As promised, Mike Shackleford's WizardOfVegas.com site has launched. It took a while to get the bugs worked out, hence my review of Scarlett & her Seductive Ladies of Magic didn't appear until after the show had closed. However, to the best of my knowledge, you can not only read about but still see all of the following ...

• Amazed

• Anthony Cools

• Gordie Brown

• Marriage Can Be Murder

• Matsuri

• Sin City Bad Girls

• V - The Ultimate Variety Show

Sample line: "Yes, Marriage can be murder ... and so is the food." Enjoy! 

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Reader herbop reports on the latest thrift move by Tamares Group: "While other Downtown hotels are installing in-room safes, and removing complaint-causing daily fees for same, the Vegas Club Hotel has pulled out the installed safes from its rooms. When I inquired, they said it's 'policy.' Guests can still use the casino's safe deposit boxes.

"They left the four bolt-holes in the wall, unpatched. Classy, right?"

Geez, I hope those German G2E attendees opted for the Plaza over the Vegas Club. Nice work, Tamares. Why don't you strip the copper out of the place and sell it on the black market while you're at it? (Whoops, we probably shouldn't give Pojo Z. and his flunkies any ideas.)

Kickoff time. Since NFL season finally draws nigh (after what seems like five months of preseason games), it's probably worth mentioning LVA Sports. It includes a directory of football contests, pigskin parties and team bars in the Vegas area. There are no fewer than 12 watering holes allied to Da Bears but only half that number for Packer Backers.

Tennessee Titans fans will just have to drink their beer at home, because our staff couldn't locate any Titan-affiliated bars. Ditto Tilman Fertitta's Houston Texans. Even the ever-putrid Oakland Raiders have three bars to their credit -- but getting to last year's Super Bowl still only netted one Vegas hangout for Arizona Cardinals fans. Go figure.

Don't pop the champagne for stalled Boardwalk resort Revel just yet. The latter has issued a clarification stating that China Construction Engineering Corp. only has a potential agreement in place to finish Revel, for which the resort must drum up funding later this year. Also, yesterday I misstated the opening date as "July 11" when I meant to type "July 2011." I regret the error.

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True, Planet Hollywood is feeling some pain in the wallet after the Nevada Gaming Commission approved a $500,000 fine. But it's Clark County Department of Business License which fired the shot across the bow that will really get the casino industry's attention. By scotching the liquor licenses of both Planet Ho's Privé and Living Room clubs, it signed their death warrant. That, more than anything, ought to get scofflaw club owners and laissez-faire casino owners to clean up their act.

It's hardly an excessive move when you consider that the bill of particulars against Planet Ho's clubs included "drug use, prostitution, underage drinking and assault." Besides, if you want those things, perhaps you should patronize one of Las Vegas' many "gentlemen's clubs." Nevada regulators' concern about on-Strip prostitution is laudable, if tardy. When it was rampant at the Tropicana, gaming's policemen snoozed at their posts, otherwise known as "monitoring the situation."

If the message still hasn't sunk in, the Nevada Gaming Control Board's Randall Sayre sent out an "invitation" for casino executives and middle management to discuss a wide range of potential concerns. Gov. Jim Gibbons appointed Sayre to the NGCB with a mandate to beef up its law-enforcement role and Sayre's made good on it. (Even Midnight Jim has his moments of perspicacity.) It's good to see the spirit of Bobby Siller living on in Carson City.

"Damn those customers!" What do you do when business takes a not-unpredictable nosedive during a recession? Blame the customers, of course. At least, if you're Golden Nugget owner Tilman Fertitta, that's what you do. When times were good, Fertitta was bullish on gaming (which was essentially propping up his Landry's Restaurants empire).

Oh, what transformation a few bad quarters brings! Moans the Texas tycoon, “I feel very good about restaurant hospitality, I do not feel very good about gaming.” Hmmm, maybe you should have pondered that change of heart when you were proceeding with a new $150 million hotel tower (opening Aug. 1 Nov. 20) in the teeth of an economic tailspin?

As for the patrons, "discounted room rates appear to have attracted a clientele who are spending less on gaming and other amenities," harrumphs a company document. Yes, because in case you haven't noticed, we're on the verge of a depression. People have less money to spend. Period. Like many others like him, Fertitta needs to get hip to the fact that we're entering a period of diminished expectations. Shaking your fist at the rain isn't going to accomplish anything.

Other Fertitta scapegoats include MGM Mirage, for having the audacity to discount its rooms during the downturn. Sounding rather whiny, Fertitta utters, “You ought to go online and look at some of these rates and packages you can get. That is where we are just being murdered, trying to be competitive with the MGM and the Bellagio.”

