If you’ve always wanted to know what I think the best romantic hangout in Las Vegas is, your modest dreams have come true. There’s a Q & A with me up on VEGASLINKS.BLOGSPOT.COM.
In the “great minds think alike” vein, check out my answer to what I consider the best place to get my groove on, then trip a little further down to another legendary Vegas blogger. Funny stuff.
Things in Atlantic City are just as bad as in Las Vegas, only on a slower, small scale, just like when things were good they were slightly less good than out in Vegas. That’s my analysis. For the story, check out Fox News:
One casino in the nation's second largest gambling market is being run by a state trustee, another may be foreclosed on and three others are facing down bankruptcy.
Hope for Atlantic City always seemed to keep flickering, though, as long as Revel Entertainment forged ahead building a $2 billion casino and hotel.
No more. The company this week laid off 400 of its 1,100 workers and stopped work on the interior of Revel," its first-ever project, reflecting the broad decline under way in national and global gambling markets.
"This is a blow to Atlantic City's psyche," said Joe Weinert, senior vice president of Spectrum Gaming Group, a New Jersey casino consulting firm. "After enduring a series of difficulties throughout 2008, Revel stood out as a rising symbol of better times to come in the very near future.
"Unfortunately for the city and its gaming industry, the project — like many others from Las Vegas to Connecticut to Macau — is a victim of the recession," he said. "The good news is that Revel seems committed to ultimately seeing this project through."
This week's cuts add Revel — an Atlantic City company partnered with Wall Street's Morgan Stanley — to a long list of companies that hoped to participate in the biggest expansion of gambling in Atlantic City since it was legalized here 31 years ago. Gambling's decline in Atlantic City is almost as pronounced as in Las Vegas, home to the world's four largest gambling companies.
In Atlantic City, Pinnacle Entertainment has been sitting on prime Boardwalk real estate since it imploded the historic Sands Casino Hotel in October 2007. The project is on indefinite hold, and Pinnacle has said it might sell the land if a buyer materialized.
FOXNews.com – Atlantic City Feels Pain of Global Casino Decline.
I kept the quote long because I wanted to riff on that last bit. What’s all this about a buyer “materializing?” Is it going to be Doctor Who showing up in the Tardis? Pinnacle better hope the dimensional stabilizer isn’t out of whack, otherwise he might end up on Metebelis III instead.
They’re turning down the lights on the Strip, and it has nothing to do with not being able to pay the electric bill. From the LVRJ:
Planned marquee outages on the Strip come along about as often as Megabucks jackpots.
And like many of those slot-machine fortunes, lights-out events on Las Vegas Boulevard typically don't last long.
But on March 28, signs and message boards along the Strip — the brightest spot on Earth when viewed from space, the lore goes — will power down for 60 minutes as part of a global event intended to raise awareness of climate change.
Las Vegas is a flagship city for Earth Hour 2009, a World Wildlife Fund movement encouraging individuals, governments and businesses to dim or turn out lights. Casino executives and several local officials, including Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, gathered Wednesday at a news conference on the south Strip to talk about Southern Nevada's role in Earth Hour.
ReviewJournal.com – News – Strip to go dark in global event.
Yeah, I got quoted a little further down. And yes, I did use the words “sanctimonious” and “insults the intelligence.” That might be a bit extreme, but it seems like this is just a publicity stunt that’s not going to do much to fight global warming, or global cooling, or whatever climate change we’re supposed to be aware of. It also cheapens the occasions when the Strip lights were dimmed in the past, which have been either to honor someone who helped build Las Vegas in the public eye or to mark a national tragedy. If you start using it for the cause of the week, it doesn’t mean as much when you do it for something important.
On the scale of global outrages, dimming the lights for something some people will find inappropriate is pretty small. But I think there are more immediate problems for Las Vegas, like the dip in tourism. Or water. Or the potential destruction of higher education in the state.
The funny thing is that fewer tourists is actually better for the environment. Flying to Las Vegas is a pretty wasteful expenditure of carbon. The more people who come here, the more fuel burned for transportation, lighting, and heat or cooling. So we don’t want people to be too aware of climate change when they think of Las Vegas. At the very least, there should be a caveat that they shouldn’t change their travel plans because of it. Right? Otherwise, it’s kind of like Pinnacle Atlantic City protesting urban blight or Big Elvis lecturing us on portion control.
