The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC) has published a press release with further details into their investigation into the hole card cheating scandal on UltimateBet's online poker client that appears to have netted over $6 million. The press release specifically names Russell Hamilton as being the primary perpetrator.

Hamilton is a former WSOP main event champion and founder of the UBT blackjack tour of which I was the first champion. I have met and interacted with Russ a number of times. I don't have any personal comments to make with regard to Russ, but there usually are multiple sides to any story so I try to keep my opinions open. The fact that the KGC would publicly name Hamilton in a press release published to the World Wide Web without fear of a libel suit is not favorable for Hamilton's reputation, however.

The history behind how this cheating scandal became uncovered is an interesting one in that it wasn't the administrators of the Web site nor the KGC investigators who first found the possibility of cheating. Like an episode of Scooby Doo it was "the meddling kids." It was young people playing on the site using a poker program called PokerTracker which logs everyone's hands and results. The results for some of the user accounts were astronomical in terms of their immense winnings over significant sample sizes.

I don't have specific numbers in front of me, but let's assume that the world's best poker player playing in a $100/$200 no-limit hold 'em (NLHE) game could win $800 per 100 hands played. In PokerTracker abbreviations that would be 4 BB/100 (4 big blinds per 100 hands). That would be a phenomenal win rate especially at those stakes. These players were winning at 80 BB/100 to over 100 BB/100.

A few of these young people posted their concerns on the online poker forum at twoplustwo.com which is owned by a friend of mine, Mason Malmuth, as well as his business partner David Sklansky. The site is administrated by Conjelco's Chuck Weinstock. It's likely the busiest online poker forum on the Internet.

Once a few people read each other's messages and did their own number crunching they came to the conclusion that the odds of someone being able to consistently win at that rate was about the same as winning the state lottery 4 days in a row. In other words, impossible.

The scandal took on a life of its own as it grew. Threads over 1,000 messages long were growing daily on 2+2's news forum. I would refresh the page every 10 minutes simply to not get too far behind on the new information.

There were stories of extorting employees releasing information (false or truthful) simply because they didn't get paid off. There were stories of disgruntled employees who just wanted to make their brass look bad. Many felt that the young Internet posters were seeing monsters under the bed and were full of false conspiracy theories.

As information was leaked, more and more information pointed to Hamilton. There were multiple money transfers between his account and other accounts. Also, one of the identified cheating accounts was registered to a Las Vegas address owned by Hamilton. Prior to today's press release I think most people felt that Hamilton at least knew the cheating players if he was not directly culpable.

Now that Hamilton's name has been specifically identified publicly, I think that more and more names will surface quickly. This will likely snowball from here as we find out more and more details. I also imagine that UB and its sister site Absolute Poker (AP) are on their way to closing up shop. That's just a guess on my part.

While the cheating players are ultimately (no pun intended) responsible for their actions, I find major fault with the KGC who is supposed to be the governing regulatory body overseeing the online gambling sites under its umbrella. The way they've handled the scandal from the start would be worthy of a Bill Clinton, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" or a George W. Bush Attorney General under oath.

When the scandal first broke with Absolute Poker, the poker site swore up and down, left and right, sideways, and every which way possible that there was no cheating whatsoever. It was simply a few players who were very very bad at poker and got extremely lucky. In fact they got something like 1-in-12,000,000,000,000 lucky, but they were lucky and that was it. The KGC concurred with that statement.

Soon thereafter an employee made the "mistake" of sending out the complete hand history for a sit-n-go tournament that was suspected of having a cheating player. Employees often will send you a hand history but it won't include the unseen cards of the other players. This hand history had all unseen cards. A study of this hand history showed how the cheating was undeniable. (If you notice my quotes around the word "mistake" early in this paragraph, they are to indicate that it's likely that the information release was intentional.)

The AP site and the KGC then went on to name several cheating accounts and then supposedly made restitution to players and paid a fine, and that was it.

