I’ve been busy today getting the slot hold occasional paper finished up, so running the risk of CityCenter fatigue, here’s an excerpt from my last LVBP column about, you guessed it, CityCenter:

This might be the most novel thing visitors notice about CityCenter, at first. And its hard to believe that its not by design. One thing that sets CityCenter apart from other resorts on the Strip is that because of the density, you will never be far from the street when you’re in the public spaces. The third-floor pool, for example, faces a parking structure on the west. It’s not close enough to smell the exhaust, but it is in the field of vision of poolside loungers. This is a profoundly different sort of vibe than the usual “desert oasis” feel of most Las Vegas pools, where hotel towers or extensive setbacks remove visitors from traffic and, in a sense, reality

via Las Vegas Business Press :: David G. Schwartz : CityCenters pocket parks, traffic circles stand as symbol of Strips evolution.

Further down in the article, you’ll note my reference to plural “pocket parks.” When I wrote this I hadn’t seen the entire complex and was under the impression that there were more than one–I thought I heard someone calling the area outside Bar Vdara “one of the pocket parks,” but I either misheard or that was an error. Even though there’s just one, though, it’s still significant.

Of course, if you were Steve Wynn and you wanted to really rain on CityCenter’s parade (which he probably doesn’t) you could just say, “Twenty years before you unmasked Las Vegas’s first pocket park, I built its first pocket rain forest.” You got to say it in the “I’m Steve Wynn” voice, though.

My Las Vegas Business Press piece on Encore is up. It’s an expansion of my original post on this site. Here’s my grand conclusion:

Encore, in its essence, is hopeful. Even the name is a reminder that something came before, and something will come after. It’s both a great new resort and a call to remember that as long as it continues to change, Las Vegas will survive.

Wynn should take a bow for Encore and its essence of hope.

Insomuch as it’s possible to plumb a casino opening for a deeper read on the current American mindset, I’m giving it a shot. I’d really like to develop this into a 2000-word or so essay that pulls in the history of the Strip, speculation, consumerism, much more. Any editors out there want to pay for such a piece? Just checking.

Together, I think Wynn and Encore are the first Vegas resort that’s not looking backward: there’s no nostalgia for the past or for imagined versions of other, more notable, places. It looks like City Center and Fountainebleau will be in the same mold. Whether you love or hate the Wynn suite of properties, you’ve got to admit that stylistically they are a world away from, say, the Palazzo and Venetian, which are supposed to evoke the glories of a city whose heyday passed before Columbus sailed. They are original without making a fetish of their modernism.

If we don’t have the airline capacity to deliver people to town, though, does any of this make a difference in 2009? Later in the week I’ll be developing my year-in-review/looking ahead columns, and I think that will be the big question.

There’s been quite the buzz for Encore over the Internet. This quote from Oskar Garcia’s AP piece explains, I think, why Wynn gets it more than anyone except Jack Binion and a few others:

Wynn expected thousands to jam the entrances to the casinos on Monday night, as some of his best customers ceremoniously pull the first slots and play the first hand at each machine and table with $2 million in house money.

If they win — at prices of $1,000 to $25,000 — they get to keep the winnings, but Wynn says he expects they’ll play some more no matter what happens.

“I’ve never met a gambler that would win a bet and retire from gambling,” he said.

Wynn’s Encore opens during tough times for Vegas

There’s something else about the place that I didn’t mention yesterday–like Wynn, it has a sense of humor about itself. Many of the other luxury joints take themselves way too seriously. I don’t get the feeling that Encore does. There’s a real sense of whimsy running throughout the place. I’m sure a guy that’s just blown $25,000 at mini bacc would beg to differ, but I can see it.

I’ve got an idea that I will hopefully get to develop more in an essay somewhere: Encore is a themed hotel, but it’s themed around ideas, not a time or place. It’s not homogeneous, but it all ties together because it comes back to the idea of change, metamorphosis, and reinvention…which is the essence of Las Vegas, after all.

After much anticipation, I got to see the inside of Encore. My expectations were high. As I said in the RJ, Steve Wynn’s been opening casinos for a while now, and he does it better than anyone in the business. I tried not to read the pre-opening press too closely because I’m in no hurry to see the future–I’d rather experience it as it happens.

