A Malaysian company's plan to build a $4 billion convention center and big-time casino on the outskirts of New York City could be the biggest shot fired yet in a tourism arms race that has seen a growing number of Eastern states embrace gambling as a way to lure visitors and drum up revenue.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week that he would work with the Genting Group, one of the world's largest and most successful gambling companies, to transform the storied but sleepy Aqueduct horse track into a megaplex that eventually would include the nation's largest convention center, 3,000 hotel rooms, and a major expansion of a casino that began operating at the site in October.

New York will have lots of competition: Two months ago, once-puritanical Massachusetts passed a law allowing up to three resort casinos, plus a slot machine parlor.

Ohio is poised to offer its first commercial casinos this year. Maryland's first casino opened last year. And Pennsylvania, which opened its first casinos in 2006, is threatening to surpass Atlantic City as the nation's second-largest gambling market.

In Florida, lawmakers are hotly debating a whopper of a bill that would allow up to three multibillion-dollar casinos, plus slot machines at dog and horse tracks.

States have embraced casinos after years of trepidation about their societal costs for two simple reasons: a promise of a rich revenue source, plus the possibility of stimulating tourism.

The rising number of sites competing fiercely for gamblers' dollars could mean that projected revenue streams will overlap, leaving hopeful states and investors with less than the bonanza they expect

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A Silicon Valley financial analyst came forward Friday on Long Island to claim a $208 million lottery jackpot, saying he had to repeatedly check his winning ticket before realizing he had won.

"It didn't seem real; you just don't believe it," said Daniel Bruckner of San Jose, Calif.

He and his wife, Christine, had been visiting her family on Long Island over Christmas when he bought the winning ticket while shopping for dinner at a supermarket.

His father-in-law had a printout of the winning numbers, he said, but still he went to the lottery website to check the numbers, then called the lottery hotline to check again.

"No one believes it when you first say it," he said, when they tell friends about their good fortune. "Because you don't believe it yourself."

At a news conference Friday, the couple declined to say exactly where Bruckner worked. They plan to take a lump-sum payment that will leave them with $101 million after taxes, lottery officials said.

"It's very surreal," Bruckner said. "It's exciting, but very surreal."

The winning Mega Millions numbers were drawn Dec. 27.

Bruckner, 35, said he typically shops at the King Kullen supermarket in Middle Island when he is in town.

"I picked up food for dinner and saw how big the jackpot was so I decided to buy a ticket," he explained. He said he played the lottery from time to time but only previously won "a few bucks."

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A RETIRED Toowoomba builder has $2,504,354 reasons to smile after scooping the Keno jackpot pool over the weekend.

The man, who did not want to be identified, placed the winning 10-spot Kwikpik bet at the Stock Exchange Hotel on Saturday afternoon.

The winner said he hardly slept on Saturday night because he still could not believe he had really won the major jackpot.

"The Keno operator put my ticket in the machine and the machine froze and said the win was too big to pay out," he said.

Stock Exchange duty manager Russell Capern said the winner was a regular at the Anzac Ave hotel.

"He comes in twice a week for a beer and a punt," Mr Capern said.

"When Keno rang us to notify us of the win we were all running around the hotel trying to find out if it was one of our local punters.

"It was not until yesterday morning when his mates came in to the hotel did we find out who he was."

Mr Capern said the win could not have gone to a better bloke.

"He is a quiet fellow, a very modest man that normally keeps to himself."

The winning numbers were 3, 6, 40, 45, 53, 57, 59, 67, 73 and 76.

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Minnesota's Indian gambling tribes, which have spent more than $6 million on political donations since 2002, say an off-reservation expansion of casino gambling would be an epic defeat.

Backed by a battalion of 30 lobbyists and deploying a multimillion-dollar political war chest, Minnesota's Indian gambling tribes wield influence at the State Capitol in both obvious and subtle ways.

But this year, with a Vikings stadium on the line, the tribes' formidable political clout is likely to face one of its fiercest tests.