On comes the UB scandal and the whole charade started over again. First they deny that there was any cheating at all; only very bad and very lucky players. After some conclusive evidence is shown and they can no longer deny the charges they admit to a number of cheating accounts, I think there were 9 of them, and they say that they fully investigated and found that it was these 9 accounts and these 9 accounts only that were guilty. There were no other cheating accounts absolutely, positively, undeniably. Only 9 accounts.

A couple days later a player on the 2+2 forum shows 3 or 4 other accounts which looked like cheating accounts. The discussion about these other accounts grew and then a few days later the KGC announces that these other accounts were involved.

The whole thing is hokey as can be. When the supposedly independent regulatory body charged with enforcing the fairness and security of your Web site is seemingly complicit in the cover-up then there's a problem. A big problem.

I refuse to play at any online gambling site affiliated with the KGC because I've seen how they handled this UB scandal and I don't trust them to maintain any fairness on the sites they "regulate." Also, who is to say that the online cheating at poker isn't still going on? Now the ones doing it will be on high alert to not make unusual plays. An expert could likely make $1 million a year, year after year, and completely stay under the radar.

Full Tilt Poker is regulated by the KGC. Most of my friends think I'm crazy but I won't play at Full Tilt because of that connection. Full Tilt should make a statement that says they won't be affiliated with any seemingly crooked agency like the KGC and are moving elsewhere. As long as they are with the KGC, I won't play there.

People say to me when I mention Full Tilt that Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, and many of the FT pros are very trustworthy people and they feel safe playing there. They may be very trustworthy people. In fact, I imagine they are, but the governing commission isn't, so I don't want to play there.

Word on the poker blog universe is that 60 Minutes, the weekly news segment on Sundays on CBS, will be doing an investigative report into the UB scandal. I have heard that it may air on October 26. That will be must-watch TV for me, and likely for you too if you're reading this article. Keep your Tivos ready.

For the KGC's press release with more information, click this link.

For the 150+ message thread on 2+2 started yesterday about the latest press release, click this link.

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Governor Beshear of Kentucky is taking a stand against Internet gambling in a new way that hasn't been tried before. He is stating that Internet gambling sites like Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker are illegally operating gambling devices in Kentucky where there is a law against any illegal gambling devices. 

Beshear is trying to get the courts to order the site domain names such as pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com considered to be instruments (devices) that are being used in Internet gambling. He hopes to be able to have the state take over the domain names and then shut them down, or perhaps even use them for his own marketing purposes.

There will be a hearing on Sept. 25 to rule on this matter. It would be quite a coup if he succeeded.

What's hypocritical about Beshear is that he campaigned heavily on increased gambling in the state and is a big fan of the tax revenues that gambling infuses to the state coffers. I'm pretty sure he's not on a moral crusade by any means, but instead is on a political crusade to court the evangelicals as well as the racetrack operators, state lottery, and other legalized gambling beneficiaries in the state on his side. You have to chuckle at the irony of racetrack operators and evangelicals wanting the same thing... then again... they're all about money anyway, and that's all that motivates Beshear as well.

For more on this, check out this article.

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I read political blogs and news sites every day. A few sites that I read through every day are:

NYTimes.com -- great election and world news coverage. The NY Times also has an excellent set up for mobile web (on your phone). Whenever you click to view an online article on your phone it recognizes that and gives you a phone-friendly version.

CNN.com -- good news site. Some fluff. Light liberal bias.

FoxNews.com -- good news with a heavy conservative bias.

Slate.com -- very well written articles about the political race, the environment, and other important issues. Liberal bias. Mobile phone friendly.

Fark.com -- oddball news, links to blogs, hilarious but at times poignant intros to the links.

One popular phrase in the election coverage is that it is neck-and-neck, too-close-to-tell, or some other phrase describing how Obama and McCain are very close.

I'll agree that the race is close but it isn't 50/50. McCain might win, but I'd say his odds of winning are about 40% right now to Obama's 60%.

