Stiffs and Georges

Yes, the comedy is finished in Springfield, at least for the moment. In an episode worthy of The Simpsons and after an epic amount of foot-dragging, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno was cajoled and ultimately browbeaten into actually taking a stand on which gambling company will get the city’s nod to build a resort downtown. And [...]

… week, month, year! We don’t have Stew Man Group here in Las Vegas — but we should!

“A billion dollars will be spent on potato chips for Super Bowl Sunday, and that’s just at Gov. Christie’s house.” — a David Letterman joke about the avoirdupois of Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) … re-told last night by Christie himself on Letterman’s show.
Congratulations to everyone who took the “over” on

If you live in the greater Las Vegas metropolitan area, you’ve probably had a stiff dose of this ad, which is in heavy rotation during the morning news shows. I don’t know whether to be impressed that a grind joint like Club Fortune Casino has a TV-advertising budget or nonplussed by the marketing message. I [...]

As the clock ticks toward a shareholder fight over International Game Technology, CEO Patti Hart tried to rally her troops with a bit of good news. IGT has inked a pact to sell 1,375 VLTs to Saskatchewan, representing one-third of the VLT market in that province. Since Wall Street analysts had already incorporated this into [...]

In addition to presiding over the most grotesquely indebted company — by far — in the casino industry, Caesars Entertainment CEO/President/Chairman/Pontifex Maximus/Generalissimo Gary Loveman also wants to dictate the manner in which we eke out our “golden years.” Amazingly, somebody actually put this buffoon in charge of the “health and retirement committee” of a club [...]

That’s what Lt. Castillo (the one, the only, the awesomeness that is Edward James Olmos) would say of the situation at Palms Casino Resort, which has spent the Joseph Magliarditi administration spiraling into disrepute. (Trouble at a Magliarditi-run casino? Shocking!) According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s lightning-fast Chris Sieroty, multiple arrests are “imminent” in a [...]

Although the government of Macao enjoys nothing better than to make casino owners wait and fidget for their land leases to be “gazetted,” today is MGM Resorts International’s lucky day. MGM China received final approval for its Cotai Strip megaresort. Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli calls the timing “ahead of expectations,” which suggests that Macanese [...]

For those of us who missed it this year, the best Christmas tradition of which I know.
First and most importantly …
To you, the reader, who makes this possible, a year of happiness, health and wealth, whether material, intellectual or spiritual.
Atlantic City: Good luck in a year that will end with ‘13.’
Boyd Gaming: New TV commercials.
Caesars [...]

Las Vegas‘ most famous sheriff (mythologized weekly by Dennis Quaid on Vegas) was the victim of this, er, unfortunate Los Angeles Times gaffe …
… which The Atlantic has selected as one of the best typos of 2012. I’ve had butt cracks in my image and it’s not pretty, man. Nascent blog VegasWTF is currently in [...]

If I’d spent the last 20 years under a rock and didn’t know who Shania Twain is, I’d have spent Wednesday evening wondering who this person was, why she was headlining a Caesars Palace show … and couldn’t they have found somebody better? Let’s cut to the chase: Twain’s voice is shot, unreliable of [...]

After months upon months of unilateral disarmament, Boyd Gaming has decided to fight back against Station Casinos‘ hugely successful “We Love Locals” TV campaign. (We could discuss why Station felt the need to reassure Las Vegans that it liked them, really, really liked them … but let’s cut the Fertittae some slack today.) So anyway, [...]

Penn Jillette, never known for circumspection, has a field day with Donald Trump in his latest tome, Every Day is an Atheist Holiday. Like any patriotic American, he can’t resist a pot-shot at Trump’s combover, which is described as resembling “cotton candy made from piss” (although I think the latter might actually look better). You [...]

Las Vegas is a city whose attractions feature the eat-at-your-own-risk Heart Attack Grill. It’s also got no shortage of vast, empty spaces waiting to be filled. So it would have seemed inevitable had Guy Fieri chosen to open a three-story, 500-seat (!) temple to junk food in Sin City rather than Times Square. Local food [...]

No sooner were Wall Street analysts uttering serious concerns about a slow post-Sandy recovery for Atlantic City than who should pop up on CBS This Morning but Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman, doing damage control …

It’s hard to decide which is funnier: doddering Charlie Rose unwittingly picking at a Loveman sore spot by mentioning Macao, [...]

But first, because it will never, ever get old …

Also this, from @daveweigel: “[Florida] exit poll: Obama winning Jewish vote by 40 points. 40 points. Nice work, Sheldon Adelson.” We’ll tap dance on Sheldon’s head some more further down, but let’s roll out the barrel for gaming’s winners last night. There were five ballot questions, [...]

And now the biggie: Question 7. The quickest way to summarize this is to paraphrase what C.S. Lewis said of Christianity — that slot parlors in Maryland hadn’t been tried and found wanting but were an idea that had been found difficult and not been tried, more or less. Feckless legislators were ready to wave [...]

This just in … peripatetic chef Carla Pellegrino has just released a statement in which “announces her mutual separation from Tropicana Las Vegas,” after 19 months overseeing its Italian restaurant, Bacio. The Brazilian chef, also late of Rao’s at Caesars Palace, referred to “exciting new opportunities” but mentioned nothing specific than her ongoing relationship with [...]

Monday’s interview with Interblock global sales supremo Tom O’Brien (right) yielded some passing observations that are probably too peripheral for my upcoming Casino Life piece … but perfect for S&G. Interblock maintains field offices in Las Vegas (soon to become the de facto headquarters) in Australia, Macao and Nova Scotia. In order to staff these, [...]

When addressing the subject of Sheldon Adelson (must we?), the extent to which he has stolen Wynn’s thunder and lightning was made manifest by a lengthy Politico.com profile. Adelson (right, ca. 1998), who can often behave like a colicky infant, was on his best and most statesman-like behavior. Although his assertion that “I do [...]