Maybe the message should be this: Las Vegas was built on defying nature and the environment, and now that we’re winning there’s no need to start going soft.
I am shocked–shocked–to learn that Congress has chosen to bar casinos from getting any of the nearly trillion dollars in stimulus money that’s floating around. From CNN:
Congress has moved to prevent money from the proposed $825 billion stimulus package from being used for zoos, aquariums, golf courses, swimming pools and casinos, an effort to ensure the bill funds only what it calls the "highest quality" infrastructure projects.
Restrictions added to the stimulus proposal would keep the money from zoo projects, among other things.
Restrictions added to the stimulus proposal would keep the money from zoo projects, among other things.
"The purpose of this bill is to direct funding at projects that are primarily and clearly aimed at benefiting the economic conditions of communities and the public at large," the bill states. "The federal government and all other levels of government are directed to look with a skeptical eye at projects that don't meet that test."
Congress looks to keep stimulus cash from zoos, golf courses – CNN.com.
Let’s play a game. It’s called “what do these things have in common?”
Here’s how it goes: I list a bunch of things, then you tell me what they have in common.
Let’s try: zoos, aquariums, golf courses, swimming pools and casinos–what do they have in common?
Vivian Gornick. The Situation and the Story. New Edition for Writers, Teachers, and Students. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001. 174 pages.
This brief guide to writing personal narrative has several useful insights. Gornick’s biggest and best idea is that good narrative non-fiction must capture both the situation–the factual account of what happened and to whom–and the story, the underlying emotional truth. This is excellent advice for writers of any skill level.
Gornick draws on several memoirs, famous and obscure, to make her point: George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and Seymour Kirm’s “For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business” are just two of the best examples. These snippets help the reader see for himself what good writing is.
In addition to the helpful suggestions on writing, there is a barrel full of literary navel-gazing that I didn’t quite understand. For example, while talking about the reversal of the modernist triumph of voice over narrative, Gornick writes, “At the same time that the power of voice alone has been dwindling, an age of mass culture paradoxically much influenced by modernism has emerged on a scale unparalleled in history, and today millions of people consider themselves possessed of the right to assert a serious life.” I think the gist is that because more people can publish, they want to write, but it seems a rather indirect and jargon-heavy way of saying it.
The Situation and the Story is a very good prompt for writing personal narrative–there are several questions and exercises at the back of the book that can help the writer. I’d just buy it with the caveat that if you’re not up on what’s being taught in MFA programs, much of the theorizing will likely be opaque to you, as it was to me.
Atlantic City’s oldest casino is in bad shape. From the AC Press:
Resorts is struggling for survival. Its owner is possibly facing the same fate as scores of recession-ravaged Americans who have defaulted on their mortgage – foreclosure.
In an unprecedented move, Resorts' chief lender is seeking New Jersey Casino Control Commission approval to take over the casino because it has failed to make payments on a $360 million mortgage for the past three months.
"I don't ever recall any financial source ever making this kind of request to us," commission spokesman Daniel Heneghan said.
The commission was well aware of Resorts' financial troubles before lender Column Financial Inc. filed its foreclosure request Thursday. The regulatory agency has been keeping an eye on the casino for months.
"We have been monitoring Resorts' financial situation for some time," Heneghan said. "We're getting more frequent reports from the casino about every aspect of their financial condition."
A key issue is whether Resorts is financially stable enough to continue holding a New Jersey gaming license. It must have enough cash on hand to fund the casino operations and pay off winning bets.
In retrospect, maybe Pinnacle’s did the Atlantic City market a favor by blowing up the Sands. That’s about $170 million in casino revenue that’s instead (hopefully) going to other properties. If these marginal casinos had even less market share, they’d probably be doing even worse.
That said, I don’t quite buy Dan Lee’s argument that Resorts is a lost cause. Caesars Palace is twelve years older, and is still one of the most successful casinos in the world. It’s grown, certainly, but I don’t think anyone would argue that it’s as easy to get around as Paris or the Luxor. So despite its issues, it’s still a solid performer. I think that the limitations of the physical plant can be overcome with better customer service and marketing. If you get treated better at Resorts than anywhere else in the city, will you really care that the windows are too small? It’s a historic building, which I think adds an intangible but still important value.