Welcome to the NFL, man. And if you think -- with all due respect to the downtown Nugget -- that you're in the running against Bellagio or even the Green Monster, well, you're in a world of denial. I've not had time to read the last Landry's quarterly filing but, for once, it sounds like a real page-turner. 

Station wins one, albeit on a technicality. All parties involved will be back for a grudge match in local court.

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Caesars Palace's jumbotron was hawking a poker "tournement [sic]" as of last night. Having an ex-Harvard boffin at the helm evidently doesn't raise a company's I.Q. level. You half-expect that sort of spelling gaffe on the marquee at Terrible's; at Caesars, not so much.

It was wall-to-wall people at the Golden Nugget last night. Which goes to show that a scarifyingly depopulated Riviera on Monday night was not indicative of some citywide malaise. (What it bodes for the Riv is less than reassuring, however.) Nugget owner Tilman Fertitta is really packing them in -- at least in terms of bodies, if not dollars -- particularly the retirees. If Anthony Newley shout-outs are your thing, you'll love headliner Gordie Brown.

Thumbs down, however, to some price-gouging we encountered at The Grille, the Nugget's fast-food joint. Two bucks gets you a soda -- in a thimble. And don't be goin' askin' fer no refills, buckaroo, 'cause they're ain't none. Just skedaddle now afore somebody takes a brandin' iron to yer hide, tenderfoot.

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Harrah's Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman continues his media-availability tour. In today's installment, he grants an audience to the Las Vegas Business Press and insists that not only is everything as right as rain at Harrah's but that the LBO he steered the company into is really "an ability to focus on long-term viability and the health of the business." (Bond analysts remain skeptical.)

Despite bragging on the vast "resources and ... expertise" (like these?) of Apollo Management and TPG Capital, Loveman doesn't have any new strategems or projects to offer. The overwhelming consensus of stock analysts and customers nowadays is that Less = Less at a Harrah's-owned property. Meanwhile, the debtholders who bankrolled the buyout are asked to take haircut after haircut, and could be forgiven for thinking they've been played for suckers. Is anybody benefiting from this deal? Oh, I forgot.

One could go on but the story's mostly a rehash of old Loveman platitudes, plus another refrain of "We Love Macao." Harrah's management has been warbling that tune incessantly of late -- so much so that it sounds like an overt courtship of Pansy Ho, should she and MGM Mirage get a divorce.

The most newsworthy aspect of the story is the accompanying photo, in which the former Harvard prof appears to gotten a deep chestnut-brown dye job. If indeed that's the case, Loveman should ask for his money back: It's not only undignified, it's inept.

Gordie Brown goes down: If you think Loveman gets a bad review, you should read about the Golden Nugget's star attraction, who inhabits "a place where pop culture pressed 'pause' at about the time of 'Achy Breaky Heart,' Hootie & the Blowfish and Forrest Gump."

Then again, there must be people who groove to Hervé Villechaize jokes. Trouble is, they're all going to be down at the Riviera, watching Charo. And when you're described as a poor man's Danny Gans ... well, do the blows land any lower than that?

Great news for slot players: Seven more years of Clue and Battleship. Give Hasbro credit for knowing a good thing (in this case, its alliance with WMS Gaming) when it saw it. And, just because we can't say it enough, WMS' Star Trek machines are the cat's pajamas. Just for the record, you know.

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I'm not sure if you can see the "unique page views" counter on this blog or not but, as of Friday afternoon, people prefer to read about Slots A Fun than about the bizarre reasoning patterns of one Donald J. Trump, 208 to 148. If that were an election, Trump would be losing by a double-digit margin. It's Slots A Fun in a landslide!

It's worse still if you're CityCenter's Aria and Vdara hotels because you're getting crushed -- crushed! -- by the Cabana Suites at the El Cortez. By an over two-to-one margin (1,537 vs. 755) people would rather look at hotel-room photos of "the El."

It gets better. In his Los Angeles Times blog, Richard Abowitz pronounces the Cabana Suites, "the nicest rooms in downtown Vegas, even nicer than the ones I've seen at the Golden Nugget ... a new alternative that allows you to see the the dirty urban origins of Vegas without having to take a cut in the contemporary Vegas luxury experience."

Somebody better hide that copy from tempestuous Nugget owner Tilman Fertitta. He's not going to "friend" Abowitz after he reads it.

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“Las Vegas has already been creamed by a biblical real-estate bust and now it may face the loss of its homegrown gambling joints, too. Station [Casinos] ... recently failed to make a key interest payment, which is often one of the last steps before a Chapter 11 filing. For once, the house seems likely to lose.” -- from a Feb. 6 U.S. News & World Report story that listed Station as one of 15 major U.S. companies least likely to survive 2009. Cousin Tilman Fertitta's Landry's Restaurants (owner of the Las Vegas and Laughlin Golden Nuggets) also made the list.