I was enormously lucky this morning, since the group I was in (which included fellow Vegas Gang members Hunter, Chuck, and David) was conducted around the property by Roger Thomas, the hotel’s Executive Vice President of Design. He designed himself or had a hand in the realization of just about everything we saw, and had fascinating anecdotes about how he acquired many of the pieces on display throughout the property. It was a real treat.

I’m amazed at how well everything came together. When I ran past the place during the marathon (which was about 2 weeks ago but feels like 2 months), I thought that there was no way the hotel would be ready to open on the 22nd–and that was just the porte cochere. When I got there at quarter of 11 this morning, there was still work going on, but the place is absolutely ready. There’s something to be said for a hard opening: much more dramatic impact and excitement than doing it in dribs and drabs.

And that’s what it all comes down to: visual theater. It’s hard not to get jaded about casinos when you live in Las Vegas, and even tougher when you’ve worked in one. Encore really impressed me in a way that few hotels or casinos have. To explain the genius of the place, let me tell you about Mr. A and Mr. B. Mr. A has been coming to Las Vegas for thirty years and has gone from Caesars Palace to Mirage to Bellagio, with stays at Bally’s, MGM Grand, and Paris mixed in. He loves Vegas and everything about Vegas, especially the gambling. Mr. B came to Vegas once, in 1999, and hated everything about the city. He doesn’t gamble. I really think that both Mr. A and Mr. B would be equally wowed by Encore for completely different reasons.

Encore is the ultimate Vegas and the anti-Vegas, both at the same time. The colors are rich without being gaudy. The interiors deliver luxury without pretension. I didn’t get the feeling that it was trying to impress: instead, it felt like some folks with an unlimited bank account and excellent taste got together and decided to build. I can see how it’s the logical product of Wynn’s three decades plus in the casino business, but also a departure.

I won’t bore you with the petty details: the chambered casino, the unique finishes in each restaurant, and the square footage of the guest rooms. That’s been better told elsewhere. I’ll just relate some of my impressions of what I saw.

At first, I didn’t think that I was going to be very impressed with the restaurants. After all, they’re just places for people to eat, right? How creative can you get with that? Sinatra, for example: when I heard the idea of a Sinatra-themed Italian restaurant, I thought, ugh. I pictured Piero’s with Rat Pack photos and gold records on the walls. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The restaurant is actually a gem, a fantastically-designed space with brilliant details, and a few tasteful photos of Frank Sinatra that don’t look out of place at all. It’s really the opposite of everything I’d imagined it would be.

Switch, too, was a real shock. When I heard the concept of a restaurant whose walls changed, I cynically thought that they must not have much optimism for the menu if they have to use gimmicks like that. Seeing the concept in action, though, it all makes sense. Roger Thomas says that Steve Wynn’s idea was “dinner theater without the actors.” He absolutely achieved it: the switch effect is flawless, and the musical cues give it a true sense of drama. I can see now how it will complement, not distract from, your meal.

More cynicism exploded: you would think that opening a nightclub called “XS” in the midst of an economic slowdown is the height of hubris. Do we really need another gilded night spot? Walking through the space, I can say “yes.” It feels like a celebration of movement, of life, particularly the gold leaf body forms in the foyer, another detail that must be seen to be appreciated. It’s not hubris, it’s optimism, a bold statement that there still are moments in life worth celebrating.

Set against “the downturn,” the entire resort takes the shape of a manifesto, a declaration that there’s only one way ahead, and that’s to move forward. Granted, none of this was planned: Encore was conceived when it looked like smooth sailing ahead. Today, it has a relevance far beyond any other casino. It’s a profound cultural statement.

We’re not going to gamble or pamper our way out of our current societal predicament, but Encore is a bellwether nonetheless because it is forward-looking. There are elements from the past and from various parts of the world, but nothing sentimental or nostalgic. Sinatra, for example, looks like a room that the singer would be comfortable in, but like nothing that he would have seen during his life. It’s not about presenting Rat Pack nostalgia–it’s creating a space around the symbolic core of Sinatra’s music.

In short, next time you’re in Las Vegas, plan to spend some time in Encore. It will be something to remember.

