A 36-year-old man was booked into jail in Las Vegas over the weekend in an undercover sex trafficking sting on the Strip.

The arrest happened after a woman attempted to steal $3,000 from a Las Vegas undercover vice officer posing as a customer, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Brent Keith Rodgers was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on Sunday. He is due in court Dec. 30 on charges of facilitating sex trafficking of a victim over 18, conspiracy to commit theft and more, according to the newspaper.

The woman went to the officer’s hotel room on the Strip. The officer placed cash in a dresser drawer and left the room momentarily. Surveillance video shows the woman taking the money while on a phone call. After she left the room, police waiting outside arrested her. The money was recovered from her purse, the Review-Journal reported.

Police located Rodgers in the hotel by examining the woman’s phone. The suspect said the woman was a model who had gone to the room to pose for photos. He denied being her pimp, according to the newspaper.

The woman also was arrested. Her name was redacted in the police report.

Sex Crimes

The incident Sunday was the latest in recent sex crime arrests in the Las Vegas area.

Christopher Mark Damron, 46, of Oxnard, California, was booked into jail last week, facing charges of soliciting a child for prostitution and luring a child for sexual acts, according to news reports.

The man replied to an online prostitution ad, saying he was grumpy because he had lost money, so was “trying to get happy,” according to the Review-Journal. He agreed to pay $200 for sex, police said.

Damron went the next day to an agreed-upon location, where he was arrested. He told officers he was not planning on having sex with the 15-year-old girl. He said he only wanted to take her ice skating at a rink at the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas on the Strip, according to the Review-Journal.

Damron’s arrest was one of 11 in a law enforcement crackdown on internet crimes against children in the area. Police also arrested an elementary school assistant principal.

Off-Strip Arrest

In November, police arrested 49-year-old Trevor Carter at an off-Strip hotel-casino on suspicion of sex-trafficking a juvenile under the age of 18, according to news reports.

The man told the juvenile female to charge $500 for each sexual encounter. She also was told to look for men wearing “cowboy buckles and boots” as potential good customers, according to published accounts.

The juvenile was told to make her customers drink a shot of liquor to be sure the person was not an undercover officer, police said.

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Veikkaus, the only entity authorized to provide gambling services in Finland, confirmed this week that it will roll out the previously announced compulsory identification verification controls across its network of slot machines on January 12, 2021.

Under Finland’s amended Lotteries Act, mandatory ID verification for slot machine players was supposed to be implemented from 2023. However, following pressure that it should strengthen its responsible gambling policies, Veikkaus revised its plans and committed to introducing the measures at the end of January 2021.

The company has now said that it would be able to complete the task a few weeks earlier than expected.

Veikkaus Shuts Temporarily Slot Machines in Many Areas as Virus Surges

The mandatory ID verification will require slot machine players to identify themselves every time they want to play with the Veikkaus player card, an approved mobile app, or a bank card that is connected to the company’s database. The new measures will also enable players to self-exclude from gambling across Veikkaus’ slot machines estate.

The Finnish gambling operator said previously that the new ID verification controls would help it build a gaming environment that would make it possible for it to look after problem gamblers and players who show early signs of gambling addiction.

ID Verification Will First Be Introduced at Third-Party Locations

It should be noted that the compulsory ID verification will first be introduced across slot machines located at third-party sites that are not owned by Veikkaus, such as restaurants, shops, and petrol stations. Devices at these will require players to verify their identity from January 12.

The operator will roll out mandatory verification across its slot arcades in the summer of 2021, it also became known.

Veikkaus launched a pilot scheme for account-based play in September when it introduced mandatory ID verification across several slot machines. It extended the pilot program in November by rolling out account-based play across additional devices.

As part of its new responsible gambling policies, Veikkaus is also looking to reduce its slot machine estate by 8,000 devices by the end of the year. The company previously announced that it would shut 3,500 machines by the end of 2020, but later on unveiled plans to retire more devices. The company will ring into 2021 with 10,500 slot machines around Finland.

