UK Casino Applications Rushed 

UK Casino Applications Rushed

LONDON – As reported by Reuters: "Casino owners are rushing through applications to open new venues ahead of tight new government restrictions from April 2006. "After April, only an initial 17 licences are available for a new wave of casino and leisure venues, one of which will be a Las Vegas-style supercasino. "But until then, owners of Britain's 140 casinos are still free to apply for new licences under the archaic 1968 laws, which the government overhauled this year with a new gaming act. "'There's a bit of a land grab at the moment,' Stanley Leisure's MD of gaming, Michael Riddy, told Reuters at the group's prestigious Crockfords casino in Mayfair. "…The Gambling Commission says that it has 38 licenses under consideration, 15 have also been granted but still await approval by local authorities, while 21 more have been approved at both levels but are not yet operating…"