Vegasized pools

I was reading an interesting piece on the increasingly elaborate backyard pools of SoCal when I was struck by a reference to Las Vegas. From the LA Times:

Today homeowners have moved well beyond the simple requirement of a hole in the ground. Instead, they crave Las Vegas-style amusements: remote-controlled flames, sound-activated dancing lights and the illusion of endless water. They want custom tile and real stone, architectural lines that match the house, and artwork and antiques near the waterline.

LAPS OF LUXURY – Los Angeles Times

So Las Vegas is now a byword for ornate display? I guess it makes sense. It’s more evidence that the image of the city continues to evolve. Once, a Vegas-style pool would have 99-cent shrimp cocktail and a bust of Elvis behind the diving board. In the 1990s, it would have had a miniature pirate battle. Now, it’s just expensive and technologically sophisticated–an illusion, but created by real wealth.

When are people going to start building Atlantic City-style pools? And what would they look like? How about Reno-style pools?

Good luck, bad luck, or divine design?

This is a story that makes you think. From WSB-TV, Atlanta:

Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm rumbled through Baldwin County, Alabama.

But while she prayed, lightning suddenly exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a blackened area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured.

She said ‘Amen’ and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. The 65-year-old Brown said she is blessed to be alive.

Firefighters said its likely she was hit by a bolt of lightning that apparently struck outside and traveled into the house yesterday afternoon. She was found lying on the floor by her 14-year-old granddaughter.

Fire officials think the lightning likely struck across the street from the couple’s home and traveled into the house through a water line. The lightning continued into the couple’s backyard and ripped open a small trench.

A family member said he will no longer assume it is safe to be indoors during a lightning strike.

Dime-sized hail and wind gusts of up to 45 miles-per-hour moved across coastal Baldwin County. As much as three inches of rain fell in some areas in three hours.
WSBTV.com – News – Woman Hit By Lightning While Praying

Athiests can say that this proves that God does not exist, at least as he is conventionally understood–no benevolent deity would strike down a true believer with lightning while she was praying. But believers can counter that the woman was largely unhurt, which may be a sign of God’s mercy.

Others would say that any attempt to find causality here is bound to fail. I, for one, just think that it’s a striking headline. In Philip K. Dick’s Galactic Pot Healer, there is talk of a game where people search newspaper archives for the funniest headlines they can find. I think this one qualifies.

To continue on the tangent, another game has players take the title of a book, run it through a computer translator into Japanese, then back again. The opponent then has to guess the original English title.

Thanks to Alta Vista’s Babelfish, this is now possible. For example, Galactic Pot Healer becomes 銀河の鍋の治療師, which is translated back into English as “Remedy teacher of Milky Way pot.”

If anyone wants to play, email me a trans-translated book title, and we’ll start.

Singapore Sands?

It sounds like a drink you’d buy in a Asian-themed bar, but that might be the name of the Marina Bay casino/hotel/resort in Singapore, as Las Vegas Sands won the bid to build a casino in the Marina area. From Yahoo Finance:

Singapore picked Las Vegas Sands Corp. to build and run what will be the world’s most expensive casino at a cost of more than S$5 billion (US$3.2 billion), sending the U.S. casino operator’s shares up more than 9 percent.

The tiny island nation scrapped a ban on casinos last year in a move to shake off its staid image and capture part of Macau’s success as a gambling center for Asia’s increasingly wealthy and mobile middle class.

Las Vegas Sands, the world’s largest gaming operator by stock market value, beat three other bidders with a promise to invest S$3.85 billion (US$2.4 billion) in the project, on top of the S$1.2 billion price tag for the land in downtown Singapore.

“This is a pretty big win for Las Vegas Sands,” said Peter Dunay, chief investment strategist at fund management firm Leeb Group. “As far as real strong explosive growth, it is coming from the strength you are seeing in the Asian (market).”

Sands wins bid for Singapore casino: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

Bill Eadington announced the decision at the International Conference on Gambling and Risk-Taking on Friday and showed the crowd a rendering of the casino design. It looks spectacular, with what looks like three decks of cards supporting a “hanging garden” feature. I’m already looking forward to 2009, when the resort will open.

New carpet gallery

I woke up pretty early this morning, so I took some time to put together the NINTH (I can’t believe it) page of the carpet gallery. Since I’m in Lake Tahoe at the International Conference on Gambling and Risk-Taking, it’s no surprise that this gallery has images from Tahoe.

Die is Cast casino carpet gallery 9

Serendipity? The MontBleu is on the cusp of history, as the new carpet is in the casino and most areas, but some of the old remained. So I got pictures of both.

The Caesars Tahoe carpet looks suspiciously like the Caesars Atlantic City carpet. Hmmm.

MontBleu opens

Thanks to Roger Gros of Global Gaming Business, I got to attend the opening of the MontBleu last night. Here’s a press release talking about it:

MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa in Lake Tahoe celebrated its official debut on May 24, with the help of Howie Mandel, comedian and host of NBC’s hit game show “Deal or No Deal.”

