have to pay Harrah's $100 million.

Pinnacle already has plans to expand the year-old L'Auberge du Lac -- one of Louisiana's most successful casinos - from 750 to 1,000 hotel rooms.

The company wants to use one of the Harrah's riverboat licenses for an adjacent casino resort, to be called Sugarcane Bay, planned as a 400-room, upscale hotel-casino with a Caribbean theme. The company already has exercised an option to buy land for Sugarcane Bay and has said it will spend $350 million on the project.

Shannon Shorr now has more than enough money to cover his tuition at the University of Alabama where he's a civil engineering major.

Now that he's made more than a million dollars playing poker, Shorr's wondering if school's his best bet.

Shorr, said he's got some thinking to do after spending eight months as a professional poker player. He got his start by playing on line at Party Poker. He globetrotted around the world playing live events in Australia, Austria, Spain and the Bahamas until he turned 21.

The 21-year-old won the Bellagio Cup competition in Las Vegas this week and was awarded $960,000 dollars. That brings his total 2006 winnings to more than $1.3 million and ranks him THIRD in Cardplayer.com's Professional Poker Player of the Year Contest, trailing Phil Hellmuth Jr. by only 63 points.

Shorr was planning to return to school after finishing 577th in the World Series of Poker Main Event. Instead, he decided to buy into the Bellagio Championship for $10,000 dollars and is now, glad that he did.

Poker newcomer Christian Todte from a small town in western Germany was stunned when he won five straight $5 + $1 Maui "Jackpot Sit 'N Go" tournaments to claim a $25,000 Jackpot Prize at popular online poker room Titan Poker. Christian started the tournament at midday on July 19, 200, and hardly dared to take a break during his five and a half hour winning streak.

Speaking after the tournament, Christian said, "I started to play at noon and only stopped in the evening after winning five consecutive tournaments. After succeeding on the 4th tournament, I felt special and I knew that I was very close to getting the jackpot. I was so excited at this point that I had to take a break of 15 minutes before I was able to start the last one.

"I was stunned after I won the 5th tournament and I just couldn't believe that I had done it! This is an amazing start in the world of poker," Christian recalled.

Titan Poker's jackpot sit 'n' go tournaments are extremely popular and attract veteran and novice poker players alike. The tournaments start immediately when enough players join the table, and tournament winnings are distributed according to Titan Poker's regular payout structure. If a skillful player succeeds in winning the appropriate number of consecutive tournaments, he is also entitled to receive a huge jackpot prize.

The Rio and Maui Sit 'N' Go Tournaments offer starting jackpots of $25,000 and $15,000 respectively. The Rio and Maui jackpots grow progressively each week if no player manages to win enough consecutive tournaments to claim the jackpot prize.

Three Titan Poker players each claimed the $100,000 Fort Knox Jackpot Tournament Prize in April; one of them won the prize without ever having made a deposit at the popular online poker room.

Titan Poker's Jackpot Sit 'n' Go tournaments are just a small part of the many exciting promotions offered at the fast-growing online poker room. Titan Poker regularly sends winning players to land-based tournaments, including the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour.

In May, Titan Poker hosted a $500,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool, which in addition, offered an unprecedented $100 Million Jackpot Prize. The $100 Million Jackpot Prize will be awarded if one of the players hits a Royal Flush of Spades at the Final Table, which will be staged this month in London.

The online gambling standards and player protection body, eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance, today announced it achieved its target of accrediting 100 online casinos and poker rooms before December 2006.

eCOGRA launched its 100 Seals campaign in May this year with 76 accredited sites. In just more than three months the organization has exceeded its goal, with 107 "Play It Safe" seals awarded to tier-one online casinos and poker rooms. These operators use a variety of different software platforms which includes major international providers 888 Holdings, Ongame and Microgaming.

Achieving the target within a matter of months is a reflection of increasing demand from players for the seal, and to the commitment of growing numbers of online gambling operators who want to commit to higher standards of player protection, service and operational efficiency.

"Not only is this a major milestone for eCOGRA, these 107 seals signify a major change in the industry in which players are consistently seeking out the "Play It Safe" seal, and there is a real desire and ability for the industry to self-regulate" said eCOGRA CEO Andrew Beveridge. "To all online operators, if you're ready to meet the 21st century challenges facing the industry, we invite you to commit to our standards and join the ranks of some of the most successful online gambling sites in the world."

No chips to stack, cards to flip, or dealer to tip. Could this be the future of casino poker?

A North Carolina company hopes to hit the jackpot with a version of the game that gets rid of all three, and PokerTek's fully electronic tables have already won converts in cruise ships and on Indian reservations. But will players in Las Vegas poker rooms be willing to give up a felt table for a computer touchscreen?

"It's two trends. It's poker, which is really a huge hit right now, and it's labor-saving technology, which is really popular with the casinos," said David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. "It's a great idea and it's an idea that's in keeping with a lot of trends."