Gambling revenue could play a pivotal role in the stadium financing proposals under scrutiny at the Capitol, and no one is certain how far Gov. Mark Dayton and GOP legislative leaders will go -- if at all -- in breaking up the lucrative monopoly the tribes have had on slot machines for the past two decades.

At stake in the looming struggle are huge sums. Gambling at Minnesota's 18 Indian casinos totals an estimated $15 billion a year and returns $600 million to the casinos. The gambling compacts that the tribes signed with the state have no expiration date and require no sharing of revenue.

The tribes, which have spent more than $6 million on political donations since 2002, say an off-reservation expansion of casino gambling would be an epic defeat. They are going to great new lengths to make sure that does not happen in the legislative session that opens Jan. 24.

Long close to the DFL Party, the powerful lobby has been courting allies among Republicans and lacing those friendships with tribal PAC donations. When 2011 campaign finance disclosures are filed in the next several weeks, for example, they will reveal a fresh flow of cash to GOP organizations, said John McCarthy, president of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association (MIGA).

"It's a little bit of a new day," McCarthy said. "It's not so much that we won't support the Democrats, but there is also now room to support the other side to some degree."

Capitol insiders see other telling changes. In November, the prominent GOP aide Cullen Sheehan was hired by Lockridge Grindal Nauen, the Minneapolis law and lobbying firm that has long represented the state's Indian gambling industry. Sheehan was chief of staff to the Minnesota Senate Republican caucus and, before that, a campaign manager for Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.

Sheehan's move is but one of the many behind-the-scenes connections for the tribes. In the governor's office, they have close ties to Dayton's deputy chief of staff, Michele Kelm-Helgen. She once worked as a lobbyist at North State Advisers, whose president is Andy Kozak, one of the premier strategists for Indian gambling.

Intrigue also has surrounded the Republican-led, Indian-supported Citizens Against Gambling Expansion (CAGE). It's a nonprofit with an operating budget of more than $115,000 a year. Tribal leaders support CAGE, but McCarthy said he doesn't know how much money they have given.

The group is led by influential Republican operative Jack Meeks and, until last year, counted Tony Sutton, the former Republican Party chairman, as a member of its board.

Tribal leaders say that while they work the Legislature aggressively, they abide by the same rules as every other constituency at the Capitol.

"When we go into the session, we go in to win," said McCarthy, whose association represents 10 tribes from across the state.

Opponents say the tribal lobby has grown bigger than the system, fueled by streams of money that cannot be fully tracked. They also accuse the group of smearing opponents with racial politics and funding opposition campaigns to defeat elected officials who cross them.

"I call it the casino cartel. They are the big gorilla in the state," said Dick Day, a former state Senate minority leader who also has lobbied for Racino Now, a group that wants slot machines at Canterbury Park and Running Aces horse tracks, sharing revenue with the state.

In dollar figures alone, the tribes' influence is sizable. In direct political contributions, the top five tribal PACs have outspent Education Minnesota, the huge teachers union, in at least eight of the past 10 years. In addition, the tribes give money to federal campaigns and spend millions a year on lobbyists and lobbying expenses. State records show that the four largest state tribal PACs, along with MIGA, spent $12.7 million to cover the Capitol from 2002 through 2010 on all issues.

Over the years, anyone trying to cut in on Minnesota's casino market has felt the weight of the tribes' political influence.

One lobbying blitz in the mid-1990s went all the way to the White House. Three economically distressed Wisconsin tribes proposed a casino in Hudson, Wis., just 50 miles from Mystic Lake Casino in Shakopee, the crown jewel of tribal gambling in Minnesota. Enrolled members of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux have received annual per capita payments sometimes exceeding $500,000, and any new casino in the metro area would diminish Mystic Lake's market share

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LAS VEGAS -- Muffled sobs erupted Friday in the courtroom packedwith supporters of the Roman Catholic clergyman who was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison and ordered to repay $650,000 he acknowledged embezzling from his northwest Las Vegas parish to support his gambling habit.

Monsignor Kevin McAuliffe, 59, stood straight and offered noreaction as U.S. District Judge James Mahan credited him for accepting responsibility for looting parish votive candle, prayer and gift shop funds for eight years, but faulted him for "hedging his bet" by blaming it on the gambling addiction.

