Inland Entertainment Corporation, a consultant in the Indian gaming and interactive entertainment industries, has announced plans to launch its fourth online gaming site at the end of the month. The new site, "Las Vegas At Home," will be one of the first online gaming destinations to use CryptoLogic's new Version 3 software, It will also be the first Version 3 casino to offer betting denominations as low as a penny.
The site joins three other on-line gaming sites marketed by Inland Entertainment: http://www.kennyrogerscasino.com, http://www.casinoaustralia.com and http://www.goodluckclub.com.
Inland Entertainment Executive Vice President Fritz Opel considers the site to be the pre-cursor to a robust Las Vegas "virtual community" on the Web offering news, books, promotional offers, strategy tips, and other content and links for site guests interested in the Las Vegas experience both on and off-line.
"We have a vision to create a content-rich environment that fulfills everyone's interest in Las Vegas, from gambling, special offers, and deals and entertainment, to travel arrangements and personalities," Opel said. "Not only will Las Vegas at Home.com be a visually captivating,
state-of-the-art Internet casino, it will also be a Las Vegas-themed portal site featuring gambling and gaming-related content, where guests can hear the latest Vegas news and learn free gaming strategy tips. For all those who wish to but cannot visit Las Vegas on a regular basis, the Strip is no longer miles away, but as close as your computer, where you can encounter the city's excitement from your own home. We are looking to create the total Vegas experience online."
Las Vegas At Home will offer 11 different games, all of which are available in free practice mode for those who do not wish to place live bets. The use of Version 3 software provides animated graphics and multi-player capabilities for blackjack, roulette and baccarat, in which guests can engage in a little friendly competition between pals.
"In addition to playing with friends, Las Vegas at Home.com guests can create player profiles, chat individually or with a whole chat room, and can find out who else is playing on the site at any given time," Opel said. "The four sites marketed by Inland Entertainment offer fun, accessible and
inexpensive betting on-line, including blackjack for as low as $1 a hand. With free practice mode and betting limits that range from a penny to $300 per wager, these four Internet casinos accommodate the novice gambler as well as the experienced high-roller. On top of that, including all games in 1999, these sites averaged a more than 97.5 percent pay-out rate, which is higher than most land-based casinos."
Cartoonist Sherman Goodrich was hired to create the stylized look of the Las Vegas at Home.com site, the first online gambling site to be designed by a comic strip artist. Goodrich co-founded the Southern California Cartoonists Society, and has more than 30 years in the entertainment industry as an author of comic strips, editorial cartoons and humorist essays, and as the creator of comics for commercial clients, including the Hilton Flamingo casinos. Goodrich, who has produced and directed more than 140 animated commercials for television, is also a founder of the animation department at Arizona State University. In addition Magma Productions, the Irish entertainment company behind Europe's popular animated show "Norman Normal," is currently producing an animated half-hour television series titled "The Pigs Next Door," which is
based on Goodrich's comic strip "Downwind."
To take the 'Vegas experience' one step further, Inland Entertainment is negotiating with potential referral partners for Las Vegas at Home.com, in order to offer site guests the option of purchasing various Vegas-related merchandise and services. Referral and strategic partnerships will be announced at a later date.
All transactions for Las Vegas At Home will be handled by the Electronic Cash System (Ecash), developed by CryptoLogic, a publicly-traded Canadian company. The Ecash system is protected by state-of-the-art encryption technology. Winnings are distributed to players by check drawn from the Bank of Montreal in Toronto, Canada. Personal information on games and transaction figures are held behind secured firewalls in the site, and are encrypted and decrypted using proprietary security technology.