Make Money from Sitting at Home

“Make money from sitting at home”, now this is the buzz word in most of the house holds where mostly urban home makers wanted to do something during their idle time. But how far they are able to achieve this is really a question mark. This is not because they are ill equipped or they are not having enough time to sit before computer / laptop or they spend more time in watching TV.

Its mainly because they are ignorant of facilities available on internet and also ignorant how to get through the appropriate web sites. When there was a show some time back on TV regarding the money making internet, so many house wives called up to know the details on the above, this shows that how much internet based jobs are reaching the people.

There is lot of potential available in the market and if proper approachability is made then this industry would flourish than it is expected in the middle class community.

What kind of Harrah's casino will Cincy see?

Now that the world's largest casino company has been tapped to run Cincinnati's future casino, the question becomes: Which of Harrah's Entertainment's three marquee casino brands will gamblers here see?

Harrah's isn't saying, but industry observers don't expect to see a Casears Cincinnati. That nameplate is the company's luxury brand, reserved for markets that specifically court international gamblers. Only four Caesars casinos exist in the world: Las Vegas; Atlantic City; Windsor, Ontario; and Cairo, Egypt.

• Photos: A look at Harrah's casinos

"I'd be very surprised if they did the Caesars brand in Cincinnati -- it's very high-end," said Lyle Berman, chief executive of Minnesota-based casino operator Lakes Entertainment, which has an option to buy up to a 10 percent interest in Cincinnati's casino.

"When you open a casino in Middle America, you want to be all things to everybody," Berman said. "You want something that appeals to a broad group of people."

More likely is a Harrah's or Horseshoe brand casino, observers said. Harrah's namesake concept has appeal beyond gambling, emphasizing shows and other entertainment to lure gamblers in.

Harrah's slightly higher-end Horseshoe brand, meanwhile, is marketed more as a pure gambler's casino. The Horseshoe originally was founded by legendary gambler Benny Binion, founder of the World Series of Poker.

"I can see it both ways, but I'm partial to a Binion's Horseshoe brand," Berman said. "What brand they'll use I'm not privy to -- we're strictly a passive investor."

Whatever brand Harrah's settles on for Cincinnati, it will go head to head with the region's dominant casino - the newly expanded and movie-themed Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg in Southeast Indiana. Hollywood is run by Penn National Gaming, another large casino company that will own and run casinos also upcoming in Columbus and Toledo.

David Katz, a gambling analyst with Jefferies & Co. in New York, said Harrah's will fiercely battle to take the lead in the local market when it opens in 2012. He said the new casino's downtown location will be a huge advantage, assuming there's enough parking and adequate access to the site at Broadway Commons.

"There's no question you're in for a dogfight," Katz said. "Harrah's is a strong competitor and compete they will."

Other industry observers agree.

"The most successful casinos are those located next to major metro areas. Convenience and proximity are very important to the player," said Steve Ferguson, president of French Lick Resort, which operates an Indiana casino.

Hollywood Casino prepared for battle

Penn National has prepared for a fight. In the last few years, it has remade several of its casinos with the Hollywood concept to maximize their appeal.

Penn National already announced it will brand its future casinos in Columbus and Toledo with the Hollywood nameplate. Lawrenceburg's upgrades have grown the casino's local market share from about 60 percent to nearly two-thirds of gambling dollars spent locally.

Tony Rodio, general manager of the Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg, said the prospect of future competition in this region was part of the reason Penn National spent more than $300 million to upgrade his casino in the past few years. Since unveiling its new theme concept with a larger gambling boat last summer, Penn National has continued to upgrade the casino with new restaurants and the Boogie Nights nightclub.

"We knew eventually competition was coming to the region," Rodio said.

Rodio said Penn National expects Lawrenceburg to take an unspecified hit, but the revenues from new Columbus and Toledo casinos will more than offset the drop. Furthermore, Penn National is developing a loyalty card program that will allow it to cross-sell its three casinos.

Katz said Harrah's is the industry leader in collecting customer data to boost its marketing. He said the one disadvantage Harrah's will have will be Ohio's smoking ban. Not letting gamblers light up might turn off some customers.

"It's kind of like selling a peanut butter sandwich without jelly," he said.

Nonetheless, analysts aren't worried about financial struggles for the future casino.

