The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "casino" ...
-
Casino Licenses Awarded Without Full Background Checks
Police were blocked by the Pennsylvania governor's administration from doing background checks on "prospective licensees of Pennsylvania's nascent slots industry."
Tags: casino; background; police; Ed Rendell; slot; gaming; state government
-
Fast Forturne, Big Spending
The Seminole Tribe of Florida has a "$1 billion-a-year gambling empire" and is one of the wealthiest tribes in America. The Sun-Sentinel looks at how tribal leaders "used millions of the tribes money for their personal benefit with virtually no outside scrutiny."
Tags: Native Americans; Seminole; tribe; Florida; gambling; casino; personal wealth; tribe leaders
-
Sealed Records
"Las Vegas judges sealed many civil cases from public view, though neither Nevada law nor court rules outlined procedures" for doing so. Also court clerks sometimes sealed whole files instead of sections, and a "disproportionate number of the sealed cases involved casinos or their" highly placed employees.
Tags: Las Vegas; casinos; civil cases; FOIA
-
Mississippi Developers' Pasat Includes Fraud
After Hurricane Katrina hit Hancock County, Mississippi, a massive reconstruction project was planned to restore resorts, condominiums and a casino. The developers Paradise Properties of Florida vowed to spend $5 billion to help in the effort, an amount which is worth more than the real estate in Hancock County before the hurricane. But members of the firm have been accused of multi-million dollar internet scams.
Tags: Richard Kern; Donald Kern
-
Siren song: Gambling's allure
Utah formally outlaws all forms of gambling. However, it is available in both illegal and legal forms. There is extensive gambling on the border between Idaho and Utah. Also "bingo halls" and "poker clubs", numerous in Utah, are essentially casinos using loopholes in the law. Internet gambling also is popular due to lax law enforcement.
Tags: gambling; Utah; casinos; lottery; illegal gambling; bingo; poker
-
Ameristar/Stack
A Las Vegas-based gaming company purchased an option to buy a plot of river-front land partially owned by a Pennsylvania state senator and his family. Controversy ensued when it was found that the state had sold water rights valued at $1.5 million for $100,000. Federal prosecutors subpoenaed documents on the sale, and real estate option from the state government and the gaming commission. The company reconfigured the option to exclude the senator and his family and then dropped the deal altogether.
Tags: real estate; controversy; water rights; state government; state public records laws; Ameristar Casinos; SEC
-
"Illegal...And Thriving"
PartyGaming Inc., a British company that operates on-line gambling sites, is at the vanguard of a global goldrush. Even though 90 percent of PartyGaming's revenues come from the U.S., and the Justice Department swears that online gambling is 100 percent illegal, nothing has been done to stop the trend. And with billions of dollars of potential revenues involved, land-based U.S. casinos are eager to get a piece of the on-line action.
Tags: Internet gaming; Internet gambling; IPO's; offshore companies; DOJ
-
Reputation on the Line
This series of stories uncovered a tangled web of relationships, both professional and personal, between Cook County official, Des Plaines city employees, convicted felons, and shareholders of casinos and billboard companies.
Tags: city government; county government; fraud; corruption; Illinois Crime Commission
-
Unfavorable odds: Illegal gambling machines
This investigation reveals how pervasive illegal video gambling is in Indiana and Kentucky and why it is largely overlooked and unofficially tolerated. The stories also explore the effect such unregulated gambling is having on people's lives. Prosecutors in Indiana cite the long odds of winning any convictions if they try to prosecute the bars and truck stops that own the gambling machines because Indiana has legalized casino gambling. The machines themselves pay out at about 55 to 60 cents per dollar compared with 80 to 93 cents per dollar at regulated, legal casinos.
Tags: gambling; slot machines; video gambling machines; illegal gambling
-
A Billion - Dollar Bet
This investigation showed how Baltimore developer David S. Cordish used tax-free municipal bonds to build two glitzy casino complexes for the Seminole Tribe in Florida. Tax-exempt bonds are supposed to be issued only for "essential government functions" and private developers are barred from benefiting from them. But, those regulations were being ignored, until these Sun reporters brought the deal into the spotlight.
Tags: real estate; development; gambling; bonds; IRS; Internal Revenue Service; Auditors