Monthly Archives: September 2008

Bombastic living

September 29, 2008 3:22 pm

I really think that they get Las Vegas street names by randomly picking words out of a dictionary without checking to read the definition. Why else is there really a “Bombastic Court” on the west side?

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Would you want to live at an address that proclaimed you to be “marked by or given to bombast: pompous, overblown?”

If you get bored, Vegas geography Mad Libs are fun–just mix and match the made-up street names by picking two (or even three) words from a pool like this one:

sky violet mountain desert timber oak river ivory willow walnut lake valley dusk rose spring royal sierra creek vista oak painted

and then concluding with one from here:

court way lane drive

Try it–it’s fun. And you couldn’t do worse than some of the names we’ve already got.

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Posted in life in vegasTagged

What’s Trop worth?

September 24, 2008 9:08 am

When the Trop AC first went on sale (it seems like a decade ago), a newspaper reporter asked me how much I thought it would get. I considered the Sands’ recent selling price and made a quick mental tally of the Trop’s relative size. “$650 million, ” I replied. “Maybe $700 million.

The next day, I was taken aback to learn that the consensus among the “analysts” was that the casino should sell for $1 billion or so.

“Wow,” I thought. “I really don’t know this casino stuff at all.”

Yesterday’s AC Press, though, made me feel a little smarter:

A Baltimore developer known for transforming a blighted section of Atlantic City into a bustling downtown shopping district is in negotiations to buy Tropicana Casino and Resort.

Cordish Co. emerged Tuesday as a leading bidder in talks with the state-appointed conservator who has been overseeing Tropicana’s sale ever since the troubled casino was stripped of its New Jersey gaming license last December.

Under the terms, Cordish would acquire the Tropicana and virtually all other assets of its former operator, Adamar of New Jersey Inc., for $700 million in cash and stock, according to the state Casino Control Commission.

Cordish Co. offers $700M. for Tropicana in Atlantic City

I guess I knew what I was talking about. Either that, or the “analysts” put as much effort into their valuation as I did mine, or just picked the biggest round number they could spit out. I’m not surprised that the financial sector is in such disarray, since a relatively stable business can lose about 1/3 of its perceived value after it’s had a minor turnaround. Either that initial billion was badly inflated, or this is the bargain of the century. I stand by my original prediction and say that, if anything, the $700 million offer is generous.

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Posted in atlantic city, news about gamblingTagged , , ,

Queen for a day

September 23, 2008 12:27 pm

Interesting piece in the LA Times today about yet another one-day casino:

Las Vegas casino openings typically demand red carpets, cocktail parties, celebrity guest lists and fireworks. But not so at the Queen of Hearts — it's a one-day casino.

This spartan, eight-hour event is everything the Strip is not: small, unpretentious and quiet, with no crowds or drunks, no cocktail waitresses or high-rolling "whales," and no Midwestern tourists. It's common, and perfectly OK, for no gamblers to show up.

One-day casinos — mandated by law for a handful of places that are closed but want to hang onto their gaming rights — are governed by the same rules as high-end resorts with thousands of machines. They're the gambling industry's equivalent of a solar eclipse. They unfold a few times each year. They typically get some press, and people who stumble upon them are often befuddled but intrigued.

Casino stays in the game for a day – Los Angeles Times.

The first thing I noticed about the article was the very unflattering picture of the patron in the orange shirt–I mean, come on, photog: you could have waited until she closed her mouth to snap away. But no one said they had to run that photo on the main page. The next two in the slide show are much better.

This was a good story, but the one-day deals are getting to the point where they aren’t newsworthy anymore.

A follow-up to yesterday’s post: as promised, this site now yields the lone Google search result for the phrase “bacteria free Monday.”

I think I’ll start using the phrase in the same sense that Stringer Bell used forty degree day (link is not at all work-safe, unless your workplace likes profanity). So when things aren’t going great, but aren’t going too badly, I’ll say that it’s just another bacteria free Monday.

Even if it’s Tuesday.

At some point, I’ve got to use that title for a book.

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Posted in news about gamblingTagged , , ,

Low expectations are funny

September 22, 2008 3:29 pm

With the on-going economic tough times, some casinos have tightened up their slot machines. Some have clamped down on comps. Others have fired people, while even more have just plain gotten cheap. But they still lead their customers to believe that their stays will be grandiose: patrons are promised world class dining, service, and entertainment.