In separate news, Veikkaus’ online gambling software partner IGT announced earlier this week that it would soon launch its remote game server and online casino content with Finland’s gambling monopoly. Veikkaus will gain access to IGT’s products via the latter’s PlayDigital solution.

As Veikkaus is reducing its land-based offering, online gambling has been increasingly important for the Finnish gambling monopoly.

However, the Finnish operator landed in hot water over its multi-year and multi-million-euro partnership with IGT as Veikkaus was found to have entered into that partnership without holding a bidding process, which clashed with Finnish rules and laws.

In response to criticism over the agreement, Veikkaus Director of Legal Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility Pekka Ilmivalta said earlier this year that what they had with IGT was “a continuation of an old agreement where it was not necessary to have a separate tender.”

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The New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) on Tuesday gave a final site plan approval for a proposed indoor water park at Showboat Atlantic City.

But the CRDA is yet to give one more key approval before the project moves forward. The Showboat’s owner, Philadelphia-based real estate developer Bart Blatstein is seeking an entertainment retail district designation for his proposed expansion project.

This designation would make the planned water park eligible for tax incentives. Mr. Blatstein’s development corporation could get an annual tax rebate of $2.5 million for up to 20 years if his request is granted. The CRDA is expected to consider the matter at a separate meeting within the next few weeks.

Groundbreaking for the project is expected to happen in the spring of 2021, officials said Tuesday.

The Showboat had operated as a hotel-casino complex for 16 years before its closure in 2014. Mr. Blatstein bought the Boardwalk property in early 2016 and reopened it as a non-gambling resort in the summer of that year.

He previously unveiled plans to build a casino on an adjacent site off New Jersey Avenue, but that site will now be used for the indoor water park. The developer has remained mum on the casino idea since proposing the water park in early 2020.

The Project

Mr. Blatstein plans to build a 103,000-square-foot indoor water park and a 30,000-square-foot family entertainment center and to completely renovate the Premier Lite tower at the Showboat. The water park is set to be developed on a New Jersey Avenue block between the Showboat and Ocean Casino Resort.

Mr. Blatstein believes the water park will help the Showboat attract families and non-gambling guests and draw tourists all year round and not just during the busy summer months.

The developer said Tuesday after he won a site plan approval that “it’s abundantly clear that Atlantic City is lacking in family destinations” and that there is not enough for families to do in the city. He went on that his plan will create the city’s “first year-round family resort.”

The Showboat proposal is the latest in a series of water park projects pitched in Atlantic City in recent years. In 2017, a group of investors led by businessman Ronald Young signed a deal to acquire the shuttered Atlantic Club Casino Hotel and reopen it as a family-friendly complex with an indoor water park.

Financing for that venture dried up and so did the plan. The hotel-casino resort went back on the market. It was purchased last year by New York-based investor and developer Colosseo Atlantic City Inc. The property’s new owner said back then that it would reopen it as a non-gambling resort, but it is to be seen whether a water park would be attached to it.

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Casino operator Boyd Gaming this week announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell Eldorado Casino in Henderson, Southern Nevada.

The company will unload the gambling venue to DeSimone Gaming for an undisclosed amount. A spokesperson confirmed the deal but did not reveal additional details about it.

Eldorado Casino will be DeSimone Gaming’s second property in Henderson. The company currently owns Railroad Pass Hotel, Casino & Travel Center, which is known to be the oldest running casino in the city.

After selling Eldorado Casino, Boyd will own 11 gambling venues in Nevada. The downtown Henderson casino is one of three Boyd properties that have not resumed operations since the statewide closure of casinos and other non-essential businesses that went into effect in March as part of Nevada’s efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The company’s other casinos that are yet to reopen are Eastside Cannery Casino-Hotel and Main Street Station Casino, Brewery & Hotel, both located in Las Vegas.

