Beth Raymer. Lay the Favorite: A Gambling Memoir. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 201. 240 pages.

Sports betting might be the clubbiest form of gambling. Every game has its own lingo, but sports betting, maybe because it’s rooted in real physical competition, just seems a little more insular. There are plenty of books out there that suggest the best ways to pick winners, but few in-depth, from-the-inside, looks at what it’s like to be a big-money sports bettor. With LAY THE FAVORITE, Beth Raymer gives a peek inside that world, through the eyes of someone who doesn’t bet herself, but “just gets the doughnuts.”

Like many others, Raymer finds herself in Las Vegas as a victim of circumstance. She comes out there with her boyfriend, breaks up with him, and finds herself needing a new job when by chance she ends up in the office of Dink, Inc. Dink is a professional sports bettor who employs about a half-dozen people who check lines, place bets, and move money for him. Raymer has a keen eye for what’s beneath the surface (at least in hindsight) and paints a suitably Runyon-esque portrait of Dink and his coterie.

Through another series of events, she finds herself in New York and winds up working for another sports bettor, Bernard, and even follows him down to Curacao, where he runs his own online betting site; from there its back to the States again. At the end of the book, she’s on the move again, possibly having learned a bit about how to live from the series of mentor’s she’s had.

It’s an interesting book, and gives the reader a good sense of the unbalanced lives that those who Raymer encounters live. For the most part, these are not healthy people in any sense of the word; they overeat, they break the law, they allow others to take advantage of them, and they take advantage of others. It’s not a pretty picture, and it might be difficult for readers to find a sympathetic character in the narrative. As a result, it’s not necessarily a happy read; there is a lot of desperation and poor choices in here. But that’s the story of most of the people Raymer encounters (at least as she sees it).

A good counterpoint to this book is Alan Jay Zaremba’s THE MADNESS OF MARCH, which takes a more analytical and academic slant on the “gambling memoir” idea. It chronicles an extended weekend of “betting and bonding with the boys” in Las Vegas on the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament over the course of an extended weekend, and while he’s just as sharp an observer as Raymer, the men he encounters betting on the games come nowhere near the “degenerate” level of Dink, Bernard, and the others. It’s a reminder that, for most of those who bet, this is just something to make the game a little more interesting, not a way to make a living (or not).

The laws of supply and demand aren’t sentimental, particularly when it comes to hotel rooms. No matter what kind of rate a suite might have gotten in the past, when there are more beds than bodies to fill them, the room rate will go down. But when running a luxury property, there are concerns beyond just filling rooms tonight: Long-term position of the hotel’s “brand” can make price-cutting a double-edged sword.

via Selling luxury in the Great Recession | Vegas Seven.

It’s been a busy week around here, which explains the fewer blog posts. I wanted to talk a bit about Bill Zender’s bacc protection seminar, which was profiled in the LV Sun. Some positive news is that instead of just doing a blog post about the kids unattended in cars thing, I’m writing a Vegas Seven article about it. I’ve already talked to Jerry Markling with the Gaming Control Board and look forward to talking with a few other people.

I also am working on a few work projects that I might talk about here, time permitting.

“The carpets definitely play a big part in keeping the town as surreal as it is,” said Maluszynski by e-mail. “Thought has been given to the carpeting by people who want to create this special atmosphere, [one] that defines Vegas as a gambling city.”

via Ugly Vegas Carpets Want You to Keep Playing | Raw File.

I’m really going to update the essay that they reference to make it a little less tongue in cheek. On the Internet, no one can hear you being sardonic. I think I’ll add some more serious reasons why carpet looks like it does: mostly to hide stains and to jazz up a pretty big space. Thanks to Luxor and Aria, we’ve seen what less gaudy carpet looks like in a casino: funereal.

The urban legend that it makes you look at the machines is patently ridiculous. As bipeds with their heads 5-6 feet off the ground, humans generally look at about eye level while they’re walking. unless they’re hiking over treacherous ground. It’s not like our default mode to to stare at our shoes while we walk. The other legend, that it’s to hide chips, is flat-out stupid. Casinos want players to gamble their chips, not lose them. If a player loses money, or a chip, whoever finds it is supposed to report it to lost and found. If no one claims it after 30 days, they keep it. (At least that’s how it is in most places I’m familiar with.) If that happens, it’s a stone cold lock that the money’s not getting gambled at the casino. What kind of manager would want to encourage that?