MontBleu, formerly known as Caesars Tahoe, brings a new level of style and sophistication to the picturesque surroundings of Lake Tahoe, creating a casino-resort experience that has not been previously available in the popular tourist destination.

With its hip, “metro-cool” atmosphere, the 440-room MontBleu features seven distinct restaurants and four chic nightlife venues, in addition to a newly-remodeled 40,000 square-foot casino and a brand new poker room.

True to its name meaning “blue mountain,” MontBleu brings the outdoors indoors, drawing inspiration from the neighboring mountains and lake, throughout all elements of its design. Straying from traditional casino motifs, MontBleu utilizes vibrant colors (mostly blues) and natural materials throughout its design and interior architecture.

MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa Debuts in Lake Tahoe: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

They did a great job of overhauling the place–it looks very, very contemporary now. Even the coffee shop (about the most staid thing you can imagine) is now 20Four, Continuous Cuisine. I didn’t get to go inside, so I didn’t get to see if it literally was continuous, with a conveyor belt sliding food past patrons. Don’t knock the idea–I went to a sushi restaurant where they did that once, and it wasn’t bad.

I missed the fireworks (I was at the author’s reception at the ICGRT) but saw Howie Mandel. He was extremely funny and entertaining–I definitely suggest checking out his act if you haven’t before.

LV meteor?

I’m still at the ICGRT, but this article seemed to strange not to post. From the LVRJ:

On Saturday night, an unidentified object was sent hurtling through the roof at Steven Gleicher’s workplace.

Was the football-sized object a meteor or perhaps something more common?
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And perhaps just as puzzling: How could it rip through a thick pane of fiberglass strong enough to hold a human being and then embed itself into a wall?

“It could just be a large piece of asphalt because it is grey on the outside and black in the middle,” said Gleicher, an administrator at Diagnostic Imaging Southern Nevada, at 3560 E. Flamingo Road, near Pecos Road.

He was called into the center at about 1 a.m. Sunday, after the object crashed into the office and set off the fire alarm. He and firefighters inspected the place and, having found no smoke or flames, left.

It was the cleaning crew later that morning who noticed bits of dry wall on the floor below the skylight 20 feet above them. They looked up and saw the rock lodged into the dry wall about 18 feet up. It was right next to the fire alarm.

Gleicher said he went up on the rooftop of the center — the former dwelling of a homeless man — and found two other pieces of similar rock, one about three inches wide, the other about six.

A smooth surface on one side of the rocks looks man- made, and other jagged sides suggest layers of a road.

“At this point, it’s unknown what the rock is,” Gleicher said.

The skylight is double-paned fiberglass and is strong enough to walk on.

“Obviously, it came through with a lot of force,” said Larry Ginsberg, a clinical engineer at the center.

A construction crew removed the object Tuesday, and Gleicher said he planned to take it to an expert at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

“Our roof is accessible. We have thrown people off of our roof before. I just don’t think a human could throw these rocks through with enough force to land and embed itself in the wall,” Gleicher said, noting there is no building construction nearby.

He said he had recently listened to a radio show about meteor activity during this time of year and thought it might be an object from space.

He called Clay Crow, a UNLV geoscience professor, who said the object’s description didn’t sound like a meteor.

Gleicher’s theory is that the rock might have fallen off a plane. Toilet waste that leaks from planes descends in the form of ice, but lucky for Gleicher his falling object isn’t melting.

reviewjournal.com — News – ‘A LOT OF FORCE’: Mystery object hits center

I’m surprised that the police aren’t investigating this guy’s claim to have thrown people off of his roof. Maybe it’s part of a backyard wrestling federation, or something.

I’m suprised that no one has invoked Area 51 to explain this phenomemon yet.

Back to the conference.

ICGRT update

I just finished presenting my paper “The Revolutionary Ridotto” at the International Conference on Gambling and Risk-Taking, and I’ve got a little time to post an update. The conference is going very well–as always, I’m learning a great deal, and I’m sure everyone else is as well. For the carpet-curious, a late-night expedition last night resulted in photos from Harrah’s, Bill’s, Harveys, and the Horizon. If I have time over the weekend, I’ll add a gallery. I might make a trip up to North Lake Tahoe tomorrow.

Conference in the news

To hear this story tell it, the main point of the International Conference on Gambling and Risk-Taking is to count cards. From the RGJ:

Ever wonder how to develop a computer program that will earn you millions by predicting horse races in Hong Kong? What about simple card counting at blackjack? Curious how casino design affects problem gamblers? Or maybe international gambling law is your hobby.

Professional gamblers, academics and myriad experts will tackle those topics and others at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe during a conference today through Friday.

“The orientation here is diverse, with the audience about half academic researchers, and the others industry representatives, services, government policy makers, legislators,” said Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno, sponsoring the event.