Why do I say that? Because I look at what the smart money is betting on. It's more reliable than any polls you may find. The more money bet on something, the more I think there's value in the odds.

Two sites that I will often check out for election odds are Betfair.com, and Matchbook.com. These are actually betting exchanges rather than sports books.

The philosophy from a bettor's standpoint is about the same, however. The only difference between an exchange and a book is that in an exchange the house matches up bettors and takes a % fee for arranging the bet. A sports book, on the other hand, actually wins and loses money directly from and to the players. An exchange can't lose while a sports book can.

Their are other places that accept bets on the election. A few others I know of are thegreek.com, bookmaker.com, and intrade.com. I feel more confident in the value of looking at matchbook and Betfair because they also show how much money is being offered at particular odds and because the lines are closer since they don't have to have as large of a difference as an sports book would. (A sports book's edge comes from the difference in the offer amounts on each side of a bet. Since an exchange simply charges a fee on whatever people want to bet each other, the lines are often tighter and therefore more indicative of the true odds.)

So let's get to the numbers...

Right now Matchbook.com has $2,000 being offered by someone at 140 on McCain while there is $3,866 at -174 on Obama. That means that there are other people out there willing to accept a bet from me at those odds. They are also willing to wager a sum of money large enough that I believe they feel it's a good bet for them and not simply for entertainment purposes.

While not a perfect system, if you figure out a "no-vig" line between those bets, you can get a good idea of the current odds of winning for each candidate. Since there's a 34 point difference, take half of that and add or subtract it to each person.

If we add 17 to McCain, we get 157 and if we subtract 17 from Obama we get -157. According to the current numbers at matchbook, the fair line right now is 157/-157. This means any bet of $100 on McCain will pay $157, while you must lay $157 simply to win $100 on Obama. In other words, McCain is the underdog and Obama is the favorite.

This 157/-157 line translates to odds of 38.9% / 61.1%. In other words, according to Matchbook's bettors McCain is about 40% to Obama's 60% to win.

Online there is an excellent calculator for converting the moneyline to a percentage if you want to follow the race odds daily as I do. It's located at this link at SmartCapper.com.

BetFair uses a different style of pricing than we're accustomed to in the USA. They do decimal pricing rather than moneyline. It is relatively simple to convert to a probability. You simply take the reciprocal of the "Back" number (the number 1 divided by the number listed on BetFair for "Back").

For example, right now there is $5,955 being offered on McCain at 2.7. If you divide 1 by 2.7 you get 0.37 probability which means 37%. Obama currently has $1,486 offered at 1.61. If you divide 1 by 1.61 you get 0.62 probability which is 62%.

We can see that 62% + 37% doesn't equal 100% but it's close enough. What it tells us is that the smart money on Betfair, like the ones at Matchbook, also give McCain about a 40% to Obama's 60% chance of winning.

These numbers can fluctuate wildly. Obama's favorite status increased immediately after the Democratic convention and his acceptance speech. The following day, McCain's announcement of Palin as the VP candidate plummeted Obama's favorite status, and increased McCain's odds to where they were nearly even money for a day or two. The numbers have now gone back up to about what they were before the Palin announcement.

While this may be an exciting way for many of us to watch the election, some people I know find these opportunities to be ripe ones for making money on the political betting markets. Some spikes and drops in the odds are highly predictable such as immediately after a major party's convention or after a major announcement such as the VP candidate. Some people can make money on this using a buy low / sell high strategy. Sometimes you can bet on McCain one day and then Obama the next day and it won't matter who wins, you'll have a locked in profit.

One other interesting thing that Betfair provides is a visual graph of the changing odds on the race. For example, in this graph, you can see how the odds were largely in favor of the Democrats months ago and then the race and extremely tight. You can see the Palin announcement and how it squeezed the Dem and Repub lines nearly together. Now they've expanded out a bit.

 My guess is the lines will once again get tighter as November draws close. And my other guess is that I really have no idea who'll win. I just figure Obama's odds are about 3 in 5 right now.