It would be nice if casino carpet was really that mystical, but it’s really pretty common sense stuff if you think about it for a while.

Paper 06: August 2010

Laura Cook Kenna. “The Promise of Gangster Glamour: Sinatra, Vegas, and Alluring, Ethnicized, Excess,” Occasional Paper Series 6. Las Vegas: Center for Gaming Research, University Libraries, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2010.

Abstract: Las Vegas has been linked with Frank Sinatra since the 1950s. The highly‐publicized performances of the Rat Pack (consisting of Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford) at the Sands crystallized the image of Las Vegas as a place that mingled economic mobility with excess. This excess was often associated with ethnicity and frequently linked to crime. It was, however, the excess that made Las Vegas and Sinatra glamorous to many audiences.

Keywords: Las Vegas, Rat Pack, Gangsters, American Ethnicity

View the paper here (pdf)

I tweaked the masthead a bit, to keep up with the lighter look that we’re going for with the site in general. I’m always open to feedback–it’s still in transition, most likely.

On to the paper: what I like about this one is that it gives a serious exploration of an idea–”gangster glamour”–that seems contradictory at first thought, but actually makes sense. In a lot of ways, this is what Las Vegas is all about. For decades, the city’s offered “safe adventure” for visitors–wild times, but not too wild (at least that’s how the city’s been promoted. Reality often differs quite a bit).

You can also hear the podcasted version of Kenna’s lecture here.

Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters. Android Karenina. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2010. 541 pages.

I don’t review too much fiction, but I thought I’d give this one a shot. Quirk Books has put out a few “mash-up” books–combinations of classic (and public domain) works of literature with genre fiction. The titles alone–like Price and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters–are a good indication of what you get. I’m more partial to 19th century Russian literature than British literature, so when I saw Android Karenina, I decided to give it a try.

This is a difficult book to review, because the plot basically follows that of Anna Karenina, with some extreme liberties taken. Essentially, it’s layering the star-crossed romance of Anna and Vronsky over a steampunk Russia filled with robots, ranging from simple Class Is to “beloved-companion” Class IIIs, of which each adult Russian has one, whose appearance and style says something about its owner. Anna’s Class III is named Android Karenina, and she silently supports Anna throughout her travails.

There’s also a bigger story about a terrorist group named UnConSciya, and even an alien invasion. Suffice it to say that this is not Tolstoy’s Russia, though most of the plot points are adapted to this new world with a few tweaks.

So is ANDROID KARENINA a worthwhile read? Well, it’s not exactly Literature with the upper-case “L,” but after a while it really draws you in. Fifty pages in, I thought that this would have made a witty short story, and was dreading the thought of almost another 500 pages. But around 100 pages, something clicked, and I really got into the Russo-steampunk universe Winters created. At the end, I wished there was more–which is pretty high praise for such a lengthy book, and probably one of the best signs of quality that I can think of.

If you are really into steampunk, or have a sense of humor about the classics, you’ll probably find ANDROID KARENINA a truly fun read. I know I did.

Casinos in Las Vegas have been marketing through social media for some time now, mostly via Facebook and Twitter. Recently, however, two Las Vegas-based casino companies have taken their investment in social media to another level with Facebook applications.Facebook allows third-party developers to create applications, or apps, that users can access through their Facebook pages. Social games are some of the most popular apps available. Unlike sites that offer play-for-free or play-for-cash, these games require no download and can be played in a standard Web browser. By definition, they allow players to invite friends to join games and compete in friendly competitions.

via Casinos now playing Facebook games | Vegas Seven.

I played both games, and found the casino-builder to definitely require more attention as you play–no replying to emails in another tab while you play it.

This is probably going to be a big growth area, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see casinos big and small partnering with game developers.

