- Hackers who breached casino giants MGM, Caesars also hit 3 other firms, Okta says Reuters
- MGM losing up to $8.4M per day as cyberattack paralyzes slot machines, hotels for 8th straight day: analyst New York Post
- Tennessee couple canceled their trip to Las Vegas after news of the cybersecurity issues KTNV 13 Action News Las Vegas
- 2 Las Vegas casinos fell victim to cyberattacks, shattering the image of impenetrable casino security Fox 5 Las Vegas
- Employee at MGM Resorts property says some paychecks short amid cybersecurity breach Fox 5 Las Vegas
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Casino
Hackers who breached casino giants MGM, Caesars also hit 3 other firms, Okta says – Yahoo Canada Finance
- Hackers who breached casino giants MGM, Caesars also hit 3 other firms, Okta says Yahoo Canada Finance
- MGM losing up to $8.4M per day as cyberattack paralyzes slot machines, hotels for 8th straight day: analyst New York Post
- Tennessee couple canceled their trip to Las Vegas after news of the cybersecurity issues KTNV 13 Action News Las Vegas
- 2 Las Vegas casinos fell victim to cyberattacks, shattering the image of impenetrable casino security Fox 5 Las Vegas
- Employee at MGM Resorts property says some paychecks short amid cybersecurity breach Fox 5 Las Vegas
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Henry Cavill Would Have Made An Excellent James Bond, Says ‘Casino Royale’ Director – Deadline
- Henry Cavill Would Have Made An Excellent James Bond, Says ‘Casino Royale’ Director Deadline
- Henry Cavill’s Bond Audition Was ‘Tremendous,’ Says ‘Casino Royale’ Director: ‘If Daniel Craig Didn’t Exist, Henry Would’ve Made an Excellent 007’ Yahoo Entertainment
- Henry Cavill Might’ve Been James Bond If Daniel Craig Hadn’t Auditioned TMZ
- 007 Director Calls Henry Cavill’s James Bond Audition ‘Tremendous’ IGN
- Casino Royale director on why Henry Cavill wasn’t chosen as Bond (and why he probably won’t be again) Yahoo Entertainment
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Rachel McAdams turned down ‘Iron Man,’ ‘Casino Royale’ roles for this reason – Fox News
- Rachel McAdams turned down ‘Iron Man,’ ‘Casino Royale’ roles for this reason Fox News
- Rachel McAdams turned down a string of huge movies – and we should all be thankful The Guardian
- Rachel McAdams Explains Why She Turned Down ‘Devil Wears Prada’ And Left Hollywood HuffPost
- Rachel McAdams quit acting for two years to ‘stay sane’ Page Six
- Rachel McAdams Reveals She Turned Down Roles In ‘Mission: Impossible III,’ ‘Iron Man,’ ‘Casino Royale,’ ‘Get Smart’ & ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ Over Two Years The Playlist
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Washington woman with tuberculosis arrested, forced to undergo treatment after boarding bus to casino – New York Daily News
- Washington woman with tuberculosis arrested, forced to undergo treatment after boarding bus to casino New York Daily News
- Woman diagnosed with tuberculosis wanted for arrest after refusing to isolate, seek treatment KPRC Click2Houston
- Woman diagnosed with tuberculosis boards bus for casino trip Boston 25 News
- Woman with tuberculosis faces jail, forced treatment after she refused isolation and visited a casino FOX 13 Seattle
- A Woman With Tuberculosis Took a Bus to a Casino While Officer With a Warrant for Her Arrest Let Her Go NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Cambodia casino fire: Rescue teams resume search in Poipet
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
CNN
—
Search and rescue operations resumed in Cambodia Friday morning following the deadly fire that engulfed a border city casino complex, killing at least 19 people and leaving dozens unaccounted for, according to authorities.
Cambodian officials expect the death toll to rise from the blaze at the Grand Diamond City Hotel and Casino in Poipet and rescuers who crossed the nearby Thai border to help told CNN Friday that more bodies had been found trapped inside hotel rooms.
