You know things are bad when McCarran International Airport offers space for three hotel-registration kiosks (ranging from 525 to 935 square feet, starting at $200/foot) and can't find takers for all of them. Fifteen possible candidates were solicited and, when all was said and done, McCarran received two -- count 'em, two -- bids.

MGM Grand will get the mid-sized (764 sq. ft.) space, having bid on all three -- albeit at the minimum. The Venetian Casino Resort was feeling more open-handed, offering to start at $400/square foot, but decided that the smallest of the three kiosk areas was sufficient to its purposes. Which means there's almost 1,000 square feet of express check-in area at McCarran going begging. Belts must be getting pretty tight 'round here.

Encore is taking applications. I wonder what prospective dealers are going to hear about tipping policies in their job interviews (and how many of them will be unhappy campers from Caesars Palace and other Harrah's Entertainment properties). Wynn Las Vegas dealers who are sticking it out through slow-moving negotiations would surrender a hard-won victory by applying at Encore?

And does Steve Wynn risk having unionization spread to his new casino if he raids his Wynn LV dealer pool for Encore? If he extends his tip-confiscation policy to Encore, what incentive would current Wynn dealers have to apply there, other than perhaps a bump in their base salary? Does it boil down to arguing that keeping most of your share of the tip pool at Encore is better that keeping all of what you'd make anywhere else? Since Wynn's properties are still perceived as the top of the food chain (regardless of what Sheldon Adelson proclaims), that could still constitute a powerful argument.

Besides, you have to tip your cap to any company that makes the preservation of the King's English part of its code of conduct: "Use complete sentences, avoiding slang and phrase fragments." Because that's like so totally ... Whatever. Y'know?

Blame it on Kansas. Maybe it's because their eyes are on landing a contract to build a megaresort in Kansas. Or maybe Pahrump just seems like small potatoes when you're hanging out with Kurt Busch and Daniel Negreanu, but Golden Gaming has bailed on its purchase of Saddle West Hotel & Casino, dumping it back into the lap of Marnell Sher Gaming.

Roadhouse rides again. Another one of the ghost casinos of Sunset Road rose again as a slot house, if only for eight hours, to keep its gaming entitlement alive. Can the former Holy Cow Brew Pub & Casino be far behind?