For a while, the Big Story was how hot Las Vegas was. Then it was Macau: The Next Generation. Now that Vegas has cooled off a bit and Macau’s hitting a plateau, we’ve got a new story: Macau is in dire straits. Even Time has picked it up:

But in the wake of the faltering global economy, Macau is not such a sure bet anymore. The problem is that some of those giants embarked on overzealous building sprees — since 2004, the number of casinos in Macau has more than doubled to 31 — and now the global credit crisis is threatening to topple at least one of them. Adelson's company, Las Vegas Sands, has undertaken an aggressive expansion plan over the past few years, winning the bid to build the $4.6 billion Marina Bay Sands casino-resort in Singapore and developing a $743 million casino-resort in Pennsylvania, among other projects. The credit crisis has left the overextended company in danger of defaulting on $5.2 billion of loans secured by its Las Vegas operations. Last week, the company said it would work towards completing the Marina Bay site, but Singapore's government is making backup plans to enact if the Sands fails to raise the necessary funds to complete construction. Then, on Nov. 13, the cash-strapped company announced that it would layoff up to 11,000 construction workers in Macau, after its decision to suspend work on part of the Cotai Strip — a $12 billion undertaking. On Thursday, Las Vegas Sands' share price closed at $5.58, down 95% from its peak last December.

Dark Days Ahead for Asia’s Las Vegas? – TIME.

If you factor out the visa restrictions and other extrinsic factors, it’s hard to argue against Macau’s growth in the long term. Of course, all those extrinsic factors are what makes Macau…Macau.

I just wish that we could get stories weren’t so extreme. It’s always “this is the best every” or “things can’t get any worse.” Usually, though, things can get better, and of course things can always get worse.

But I doubt you’ll see a story whose gist is: Macau is a promising market but it’s currently got challenges that only smart operators will be able to overcome. It’s too nuanced, and it probably requires too many value judgments.

After what seems like months, I see that I’ve got another Business Press article available online:

Once, casinos threw huge parties to remind the community that they were a year older. Large cakes in the shape of the hotel were common, with showgirls gamely framing the desert in well-circulated publicity photographs. Casinos bought advertisements that trumpeted their age, frequently offering specials $5.55 prime rib on our fifth birthday to further drive home the message.

Today, casino managers are positively bashful when it comes to the age of their properties. They would no more throw a party with a giant cake replica of their casino than they would set all their machines to free-play. I'm not sure exactly when this change happened, but I'm certain that it did.

The question is why. Most likely, it's because of the accelerated product cycle in Las Vegas today: A five-year old resort is considered middle-aged, and a 20-year old one is practically a doddering codger if we're subscribing to the anthropomorphic fallacy and assigning human qualities to inanimate hunks of steel, concrete and glass. In that atmosphere, you don't want to draw attention to your age.

David G. Schwartz : Bellagio seems a bit bashful about turning 10.

It’s an elaboration of a blog post I made a few weeks ago–what a shocker. The deeper question is: how does the “agelessness” of Las Vegas casinos relate to broader American conceptions of growing old?

It’s hard to believe, but the Bellagio is a decade old. Ten years ago today, Steve Wynn taught the fountains to play…metaphorically, I guess. That’s right, on October 15, 1998, the Bellagio opened its doors. Here’s a reminder from the October 15, 1998 LV Sun:

And so it begins: the latest, the greatest — and what many believe will be the last — tidal wave of new resort openings in Las Vegas.

Tonight's unveiling of Bellagio, the most expensive hotel-casino ever built, begins a two-year binge of resort openings that will boost the Las Vegas-area hotel-room inventory 20.5 percent in the next 24 months.

The critical question: Will those $9 billion of new resorts stimulate enough visitor demand to fill — year-round — the 127,542 total rooms scheduled to be open in Las Vegas by 2001?

Strip casino industry counting on ‘new’ Vegas – Las Vegas Sun

I was looking back at the coverage of the Bellagio’s opening for another project, and I was amazed at how pessimistic it was. If you’ve got Proquest or another archival search engine you can confirm this for yourself, but you can take my word for it: there was a lot of doom and gloom: gaming stocks are sliding, the city is overbuilt, no one will pay $200 for a hotel room in Vegas. The article’s lede reflects this: it speculates that after the 1998-2000 boom, there will be nothing more. Sound familiar?