Somboon Kwan-uam, with Thailand’s Poh Teck Tung Foundation, said smoke levels in the corridors were lower Friday after hampering earlier rescue efforts when many of the victims were found dead from smoke inhalation locked inside their hotel rooms.
“We found seven more bodies from rooms on the second floor,” Somboon said Friday.
Some of the victims’ bodies were expected to be transported back to Thailand Friday, he added.
Another 70 people were injured in the blaze, Banteay Meanchey province spokesman Sek Sokhom told CNN earlier.
The cause of the fire remains unknown and the Cambodian government has set up a committee to investigate, Sek Sokhom said Friday.
Thai rescue workers who responded to emergency calls from Cambodian authorities said some victims had jumped to their deaths from the burning building in a frantic attempt to escape.
“Two people died immediately when they hit the ground and around four to five (others) broke their legs,” said Peerapan Srisakorn, from the Aranyaprathet Rescue Foundation.
Videos on the group’s Facebook page showed rescue workers in helmets and protective gear walking through smoke-filled corridors.
Sek Sokhom said the hotel used an electric system for rooms and elevators, so when the fire started and the building lost electricity, many people were stuck in their rooms and could not escape.
Approximately 700 Thai citizens were rescued and sent to hospitals in Thailand, according to authorities.
Some 300 police officers, 11 fire trucks and a number of helicopters were deployed to the scene, according to Banteay Meanchey Provincial Police Commissioner Maj. Gen. Sithi Loh. The hotel’s narrow and elevated layout had made it difficult to fully assess the status of the blaze, he added.
Poipet, a transport hub between Cambodia’s Siem Reap and the Thai capital Bangkok, is known for its multiple casinos and is home to many Thais who work in the city’s gambling industry. Almost all forms of gambling are illegal in Thailand so many Thais cross the border to gamble legally.
Photos from the scene on Wednesday night showed huge bright amber flames and plumes of smoke rising from the complex.
Peerapan, from the Aranyaprathet Rescue Foundation, earlier told CNN he suspected the fire started at a lower floor restaurant before spreading to other parts of the compound. “Some people ran to the rooftop, (thinking) that the Cambodians might have a rescue crane to help – but they didn’t have one,” he said.
Weather conditions may have helped the fire to spread, he added.
“It was very windy last night,” he said. “The fire spread up quickly to the upper floors and then to every side, engulfing the whole building.”
He said he also saw a building lose electricity and the lights go off.
How a magician-mathematician revealed a casino loophole
To study riffle shuffles rigorously, Diaconis used a powerful mathematical tool called a Markov chain.
“A Markov chain is any repeated action where the outcome depends only on the current state and not on how that state was reached”, explains Sami Hayes Assaf, a mathematician at the University of Southern California. This means that Markov chains have no “memory” of what came before. This is a pretty good model for shuffling cards, says Assaf. The result of the seventh shuffle depends only on the order of the cards after the sixth shuffle, not on how the deck was shuffled the five times prior to that.
Markov chains are widely used in statistics and computer science to handle sequences of random events, whether they are card shuffles or vibrating atoms or fluctuations in stock prices. In each case, the future “state” – the order of the deck, the energy of an atom, the value of a stock – depends only on what’s happening now, not what happened before.
Despite their simplicity, Markov chains can be used to make predictions about the likelihood of certain events after many iterations. Google’s PageRank algorithm, which ranks websites in their search engine results, is based on a Markov chain that models the behaviour of billions of internet users randomly clicking on web links.
Working with Dave Bayer, a mathematician at Columbia University in New York, Diaconis showed that the Markov chain describing riffle shuffles has a sharp transition from ordered to random after seven shuffles. This behaviour, known to mathematicians as a cut-off phenomenon, is a common feature of problems involving mixing. Think of stirring cream into coffee: as you stir, the cream forms thin white streaks in the black coffee before they suddenly, and irreversibly, become mixed.