One of the executives who oversaw Resorts Atlantic City during its 1970s heyday said the money-losing casino should transform itself into a convention haven as part of its turnaround strategy under new ownership.Steve Norton, who now serves as a private gaming consultant, said more conventions would fill the hotel rooms with lucrative customers and offset the typically slow midweek business cycles that plague Resorts and other casinos in town.

via pressofAtlanticCity.com: • Atlantic City, Pleasantville & Brigantine – Breaking News plus Local, Business, Sports, Entertainment & Video News for Southern New Jersey.

I’d like to think that everyone in the industry is aware of the “load balancing” that conventions provide–Vegas casinos have been doing this since the 1950s. But if people need to be reminded of that, so much the better that they hear it. But I would assume that any big casino’s going to be doing some kind of yield management with their rooms to maximize their revenues from business travelers, FITs, and casino guests. But looking at the performance of a lot of the Atlantic City casinos lately, maybe not.

The bigger question is: how do you position the city’s oldest casino in a business where being the newest usually has a premium? I know of only two casinos that actively trade on their history, or pedigree, and those are the Golden Gate and (more and more) the El Cortez in Downtown Las Vegas. In both cases, it’s a smart way to use an asset that your neighbors don’t have or (in the Nugget’s case) don’t want to use.

The property isn’t going to compete with Borgata, Caesars, the Taj, or Harrah’s in flashiness, but that’s OK. There are plenty of people who want a less-frenetic time “down the shore,” and Resorts might be able to capture this crowd–the people who feel underserved because they don’t want to go to bottle service nightclubs or listen to booming bass while they play quarter slots. They’re good casino customers, and there’s a lot of them: the key is making sure they drive to Atlantic City.

I’ll trot out a few of my suggestions for getting people in the door:
1. Free parking and free slot play in the amount of tolls/EZpass receipts for out-of state customers. I laid this out a few months ago, and I still think it’s a good idea. If they’re in your database, you’ve got their zipcode. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out how much they pay in tolls, so you wouldn’t even have to make them show receipts to you. We’re talking $30 or so in slot freeplay here, not really anything that’s going to break the bank, particularly when you consider that no one’s going to drive down, play $30, and leave right away. Sure, you might get some scammers who pack 6 to a car and take advantage, but this isn’t necessarily the worst thing: you’ve got people in your casino who think they’re playing with house money. If you’ve got a half-way decent casino, you should be able to keep them there.

2. Play up a more sedate, more sophisticated image. Sure, in the casino world this is subjective, but with the right packaging an anti-”Jersey Shore” campaign could go a long way.

3. A vintage slot section, with favorite games from way back. Others have done this, and it draws a crowd

Those are just three ideas, off the top of my head, without having been on the Resorts floor in a year or so and without any inside knowledge of what their customer database looks like.

In other words, I think there’s a lot Gomes & company can do with this property. I wish them luck.

The June results are in, and whatever the national economic picture, one thing is certain: Nevada gaming remains moribund. The figures released by the Gaming Control Board aren’t much cause for optimism, though things look a little better for Southern Nevada than for the north.

via Las Vegas Business Press :: David G. Schwartz : Latest data provide little optimism for gaming.

Basically, even without the incredibly low bacc hold on the Strip, it wasn’t a good month for the state, as slot handle continues to fall and table handle is mostly kept afloat by high levels of bacc play, play which happens in maybe a dozen casinos. But even if the bacc hold percentage had been more in the house’s favor, it still probably would have been a flat month.

Also, an interesting article in the LV Sun about the decreasing number of slots in Nevada, something I’ve written about. I’ve got one question: if it’s just a matter of having more games on each slot, why has the statewide win per slot only inched up slightly ($108.76 vs. $110.04) since 2004? The total win is declining in addition to the total number of slots, so each slot is doing about the same about of “work” it was six years ago, multiple games or not. Sure, the counter-argument is that revenues would have declined more without the game menus, but still, there hasn’t been a real increase in per-machine revenue generation yet.

That’s a void I’ve been trying to fill over at the Center for Gaming Research, with the assumption that if people know more about the gaming industry and how it operates, there will be less misinformation out there. So many of the reports are summaries of available data on different games, with some narrative summary thrown in.