Once it opens in 2012, it's projected to draw 6 million visits a year and rake in nearly $520 million in annual gambling revenue. That's more than the 4.1 million visits and the $470 million that Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg is on track to collect this year. While Cincinnati's new casino is expected to take a bite out of the three riverboat casinos in Southeast Indiana, the overall region's gambling market is expected to grow from nearly $700 million to around $1 billion.

Unlikely candidates

Harrah's has other casino concepts, such as Paris, Rio and the Flamingo in Las Vegas. But experts say those are the result of several acquisitions over the past decade.

Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada in Reno, said keeping different concepts in destination markets makes sense. It's a way of offering different casino products in big markets like Las Vegas, but it's unlikely the concepts would be expanded elsewhere.

Eadington notes some storied brands have lost their allure over time. Harrah's owns The Flamingo - the first resort casino in Las Vegas built by gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Segal.

While the casino has been rebuilt since its post-WWII founding and boasts an elaborate network of interconnected swimming pools, the casino has been supplanted in Las Vegas by other iconic destinations, such as Harrah's Caesars Palace.

"Their acquisition strategy of the past 15 years has maybe given them too many brands to be useful," he said. "The Flamingo had cache 30 years ago, I doubt they're going to use that concept elsewhere."

Rogge highlights educational fuction of sports

SINGAPORE, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- With the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) to officially open here on Saturday night, IOC president Jacques Rogge believes young athletes will learn skills from the quadrennial sport gala in both sports and social life.

"The Olympic Movement should not restrict itself to just organizing sports events. We believe that sport is education," said Rogge, who was described as father of the YOG during a news conference in the main press media on Saturday.


"How do I feel? Well I feel like a father waiting in the delivery room. I am optimistic but I still want to see the baby been born," said Rogge.


"You call me the father of the Youth Olympics. I hope the education part of these Games will be easier than educating my own kids."


The YOG is expected to be an international multi-sport events, consistent with the current Olympic Games format but balancing culture and education and also featuring athletes between ages of 14 to 18. ' The Culture and Education Programme (CEP) is hence an integral part of the YOG. In line with the YOG's mission to educate and engage young athletes, inspiring them to play an active role in their communities, the CEP aims for the athletes to embrace, embody and express the Olympic values of Excellence, Friendship and Respect.


"There is a need to provide education to young people at an age when they are receptive. If you start to educate people in their 20s, you may not receive big results. This is part of the population that is very receptive to new concepts," said Rogge, referring to the young athletes to compete in the forthcoming 12 days of events.

"And that is why we are going to introduce the education part, which is something new in the Olympic Movement. And the education part will teach them all kinds of attitudes that are all very important."

"We want to have a very strong prevention of doping which I believe is very very important. We want to help them know the importance of forming a healthy lifestyle, prevention of injuries and infection diseases, and also the importance of social responsibilities like caring for the environment as well as Olympic Values of respecting fair play and abiding by rules," he added.


The YOG will gave the young athletes their first taste of the Olympic experience and provide valuable lessons that the athletes can leverage in their future careers, be it in sports or other vocations.
Singapore 2010 will feature some of the world's most talented young athletes from 205 countries and regions who will take part in 26 sports currently on the Summer Olympic Programme, as well as some exciting new events, including 3-on-3 basketball, head-to-head canoe and kayak, and cycling combined.

The length and rules of the competition in many events have been adapted to the potential of the young athletes, which according to Rogge will make sure that there will not be overload for their physical, psychological and mental health.

Gift is the German word for poison, and Hypo Real Estate, the troubled lender nationalized by the German government, is the gift that keeps on giving.

Hypo said Friday that it had lost another 395 million euros last quarter, a year and a half after the German government approved a measure that allowed Hypo to be taken over because of the systemic risk it posed.

The second-quarter loss at Hypo is a little over half as much as it lost for the comparable period a year before — 664 million euros — and it brings its losses for the year to 719 million euros. The government said in May that it had lost 5.3 billion euros on Hypo.

“Results were significantly affected by loan-loss provisions,” the bank said, adding that “net trading income was negative.” It expects a loss for the year.

“The year 2010 marks a period of transition, from stabilizing and restructuring, to achieving a realigned group structure,” Manuela Better, chief of the bank, said in the statement.