Contrast that with this advertisement, which appeared in the November 1, 1976 Valley Times.

bactria free since 73

Because of the ad’s poor design, I initially thought that it was promoting “Bacteria Free Monday,” which I assumed contrasted with the usual germ-laden fare of Tuesday through Sunday. But no, it’s actually celebrating the Monday 11 AM “Breakfast Club Bingo.” In addition, the text on the margins tells us, the entire place is smoke free, bacteria free, and has pure air.

I know that he’d just died, but was this ad written for Howard Hughes or something? Or were they trying to lure young Adrian Monk into the bingo game (we’ll suspend our disbelief and pretend that yes, a 1976 Silver Nugget exec wrote an ad in reference to a fictional character who wouldn’t appear for another 30 years)?

Here’s an idea for the next big Strip jukebox musical–how about a John Hughes-themed 1980s show called Breakfast Club Bingo? Like there aren’t millions of nostalgic 80s people who wouldn’t fork over $90 each to see that?

But we go back to the ad. Smoke free is a plus, but I’ve never looked for “pure air” or checked the bacteria levels at the places I frequent. Maybe I should start. But wow, those are some low expectations the Valley Times readers must’ve had back then.

Finally, we’ve got another first here at the die is cast: once this page is spidered, Google will return at least one result for the hitherto-non-interweb phrase “bacteria free Monday.”

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Posted in news about gamblingTagged , , ,

Harrah’s total email fun

September 19, 2008 11:35 am

I signed up for a Total Rewards card a while ago to get on the mailing list. Theoretically, I should be collecting promotional materials from all casinos down at the Center for Gaming Research. But because most casino people I talk to consider preserving their history only marginally less important than alphabetizing their recyclables, I’m not. I keep getting mailers for Boulder Station at home, because of where I live, and I bring them in, so 50 years from now historians will know exactly what they were doing to lure people to Boulder Station, but will only be able to speculate about the promotions offered on the Strip.

So I’ve been getting emails from every Harrah’s property in the world for a while now. It’s funny, because I haven’t gambled a penny with that card, and I figured that would throw the data miners for a loop. But they keep on trying to get me to come down, with offer after offer.

Earlier this week, I got an offer from Paris that dreamily begged me to come down to the hotel and bask in the waves of romance that wash over the property. A while ago, you might recall, I wrote a post here about the bifurcation of Paris’s marketing into distinct gay and straight campaigns. I later elaborated this into an LVBP piece, as well.

So imagine my surprise when I got an email from Paris whose subject line asked me to “fuel my passion” at Paris Las Vegas. I scanned the email for any reference to golf. There was none, although there was this sentence:

It’s a feast for all your senses, with decadent spa treatments and the signature tastes and tempting aromas of France.

Hmmm. Very “romantic,” huh? Now there’s an interesting twist. That day at the gym, I just happened to be doing incline presses as “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow played. As I was in the middle of my set, I looked around the gym and thought, “Jeez, this is probably the most ‘romantic’ (which I guess is the Paris codeword) thing I’ve done in a long, long time,” while all the other guys working out tried to pretend it was Metallica’s “Fuel” or stopped lifting weights until something more butch came on.

So when I got the email from Paris I thought, “Wow, these guys are good.”

But I think they’re going too far. This morning I got another email, this one from Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City. They think that I’m putting on weight, or something, and they want to give me one ticket free if I can find an out-of-shape friend to accompany me to an afternoon with the guy who wrote The Best Life Diet. Actually, I’m into some serious distance running training for the LV marathon now, which means that I’m 10 pounds lighter than I was 2 months ago, so no dice there.

Even if I needed to trim down a little bit, I don’t think it’s a casinos’ place to suggest it to me. And just on general principles: I’ve said this before, but a casino is just about the last place I’d go for advice on how to eat right. I mean, these are the people who encourage you to gorge yourself until you can’t move and have to plant yourself at a nickel slot machine until you’ve digested enough to walk in a straight line.

That last bit tangentially touches on an idea I’m working on–I’m trying to connect Thomas Sowell’s argument about constrained vs. unconstrained visions of humanity to the casino business. It might actually make some sense when I’m done with it.

My job would be much easier if I could settle on an approach: ‘irreverent, anarchic humor” or “serious, intellectual contemplation.” Ah, who says you’ve got to choose? After all, it is gaming I’m talking about, and the very name reveals that it’s all just a game.

I’m going to get out of here before I push that last line of thought too far and get swamped with angry comments about the ludic fallacy.