Last week I started thinking about one simple measure of how well the gaming industry’s doing: the monthly year-to-year comparisons. It seems pretty basic: if casinos make more money than they did in that month the previous year, they’re doing better; if they make less, they’re doing worse. There was a time when it seemed like every month was a “better” month, which should happen over time, even if the industry is stagnant, because of inflation. But we’ve seen so many months of decline for the past 2 years, any month with an increase is good news.

So to quantify just where we’ve been, and where we are, I started by looking at the monthly change in “total gaming win” for Nevada as a whole and for the Las Vegas Strip from January 2008 to today. You might want to open this pdf up in a different window to follow along–it’s the report.

It turns out that for the state, there’s a roughly u-shaped decline when comparing year-to-year performances, with the bottom coming in the fall/winter of 2008-9. We’ve got a year-year increase for the first time in two years in November 2009, followed by slight declines in December and January, a boffo increase in Feburary (which was fueled mostly by baccarat and a favorable calendar), and what looks like the start of another valley, much of which is due to June’s abnormally low baccarat hold.

Looking at the quarterly growth changes from 2Q 2007 to 2Q 2010, the u-shaped pattern is even more evident, as is the apparent reversal of an upward trend.

Yet it’s important to note that if we define a recession (narrowly) as two or more consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, Nevada gaming officially exited the recession back in March, when it notched a quarter of positive growth. Of course, it’s not really that easy, since employment numbers are still down, as are non-gaming revenues.

The pattern on the Strip matched that of the state as a whole, though the Fall/Winter 2008/09 was a little deeper and the Fall/Winter 2009 “recovery” was a little stronger. Still, three straight months of declines in April, May, and June of 2010 show that we’re not out of the woods yet. For what it’s worth, the Strip’s casinos posted positive revenue growth in 4Q 2009 and 1Q 2010, though 2Q 2010 was again a decline.

If anything, looking at these numbers suggests that when the industry does shake off the cobwebs and start growing again in earnest, the Strip is going to lead the rest of the state.

You can see the entire report, and the raw data, here: Nevada Gaming: Revenue Growth & Decline.

Lynn F. Jacobs and Jeremy S. Hyman. The Secrets of College Success: Over 600 Tips & Tricks Revealed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010. 224 pages.

Most college graduates feel that, if they’d have known everything going in that they knew when they graduated, they would have had a much better time. THE SECRETS OF COLLEGE SUCCESS looks to fill that information gap, and it succeeds, with a few caveats. Generally, there’s no real “secrets” in here; a student would be able to learn everything in here on his or her own, but reading this book will save them a lot of time and frustration, which makes it worth it.

Essentially, the book runs through what college is (and isn’t), how the prepare for school, how to time-manage and study correctly, picking and taking classes, taking tests, and dealing with the inevitable unforeseen circumstances. It’s eminently readable–though the 224 pages are filled with useful information, they fly by pretty quickly–and the numerous numbered lists are great for future reference.

All of the tips are useful–I thought the chapter on picking courses and professors was particularly good, and I’m going to make sure to refer back to the “thirteen surefire signs of a bad professor” section to make sure I’m not slipping.

Like I said above, many of the “secrets” aren’t secret at all. For example, the “10 ways to whip the Freshman comp requirement” list includes: 1. go to class and 2. do all the work assigned. This seems pretty obvious, but it’s good that the authors remind students not to take shortcuts. Many of the tips are similarly rooted in common sense, and hopefully through repetition they sink in.

One caveat about the “partner with your professor” chapter. Yes, professors find it gratifying when students take an interest in their work, but there’s definitely a line there. Students, don’t assume that your professors live, breath, and sleep your course material. Even if they are passionate about teaching, they’ve probably got lots of stuff to do outside of class. Sometimes, showing too much interest in the class can be a little creepy. Just tackle the subject matter with confidence and curiosity, and you’ll be fine.

As someone who teaches, I found this book to be a great guide for students; even if they already know what to do, this book will confirm that they’re doing it right. If not, it’ll show them how to improve their grades and enjoyment of college. I would definitely get this book for a new college student, and will recommend it in the future.