Ten years later with another Wynn hotel opening, we’ve reached the same point in the cycle, although things are much shriller now.

So ten years from now will some intrepid blogger pull up today’s stories and make fun of the 2008 pundits for being scaredy cats? Maybe. The pessimists weren’t totally wrong: Steve Wynn’s stock price continued to take a beating. But in the global view, it would be hard to argue that if we went back to 1998 and prevented the Bellagio, Paris, Mandalay Bay, Aladdin, and Venetian from opening that Las Vegas would be better off than it is today.

Steve Wynn doesn’t think much of the blogosphere. And I agree with him on this point. In many cases, would-be pundits’ reach exceeds their comprehension. From the LVRJ:

Wynn, who controls 24 million shares of the company’s 111.8 million outstanding shares, is bullish on the future, not only for Wynn Resorts but the gaming industry as a whole.

“We have had recessions, two or three of them, and we’ve lived through them,” Wynn said. “The difference now is that we have all these Internet bloggers and half-assed observers. Seventy percent of what they write is total bullshit and total fiction. The market right now is stinky and volatile. I preannounced because I didn’t want to be restrained if I wanted to buy some shares. I’m not saying I’m going to buy, I just didn’t want to be blacked out.”

ReviewJournal.com: WYNN RELISHES ANOTHER ENCORE

When your stock is outperforming virtually everyone else’s in your sector, your opinion probably counts more than that of any observer, half-assed or not.

I’ve been saying exactly what Wynn said here for months now. But many of the journalists I talk to don’t want to hear it. They want someone to say that the sky is falling. Well, it isn’t. As I said right here, Las Vegas has been through much worse.

But that’s impossible! People say. It’s never been this bad because (energy prices, broader economic downturn, credit crunch, mortgage meltdown, or whatever)….

Then I counter with a solemn reading from Ecclesiastes (1:8-9):

8. All things are wearisome; no one can utter it; the eye shall not be sated from seeing, nor shall the ear be filled from hearing.
9. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

As I’ve said a million times before, some people are going to lose money, some people are going to make money. Projects will be finished, projects will be canceled. New casinos will open, old ones will close. And there will be growth in the spring.

What annoys me most is the fuzzy reporting: stories about how many people “believe we are in a recession” are bandied about as proof of dire economic times. But a recession is a well-defined event: two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. That hasn’t happened yet, so we’re not in a recession. I’m not saying that people aren’t having hard times, but no matter how high the unemployment rate goes, we’re not in a recession until we have those consecutive downturns.

Maybe someone should invent a new term for an economic downturn with rising unemployment, shrinking credit, and positive growth. For all I know, someone has. Hey, before Jimmy Carter was president, no one thought that an economy could simultaneous stagnate and suffer high inflation, but we’ve now got “stagflation” in our vocabulary. Even the automatic spell-checker agrees.

Under no circumstances am I encouraging anyone to see what seems, from the reviews, to be an abysmal attempt at a movie. But I’m perplexed by the throwaway reference to a Las Vegas Strip icon. From the LA Times:

BEHOLD Mike Myers.

As Guru Pitka, a self-styled Deepak Chopra wannabe whose every utterance has been pre-packaged and trademarked, he glowers from behind a flowing Rasputin beard, waxed curlicue mustache and eyebrows that arch and swoop like a roller coaster. He’s a one-man production number: You take him in the way you would, say, the Taj Mahal, or a Steve Wynn hotel lobby.

Review: ‘The Love Guru’

So what’s the meaning of that comparison? Is it sarcastic, like if I told a student, “You need to transfer to a more rigorous institution, like Princeton or a clown college?” Or is it serious, as in, “You can now get better rates on rooms at expensive Vegas hotels like the Bellagio, or the Palazzo?”

I’m not sure even the author knows. If it is sarcastic, how humbling for one of the most recognized innovators in the casino biz to be reduced to a punchline in a review of a bad movie. There is a lack of respect for casinos outside of Las Vegas–it’s hard to be taken seriously if you are serious about the business (except if you can make money off the stocks). This is why they don’t hire historians who specialize in gambling at prestigious schools like Columbia or Middle Tennessee State University.

