Gaming briefs for June 24, 2003

Tuesday, June 24, 2003 | 11:18 a.m.

Ex-employee pleads innocent

Christopher Morishita, a former Mirage employee in charge of filing required reports on large casino transactions, was arraigned in Clark County Justice Court on Monday, where he entered an innocent plea, Chief Deputy Attorney General Elizabeth Quillin said.

Morishita, who faces criminal charges for failing to file the reports with the federal government, was appointed an attorney from the public defender's office. The Nevada attorney general is prosecuting the case against Morishita.

He faces a preliminary hearing in justice court July 25.

Mirage parent MGM MIRAGE was recently fined $5 million for failing to file the reports, the largest casino fine in Nevada history.

Internet firm may be sold

LONDON -- Sportingbet Plc, an Internet sports betting company, said it may get a takeover offer of 45.7 million pounds ($76 million) in cash from a suitor it didn't identify.

The 30 pence-a-share proposal is subject to conditions including a recommendation from the board of the London-based company and the renegotiation of obligations with vendors of Sportsbook.com, a U.S. online betting company acquired in 2001, Sportingbet said in a Regulatory News Service statement.

Shares of Sportingbet hadn't started trading by 8:40 a.m. London time. They were unchanged at 28 pence.

Same numbers drawn twice

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- The Pennsylvania lottery drew the same numbers twice in its "Big 4" drawings on Monday, making 3-1-9-9 a very lucky combination indeed for anyone who picked it for both the midday and evening drawings.

Those four numbers were randomly generated by a computer for the midday drawing and then selected in the traditional random ping-pong ball drawing in the evening.

Bill Powell, a lottery representative, said this is the first time such a thing has happened in Pennsylvania, but it has occured elsewhere.

"It's not really that unusual. We've seen it happen in other states," he said.

In fact, Powell said, something similar happened in the three-number Pennsylvania Daily Number drawing less than a month ago. "We had a Daily Number followed by the same number in the midday drawing the next day," he said.

Powell noted that the drawing of a particular set of numbers in the midday drawing has no effect on the possibility of those numbers being picked later. The odds of any four numbers being picked in the Big 4 drawing is 1 in 10,000.

"It's completely random," he said. "The balls do not have a memory."