“You certainly get a lot of non-industry perspectives,” he said of the 13th International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking.

Among the speakers are William Benter, the founder of a Hong Kong horse-betting syndicate, who helped develop a computer program to take advantage of the inefficient pari-mutual betting there, he said.

Famous blackjack player Semyon Dukach, the lead character in the book “Busting Vegas: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees,” also will speak.

Their presentations at the convention are titled “Beating the System.”

There was a time when casinos weren’t too welcoming to a convention that invites professional gamblers and so-called “advantage players.”
RGJ.com: Gambling pros, experts to meet in Tahoe

After that, the emphasis is on card-counting, past, present and future. My presentation, by the way, has nothing to do with card counting, but one of the sessions I’m moderating is all about sports betting.

Tahoe conference is near!

Next week I’ll be at the 13th International Conference on Gambling and Risk-Taking, at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. This will hopefully be a lucky 13. It looks to be a great conference, with very interesting sessions that I’m looking forward to seeing.

I’ll be keeping busy, presenting a paper, co-leading a session on gambling research, and moderating two sessions. I’ve gotten the Powerpoint from Per Binde, who’s presenting a paper in one of my sessions, and it includes this image:
This is a mystery
That photo was attached to a Swedish newspaper article, but because I don’t speak Swedish, its meaning must remain obscure, at least until the session next week. It should be a riveting session, to say the least.

I’ll hopefully be able to post updates from the conference. At the very least, I will try to get carpet pictures.

Antigua strikes back…with words

When I learned of the new “money laundering” online gambling indictments, I thought that Antigua might have something to say. Now they do. From their press release, which I got in my email:

Antiguan government officials reacted angrily today to news that the United States Department of Justice has released indictments of two Antiguan residents on money laundering charges related to their operation of an Antigua based and licensed gaming service provider. The charges, contained in an indictment dated 7 April 2005, accuse William Scott and Jessica Davis of violating United States anti-money laundering laws through their operation of World Wide Telesports, or WWTS. Ironically, the allegations hinge on purported violations by the two of United States legislation known as the “Wire Act” and the “Travel Act,” the application of both of which to gaming operators from Antigua was found last year by the World Trade Organisation to be contrary to the American obligations under WTO law.

Antigua’s Ambassador to the WTO, Dr John W. Ashe, doesn’t see the indictments and Antigua’s WTO victory to be unrelated. “These indictments, coming down at a time when the United States is supposed to be undertaking efforts to comply with the rulings of the WTO, are surely no coincidence. It is more than just a little ironic that the United States Department of Justice has chosen to single out for prosecution a well-known gaming service provider from Antigua, a jurisdiction that has been leading global efforts to license, regulate, supervise and oversee a robust yet clean and safe gaming industry over the Internet–and the only jurisdiction to take on the United States at the World Trade Organisation–and win–on this exact issue.”

Under WTO procedures, the United States had until 3 April 2006 to comply with the rulings of the WTO in the gambling case. Having initially stated that coming into compliance would involve significant legislative efforts, the United States made a surprise announcement at the WTO meeting last month that it was already in compliance with the adverse ruling, despite having taken no apparent corrective action at all. The parties are in the early stages of a process at the WTO whereby a panel will review the current situation and assess the status of United States compliance. “We are looking forward to this review process,” said Dr Ashe, “and we feel very confident that once again the WTO will agree with us that the United States’ position on Internet gaming from our country is simply trade discrimination–disguised restrictions on trade in services in violation of the WTO agreements. In the year since we won our case, facts have only gotten better for Antigua and worse for the United States.”

The indictments do not allege that Mr Scott and Ms Davis engaged in any money laundering conduct other than by virtue of conducting the ordinary business of a licensed Antiguan gaming company, conduct that not only is lawful in Antigua, but much of which is clearly lawful in the United States as well. The Antiguan Solicitor General and Chairman of Antigua’s Financial Services Regulatory Commission, Mr Lebrecht Hesse, announced that the Antiguan government would be contacting the United States directly to lodge a protest over the latest action of the Department of Justice. “Coming at a time when Antigua and the United States are expected to be working together on a reasonable solution to our dispute, these indictments announced by the Americans yesterday–which I note have been laying unsealed, in secret, since they were returned over a year ago–are pretty incredible. We trust that these indictments do not represent the official position of the United States government and rather represent the work of some over-zealous prosecutor. We look forward to the US administration’s prompt clarification of this most unfortunate incident.”

Turning to the subjects of the indictments, Mr Hesse observed as Chairman of the FSRC “both of these individuals have been through the extensive due diligence process we subject all major participants in our gaming industry to, and both have been found fit and proper to conduct this kind of regulated business in Antigua. To our knowledge, Mr Scott and Ms Davis-Dyett have been law-abiding citizens since coming to this country some years ago.”

As I’ve said a million times already, this is the major issue of the Internet: the collision between national borders and international commerce.