Beyond the question of at whose expense that joke was made lies the deeper issue: A Steve Wynn-designed hotel lobby is considered enough of a cultural landmark (at least to readers of the LA Times movie reviews) that a writer can drop a reference and assume that the readers will immediately understand it.

The only Wynn lobby that’s really distinctive is the Bellagio. Most people have forgotten that the Golden Nugget was ever a Wynn property, and I can’t even bring to mind what the Treasure Island lobby looks like, even though I’ve been there plenty of times. The Mirage’s aquarium is awesome, but it’s not really a stunning architectural statement–it’s the sort of thing you might find in a dentist’s office (or Sack’o Subs on Ventnor Ave), but done up a lot bigger and nicer. WLV’s lobby is another that apparently didn’t make a huge impression on me, distinct from the rest of the place, because I’m having a very hard time visualizing it.

The Bellagio lobby, though, is something you remember, because of the Chihuly ceiling and the adjacent arboretum. I don’t remember ever seeing tourists taking pictures of any other “Steve Wynn hotel lobby,” but I guarantee that at this exact instant, there is at least one photo being snapped at the Bellagio’s.

Hey, they’ve finally posted my latest piece in the Las Vegas Business Press. Here’s a taste:

The economy, as the blurb that crawls across your television screen says, is bad. Really bad. And don’t you forget it.

For those dealing in luxury goods and services, the perception of an economic decline is just as ruinous as its reality. Whether or not we’re in a recession (not, since we haven’t had two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth) doesn’t really matter. If people believe that they need to tighten their belts, they might be disinclined to splurge.

Here in Las Vegas, the past 20 years have seen a shift toward the luxury-end of the travel market. Does this mean the Wynns, Lannis, and Adelsons who’ve ramped up the luxe factor — and their room rates — made the wrong decision? Not at all, because in an era of casino proliferation, cheapness and convenience are no longer compelling reasons to visit Nevada instead of, say, Barona resort in California or the Horseshoe in Tunica, Miss.

Regardless of whether recession is real, perceptions affect behavior

Seriously, it’s like the national media is rooting for economic decline–that’s all you hear about.

I was inspired to write this after reading the piece in Vegas Tripping 3 weeks ago about the Sahara’s “spin the wheel, make the deal” promotion.

If ripping off of Halloween Havoc 1992 can’t buck up the visitation stats, we’re really in deep trouble here.

Christina Binkley. Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas. New York: Hyperion, 2008. 304 pages, hardcover.

Over the last decade, the Las Vegas Strip has become increasingly consolidated. Once, there were a host of casino owners: Aztar, Bally Gaming, Boyd Gaming, Circus Circus Enterprises, Grand Casinos (if you count Grand’s stake in the Strat) Hilton Hotels, Mirage Resorts, MGM Grand, Inc, Primadonna, the folks who owned the Frontier, Riviera, Sahara, Imperial Palace, and a few other “non-aligned” casinos. Today, the list is smaller: MGM Mirage, Harrah’s Entertainment, Wynn Resorts, and Las Vegas Sands, Inc. dominate the market, though a number of “non-aligned” casinos remain, and Boyd is set to return to the Strip soon with the mega-development Echelon Place.

In Winner Takes All, Binkley examines a few of the major players in the Strip consolidation sweepstakes. She parlays her access (she’s the former lead Vegas reporter for the Wall Street Journal) into a truly insightful book. Unless you’ve spent the past few years sitting in the executive offices of MGM Mirage, Wynn, and Harrah’s, you’ll definitely learn something from reading this. Binkley does a solid job of pulling back the curtain on the motivations and rivalries that unite and divide the movers and shakers on the Strip.

Binkley goes beyond petty corporate politics, though, and discusses the underlying business strategies that differentiate Wynn, Kerkorian (and his executives), and Loveman. Wynn believes in luxury above all; Kerkorian thinks that size matters (he’s opened the world’s biggest casino hotel three times) and is a consummate deal-maker’ and Loveman brings scientific management to the wild west of the casino floor. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you might learn a few lessons from each of these three approaches. If you’re just a person who likes to come to Vegas, you’ll get an insider’s peek into some of your favorite resorts.

