Las Vegas Venetian to Offer Mobile Gaming

Las Vegas Sands Corp. said Thursday that it would offer mobile gambling to guests at its Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, making it the first company to take advantage of a new Nevada law permitting hand-held devices at a casino’s public areas.

The portable machines will be made and operated by Cantor Gaming, an affiliate of financial-services company Cantor Fitzgerald in New York. Cantor Gaming last week was licensed by the Nevada Gaming Commission to run the devices.

In March, the Nevada Gaming Control Board approved the use of mobile devices for gambling, making Nevada the first state to allow gambling on hand-held devices. The approval may be the first step toward the expansion of legalized casino-type gambling on cellphones and over the Internet, said Sue Schneider, publisher of Interactive Gaming News, a St. Louis-based trade publication.

“They’ve come up with the first baby step to allow it to take place on the resort but outside the actual casino,” Schneider said. “It’s definitely a first step.”

Wireless gaming on hand-held devices will be allowed in public areas of the casino such as restaurants, nightclubs and poolside. The companies said the mobile machines will offer blackjack, roulette, video poker and slots.

Cantor Gaming will begin field trials of the devices this year or early next year at the Venetian and the Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino, which is scheduled to open next door in 2007.

Other companies that have expressed interest in the use of hand-held machines for gambling are International Game Technology and Shuffle Master Inc., both Las Vegas-based gaming-equipment makers, and Diamond I Inc., a Baton Rouge, La.-based maker of wireless technology.