Stiffs and Georges

Gone and soon to be forgotten is the fugly NASCAR Cafe (site of terrible customer service), one of Bill Bennett’s dubious ‘enhancements’ to the Sahara during his ownership. Current owner Sam Nazarian is ripping the Sahara apart in earnest, although this story implies that two of the hotel towers will get just a light makeover. [...]

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than right: When Tamares Group made an indiscriminate splurge on downtown Las Vegas real estate in 2004, it was banking on a construction boom that never took place. It also found itself with several casinos and slot-route locations for which it never had any strategy. But Tamares sure was [...]

S&G contributor JeffInOKC returns from a too-long absence with some thoughts on one of our favorite topics, the North Strip …

It is common for us to hear the term “Too Big to Fail,” but I think the true story of Fountainebleau is “Too Big to Succeed.” The original plan for the property [...]

Kudos to Chuck Monster for finding this fanciful rendering of SLS Las Vegas, presumably designed to mislead would-be EB-5 Visa investors from China and points East. Shazam! The former Sahara has miraculously floated down the Strip and over to Koval Lane, where it will miraculously sit opposite bargain paradise Ellis Island Casino, a popular haunt [...]

If you’ll pardon my vulgarity, shit got real while I was tied up with other projects. Last week’s sale of excess baggage Dania Jai-Alai in Florida was just a tiny prelude to this morning’s blockbuster: Echelon is kaput. Instead, Boyd Gaming will liquidate it to Genting Berhad for $350 million. This closes the book on Boyd’s [...]

Just when Sam Nazarian’s mooted reinvention of the defunct Sahara as SLS Las Vegas looked dead and gone, The Naz slipped in under the wire with all the offshore money he required and a bit more: Sahara Sam needs $115 million from overseas sources to hang onto $300 million that’s sitting in escrow. He told [...]

That’s how much time Sam Nazarian has to scare up $115 million from overseas sources. If the deal isn’t done by Feb. 28, $300 million that’s currently in escrow quietly goes away. In exchange for offshore capital, Nazarian has to farm out jobs at his planned SLS Las Vegas to ‘guest workers’ who will be [...]

‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house, shareholders were beginning to cool on the value of Ameristar Casinos stock. It closed ever so slightly down from Pinnacle Entertainment’s $26.50/share offer price. Perhaps I was wrong and $869 million is enough to get this deal done, after all, though I still expect rumbles [...]

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 [...]

For months, state Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie), has been threatening to push an enormous gambling expansion through the Illinois Legislature during its lame-duck session. He says he’s “getting very close” but we’ve heard that kind of braying from Lang previously. A sock puppet of Illinois‘ horsey set, Lang won’t be satisfied with any bill that [...]

“Lightweight” might be a apt term to describe the braintrust forming around the SLS/Sahara project. So would “miscast.” Reporting to casino novice and owner Sam Nazarian, its president will be J.P. Morgan investment banker Sam Bakhshandehpour. His main qualification for the job? Well, according to Howard Stutz, “[he] worked with Nazarian earlier this year to [...]

Despite rampant neglect elsewhere on the Strip, Caesars Entertainment continues to take good care of its namesake, Caesars Palace. A Wednesday-night visit disclosed that myriad schlock retailers had been banished, as Jay Sarno’s toga party tries to keep pace with other upscale properties nearby. Our destination was the Bacchanal Buffet, a $17 million investment that [...]

Earlier today, I penned a 1.5-page Question of the Day on the recent past and dubious future of the Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, which I habitually type as “Las Vegas Hilton.” Even if one confines the narrative to the last 15 months, or roughly the period after Hilton International informed Colony Capital that it [...]

Remember all those rumors that had the Sahara’s now-vanished Speed: The Ride packed up and headed for Circus Circus? Not so! The good folks and inquiring minds at VegasChatter.com were sussing out some dormant South Strip developments and discovered …

… our old friend Speed adorning an as-yet-unbuilt shopping mall called Akita Plaza. I have my suspicions [...]

Hoping to join Evil Dead The Musical and Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in the progression of locally produced musicals to casino showrooms is Summer Camp! The Musical, which opens tonight at the Onyx Theatre, near what used to be the Sahara. (Say, we haven’t heard much from Sam Nazarian lately, have we?) Seen above are [...]

You’ll have to pardon me today if I enjoy a victory lap, having beaten the dailies to the announcement of Surf The Musical’s demise by a good 97 minutes.* (Suck that, Thomas F. Mitchell!) However, if you set store by the fable of the tortoise and the hare, pay heed to John Katsilometes‘ autopsy of [...]

… as in the Las Vegas Advisor weekly poll. Tomorrow’s promises to be a real doozy. The question is,  What was the worst show in recent Strip and Downtown history? The dog kennel hasn’t been completely filled but I can share with you some of the nicknames our hard-working research department has coined for some [...]

So the big, official, grand, this-time-we-really-mean-it opening of Revel Resort & Casino came and went … and all the media has been talking about is Beyoncé and how bootylicious she looks so soon after giving birth. (Seven-plus pages of YouTube videos, too, and scarcely a clip of anything else on the Revel premises.) The good [...]

To celebrate the first anniversary of his cold-blooded, premeditated murder of the Sahara, nightclub owner Sam Nazarian trotted out freshly hired casino boss Rob Oseland, along with some models (no, not of the runway ilk) and even a rendering that one can find on the SLS Las Vegas Web site. As Chuck Monster reports, NASCAR [...]

Barbara De Lollis had better re-cork the champagne. Wall Street Journal coverage of Sam Nazarian’s much-hyped, $300 million Sahara loan raises grave doubts about the viability of the project, budgeted at $415 million. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Alexandra Berzon, The Naz has nine months in which to raise the extra $115 million and its [...]