As a historian, I’ve got to grouse at a few historical inaccuracies. The most egregious is on page 16, where Binkley contends that the original MGM Grand had “shoddily built rooms” and that the tragic 1980 conflagration was the result of a “grease fire,” making it sound like this was a roadside greasy spoon that went up in smoke after the deep-fryer was left unattended. Actually, it was an electrical fire that sparked the blaze, and though construction faults did exacerbate the fire (smoke was able to get into the guest tower, and sprinklers were not installed in the deli or casino), the casino was, when it opened, the biggest and most expensive building in the history of Las Vegas. Though we now know that its builders cut corners, at the time few disputed that it was a “grand” casino. There are a few other minor issues I have, but I won’t go into them here. Suffice it to say that Binkley is an outstanding source for the material that she personally reported on, but might have relied on lesser sources for some of the background.

Although (or maybe because) the book is about Las Vegas, 1999-2007, it is dominated by Steve Wynn. Even when he’s not there, he’s there, haunting the thoughts of the author and the principals. In simple terms, MGM Grand, Inc. wants to be like Wynn, so the company buys Mirage Resorts. Harrah’s realizes it can’t compete with Wynn, so it relies on “propeller heads” (management wonks) rather than exploding volcanoes to better its bottom line. Las Vegas, it seems, is divided into wanna-be Wynns and anti-Wynns, but there is no one who is unaffected by Wynn.

This is, of course, unfair to the men and women who’ve built up Harrah’s, MGM, and even Wynn, to say nothing of the crowd at Las Vegas Sands. There are a host of principals in this book who deserve to stand on their own: Terry Lanni, Jim Murren, Bobby Baldwin, and Glenn Schaeffer are not “title characters,” but each has contributed significantly to the creation of modern Vegas, so it’s not entirely accurate to dismiss them as Wynn clones or antitheses. But Wynn’s all-pervading presence in the book is unavoidable.

Which leads to the big question: how is Wynn treated? Like the people she writes about, Binkley is hardly agnostic when it comes to Wynn. I’m not giving much away here: the prologue features Wynn, apoplectic with rage, screaming at Binkley that the MGM Grand buyout of Mirage was a friendly deal. So it’s obvious that Binkley isn’t going to be disinterested. But she veers into caricature at times (”His capped teeth gleam white, white, white.”), which paradoxically makes Wynn even more of a larger-than-life character. Wynn-haters will glory in the chronicles of corporate extravagance; Wynn-lovers will say, “So he likes plastic surgery–he still knows how to build the best casinos in the world.”

Winner Takes All is a valuable look inside the boardrooms of Las Vegas during one of its most explosive eras. I recommend it to those interested in a behind-the-scenes look at the titans who have rebuilt the Las Vegas Strip.

Interesting summary of the current state of Macau from Fortune, via CNN:

Hunter S. Thompson would have found much to fear and loathe in Macau, the former Portuguese colony rebranding itself as a gambling paradise. The good doctor (rest his soul) would have been vexed to discover that Macau, surrounded by water and crowded immigration checkpoints, is best entered by ferry, not gas-guzzling Caddy. No doubt he’d have been dismayed to learn that since Macau’s 1999 return to Chinese rule, hallucinogenic substances aren’t easily procured. But then again, when you can gaze at the Grand Lisboa casino, the newly built neon orb that throbs and pulses at the edge of the Macau peninsula like the Technicolor egg of some gargantuan radioactive monster, who really needs peyote?

Indeed, Western gamblers looking for something more exotic than Reno or the Riviera are in for a bit of a shock when they arrive in this smog-shrouded enclave. In Macau’s city center, the pastel façades of Senado Square and the ruins of St. Paul’s cathedral evoke Macau’s four centuries under Portuguese rule. But the frenzy of development elsewhere lends this Old World city the feeling of a frontier boomtown (albeit a relatively sober one: Macau’s hard-core gamblers prefer tea to liquor).

While Macau is now the world’s gaming capital last year revenue surged 22%, to $7 billion, vaulting the city ahead of Vegas – there are just a few decent restaurants and not much in the way of shopping or shows to speak of (yet). Still, Macau is a fascinating place to watch some of the most intense gambling around, both at the baccarat tables and amid vast, dusty construction sites, where high-rolling developers are betting billions.

