Question of the Day — 10 Jan 2007

"American Casino" was a popular reality-TV show, loosely modeled on "American Chopper," which originally aired on the Discovery Channel, then moved to the Travel Channel, from June 2004 to December 2005. The show followed the everyday workings of Henderson's Green Valley Ranch casino and gained high-profile publicity early on following the unexpected death of Vice-President of Hotel Operations, Michael Tata. Tata, a larger-than-life 33-year-old who was an instant hit with the show's audience, was found dead at his home in July 2004 from what was ruled an accidental overdose of the powerful prescription opiate fentanyl, mixed with alcohol. His position was first filled by Bret Magnun and is now occupied by Claes Landberg.

As far as some of the other major players in the series are concerned, here's the update we obtained from Station Casinos, plus some extra sleuthing we did on our own.

• Vice President & General Manager Joe Hasson is now General Manager of Aliante Station, the new casino on the north side of Las Vegas that's due to break ground in early 2007.
• Assistant General Manager Ralph Marano is no longer with Station Casinos and they don't know where he's gone. Neither do we.
• Director of Marketing Wayne Shadd is now Special Events Assistant, City of Henderson/Henderson Convention & Visitors Bureau.
• Marketing Manager David Demontmollin is no longer with Station Casinos, but he went on to write Las Vegas' Little Black Book: A Guy's Guide to the Perfect Vegas Weekend and has his own Web site if you want to find out more: www.daviddemontmollin.com.
• Like many of her "American Casino" colleagues, beauty-pageant queen and ex-Hotel Manager Ninya Perna is no longer with the Station group and we don't know what she's up to.
• Joseph Mulligan, aka "Chef Joe," has also moved on to new pastures: He left Las Vegas to head up culinary operations at Glacier Bay and Denali National Parks in Alaska and as far as we know, he's still there.
• Bill Burt remains Director of Casino Operations at Green Valley Ranch.
• Director of Player Development (aka casino host) Matt Sacca is still Director of Player Development, but he's now at Red Rock Resort.
• Assistant Security Manager Fred Tuerck is no longer with Station Casinos.

We hope this goes some way toward satisfying your curiosity and if anyone has any additional information about any of these characters, or any of the others featured in the series, let us know and we'll keep adding updates to this answer.