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If I wanted to drive myself to strong drink, I could write about depressing, atrocious numbers coming out of Nevada casinos in December. But as that great philosopher, Linus in Peanuts, would remind me, it's better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. (Next panel: Lucy hollering, "You stupid darkness!") Let's just say that December revenues hew to my saw that when Wendover sneezes, Nevada catches pneumonia and move on.

Two Sundays ago, the Review-Journal ran a pair of stories that warranted mention here at the time but got lost in the shuffle. Time to give credit where it's due, especially as these articles highlight some of silver linings inside the present-day storm front.

Boyd Gaming's is the least-sexy brand among the major casino operators ... but sexiness can be overrated. (See: Station Casinos) Unlike a certain crosstown rival which put all its eggs in the Vegas basket, Boyd has always rejoiced in a diversified portfolio. With Wall Street falling in love with the regional casino market, Boyd is likely to experience newfound appreciation on the Street.

Echelon: Stopped in the nick of time.

No wonder CFO Josh Hirsberg strikes such a sanguine tone. He also fesses up to a number of uncertainties, which is a refreshing change of pace. True, the company has halved its 401(k) matches but it hasn't deep-sixed them altogether, unlike several competitors. Also, it stopped Echelon while it still had the ability to alter the scale of the project, whereas Caesar Palace's Octavius Tower had crossed that Rubicon. It certainly doesn't rank anywhere near as high on the Mortification Meter as MGM Mirage's forced truncation of The Harmon (now to be an ungainly stump) or Las Vegas Sands' abrupt cessation of its St. Regis tower. Boyd's ongoing infatuation with fickle Morgans Hotel Group remains a major puzzlement but let's not belabor that now.

Boyd's chances of coming out the economic tsunami intact look good. Besides, the company has surprised people before. Who would have picked it to be the one that would shake up the Atlantic City market and force everyone else to keep pace?

A project that has the makings of a comparable success story in Las Vegas is M Resort, brainchild of the Marnell family. (You know, the folks who gave The Rio its cachet -- before Harrah's Entertainment took over and "geriatrified" the place.) Admittedly, $1 billion for a 390-room hotel/casino doesn't sound anything like optimal bang for the buck, but M Resort has three things going for it that Station's Red Rock Resort and Aliante Station don't: location, location, location.

Strategically, M's site is killer. It sits just north of the pass through which I-15 flows into the Vegas Valley, as you head in from California. In fact, you see the M tower even before you reach the pass, stunningly framed between the canyon walls. The vista from the north side of M ought to give it must-visit cachet when it opens in two weeks (March 1). The relative paucity of hotel rooms may bespeak caution over whether the stay-off-Strip/commute-to-Strip business model has worked yet. As they say on Wall Street, "visibility is limited" because like-minded Green Valley Ranch and South Point have gone private.

Also, by limiting their exposure on the hotel side -- where so much of the rest of the market is overexposed -- the Marnells should have supply/demand dynamics in their favor. A place like Morgans' Hard Rock Hotel, which only drew a third of its cash flow from gambling before Morgans went on a frenzied expansion binge, is super-exposed in the area that's most sensitive to price fluctuations -- hotel rooms -- and soon to become even more so. (The HRH puts a brave spin on it but it's no secret why the project is fully funded: It's 85% owned by the bank which, like the pig in the ham-and-egg-breakfast analogy, is committed while Morgans [i.e., the chicken] has but an interest.)

One also has to laud CEO Anthony Marnell III's incremental preparation for the Vegas market: a stint managing a tribal casino (giving him experience in the drive-in market), followed by acquisition of the Saddle West in Pahrump (ditto the locals market), then Laughlin. So his $1 billion dice-throw was approached via a circumspect route. George Maloof has already shown that a steady locals/hipsters mix can work as a business model. M Resort is the first project since The Palms to wholeheartedly go that route.

With nearby Olympia Gaming and Station (Inspirada) casino developments on indefinite hiatus, Marnell should be firmly entrenched before anyone else in the area gets a shovel in the ground. It's a serendipitous combination of preparation and circumstance.  Of course, M could be either a succes d'estime or an outright bust, but the buzz I've been hearing is strong.

Tamares Group giveth (booking a new magic show into the Las Vegas Club) and Tamares taketh away, pulling back on a planned art museum (above). So if this is no time to invest $12 million in an art museum, maybe Tamares might want to invest it in its casinos. Comic relief is supplied by Mayor Oscar Goodman, who's been exceptionally obtuse this week. (See: President Obama, Silly Feud with)

Casinos in Texas are one of the longest of long shots but Galveston's name keeps coming up. The whole thing screams "Tilman Fertitta!", especially since we know he's wanted a casino there and was even rather colorfully accused of surreptitiously installing casino infrastructure in his Galveston convention center. He got a good chuckle out of that one, as I recall.