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As the NFL season fast approaches, the casinos are advertising their various football contest promotions. Some are free. Some are small stakes like $25 per entry. Some are higher stakes such as $1,000 or higher buy ins. Some focus on college football, but most of them are for the NFL.

Which contests are worth playing? For some people many of them are suitable. For me, just about none of them.

The Station casinos $1.4 million Great Giveaway contest is a small-money contest that charges $25 per entry (or $50 for 3 entries) and gives away prizes for weekly winners along with overall season most wins, most losses, and even closest to 50-50. At the end of the contest, if you won no prizes at all, you get your buy in returned to you in the form of free slot play.

The Station contest has to be a positive expectation return. I suppose it's possible you could win a share of a weekly prize that's less than you paid to enter but that would be unlikely I would think.

So it's a free shot at making a few bucks and it gives you a chance to root for some teams throughout the season and have some fun. So what's the catch?

The catch for me is that these contests are a royal pain in the ass.

If it were only one entry, I might like it because I could make what I felt were my best selections for each week and if it wins great. If not, that's OK.

The fact that I have to fill out 3 entries drives me bonkers. After a couple weeks it begins to get really old, really fast. I start making patterns with my dots or I just go ABBAABBAABBA, AABBAABBAABB, and AAAABBBBAAAABBBB and the like.

Some places like the Palms have 6 entries. 6 entries! You have enough entries to do zig zag starting from right to left, zig zag starting from left to right, all home teams, all away teams, all favorites, etc.

I believe that the Coast casinos have a totally free contest this year. Obviously that is an overlay since you're paying nothing to play but I won't be participating.

I would rather have someone drop golf balls on my head for 4 months than I would like to participate in one of those contests for 4 months.

The bigger money contests are more enticing to me, but I probably won't be in any. For one thing, I may be traveling a couple times this fall and not be available. Most of the larger contests do allow you to have a proxy to submit picks for you but I don't know if I want to go to the trouble.

The most prestigious contest is the Hilton's Superconcept which costs $1,500 for the season and you make 5 selections against the spread each week. I stopped by there 2 days ago to inquire about the contest and potentially sign up.

I found out that I could have a proxy to submit picks for me and so that sounded good. Then I tried to hit them up for a race & sports parking pass and they said they couldn't give me one just for joining the contest. I decided not to sign up.

I guess you can call me a lot of things for that, but I try to get extra value out of things that I do and for me, I had decided beforehand that if they gave me a parking pass, I'd play in the contest and if not, I wouldn't.

I don't know how many of you have tried the parking behind the Hilton which has immediate access to the sports and race book but it's very convenient and a nice perk. Prior to Jay Kornegay running the Hilton book (and he is an excellent operator, perhaps the best in town) they had a few parking spots designated for sports and race bettors. When Jay came in he at least doubled and perhaps tripled the number of reserved spots. If you don't have a sticker, it can be really hard to park out there. The other option is the garage which is so distant that it makes the Planet Hollywood garage look like it's attached to the casino.

Anyway, I don't fault them for telling me no, but I just figured if I was going to be there every week for 17 weeks, I didn't want to have trouble parking.

Sorry to get sidetracked on that...

I'd say, if you're not really into gambling and you can get a free shot (or inexpensive shot) at some money and a little bit of a rooting interest each week then the low-roller contests could be good for you. For me, I think I'd have to be institutionalized if I played them one more year.

If you're interested in the higher stakes contests, I'd say that they can be worth it, but you don't need me to tell you that. If you're ready to pay $1,000 or more to play a contest then you likely already have an idea what you're getting yourself into.

One side note for sports book operators!

I read on an online forum how the loss of the betting hold of people who are trying to make legitimate bets having to wait behind people playing these free and cheap contests may very well be higher than the ancillary money they make off the gamblers in the contests.

In other words, someone wants to bet his 3-team parlay but he's got to wait in line behind 3 people playing a cheap contest all who have 6 tickets to process.