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Posted in writing

Why you should leave cats alone

September 18, 2008 4:53 pm

Some folks down in Cape May, NJ (home of the Winter Getaway) thought it would be a good idea to relocate a colony of feral cats. Now, they are beset by skunks. From the AC Press:

McGlade has run the oceanfront eatery next to Cape May Convention Hall for 28 years, and never before had a major skunk problem. There have been a few over the years, she said, and every once in a while a whiff or two of their presence is noticed, but recently they have become more numerous and very brazen.

“One was heading into the restaurant when a waitress gently guided it out the door. We believe they live under Convention Hall. There’s definitely more than one family there,” McGlade said.

One theory is that the relocation of a feral cat colony under Convention Hall created a vacany for the skunks. The state and federal governments pushed the city to move the cats off the beachfront because of concerns they could kill endangered beach-nesting birds, including the piping plover.

Animal Control Officer John Queenan said he has gotten very few calls about skunks on the beachfront in his 23 years of working in the city but that suddenly he is being inundated with such calls. Queenan said he relocated the feral cats to the Cape May Harbor area in February, and he began receiving skunk complaints this summer.

“Nature takes its own course. One species in eradicated and another comes in,” Queenan said.

Feral cats gone, Cape May now as a problem of a different stripe

I only found two typos in the excerpt, so the Press’s editorial department is definitely holding the line.

I like that quote from Queenan about one species being eradicated. What is he, Davros or something?

And those piping plovers need to learn to fend for themselves.

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Posted in atlantic city, haphazard worldTagged , ,

Pinnacle deadlines?

September 17, 2008 2:16 pm

Hey, maybe the Atlantic City Council reads this blog. It looks like they’re suddenly saying the same thing I was two weeks ago about Pinnacle. From the AC Press:

In November 2006, the Sands Casino Hotel closed its doors to make way for incoming Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.

At the time, Pinnacle Chairman Dan Lee said the developer would not rush into building its $1.5 billion to $2 billion megaresort, hoping to avoid the construction mistakes and cost overruns plaguing its casino in St. Louis.

But few thought at the end of 2008 the company would still be taking its time.

A slumping U.S. economy and a global credit crisis altered the company's plans to build, but the Sands' demolition has left a huge hole in the city's line of towering Boardwalk casinos, once filled with jobs and business, albeit foundering.

The project's uncertainty, accompanied by a now-stagnant eyesore, is building frustration among city officials, who now are looking for ways to push development.

Councilman Dennis Mason said Sunday he and his colleagues are considering establishing a redevelopment agreement with Pinnacle to impose construction deadlines.

“They had an operating casino running. They buy it, crush it and take all the jobs away. Now they can’t build,” Mason said with frustration. “That thing could still be up and operating.”

Mason acknowledged the resort lacks the authority to force the developer into such an agreement, but hinted there are ways of cementing the deal. He declined to elaborate.
Atlantic City Council may impose construction deadlines in light of Pinnacle delays

That seems ominous–”hinted there are ways of cementing the deal.” Just leave it at that.

Also, there’s a great unintentionally funny quote later in the article, where it’s said that the guy who owns the adult bookstore “never screwed anybody out of anything.” I guess technically he hasn’t, but he’s certainly profited from people screwing each other.

Then another AC Councilman takes a bold swipe at the whole notion of property rights:

“These speculators holding their land strictly for their own personal gain, they should be bowled over,” City Councilman Bruce Ward said.

So getting fair market value for land you own is suddenly verboten? Someone get that guy a copy of Atlas Shrugged.

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Posted in atlantic city, news about gamblingTagged , , ,

Slotless bars in topless clubs

September 16, 2008 9:53 am

The state of Nevada gives you a pretty wide berth when it comes to where you put your slot machines. Mostly they are in age-restricted places like casinos and bars, but you can also find them in family-friendly supermarkets and airports. At the Reno-Tahoe Airport, you can literally buy a Happy Meal just feet away from the slots. I don’t know what that means, but I guess it means something. And I recommend the Mexican place there over the McDonald’s any day–the made-to-order nachos are certain to fill you up and rival the best restaurant offerings.

That’s a very long intro to this piece from the LV Sun about putting slot machines in strip clubs:

Strip clubs are, in the eyes of Nevada gaming regulators, not like restaurants, convenience markets or grocery stores.

And we’re not talking about the obvious differences. The three members of the Gaming Control Board say they don’t care whether the women working at the clubs are wearing tops.

They do care when entertainers, typically contract workers rather than company employees, solicit customers for sex and drugs or encourage violation of local “no touching” ordinances.

That’s what happened at Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch, a downtown strip club whose attempt to get a slot machine license was shot down by the Gaming Control Board this month after gaming agents making a visit to the club were solicited for prostitution and drugs.