Nevada Gaming Statistics: June Comparison
Statewide, Las Vegas Strip, Boulder Strip, and Washoe County figures for the month of June, 2004-2010
CGR Reports

Interesting trends. I’m going to be working more on this next week.

Most casino executives view renovating hotel rooms as a necessary but disagreeable process. Room remodels are doubly expensive—they pull rooms out of the rental pool and incur labor and materials costs. It’s easy to see why few property owners look forward to them.The El Cortez, however, has found a way to use the renovation process to put the spotlight on itself and four Nevada design teams via its Design-a-Suite Downtown competition, showing again how it’s carving its own niche on Sixth and Fremont streets.

via El Cortez gets creative with design competition | Vegas Seven.

I think that what the El Cortez is going deserves notice. Between Emergency Arts, the Cabana Suites, and this, they’ve really done a lot of interesting things. It’s ironic that one of the most “old school” casinos–with coin-pay slots, no less–is also one of the most innovative. Or perhaps it’s not…

Las Vegas just added a bit more bling to its famed Strip with the unveiling of a new marquee for The Cosmopolitan — a resort-casino opening at the end of the year. There already are questions about how the city will absorb another 3,000 hotel rooms. Las Vegas has been hit hard by the down economy and is struggling with a glut of rooms. David Schwartz of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas talks to Steve Inskeep about the city's fortunes.

via Does Las Vegas Really Need Another Hotel-Casino? : NPR.

I had great conversation with Steve. It’s not an easy topic to discuss because there are so many variables. In the end, it seems like it’s just as much a crapshoot as anything on the casino floor. Which is ironic, perhaps, but maybe apt.

>>>Nevada Gaming Statistics: June Comparison
Statewide, Las Vegas Strip, Boulder Strip, and Washoe County figures for June, 2004-2010 read report (pdf)

This time, I added a one-page “executive summary.” The summary’s necessary because I’ve realized that while the implications of the numbers in the tables seem perfectly obvious to me, most normal people don’t get quite as intimate with the Nevada gaming statistics as I do, so a narrative summary seemed like a good idea. The “executive” part is just to make people feel more important when reading it–like if they don’t bother to look at the rest of the report, it just means they’re a busy executive with no time to waste on trivial details.

Putting these monthly analyses together requires a fair amount of work, but seeing the numbers for seven years next to each other really puts the most recent month in perspective.

This June, it was about 90% bad news–the only real positive was that baccarat handle was up considerably on the Strip. Just about everything else was down, except table handle on the Boulder Strip, so it looks like M’s getting plenty of action, even if the sub-par hold percentage meant it didn’t translate into a bigger win.

Anthony and Deidre Flood Jenkins are about to have the moment of a lifetime. Pavilion Room 4 at the Las Vegas Hilton might seem a funny place for this, but that’s where George Takei and Walter Koenig—who played Sulu and Chekov, respectively, in the original Star Trek—are taking pictures with fans. Anthony, who watched the show in its original run, is a bookseller; Deidre is a schoolteacher. Takei’s unmistakable baritone carries all the way through the line. The Jenkinses are about to meet their heroes.

via Trekkies teach Vegas how to live long and prosper | Vegas Seven.

Please click through and read it–this one was a lot of fun to research and very difficult to write. There were at least a dozen stories that I could have told, but this one–what we can learn from what goes on at the convention–seemed the most appropriate to the audience. Talking to Scott MacDonald and Randy Oglesby, the underlying truth of what they were saying dawned on me: this isn’t what we planned for, but this is great. It seemed that was an attitude we could use more of in Las Vegas today.

I’d like to thank everyone who talked with me over the weekend for sharing their insights and experiences. Even if they didn’t make it into the final cut, those thoughts helped me understand the convention much better.

Trying to edit this down, it occurred to me that this would make a great chapter in a book about Las Vegas–it would take five to seven thousand words to do it justice and really get into what’s going on.

I’m going to look at another facet of the convention for the Las Vegas Business Press in next-next week’s column, so keep your hailing frequencies open.