Seat 10 players around one of the company's PokerPro tables and the number of Texas Hold 'em hands played per hour goes up by 50 percent over a dealer-run table, said PokerTek CEO Lou White. That means an increased "rake" for the casino -- the small percentage of each pot collected by the house - and eliminates the cost of a dealer's salary and benefits.

Players get more action - and don't have to tip a dealer, either. As White puts it, "Poker players want to play more hands."

PokerTek has collected endorsements from poker stars like Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan, but will have to win over players like Harold Schmidt, a 40-year-old from Fredericksburg, Va., who busted out of this year's World Series of Poker on the first day of play.

"I like the chips and you know, I like to have people play with the chips and do tricks with the chips," Schmidt said Friday. "Here, what are you going to do, tap your fingers on the screen?"

Sean Ward, 36, of Flagstaff, Ariz., was also dubious.

"Electronics kind of scare me," said Ward, a recreational poker player who was in Las Vegas with his wife. "Seeing the randomness coming out of a deck as opposed to computerized randomization - it's a little bit more, I guess, visual. I don't know about trustworthy but at least you're seeing it."

Play moves quickly around a PokerPro table. The screen shows at a glance how much money is in a player's stack. The hole cards appear face down in the lower right corner; tap lightly, and the cards peel up for a quick peek. A screen in the center of the table displays the current pot and the community cards.

Play is automated, leaving little room for error or confusion about whose turn it is to bet, raise, check or fold. The screen displays a player's available options.

"There's a lot of testosterone in poker rooms," White said. "It is very intimidating. What PokerPro does, it will be very comfortable for people who, once they've learned to play in their kitchen, want to play in a casino."

Rodney Dofort, vice president of casino operations for Miami-based Carnival Corp., installed a table on a Carnival cruise ship this spring.

"We were a little skeptical, because poker is essentially an interactive game," Dofort said. "We were quite pleasantly surprised by the almost immediate acceptance of it that first week." Last month, Carnival signed an agreement with PokerTek to put the tables on up to 30 ships over the next three years.

Another dozen PokerPro tables are in use on other cruise lines and at Indian casinos in Florida and Oklahoma, White said. The company is installing six tables at a new "e-poker" room at Hollywood Park in California, and White said PokerTek is seeking licenses from gaming commissions in Nevada, New Jersey, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Casinos lease the tables from PokerTek, paying a fee to license the company's software. PokerTek, which employs 52 people, went public on the Nasdaq Stock Market last October, and closed at $12 a share Friday, below a 52-week high of $15.95 set in April.

Other companies offer similar systems, including Ashton, Pa.-based Pokermatic Inc.'s "Lightning Poker" table. The Pennsylvania company has a pending federal lawsuit that claims PokerTek told its customers that Lightning Poker infringes on PokerTek patents or patent applications.

"People have seen this business and said, 'Gee, this makes a lot of sense. I think I'd like to copy that,'" White said of the suit. "We have over 27 published patent applications."

AP writer Ryan Nakashima in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

PokerTek: http://www.pokertek.com
UNLV Center for Gaming Research: http://gaming.unlv.edu/

Casino owner Pinnacle Entertainment has sued three insurance carriers over Hurricane Katrina damage at its former Casino Magic property in Biloxi, Miss.

Las Vegas-based Pinnacle claimed the three companies improperly blamed losses on flooding instead of a weather catastrophe of the kind specified in their policies.

Defendants were fully aware that hurricanes cause storm surge and flood," Pinnacle said in a 13-page lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. It accuses the insurance carriers of fabricating arguments to limit or eliminate their responsibility to pay.

Officials at two of the companies - Allianz Global Risks U.S. Insurance Co. in Chicago and Arch Specialty Insurance Co. in New York - did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Dave Leonard, executive vice president at RSUI Indemnity Co. of Atlanta, declined comment.

Pinnacle claims breach of contract and fraud, and seeks damages of $346.5 million -- the difference it calculated between claims for flood rather than weather catastrophe.

Pinnacle also disputes the insurers' contentions that it was not covered for business interruption loss at the damaged floating casino, which remained closed after the Aug. 29 hurricane. Pinnacle agreed to sell the Casino Magic property to Las Vegas-based Harrah's Entertainment Inc. in May.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare Pinnacle's River City Casino & Hotel project in St. Louis County, Mo., a replacement for Casino Magic Biloxi, entitling Pinnacle to collect the full amount of its business interruption loss despite the pending sale.

Pinnacle shares closed Wednesday at $26.32, up $1.32 or 5.3 percent, on the New York Stock Exchange. Company stock has traded from $16.05 to $32.09 over the past year.

Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.: http://www.pnkinc.com
Allianz Global Risks U.S. Insurance Co.: http://www.aic-allianz.com/allianzuswebsite.nsf
Arch Specialty Insurance Co.: http://www.archinsurance.com
RSUI Indemnity Co. http://www.rsui.com