In August, Boyd filed paperwork with the Henderson City Council to extend the temporary closure of Eldorado through June 2021 citing the Covid-19 pandemic and its negative impact. The company joined rival casino operator Station Casinos in putting its gaming license in non-operational status until mid-2021.

During an October earnings call with investors, Keith Smith, President and CEO of Boyd Gaming, said that the company would probably reopen Main Street Station and Eastside Cannery first and then Eldorado, but the properties’ reopening “will depend on how the business flows.”

A Non-Core Asset

A Boyd Gaming spokesperson said that the company has decided to sell the property because it was “a non-core asset.” He noted further that as Boyd has “continued to grow over the years, this property represented a very modest part of our overall business.”

Things were completely different for Eldorado Casino once. In fact, it was the first property ever in Boyd Gaming’s portfolio. The company’s founder, Sam Boyd, partnered with his son Bill in the early 1960 to purchase the Wheel Casino in Henderson and rename it Eldorado.

The property has over 17,756 square feet of gaming area. It features slot machines, a sportsbook, and dining options, but has no hotel attached to it. DeSimone Gaming said that it would probably reopen the casino in the spring of 2021.

While Eldorado Casino’s new owner could not share details about its plans for the downtown Henderson venue, it said that it is “extremely bullish” on the development of that part of the city, suggesting that their new addition could would be part in that development.

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Months before his death, Las Vegas investor Tony Hsieh was hospitalized when an anonymous 911 call indicated he was threatening to hurt himself, according to published accounts.

On June 30, a male caller told a 911 dispatcher that Hsieh was smashing things at his Park City, Utah home and making threats about hurting himself, according to the New York Post. The Post based its story on emergency call logs that Business Insider reported obtaining.

Hsieh retired in August as the chief executive officer at Zappos, a Las Vegas-based online shoe-and-clothing company. He apparently moved not long ago to Park City, a ski resort town just east of Salt Lake City. He died in November after a house fire in Connecticut.

The 911 call in June was treated as “a psychiatric incident” and resulted in the 46-year-old Hsieh being taken to a hospital, the Post reported.

A story in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week indicated that Hsieh had been experimenting with drugs in the months leading up to his death. He also was trying to see how much food and oxygen he could do without. His weight had dropped to below 100 pounds, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Before his death, singer-songwriter Jewel sent Hsieh a ‘blunt’ letter, saying her longtime friend was using too many drugs, according to Forbes magazine. Jewel told him he risked going from “eccentric to madness.”

Plans to Enter Rehab

Hsieh died the day after Thanksgiving at a hospital in Bridgeport, Conn. Authorities ruled his death was an accident caused by complications from smoke inhalation.

Nine days earlier, fire crews pulled Hsieh out of a storage shed with smoke coming from it at a waterfront home in New London, Conne.

After emergency crews took Hsieh to a hospital in New London, he was airlifted to the Connecticut Burn Center in Bridgeport, about 65 miles west of New London.

Hsieh had been in New London visiting reported girlfriend Rachael Brown and a brother. The $1.3-million house belongs to Brown, a Las Vegas cellist who began working at Zappos in 2004 as one of the company’s first 100 employees. She had recently moved to Utah with Hsieh, according to news reports.

Hsieh, who would have turned 47 on Dec. 12, had expressed plans the day before his death to enter a rehabilitation clinic in Hawaii, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Downtown Las Vegas Revival

Authorities this week continued to investigate the cause of the fire in New London

As this continues, a judge in Las Vegas has given Hsieh’s family control of his estate, according to KLAS-TV. The tech guru’s fortune was estimated at $840 million.

The family sought control of his financial information and social media accounts. The court has required the family to compile a list of Hsieh’s assets.

Hsieh, a Harvard University graduate with a computer science degree, is credited with spending millions to transform a neglected area in downtown Las Vegas near the casino district.

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