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Yesterday's Chapter 11 proposal by Station Casinos was paradoxically both inevitable and premature. From the day Station drew on its revolving line of credit to fund operational expenses, the handwriting was on the wall. However, Station chose to precipitate a crisis by opting not to make an interest payment ... even with $350 million in the bank.

Already one is hearing grumbles that Station ownership is trying to bust the balls of its bondholders, who balked at the last refinancing plan, to put it kindly. In return for an accelerated redemption date, senior debtors are being asked to take 50 cents on the dollar (mostly in the form of more paper), while junior debtors will have to settle for 10 cents on the buck -- a considerable premium to the current value, one must in fairness note. Or they could call Station's bluff and send the whole kit 'n kaboodle into bankruptcy court.

Aliante: A Station too many?

The Fertitta clan, Colony Capital (co-owners of Station) and the secured lenders have all signed off on this ... of course. They're the ones with the least to lose, should it go through. Colony and the Fertittae are sweetening their previous offer with a promised $244 million cash infusion. It would be cricket if Frank III and Lorenzo Fertitta ponied up $60 million -- if said contribution is proportional to ownership stake -- considering that they've taken considerably more than that out of the company in recent years. Together with their sister and brother-in-law, the boys toted home nearly $495 million from the buyout alone.

What's not on the table are asset sales, even though Station has more undeveloped real estate in the Vegas Valley -- plus the Reno area -- than you can shake a stickman at. (Not to mention that expansion is currently pointless in a market that has lost its elasticity for the time being and is, in fact, constricting). Evidently call-center employees and 401(k) contributions are expendable but pipe dreams like Viva are sacrosanct.

Investment service Moody's estimates that as many as 17 casino companies are at risk of default right now. (Scary!) Should Harrah's Entertainment fall, the enormity of ensuing "SPLASH!" will drown out the Station fiasco -- but it shouldn't. In effect, if not in intention, private equity buyouts of casino companies have become a sham whereby management gets its company back for pennies while leaving bondholders holding the bag, too. That's disgraceful.

Speaking of Moody's, the Las Vegas Review Journal's "Inside Business" blog has an amusing Wall Street-into-English translation of a Moody's investor note on Landry's (owner of the Golden Nuggets) that's a dense thicket of cover-your-ass verbiage. I was going to say Moody's "waffled all over the place," but I don't care to insult waffles.

As for Landry's CEO Tilman Fertitta, he has more reason than most to delve into today's coverage of the calamity at Station. After all, the Fertitta brothers helped Tim Poster and Tom Breitling "play" him during his bid for the Nuggets. So, no love lost there. In fact, I'm sure that Tilman is sitting down for an extra-large schadenfreude supper tonight.

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After years of seeing players flee in droves to Lake Charles, Shreveport and Oklahoma, businessmen in Texas have finally had enough and are stumping for a vote to authorize casinos in the Lone Star State. It's a long shot but in these desperate times, I'd no longer bet heavily against it. Prudently, the proposal would redress a longstanding wrong (and sidestep a lawsuit or three) by restoring gambling rights to Texas' Native American tribes, some of the many victims of l'affaire Abramoff.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal's Howard Stutz adds that the Frank Fertitta Jr. clan (including presumably Frank III and brother Lorenzo) is in on the action. True, Station Casinos itself is tapped out but the Fertittas are sitting upon bushels of money made either through the UFC or the Station buyout.

If the Las Vegas Fertittas really do have their eyes on Texas, it'd not only present a business opportunity but a chance to stick it one more time to cousin -- and rival -- Tilman Fertitta. The latter, a scion of the Galveston Fertittas, has coveted a Texas casino for some time. One can only imagine how the irascible Tilman might take to seeing young Frank III and Lorenzo setting up shop in his backyard, especially after they covertly helped Tim Poster and Tom Breitling run up the price of the Golden Nugget purchase.

Regulation? Who needs it? If, as Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Dennis Neilander maintains, his agency is operating at 1991 staffing levels, then Gov. Jim Gibbons proposes to take the NGCB back into the 1980s. Perhaps Midnight Jim is feeling nostalgic for the heyday of Lefty Rosenthal. Who knows?

Whatever the case, Gibbons' proposed cuts would make it more difficult for the Control Board to account for the tax revenue that Midnight Jim claims he is at such great pains to conserve and maximize. Then again, trying to reconcile what Gibbons says with what he actually does has been an impossibility from the get-go.

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