Knowing which side of the cut-off a deck of cards is on – whether it is properly shuffled or if it still preserves some memory of its original order – gives gamblers a distinct advantage against the house.
In the 1990s, a group of students at Harvard and MIT were able to beat the odds playing blackjack at casinos around the US by using card counting and other methods to detect if the deck was properly shuffled. Casinos responded by introducing more sophisticated card-shuffling machines, and shuffling the deck before it is fully played, as well as stepped-up surveillance of players. But it is still rare to see a deck of cards shuffled by machine the requisite seven times at a casino.
Casino executives may not have paid much heed to Diaconis and his research, but he continues to have an enormous influence on mathematicians, statisticians and computer scientists who study randomness. At a conference held at Stanford in January 2020 to honour Diaconis’s 75th birthday, colleagues from around the world gave talks on the mathematics of genetic classification, how cereal settles in a shaking box, and, of course, card shuffling.
Diaconis doesn’t care for gambling much himself – he says there are better and more interesting ways to make a living. But he doesn’t begrudge players who try to get an edge by using their brains.
“Thinking isn’t cheating,” he says. “Thinking is thinking.”
*Shane Keating is a science writer and senior lecturer in mathematics and oceanography at the University of New South Wales, Sydney
—
Join one million Future fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “The Essential List” – a handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife, Travel and Reel delivered to your inbox every Friday.
Judge ends DOJ lobbying suit against casino mogul Steve Wynn, who grew up in CNY
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit that sought to force longtime casino developer Steve Wynn to register as a foreign agent because of lobbying work it said he conducted at the behest of the Chinese government during the Trump administration.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg did not address in his 20-page order whether Wynn was functioning as a Beijing agent. Instead, he said he agreed with Wynn’s lawyers that the department could not compel him now to register as a foreign agent because any relationship Wynn had with the Chinese government ended in 2017.
The order is a setback for stepped-up Justice Department efforts to enforce a decades-old law known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act. It requires anyone who lobbies on behalf of a foreign government or entity to register their work with the U.S. government.
“We are delighted that the District Court today dismissed the government’s ill-conceived lawsuit against Steve Wynn,” his lawyers, Reid Weingarten and Robert Luskin, said in a statement. “Mr. Wynn never acted as an agent of the Chinese government and never lobbied on its behalf.”
The Justice Department said in a statement that it “respectfully disagrees with today’s ruling and is considering options in the litigation and more generally,” and remains committed to enforcing the lobbying law.
The department had repeatedly advised Wynn over the past four years to register. It sued him in May to try to force him to do so, describing the suit as the first of its kind in more than three decades.
The complaint alleged that Wynn, a prolific Republican donor and onetime finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, lobbied then-President Donald Trump and members of his administration for several months in 2017 to expel from the United States a Chinese citizen who had been charged with corruption in China and was seeking political asylum in America. Efforts to send the man back to China were ultimately unsuccessful.
According to the complaint, the lobbying effort was conducted on behalf of senior Chinese government officials, including Sun Lijun, the then-vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security who sought Wynn’s help in trying to get the Chinese man’s new U.S. visa application denied.
The lobbying effort also included conversations over dinner with Trump and by telephone, and multiple visits to the White House by Wynn for apparently unscheduled meetings with the issue was discussed.
The complaint said Wynn was motivated to protect his business interests in China. At the time, his company owned and operated casinos in the Chinese territory of Macau. The government in Macau had restricted the number of gaming tables and machines that could be operated at Wynn’s casino, the Justice Department said, and he was scheduled to renegotiate licenses to operate casinos in 2019.
Lawyers for Wynn denied at the time of the suit that he had acted as an agent of the Chinese government or that he had had an obligation to register. They later moved to dismiss the lawsuit, noting that his relationship with the Chinese government had ended in 2017.
Wynn’s team cited a 1987 appeals court opinion suggesting that the obligation to register as a foreign agent terminates once the relationship with foreign entity has ended. In his opinion, Boasberg said that ruling required dismissal of the suit.