Hypo was nationalized after receiving 87 billion euros in loan guarantees from Berlin. The move was a first in the country since the 1930s Depression.

the American private equity firm, once held 24 percent of the lender, and it filed a complaint to the European Union after its holdings were wiped out.

Impact of ‘Ghost month’ on Real Estate Diminishing

People in the 20 to 29 age bracket are most likely to buy residential property during “ghost month,” while those over 50 still are deterred by superstition, a local real estate company said yesterday. Analyzing data on home transactions it brokered between 2006 and last year, H&B Realty (住商不動產) found that the share of all homes bought by people in the 20 to 29 age bracket during “ghost month” (19.2 percent) was 45 percent higher than the 13.2 percent share young adults averaged during the previous “normal” month.

In contrast, the average share of real estate purchases made by those in the 50 to 59 age bracket during ghost month was 11.8 percent, down from 20.4 percent in the previous month, a 42 percent fall.

There are many traditional taboos associated with ghost month, the seventh month of the lunar calendar, including the belief that buying real estate during that period invites ghosts into the house and brings bad luck.

With all age groups under the age of 50 showing an increase in their share of real estate purchases during ghost month, the taboo now seems to be something only older generations follow, said Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨), director of H&B Realty’s research division.

“The data shows that young home buyers actively struck deals in ghost month because they felt there was a better chance of negotiating better discounts,” Hsu said.

H&B Realty said the 40 to 49 age group had the highest share (31.4 percent) of home purchases during “ghost month,” followed by the 30 to 39 age bracket with a 27.6 percent share.

3 Carmichael Residents Among 8 Charged in $11.4 Million Real Estate Fraud

An alleged $11.4 million Sacramento real estate fraud scheme that promised investors up to 15 percent returns from land development and house flipping has resulted in charges against eight people for mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, the U.S. attorney's office said Friday.

A federal grand jury Thursday indicted the eight, including three from Carmichael, for allegedly defrauding scores of investors throughout the nation.

The U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento said the defendants were associated with Heaven Investments Holding Co., which lured investors with promises to develop luxury townhouses and condominiums in Sacramento during the housing boom. The investment firm also promised to buy, rehab and sell Sacramento-area single-family houses and do the same with a hotel in Oakland.

But as the real estate market crashed, the family-owned Sacramento company instead allegedly paid returns to early investors with money raised from later investors. Defendants also stalled investors seeking money by intentionally failing to sign checks and saying checks were lost in the mail, the indictments state.
"Most (investors) were outside the local Sacramento area," said the federal prosecutor for the case, R. Steven Lapham. "I think that was by design. Anybody in the Sacramento area could have driven by the properties and seen that no development was going on."

Heaven Investments, which opened in 2000, solicited investors from January 2006 to August 2008, the indictments state. The firm filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in August 2008, according to Sacramento federal bankruptcy court records. It has since been liquidated.

Charged in Thursday's federal grand jury indictments were Heaven Investments chief executive officer Akbar Bhamani, 56; vice president Aly Khan Bhamani, 28; and finance director Feroza Bhamani, 55. All three are from Carmichael.

Also charged were vice president Zainulabidin Akbar Bhamani, 30, of Sherman Oaks; director of operations Ken Sarna, 46, of Vallejo; and marketing director John Pierre Quintana, 30, of Dixon. The grand jury also indicted Heaven's accounting and payroll director, Laila Bhamani, 57, of Tracy, and Global Financial & Assets Inc. loan officer Shaun Bhamani, 26, of Valencia.

All but Laila Bhamani pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in Sacramento and Los Angeles. Laila Bhamani is scheduled to appear Monday in Sacramento federal court, said Lapham.
All face 20-year maximum penalties on each charge.

Attempts to reach the Carmichael defendants Friday for comment were unsuccessful.
The grand jury indictments allege that Heaven Investments misrepresented itself to investors, claiming to have an in-house architectural staff and construction company.

"That was untrue," Lapham said Friday.

Three of the defendants – Zainulabidin Bhamani, Aly Khan Bhamani and Shaun Bhamani – are also charged with eight counts of mail fraud in a separate alleged mortgage fraud scheme. Indictments say they tried to raise money as market values fell by recruiting straw buyers for eight Sacramento-area properties. Seven of the properties have since been repossessed, resulting in lender losses of $775,000. The eighth property is being foreclosed.

The indictments stem from investigations by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. attorney Benjamin Wagner said Friday.