A vacation home by the beach alone doesn't cut it anymore. These days, millionaires and billionaires want estates in England, condos in New York, pied a terres in Paris and chalets in Gstaad, along with staff to run them, and yachts and private jets to take them there.

Fractional resort real estate has emerged as the fastest growing segment of the resort real estate industry in North America," says Jon Peterson, president of the Washington-based Peterson Economics, a real estate consulting firm. "And private membership clubs are the fastest-growing segment of the fractional industry."

The stock market's appetite for online gambling looked set to be tested again after it was reported yesterday that a major casino operator was planning a £700m flotation in the next week.

888.com - the world's largest internet casino operator in terms of visitor numbers - is reportedly aiming to make its debut in London next Thursday.

It comes just two months after poker firm PartyGaming made the London market's biggest flotation since the dotcom boom, valuing it at around £5bn.

Casinos in the U.S. are eager to find ways to compete with the burgeoning online gambling industry, which is based in offshore locations but is drawing millions of dollars from U.S. gamblers, especially those interested in sport betting and in casino-style games such as poker.

Casinos in Nevada might become the first to explore a new area of the Internet gambling frontier, enabling users to gamble on mobile devices while they're in and around casinos.

When executives at the Trek Bicycle Corp. signed a contract with Lance Armstrong in 1998, they were betting the public would see the cyclist recovering from testicular cancer as a human interest story.

Seven years later, Armstrong still rode a bicycle Trek manufactured in this southern Wisconsin town in his seventh straight -- and last -- Tour de France last week.

Armstrong's prowess and personal story have reinvigorated American interest in cycling, and no company has felt the impact more than Trek.

Online gaming, cell phones and internet protocol TV (IPTV) were highlighted as new catalysts for the non-traditional advertising market during Banc of America's advertising conference on July 11.

"Online gaming is a growing entertainment outlet for the 18-34 male demographic and advertisers are taking note: this year gaming advertising is expected to be about $100 million but is expected to grow to over $1 billion over the next several years," noted the research firm.

The marketing campaign for San Francisco Opera's summer season invites audiences to enjoy "The Gamble of Love." Artistically, the company has taken a bit of a gamble, too -- and it mostly pays off.

The monthlong season, which runs through July 10, offers three works in rotation which, despite the advertising slogan, have little in common, except that none of them is a surefire box-office favorite -- Tchaikovsky's "The Queen of Spades," Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" and Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers."

The world's biggest online poker company, PartyGaming PLC, made a solid debut in its first day of trading Monday, gaining an overall value of some 5.2 billion pounds (US$9.5 billion; euro7.9 billion).

Shares in Gibraltar-based PartyGaming opened at an offer price of 116 pence (US$2.12; euro1.75) on the London Stock Exchange, valuing the company at 4.64 billion pounds (US$8.46 billion; euro7 billion). By the end of trading, the share price had risen to 129 pence (US$2.35; euro1.95).

Poker's unrelenting popularity growth over the past 18 months has created an army of new players, encouraged casinos to reopen once shuttered poker rooms, spawned an overabundance of poker-related television programs and given birth to countless online poker Web sites.

With a professional poker player as the instructor and a curriculum structured much like a college classroom, the Leonard Benson Co.'s Poker Boot Camp has hosted more than 200 students since mid-February.

The redesigned 2005 Chevrolet Corvette convertible is especially an "all-about-me'' car. Driving pleasure is its No. 1 priority and to heck with such things as decent interior storage space for a passenger.

As everyone should know by now, the 2005 Corvette is the sixth-generation 'Vette since the car's 1953 debut.

The new Corvette replaces a model introduced in 1997 and has slicker styling without the retractable headlights used since 1963, additional power, improved interior and trimmer dimensions.

The LPGA Tour is counting on an innovative playoff system and its $1 million first prize to provide a postseason boost.

The Tour will have its own version of playoffs in 2006, culminating with players competing for the richest payoff in women's golf in the "LPGA Playoffs at The ADT."

Details still need to be worked out, but commissioner Ty Votaw unveiled yesterday the new format, golf's first year-end playoff system comparable to other sports.