The island was closed to all foreign competitors till 2002, when Beijing stripped local tycoon Stanley Ho of his monopoly over the island’s gambling concession, which he had held for 40 years. Faced with new competition, Ho (who also controls the lottery, dog and horse racing, the ferry and helicopter terminals, and the city’s largest land bank) rushed to gussy up some aging properties and build new ones. On a recent visit to his newest, the Grand Lisboa, a troupe of Russian street players performed slapstick routines beneath crystal chandeliers in the front lobby, while on the gambling floor upstairs, a trio of cabaret dancers shimmied in front of a giant oval of orange jade.

Ho’s offspring have also benefited from the boom: His son Lawrence partnered with James Packer, Australia’s richest man, and in May they opened the $500 million Crown Macau on the island of Taipa. MGM Mirage, owner of Las Vegas’s Mirage and Bellagio casinos, has teamed with Ho’s daughter Pansy to build a 28-story, 600-room hotel and casino set to open later this year on the waterfront.

Vegas entrepreneur Sheldon Adelson, however, is making the biggest wager that visitors here will want to do more than just gamble. After recouping his $240 million investment in the Sands Macau in just eight months (the cavernous casino set the world record for the largest number of gaming tables under one roof), he’s getting ready to throw open the doors of another Vegas outpost, the $2.2 billion Venetian Macau, on Aug. 28. The Venetian is the first phase of a truly mammoth complex slated for completion next year, which will include 20,000 rooms operated by five luxury hotel chains such as Four Seasons and Raffles. This so-called Cotai Strip (named for a bit of reclaimed land between the islands of Coloane and Taipa) will feature hundreds of yet-to-be-named restaurants and boutiques; a labyrinth of exhibit halls, performance stages, and conference rooms; and three Venetian-style canals plied by authentic Italian gondolas. The whole shebang will be sheathed in an air-conditioned biodome.

Around the perimeter of Adelson’s complex, Packer and Lawrence Ho have begun construction of City of Dreams, a giant casino and underwater theme park. Nearby, another group is building Macau Studio City, a casino-cum-multimedia-center that will include a boutique hotel designed by Shanghai Tang founder David Tang.

Macau now – July 9, 2007

It’s interesting to see how the idea that Macau is the leading gaming destination in the world is slowly filtering into the mainstream. I wonder if 10 years from now anyone will even have to say it.

Technically, this story isn’t set ON the mountain at Wynn Las Vegas, but inside it. But it’s an allusion to a popular piece of classical music and just sounds better than “INSIDE THE ARTIFICIAL MOUNTAIN AT WYNN LAS VEGAS.”

Ace KLAS-TV reporter Edward Lawrence somehow got inside the Mt. Wynn and, with the help of a photojournalist or two, shot a pretty good story in and around there. Check it out, from KLAS, which bills is website as LasVegasNow:

Driving by Wynn Las Vegas it’s easy to see the mountain Steve Wynn built in front of his hotel. What you have not seen, until now, is what’s inside the mountain.

It makes for a great picture. Tourist Lelia Hirsch exclaims, “Driving by it’s beautiful.” It drowns out the sound of the Las Vegas Strip. It blocks the Las Vegas lights. The mountain also hides a secret. It’s hollow.

Workers get in and out of the mountain through a tunnel under the main lake in front of Wynn Las Vegas. There’s a workshop and freight elevator which rises onto the mountain. Wynn Las Vegas Executive Director of Horticulture, Jim Gibbons says, “This mountain can stay here 100 years. It’s build on solid concrete with pockets built into it to hold the plants.”

Gibbons designed the mountain selecting every tree and plant on it. He says the hardest part is constantly topping himself. Gibbons helped lay out the San Diego wild animal park. He also developed the rainforest in the Mirage, the plants at Treasure Island, and came up with the atrium idea for the Bellagio.

When asked if he plans to retire? He responds, “No. I don’t need to. I’m retired doing this.” The mountain will be his legacy. Gibbons says Wynn built it with the plants in mind. He adds it has perfect drainage, perfect soil in the planters, and the trees love it.