It's a casino's job to know the numbers as to where they make their money and I'd assume that they think they make more by running these loss leaders, but I have to wonder. If you turn away enough legitimate bettors then you really could start hurting your bottom line.

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The Hard Rock Poker Lounge is now rockin'. I've stopped by a couple times now but have yet to sit in a game. I'll try one out soon enough.

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, it looks like they'll have some innovative features such as text messaging you when your seat becomes open and some rules differentiations such as allowing you to straddle on the button. They also have a private room with a slightly elongated table for bachelor or divorce parties. I hear they will also allow poker leagues similar to a bowling league where you and several people from your office can have a poker team and compete against other teams

Don't hold me to this, but I believe the comp rate is $1.50 an hour on the raked games and $2 an hour on the time collection games. This would be equal to or greater than any other place in town that I know. Supposedly you can even use your comps for concert tickets or cabanas at the pool, but it'd seem to me that it would take a LONG time to earn those. Maybe they plan on giving those types of things out in drawings or some other random selection-type promotion.

Here are a few pics so you have an idea what the room and the tables look like.

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A number of people sent me their answers by email. No one appears to have used the comments to reply which is what I had hoped for. Ah well... anyway, I wanted to follow up and not leave all of you hanging. I'll repeat the question and then give the answer.

The question:

There's an actuary and a lifetime professional expert gambler who are presented with a coin by a third person.

The third person says, "This is a fair coin with an equal chance of either heads or tails being face up after I flip it. The last 29 times I flipped this coin it landed on heads."

After that, the third person then asks each person what he says the probability of the next flip is going to be another heads.

What do you think is the answer, and do you think both the actuary and the gambler would agree with you? Why or why not?

.....

Here's the answer as we discussed it in our gambler's meeting.

The actuary would say that the past trials have no bearing at all on future results and say that the chance of a heads on the next flip is still 50/50.

The gambler would say that the chance of a perfectly fair coin landing heads 29 out of 29 times is so astronomically low, that he would conclude that the coin isn't fair and that heads is more likely than tails. In other words, he would question the premise of the coin being fair in the first place.

Many of you had close to the right answer, but I wouldn't say that anyone had it exactly right. Many of you thought the gambler would think that the heads was some kind of streak which meant it would be more likely to be heads again or that tails would be "due."

A professional gambler doesn't see a streak as affecting the mathematical odds of a particular result going forward. A streak might lead a gambler to question what he sees, however.

Is either answer correct? I'd say no, but I'd go with the gambler in this one. That's just my gut feel.

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Just a couple notes, it appears that the Excalibur will reopen their room within a day or two with the new electronic tables. I'll make sure to play them and let you know what I think very soon.

Also, this Thursday is the Hard Rock's poker room (they call it a lounge) opening. Tune in Friday or Saturday for my Hard Rock impressions.

Here are a few pictures from the Excalibur yesterday as hey were installing the new tables.

And here's one shot from the NYNY advertising their new night club Rok:

The NYNY hotel always seems to take good pictures. It's very photogenic.

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Over the weekend we decided to try one of the day excursions via helicopter from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon. I did some searching online and found a "special" (might be their price all the time) for $299 a person which included a trip out, a champagne picnic lunch, and a trip back (that should go without saying, no?). There was also a $40 per person fuel surcharge.

The company we chose was Sundance, not for any particular reason other than the price was in line with what I was looking to spend and it sounded like enough tour for us.

The tour includes being picked up in a limo at your Strip hotel. They won't pick up far from the Strip. We could have driven straight to the Sundance office, but chose to park at the Palazzo to take the limo.

I had thought that it would be a private limo for the two of us along with some champagne. It wasn't. There wasn't even a bottle of water inside and we had to share the limo with 5 other people. Next time, I think I'll just drive to the departure area. If you're a tourist staying in a hotel, this would be convenient but don't expect it to be romantic or glamorous.