“The activities … were egregious and obvious,” board member Randy Sayre said.

Strip clubs shouldn’t expect looser slot rules

Which begs the question: if these places aren’t suitable for gaming licenses, should their liquor licenses be revoked as well? It shouldn’t take the GCB to determine that some strip clubs are obviously soliciting patrons for prostitution and drugs.

From a consumer standpoint, of course, none of this makes much sense, and I understand why tourists don’t understand that they can choose either slots with a beer chaser or nude girls, but not both at once.

I don’t think putting slots in will do the strippers any favors–a lot of 20s are going to be going into the bill validators instead of g-strings. Maybe stripping and gambling are two things that are better left apart.

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Whining professor

September 15, 2008 1:04 pm

It’s not every day that you read an editorial bashing the place you work, and your colleague’s mental acumen and productivity. Well, if you work at UNLV it might be. First, a social work professor throws his peers under the bus by complaining that their work isn’t being published in enough indexed journals. Then he bashes the leadership a bit. Finally, he demands more money from the public. You’ve got to read it to believe it. From the LVRJ:

The Nevada gambling business has never paid its fair share for the civic health of the community but it now cries recessionary tears even while the Strip moguls ornament their vanities with priceless paintings and gems. They might heed G.K. Chesterton: "To be clever enough to get a great deal of money, one must be stupid enough to want it." But the real stupidity, a moral narcissism, is the obsession of endless acquisition unmitigated by civic duty or good taste. Modern Nevada has been created as a tax haven for the rapacious and the socially irresponsible.

The UNLV endowment drive has fallen short of its very modest target. In recent years UCLA and the University of Southern California have each raised $3 billion while UNLV has barely raised $425 million. Considering the dearth of higher education in Southern Nevada — UNLV is its only public university — and the great wealth even in comparison with Southern California, the private sector owes UNLV a few billion dollars to put together what all the clamor has been about: a quality research university.

ReviewJournal.com – Opinion – A farce of higher education.

I just want to discuss the bit I quoted above. Anyone who tries to compare UNLV’s donor base with those of UCLA or USC is either being deliberately disingenuous or is a moron. USC was founded in 1880, UCLA 1919. “Nevada Southern” began in 1957. Obviously, the LA schools have much deeper alumni pools to draw on. Plus, Los Angeles is a far larger and diversified city than Las Vegas–there are several industries that schools can turn to for partnerships. It would be hard to argue that Las Vegas is anywhere near as “wealthy” a city as Los Angeles.

I don’t think that the gaming industry owes UNLV anything. I’m being honest. As the guy who runs the Center for Gaming Research, I’d probably get a much bigger budget if, for some reason, the industry was compelled to pour money into Nevada’s higher education.

Nor does the rest of the private sector “owe” UNLV anything. If they want to support higher education, that’s great, but there’s no way to compel them to give more than they want. A university is a great thing, but I’m not about to tell people how to spend or donate their money.

Here’s the sentence I like best:
“But the real stupidity, a moral narcissism, is the obsession of endless acquisition unmitigated by civic duty or good taste.”

So, wanting more is stupid, narcissistic, and morally indefensible.

I’d like to know who wants less? Certainly not Professor Epstein, who wants to shake down the private sector for a few billion bucks to support a university that he says is mired in decrepitude. If we took his ranting at face value, and agreed that UNLV is a bad schools with a poor administration and crappy professors, why on earth would anyone want to give it more money?

Epistemologically, it shows a real poverty of agency; you don’t identify a problem and then fix it, or hold those who caused it accountable. No one action, it seems, can set the world aright. Instead, you insult those who’ve worked hard and been smart enough to make some money for themselves and demand they foot the bill for your failures.

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Posted in life in vegasTagged , , ,

2 new articles

September 11, 2008 11:18 am

I’ve got two new articles elsewhere on the web, including a piece in the LVBP where I ponder the strangely-bifurcated marketing strategy at Paris Las Vegas:

While browsing a popular online travel Web site recently, I noticed something strange: There are two major resort hotels at 3655 Las Vegas Boulevard South. The listing for Paris Las Vegas was nothing shocking, but a bit further was a listing for “Gay Paris Las Vegas,” at the exact same location.

We’ll always have Paris … or will we?

I’ve got about 470 more words on the subject, if you click through.

For you Atlantic City history buffs (properly, I should say “youse Atlantic City history buffs), check out Casino Connection: I’ve got an article on the 1964 Democratic Convention, which strangely enough no one seems to talk about much anymore. It was a defining moment in the civil rights movement and the history of Atlantic City, for completely different reasons.

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