"You abused the position of trust, Mr. McAuliffe," the judge said. He dispensed with any church title for the clergyman who hid a weakness for casinos and video poker from parishioners who know him as Father Kevin.

"You betrayed people who depended on you." McAuliffe offered the remorseful apology, saying he felt "guilt, shame and self-loathing," and noting which he had "rightly" lost his positions of authority in the church. He asked the judge for leniency so he could make restitution, help others with gambling addictions "and atone for what I have done."

Defense attorney Margaret Stanish asked the judge for probation so McAuliffe could continue getting counseling for his gambling addiction, keep practicing as the clergyman and pay restitution to St.Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Summerlin. He won't get treatment in federal prison, Stanish said. "Is it all about retribution?" she asked the judge. "This court has the ability to fashion the punishment which takes into account not only the offense but the individual. He would not be here but for a gambling addiction."

Stanish brought in Dr. Timothy Fong to testify which McAuliffe's gambling compulsion amounted to "self-medication" by the man masking feelings of stress, depression, sadness, social anxiety and inadequacy. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Christina Brown characterized McAuliffe as an opportunist and thief who didn't exhaust his own savings before taking church cash to fund gambling, cars and travel. She accused him of grasping at gambling addiction as "a hollow excuse offered now, when he's desperate for leniency fromthe court."

The prosecutor derided Fong's diagnosis as unsupported by asingle 2 1/2 hour interview with McAuliffe, several telephone calls with his defense attorney and the review of self-assessments that McAuliffe provided in sessions with other counselors at the gambling addiction clinic in Las Vegas. Treatment only began after FBI agents questioned him last May about missing church funds, she said. And Brown pointed to counseling reports which she said suggested McAuliffe was focused more during therapy on his legal predicament than on getting help for the gambling addiction. "He did do good," she said. "But he also stood before his congregation preaching about sin, lies, theft and greed ... all the while deceiving them."

The judge referred to the parish rift over McAuliffe's crime when he said he received approximately 100 letters of support through the priest's defense attorney. Mahan also made part of the court record the stack of letters parishioners sent straight to the court saying McAuliffe should be punished. "I expect the church to forgive him, and the parishioners by and large to forgive him," Mahan said from the bench. "That's different than the justice system." McAuliffe pleaded guilty in October, before an indictment or criminal complaint was filed, to three counts of federal mail fraud for falsifying documents sent in 2008, 2009 and 2010 to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in San Francisco. Each count carried a possible sentence of 20 years in prison and the $250,000 fine. Mahan handed down the 37-month sentence -- midway between the 33-month minimum and 41-month maximum recommended by federal probation officials -- along with the restitution order.

The judgealso sentenced McAuliffe to three years of supervised release following prison and banned him from gambling. McAuliffe was ordered to begin serving his sentence April 13. Outside court,longtime parishioner Regina Hauck, 80, called the judge fair but the sentence unfair. She said she wanted forgiveness. "I know him. He's the wonderful priest," Hauck said of McAuliffe."But I think he's the sick man, and everyone makes the mistake." McAuliffe had already been removed as pastor of the northwestLas Vegas congregation of more than 8,000 families and relieved of diocese duties.

Bishop Joseph Pepe, head of the regional church administration since 2001, issued the statement Friday saying he was "saddened that the actions of Monsignor McAuliffe have caused hurt to so many people" and saying he was praying for the congregation. McAuliffe had complete control from 2002 to 2010 of church activities and finances at one of the largest Roman Catholic congregations in Nevada, and was able to hide his embezzlement because he was the signatory to financial statements to the Las Vegas diocese and San Francisco archdiocese, Brown said in presentencing documents.

When confronted by the FBI last May, McAuliffe spent two hours offering various explanations how his earnings supported his gambling, the prosecutor wrote.! "When these explanations failed, agents asked the defendant if he stole money from the church, which the defendant denied." Stanish told the judge in court documents which McAuliffe beganpaying restitution to the church in May and has paid $13,420 so far.

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