The South Korean mint is getting into the casino business. According to the country’s Aju Business Daily media outlet, the official South Korean Minting and Security Printing Corp. will mint casino chips using advanced technology designed to prevent forgery. The chip production was born out of a partnership between the mint and Grand Korea Leisure Co. Ltd. (GKL).

GKL is a state-owned entity that operates a number of Seven Luck casinos that are open only to foreigners. The agreement will see the mint use “three-dimensional security technology” as well as sensitive materials found in regular currency that will make the chips almost impossible to counterfeit.

Different methods of technology has been employed to try to prevent fake chips from hitting the market. Several casino operators, such as Wynn Casino, use RFID technology. Palm Gaming, a chip manufacturer, has also developed a chip that incorporates an audible signal that sounds when tested using a handheld reader.

While chip counterfeiting is rare, it does happen. A US Navy admiral, Timothy Michael Giardina, who formerly served as the deputy commander of the US nuclear forces, was busted in 2013 for using two chips at a casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa that had been doctored. The chips were $1 chips that had been altered to look like $500 chips and a subsequent investigation led to Giardina being reduced in rank and forced into retirement in 2015.

If Landing International didn’t already have enough problems, it probably wouldn’t mind the latest bit of news. The Hong Kong-based casino operator is being monitored by South Korean regulators in Jeju, where it operates Jeju Shinhwa World through a subsidiary.

The monitoring is only precautionary. It is based on the revelation by Landing that it has not been able to reach its chairman, Chinese businessman Yang Zhihui, since August 23. The company has not provided any public details on the chairman’s whereabouts since it made that announcement.

The Jeju Casino Regulatory Division said that it will keep its eye on the company, but that it currently has no “special actions planned.” It didn’t specify details on how it is monitoring Landing.

This past Friday, Landing announced that it had appointed two new executive directors to the company’s board, both of which were effective as of September 1. The first is Xu Ning who, according to the announcement, is the spouse of Yang. Yang’s controlling interest of Landing, at 50.48%, is more than likely an impetus for his wife being appointed. Xu, who previously served as an executive director for almost three years, will be able to claim a director’s fee worth $611,496 annually.

Mississippi’s coastal casinos have shut down their gaming floors as Tropical Storm Gordon bears down on the state.

On Tuesday, the Mississippi Gaming Commission (MGC) issued a brief statement via its website, saying that Mississippi coastal casinos – 11 of the state’s gaming venues, including most of the larger operations – would close at 5pm “due to deminishing [sic] weather conditions from Tropical Storm Gordon.”

Customers who have already booked into their rooms at the casinos’ hotels will be allowed to remain in place, and guests may take advantage of the properties’ other amenities, but gaming floors will remain off-limits until the weather gods sound the all-clear.

The storm is supposed to make landfall Tuesday night around 8pm local time just west of Gulfport. As of 5pm, the storm was generating winds of 70 miles per hour, just shy of Category 1 hurricane status, while rainfall of seven inches or higher is forecast for some areas.

3: Barrels of a Unibet flavour as Christophe de Meulder wins in Belgium, the online poker room sponsor the International Poker Open, and return to Dublin after a seven-year hiatus. 

Belgium.

It’s a decent country.

They have some of the best footballers in the world, cracking French fries, and some decent poker players.

The Microgaming Poker Network needs to get out into the streets of India to rustle up some interest after PokerNation leaves the team to go solo. 

Typically, when I write an article about poker in India, I launch into a diatribe of how India is the second most populous place in the world, and poker is thriving thanks to the recent successes of the likes of Aditya Sushant and Nipun Java, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I’m not going to do that, today.

Instead, I am going to talk about statues.

Two new poker alliances to bring you up to speed on as Kenny Hallaert joins No Limit Gaming and Matt Staples joins Team RunItUp. 

Tension.

I Love it.

Something big is coming… pic.twitter.com/PYC9CUyhCv

Phil Galfond releases an update on his Run It Once online poker room project, and although Phase 1 will not be ready for a summer launch, 1,000 lucky blighters will get the opportunity to beta-test the product for real money. 

It was always a puzzle to me why online poker room operators didn’t hire someone who worked on the Full Tilt online poker software. In my mind’s eye, it was, hands down, the most gorgeous looking and customer-focused software ever designed. And yet, we have always gotten, pardon my french – des ordures. 

Is Run It Once Poker about to change all of that?

Phil Galfond is one of the few universally liked and respected professional poker players in the world. Galfond made his name competing in the highest stakes cash games on Full Tilt and PokerStars, before becoming one of the world’s top poker instructors, first through his affiliation with BlueFirePoker and then going solo with Run It Once (RIO).

UK bookmaker William Hill has reportedly struck a major US-facing sports betting joint venture with regional casino operator Eldorado Resorts.

The news was reported Tuesday by Sky News, which claimed official word would likely be issued Wednesday. According to Sky’s report, the deal would see the Nevada-based Eldorado take a 20% stake in William Hill US, while also receiving “about £50m” in restricted stock in the UK-based parent company.

Sky said Hills had been seeking some form of broad-based tie-up with a land-based US casino operator, including Penn National Gaming, but Eldorado apparently proved a better sweet-talker or simply offered Hills the best combination of geographic reach, financial sense and familiarity.

That latter feature comes via the fact that Hills already powers the sportsbooks at Eldorado’s three Reno casinos: the Eldorado, the Silver Legacy and Circus Circus.

Bomb threats phoned into Mexican casinos last month weren’t related to terrorists or drug cartels, at least, according to one state governor.

Last month, five brick-and-mortar casinos in Monterrey, capital of the Mexican state of Nuevo León, had to be evacuated after 911 operators received multiple phone calls over several days claiming that bombs were set to go off in all five venues.

Hundreds of casino customers were forced to hastily evacuate the venues under orders from management. However, no explosions occurred and subsequent searches of the premises failed to uncover a single explosive device.

No doubt some of the patrons who fled the casinos remembered the horrific attack on Monterrey’s Casino Royale in 2011, in which dozens of gunmen sprayed the venue with automatic fire then doused the floor with gasoline and set it ablaze, resulting in the deaths of 52 individuals. The attackers were reportedly responding to a casino owner’s refusal to pay protection money.