When we arrived at the departure area, they weighed us and gave us some safety instructions. Don't you love the "in case of a water landing" speech on an airplane? Imagine getting that speech when going on a helicopter. Yippee.

One of the first views I had from the office was this:

I leaned against the glass and just looked at the helicopters for a bit. I was clearly fascinated and a fit and energetic older man in his uniform said to me, "Ain't they beautiful? I could just look at them all day." He was one of the helicopter pilots and said, "Anything a bird can do, I can do in one of those babies." He exuded confidence which was helpful to ease my tension. In fact, he told us that he'd been flying them for 42 years. This also was reassuring. We'd hoped that he'd be our pilot.

He wasn't our pilot, but we got a great one named Nate. Here's Nate as we're preparing for departure.

Nate was very professional while at the same time being comfortably informal and humorous. When we first got in the heli, he said, "Ok. Let me see if I can figure out what all these buttons and switches do." Thanks a lot Nate. ... although it was pretty funny.

After the doors were latched shut, we were buckled in, and then we left the ground I did immediately think to myself, "Get me off of this thing!" The first 10 minutes I had to calm my nerves a lot. You can say to yourself, "Well there's nothing I can do about it now" or whatever it takes to calm down but it can still be a bit nerve-racking if you're like me and don't like flying, don't like heights, or don't like closed in spaces.

Here's me settled into the cockpit:

After the first 10 minutes or so I relaxed a lot and found it really enjoyable. As we lifted off the ground, I took some pictures of the airport and some planes on the ground:

As we began to fly East, it was really interesting seeing the city from 1,000 feet. Sure, I'd seen it from an airplane before, but a helicopter gives you a much larger field of vision. Seeing the city from that height, with a golf course in one area, and a school in another, and neighborhood after neighborhood, I was reminded of one of those computer games where you build a city.

In the video games you grab a school with your mouse for example, and then move it to an open area on the computer grid map. You then have to provide facilities utilities, police, fire departments and such and then the game plays out your city for you. The city looked like an amalgamation of many different small grids of various purposes. It almost felt like it wasn't real and that you were observing the city below the same as a child would observe the ants inside an ant farm.

As we flew past Lake Mead I realized that Lake Mead is one of big freaking lake. It's a man made lake, I guess the biggest in the world, and it's absolutely enormous. The lake actually has two major sections that are connected by the Narrows. Here's the Narrows as well as a shot from inside the heli.

One of the first major areas that we passed on our way out of town was Lake Las Vegas. Lake Las Vegas is also a man made lake but it looks like a pond compared to Lake Mead. You could also see the casinos and residential areas around Lake Las Vegas. I didn't get any good photos though.

The next major feature on our trip was the Hoover Dam. As we approached we were traveling parallel to the Dam, and then the pilot did a quick hard left and we zoomed right toward it. It was a remarkable sight and a queasy moment for me.

I took several pictures of the Dam but this one is probably the best. One thing you can see is the bridge that they're building for traffic to bypass having to drive over the Dam. That should make road travel between Arizona and Las Vegas a whole lot easier. How they're going to have support in between the sides I don't know.

Here's another shot of Lake Mead. This is the far opposite end from where most Las Vegas residents would go to recreate. The pilot told us the name of this area, but I can't remember. Feel free to post a comment if you know the answer. I just thought it was a really pretty sight. The water was a greenish blue and the land had many colors.

When we flew over one ridge and first saw the Canyon it was jaw-dropping. What a sight. Enormous expanses of depth that had been carved away over hundreds of millions of years by the water of the Colorado River. Every group of rock was a different color and it all looked so darned big.

Here's a couple shots:

When we landed inside the Canyon, we were in a section called the West End. This land is actually Hualapai Indian land which is why we could visit. The tour company pays the Hualapais a fee to have this landing area available. Other sections of the Canyon are owned by the Federal government which does not allow flying in most areas and landing in any area.

