Lakes Entertainment has until tomorrow to present the plans for its $200 million casino to the Mississippi Gaming Commission.

Commission director, Larry Gregory, said that the company has until February 17th to provide at least 85 per cent of the hotel and casino resort’s plans, according to Associated Press.

Mr Gregory said: “We’re expecting to see them within the near future.”

The company has selected Vicksburg as the location for the new 400-room hotel and casino meaning the city would have five casinos if the development does go ahead.

There has been a continuing expansion in the casino industry recently and even Hollywood stars like George Clooney have decided to invest in the Mecca of gambling itself, Las Vegas.

However, much of the industry growth has been in the online gaming sector. Customers are able to bet from the comfort of their own homes using secure online casinos such as VIP Casino which has an excellent reputation for high payout percentages and top-notch customer service.

The new resort is expected to create around 1,900 jobs in the region and the casino will feature 1,500 slot machines, 40 table games, a poker room and also 7,000 feet of meeting space.

Cingular has selected the latest game from the Superscape Group for download – the 3D version of Capone Casino.

The game is set in a seedy casino owned by Big Al and his sidekick peanuts and Cingular is hoping that its mobile users will take to the new game offering.

Game choices include roulette, video poker, blackjack and also slot machines and will be complimented by a host of “real” 3D characters.

Also if players are looking for greater excitement they can up the stakes by becoming platinum members and bet with larger amounts.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Superscape, said: “This game which we conceived and developed in-house is proving to be a real winner.

“It combines some of the world’s best known casino games with a great gambling atmosphere to produce a really compelling mobile experience.”

Legend of poker, Doyle Brunson, is heading to the Philippines to play in the inaugural World Celebrity Poker Tournament.

The event is to be hosted by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) on February 22nd.

Some of the world’s top poker players will be taking part in the event including Doyle and Todd Brunson.

The event is to take place at the Casino Filipino in the city of Cebu and as well as the main event a cash game entitled “The Challenge of Champions” will also be happening.

Jack Binion, legendary former host of the World Series of Poker, will be playing in the event and flying the flag for the celebrity contingent.

Doyle Brunson, famously won nine WSOP bracelets and also won a $1 million bet with a friend over whether he could lose 100 pounds.

A casino is the obvious choice if you are hankering after a few hands of Texas Hold ‘Em or even if you want to try your luck with a spin of the roulette wheel.

However, a casino might not be your first choice of venue if you are looking to break the Guinness World Record for the longest ever blind date.

But that is exactly what happened at Foxwoods Casino Resort this week when Tara Fortunato and Keith Santarelli made an attempt at the record.

Although, given the 24-hour nature of casinos and the fact that Guinness regulations state that the pair were not able to sleep, perhaps the choice of venue was quite sensible after all.

Other conditions of the record attempt included the pair being together for the entire duration of the blind date.

And to ensure all conditions were met, casino employees followed the couple around the casino as they ate meals together, watched movies, played hockey and also tried their luck on a few tables.

The date began on Monday morning and ended on Valentine’s Day afternoon but the record must be verified before it is officially recognised.

A newly registered VIP Casino player hit the jackpot and won himself a staggering $131,250 after playing online for just one day.

Winner Jemo registered on the popular casino site on February 12th and just one day later was celebrating a $131,250 win after depositing just $100 on the aptly named Rags to Riches progressive slot.

Ecstatic at his win, Jemo stated how the situation was a dream come true. “When I won I just stared and stared at the screen with my mouth wide open, thinking this is not real,” he said.

And Jemo is in good hands with VIP Casino, as the company was recently awarded top spots for both the “Best Player Reward Program” and also “Fastest Payouts” categories in 2005 by leading industry publication Strictly Slots.

Rags to Riches is a progressive jackpot where the pool continues to accumulate until a lucky someone spins the much sought-after ‘Jackpot’ symbol.

Kate Berkley, VIPCasino.com manager, said: “It’s fantastic to see new players win big. We pride ourselves on our jackpots, and this is proven by the fact that more and more new punters are playing with us every day.”

An independent auditor reviews VIP Casino payout rates every month and the company has quickly established itself as a market leading online casino in this area.

Hello and welcome to the VIP Casino blog – the only place for up-to-date news concerning the online casino and poker world.

With the very latest information on VIP Casino’s great offers and promotions, inter-blog.com is the crucial site to visit to keep your finger on the pulse.

We’ll have all the news from the casino industry as well as the latest offers and promotions from your favorite gambling site, VIP Casino. There will be regular news on the VIP Platinum Club and how best to build up those important points and also how the Cash Reward Program operates.

We will keep you updated on the host of quality games that VIP offers including recent slot additions such as Haunted House, Congo Bongo and Around the World and all the other classic casino favorites like Blackjack and Roulette.

So with thousands to be won, tournaments to enjoy, a Cash Reward Program and of course the VIP Platinum Club – can you afford to miss out?

Mats Iremark, a little-known Swede, has won the French Open stage of the European Poker Tour (EPT).

The town of Deauville in France hosted the 434 poker players that took part in the event this weekend with each contestant paying a €4,000 buy-in fee.

First prize in the competition was a sizeable €480,000, while Iremark also bagged himself a spot at the EPT Grand Final to be held in Monte Carlo – worth an estimated €10,000.

Some of the bigger poker players that played in the event included the Hendon Mobster Ram Vaswani, Marcel “The Flying Dutchamn” Luske and Isabelle “No Mercy” Mercier.

The 2004 WSOP champion, Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, took part but was unfortunately the first player to be knocked out of proceedings.

Both Mercier and Vaswani made it to the final table after some strong play but were eventually eliminated in seventh and fifth place respectively.

Australian casino mogul, Kerry Packer is to be remembered in a film about his life.

Gambling baron Packer died on December 26th 2005 aged 68 and will now be immortalised by director John Stockwell on the big screen.

The film will be called “Chasing the Whale” and was also written by the director, according to online-pokernews.com.

Packer was a heavyweight in the gambling community and his nickname of ‘whale’ was in reference to his large presence in the casino where he would often wager bets of million of dollars upwards.

As well as being Australia’s richest man, he also controlled 30 per cent of PBL –the group that runs one of the country’s largest television networks – and owned Crown Casino in Melbourne.

Although the film is a working progress in its early stages and no actors have yet been lined up, reports suggest that development for the script began before Packer’s death.

This year’s annual Los Angeles Music Awards will take place at the Normandie Casino.

It will mark the first time that the 15-year-old event is held at the casino and will take place at 20:00 on Friday February 24th.

The awards recognise the best of the LA local music scene and this year will be followed the next night by the Rock en Espanol event.

Al Bowman, LA Music Awards founder, said: “Having worked for over 15 years to get this event to television has been a monumental challenge to say the least.

“The rise of independent music into the commercial marketplace has enabled the Los Angeles Music Awards to finally become a viable television event.”

Game Account, the London-based skill gaming operator and white-provider, is to launch a new 3-Card Poker game this week.

The new product will be a peer-to-peer game, which is essentially a skill and rake-based adaptation of the popular poker table game, according to Online-Casinos.com.

In the game, opponents will face each other with the aim of building the tallest chip stack possible through the same sequence of cards dealt to both players.

John Jones, Game Account executive, said 3-Card Poker is “a compelling opportunity for egaming operators to generate incremental revenues from existing customers and re-activate lapsed customers with an instantly recognisable skill-based gaming opportunity”.

The launch represents the company’s move to distribute gaming products into a network of poker and casino sites.

Initially, Game Account will launch with a host of instant-win cash tournaments where the entry fees will span from $2 to $900.