I’m pleased to announce a new Gaming Research Colloquium event at UNLV:
February 23, 2009
Gaming Research Colloquium Series: Bill Zender
Special Event with the author of “Casino-ology: The Art of Managing Casino Games”
Monday, February 23, 2:00 pm
Extended Study Area, Lied Library
Refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase.
Download flyer (pdf)
I recently reviewed Casino-ology and was so impressed that I approached Mr. Zender to come speak at UNLV. We’re really lucky to have an expert with his history and knowledge come and talk. So if you’re in town on Monday, February 23rd, head on down for what promises to be a great learning opportunity.
And don’t forget, next week we’ve got another provocative talk, as Leslie Nino Fidance takes down a huge Vegas myth in a talk entitled, “The Mob Never Ran Vegas:”
Thursday, January 29, 12:15 pm
UNLV Special Collections
Download flyer (pdf)
We’re all about promoting the interdisciplinary study of gambling and related issues over at the Center, and these are two events we’re very proud of.
If you can’t make it, keep your eyes posted for them to be posted as podcasts.
In the past year we’ve heard talk of lowering the gambling age to 18 and allowing strip clubs in Strip casinos. Now comes another trial balloon: legal prostitution in Las Vegas. From the LV Sun:
In these tough budgetary times, the chairman of a key state Senate committee is willing to consider the world’s oldest profession as a potential source of new tax revenue.
State Sen. Bob Coffin said Tuesday he would be willing to grant a hearing on proposals to legalize and regulate prostitution in Las Vegas and other urban areas of the state where it’s illegal.
The Las Vegas Democrat, who heads the Senate Taxation Committee, said he also wants to look at taxing the state’s legal brothels in rural counties.
Only “the most naive person on the planet would believe there’s no prostitution going on in the urban areas,” Coffin said. “It’s going on now unregulated and unsafe.
“I have not decided about whether or not I’d support the legalization and control of it in urban areas. But I think it’s an idea worth entertaining.”
Prostitution is legal in most of Nevada’s rural counties, but state law prohibits it in counties with populations in excess of 400,000. That means there are no legal brothels in Las Vegas or Reno.
Previous suggestions that Nevada consider legalizing prostitution throughout the state have gone nowhere. This is the first time in recent memory that a legislator has taken up this issue, but such a proposal would face long odds.
Coffin, who is serving his final term in the Senate because of term limits, said he will focus primarily on getting additional money from legal rural brothels, strip clubs and escort services.
“I’d be happy to listen to arguments for legalization anytime,” Coffin said. “In the meantime, I know we have to get some money from the world’s oldest profession.”
Senators ideas: Tax brothels, consider legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas – Las Vegas Sun.
I agree that it’s a topic that should be open to debate. But the pro-prostitution side must have a more compelling argument than, “People are already doing it.” People are doing lots of things that shouldn’t be legal.
Also, something just hit me: everyone always calls prostitution “the world’s oldest profession.” I don’t think that’s accurate or logically possible. In order for prostitutes to get paid, people have to have money. And they don’t have money unless they’re working at something…like a profession. Right? Ipso facto, prostitution cannot logically be the world’s oldest profession.
Sure, I guess you could run it on the barter basis, but then it’s not really a profession, is it?
Central City has become the last Colorado town to liberalize its betting rules. From the Denver Post:
This gambling town Tuesday became the third and final town in Colorado to expand gambling.
By a vote of 212 to 16, with nine provisional votes to be counted today, residents agreed to expand the maximum bet in casinos from $5 to $100, and allow craps, roulette and 24-hours-a-day gambling.
Amendment 50, passed by the state's voters last year, allowed the gambling towns to vote on raising the stakes.
The changes take effect after July 1, according to state law.
The vote comes as revenues from gambling have been on the decline.
The state's community colleges will receive more than three-quarters of the new gaming tax revenue to spend on financial aid and classroom instruction.
Colorado's other two gambling towns, Cripple Creek and Black Hawk, already approved the expanded gambling.
That’s certainly not surprising, but whether this increases visitation as well as revenues remains to be seen.
As you can tell from the title, I’m back from the Winter Getaway and hard at work on several projects. I’m trying to line up an exciting author event in February and have several other gaming research irons in the fire. I’ve also gotten a new recording device and may post a mini-test podcast later this week.
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