Here are couple pics taken from the ground inside the canyon:

While we looked around at the exotic vegetation, and tried not to find any scorpions, rattlesnakes, or tarantulas (we were told they're around sometimes), the pilot set out a picnic lunch for us. It was really basic. It included a ham and cheese wrap, some apple slices, sodas, bottled water, and champagne.

We then sat down to eat. Here's a picture of our picnic in the Canyon.

We were on the ground for about 30 minutes and then back on our way. If you're ever planning on taking this trip, note that there aren't any bathroom facilities here. Fortunately, I didn't need any but I'm not sure what you could do if you really needed one. Make sure to plan ahead.

When we departed we took a slightly different route going home. Also, in the final leg of the trip we fly to downtown Las Vegas briefly before coming back along the Strip on the West side back to the executive airport.

One sight I enjoyed was seeing the large groupings of Joshua trees. These aren't really trees; they're cacti. They look a lot more like trees than your average every day cactus though. I didn't get any great pictures. This one was probably the easiest to see.

I would really enjoy being on the ground to see some of these. There were some areas that had hundreds of them. I don't know if it's possible to hike out there but these would be great to see up close.

We also flew by where the Colorado River dumps into Lake Mead. You can see the change in color from the muddy river to the blue lake.

The river is still carrying sediment from the Canyon. In fact, it's still carving the Canyon deeper.

The last few shots are just a few aerial shots of Downtown and the Strip that I took as we neared the end of our trip.

Downtown Las Vegas and the Fremont Street Canopy

The Strip Looking North to South from Behind the Stratosphere

Trump and Other Vegas Buildings

The Mirage

Project CityCenter

Monte Carlo and New York New York

MGM Grand

The Strip From Just Above the Helicopter Landing Pad

This was a wonderful trip and we both had a great time. The pilot also does a film of inside the cockpit and outside while we're traveling which also includes his narration. It's $65 which I think is a bit high but I'll likely buy it anyway.

We're both big fans of the helicopter trips now and hope to do some more in the future. If you're looking for a way to add to your Vegas vacation, this is an excellent choice.

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These aren't beautiful pics by any means, but a couple interesting things I saw a couple nights ago walking the Strip.

This is a picture from between the Venetian and the Casino Royale. Can you identify what's missing from this picture? You'd have to be someone that's made this walk a few times to know. The answer will be under the picture so don't look unless you're ready for it.

If your answer is....

....

Porn slappers... you win.

This particular place seems like the most popular spot for porn slappers that I know of. The way the building creeps up on the Strip it creates very little room to get past the porn slappers. I always dislike walking here because they get so close to you with their ad papers.

Two nights in a row I walked this part of the sidewalk and saw no porn slappers. I wonder if Adelson was able to do something about them or if they just were taking the night off. I did see them at other parts of the Strip that night so I'm not sure. I hope they stay away from here and in places where they're a little easier to avoid.

My second picture is the overpass between Caesars and Bellagio:

This was a really annoying thing because they blocked off all the accesses on the Caesars/Bellagio overpass. They said they were working on the overpass and so no pedestrians were allowed. Also they said it'd be another 10 days (now 8 days) before they'd open it back up.

The way you'd have to go is to take the overpass to Bill's Gambling Hall (formerly the Barbary Coast), then go down to the street level, then walk around to the Bally's overpass, and then over the Bellagio overpass. I don't mind walking but when it's 100 degrees outside and you're not expecting it this is a real pain in the arse.

I opted to walk West on Flamingo and cross at the light to the Bellagio North-side valet. Once I got there, however, I noticed that there is no crosswalk! Sure there's a light but that still didn't make me feel too good crossing that many lanes of traffic with cabs flying around everywhere.

I really don't think they should be able to block off the whole overpass. There should be a way they can work on the overpass without doing that.

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Sorry for the poor quality of the photos. I only had my phone with me for these.

This is a sign as you walk from the New York New York over to the Excalibur casino prior to getting to the walkways into the Excalibur.

This is a picture of the walkways with the moving walkway in the middle.

Anyone confused?

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