“The Court will thus do so without ever considering whether Wynn was a PRC agent or not,” Boasberg wrote, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
Wynn grew up in Utica and is a 1959 graduate of The Manlius School, which later merged with Manlius Pebble Hill School. He donated $50 million for a new hospital being built in downtown Utica that will be named after him.
Wynn resigned in 2018 as chairman and CEO of the casino and resorts company bearing his name, after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct. He has denied those allegations.
Las Vegas Strip stabbings: 2 people are dead, 6 others wounded in front of Wynn casino, police say
CNN
—
A suspect is in custody after two people were killed and six others were wounded in a series of stabbings in front of a casino in Las Vegas on Thursday, police said.
Three of the surviving six victims were taken to hospitals, where they were in critical condition, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a news release. The remaining three victims were in stable condition.
One victim died at the scene, and another was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.
The suspect, 32-year-old Yoni Barrios, was taken into custody on two counts of open murder with a deadly weapon and six counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, police said in the news release. The suspect has been booked into Clark County Detention Center. It is unclear if Barrios has legal representation.
The incident took place near the Wynn hotel and casino in the 3100 block of South Las Vegas Boulevard shortly before noon. Police Capt. Dori Koren said it was too early to determine a motive.
“The initial stabbing occurs on the sidewalk area. It appears unprovoked. There is no altercation beforehand,” Police Deputy Chief James LaRochelle said earlier Thursday. “That stabbing occurs quickly, and then the suspect subsequently goes southbound on the sidewalk area and stabs additional victims.”
A large kitchen knife was found at the scene, police said.
Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said the victims were a combination of locals and tourists, and police will provide information on them after their families have been contacted.
The suspect doesn’t appear to be from the area and is believed to have acted alone, authorities said.
“Our thoughts are with the victims of this senseless attack on the Strip today,” Clark County officials said in a statement posted on Facebook. “We are grateful for the quick response from our Clark County Fire Department, LVMPD and other first responders.”
2 dead, 3 in critical condition from stabbings outside Las Vegas casino: Police
Two people are dead and three are in critical condition from a series of stabbings outside a Las Vegas casino on Thursday, according to police.
There are eight victims total from the incident, which started around 11:40 a.m. local time, Las Vegas police said. They include both locals and tourists, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said during a press briefing Thursday.
Law enforcement vehicles are shown along the Las Vegas Strip where multiple people were stabbed on Oct. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas.
KTNV
The initial stabbing, which occurred on the sidewalk along Las Vegas Boulevard, appears to have been unprovoked, Deputy Chief James LaRochelle told reporters.
The suspect then proceeded south and stabbed five more victims, and then an additional victim on Sands Avenue, he said. It’s unclear when or where the eighth victim was stabbed.
One victim was pronounced dead at the scene, and a second died after being transported to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, police said. Three patients are hospitalized in stable condition, police said.
The Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner identified the two people who died as Brent Allan Hallett, 47, of Las Vegas, and Maris Mareen Digiovanni, 30, of Las Vegas.
The suspect was taken into custody within a “matter of minutes” by a security guard and police officer after fleeing the scene, police said.
LaRochelle said the suspect is a man in his 30s who recently arrived in Las Vegas. Police are working to confirm his identity, he said.
A large kitchen knife used in the incident has been recovered from the scene, police said.
A motive is unknown, according to police.
“[It’s] hard to comprehend, hard to understand murder investigation,” LaRochelle said.
Law enforcement vehicles are shown along the Las Vegas Strip where multiple people were stabbed on Oct. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas.
KTNV
First responder vehicles are shown along the Las Vegas Strip where multiple people were stabbed on Oct. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas.
KTNV
The victims will be identified pending family notification, the sheriff said.
Authorities stressed there is no known threat to the public at this time, with Lombardo describing the scene of the attacks as “static.”
“The Strip is secure,” he said.
ABC News’ Lisa Sivertsen contributed to this report.