LasVegasNOW.com | News for Las Vegas, Nevada – Wynn’s Mountain on the Las Vegas Strip

Click through and keep reading, because there’s some interesting stuff in there–both in the story and in the mountain. Actually, I’m a little surprised that no one’s thought of squeezing a high roller suite or two in there.

I’ve got to think that it would be almost impossibly cool to pay your check at one of the restaurants, get up from the table, jump into a little raft, and paddle over to a secret door in the mountain. It’s also a primo spot for a secret base–if you need a secret base. I don’t think Steve Wynn does–I’ve been in his office, and it’s pretty nice.

Closings were in the news yesterday, but there was a big opening in Macau as well. From the AP:

Thousands of gamblers crowded into American billionaire Stephen Wynn’s new $1.2 billion casino resort on Wednesday in Macau — the Chinese territory that may soon unseat the Las Vegas Strip as the world’s most profitable gambling capital.

Fireworks showered the Wynn Macau with sparks just before its midnight opening. A huge sign lit up with red lights, while speakers blared Frank Sinatra’s “Luck be a Lady” outside the 600-room complex that hopes to lure China’s swelling population of gamblers.

Macau — a peninsula and two islands off the southeastern Chinese coast — is the only place in China that allows casino gambling. The tiny territory — less than one-sixth the size of Washington, D.C. — was a Portuguese enclave until it was handed back to China in 1999.

Zhu Jingqing, a middle-aged man from the central Chinese province of Hubei, was in the huge crowd that rushed into the casino when it opened.

“I feel that all mainlanders should come here to have a look,” he said.

Kong Ermu, 28, a Chinese tourist from the eastern province of Anhui, said, “It’s far better than what I imagined. It’s classier and comfortable.”

Wynn, 65, was one of two Las Vegas gaming tycoons who were allowed to open casinos here after the government in 2002 broke up a monopoly controlled by local mogul Stanley Ho for 40 years. Ho’s casinos were smokey, dingy venues — far from the glitz and sparkle of Las Vegas.

Ending the monopoly sparked a building boom that will bring an estimated 2,200 new hotel rooms into the market this year and another 15,000 in 2008.

“The speed of development is dizzying. The population it seeks to serve is expanding,” Wynn told reporters just hours before his resort’s midnight opening.

Many believe that Macau will soon overtake the Las Vegas Strip as the world’s casino capital. Last year, Macau was about even with the Las Vegas Strip, which had “win,” or net amount lost to casinos, of $5.3 billion. Experts see Macau’s gambling revenue growing quickly to $9 billion to $11 billion by 2010 and upward of $15 billion by 2012.

U.S. Mogul Wynn Opens Macau Casino

Of course, time will tell if Wynn is right–some, including Sheldon Adelson, say he’s not–but if the past is any predictor, he will be.

Doing my job at the Center for Gaming Research, I run across all sorts of interesting facts. For example, take this gem, pulled from the 1979 Form 10-K for Golden Nugget, Inc.:

The Registrant’s hotel provides luxury accomodations and facilities. Management emphasizes courtesy and service to its customers and attempts to maintain a high standard of excellence in all its operations.

While it is impossible to distinguish accurately between local and tourist clientele, the Registrant believes that a substantial portion of its Las Vegas business is derived from tourists, primarily from Southern California. The Registrant also believes that the downtown area of Las Vegas has historically attracted and will continue to attract more local business than the major hotel and casinos located approximately five miles away in an area commonly known as the “Strip.”

This is kind of interesting, because there was no real concept of “locals casinos” yet, but it is clear that locals were an important part of the GNLV business model.

Most people associate Macau with gambling, but according to the Rugged Elegance Inspiration Network, you can get some nice clothes made there, too.
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If it’s on the Internet, it’s got to be true, right? Maybe not. According to Dow Jones (so says Yahoo), Wynn Resorts is looking to build in Singapore. That seems reasonable. But one paragraph in, the article says that Wynn owns the Bellagio and Mirage.
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I know that everyone needs a creative outlet, but a leading member of the casino industry might have a hidden musical side.
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In a sentence, I’ve seen a lot and had a really good time here. I’ve also got a links to Stanley Ho and Steve Wynn’s thoughts on Macau.
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