Chef David Walzog of SW Steakouse will be appearing on NBC's "The Today Show" at 9:45 PST tomorrow with ideas for side dishes perfect for a summertime steak dinner. For additional recipe ideas from some of the city's top chefs, remember to check out our Reservations Required title -- it makes a perfect gift for the Vegas-loving cook in your life!
The band's kicking off their first U.S. tour in eight years with a free gig at the Pearl at the Palms July 18. Entry will be on a first come, first served basis.
Expect extra-BAD traffic on The Strip tomorrow: From 9 a.m. Planet Hollywood and the Miracle Mile Shops will be airing CNN's coverage of Michael Jackson's memorial live -- with full sound -- on the propertys' multiple Strip-side LED video screens beginning at 9 a.m. PST.
On July 15 the Palms will be holding auditions inside The Pearl concert venue for the new Matt Goss Live From Las Vegas show, produced by Pussycat Dolls creator Robin Antin. Dancer and Singer/Dancer audition check-in: 9:30 a.m.; singer-only audition check-in: 3:00 p.m. Enter via front entrance of The Pearl and bring a photo and resumé.
AUDITION REQUIREMENTS:
DANCERS: Wear form-fitting clothing and high heels. All choreography will be taught on-site.
SINGERS: Please have a 30-second song prepared for your audition and select a song that shows off your vocal range. Please bring your own track for your audition.
Isle of Capri Casinos founder Bernie Goldstein, the first casino operator in Biloxi and the South, died on Sunday. He opened Isle of Capri Casino in Biloxi in 1992 and as CEO grew the Isle of Capri brand into one of the top casino companies in world, operating regional casinos in Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, and Florida. He had retired as CEO in 2008 but continued to be active in the company as chairman of the board.
According to today's Wall Street Journal, early buyers of condos at CityCenter are experiencing a severe case of "buyers remorse," and want to renegotiate prices to better reflect the current market. According to the article, $313 million in deposits are being held on 1,500 units (out of 2,440 total). CityCenter will have 5,000 hotel rooms on top of that. It's a good article with some interesting details about the project.
Realtor Robin Camacho's Las Vegas Top 10 Real Estate Values, one of the popular "Other" picks in our recent poll on your favorite LasVegasAdvisor.com website features, is about to get a major upgrade. We know that this service has been of great use to a number of LVA subscribers, who've taken advantage of Robin's insights and the current housing market to pick up some hot deals, and her service is about to get even stronger. Watch this space for the official launch of the new better-than-ever service and in the meantime, tune into Robin's House Advantage blog on this site for updates.
Phil Hellmuth Jr. arrived to play his first round in the World Series of Poker main event dressed as Julius Caesar. A picture of him, surrounded by a bevy of women can be seen in the "Sports" section of today's USA Today. The accompanying article focuses less on Hellmuth and more on the change from players starting with 20,000 chips to 30,000 this year.
The report on the number of players for Day 1C at the WSOP main event has been modified, dropping from an original estimate of more than 1,900 to 1,696. The chipleader was Joe Cada with 187,000. Amazingly, Jeff Lisandro, who's won three bracelets this year, is in sixth with 145,000. Notable eliminations include David "Chino" Rheem, Marcel Luske, Matt Matros, Brandon Cantu, Daniel Negreneau, Annie Duke, and former champs Tom McEvoy and Jamie Gold.
The nightspot in the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood continues its new "Tickled Pink" comedy night tonight. With the tagline "offending everyone equally," it's a showcase of mainly gay (but some straight) comedians, with tonight's lineup featuring Shawn Pelofsky, KT Tatara, and Sandra Valls, hosted by Shayma Tash. Text "LAUGH" TO 313131
to receive free tickets. Doors open at 8 p.m.
As expected, the numbers are way up for today's WSOP main event. Nearly 2,000 players are in action today and at least that many should play tomorrow.
Only 873 players competed yesterday -- a low number, but not completely unexpected, as the last two days of the first flight appear to be more crowded. The second-day chip leader was Brandon Demes with 137,075. Among the big names that were eliminated were Chris Moneymaker, David Pham, and Doyle Brunson.
Barney Frank will hold a press conference at the Rio at 1 pm today (open to media only). Frank has been pushing a bill to allow online poker to be played without government interference and is appearing at the World Series of Poker to gather support.
There are plenty of pools open to the public today if you need to cool down or sweat it out after last night’s festivities. Parties include the notorious Rehab at Hard Rock, Luxor’s LGBT-oriented "Sunkissed Sundays" (which is hosting a fundraiser for Sthn. Nevada Association of PRIDE today), XS Poolside Sundays nighttime party at Encore, "Sips for Dips" at Red Rock’s Cherry Cabana Club (also late-night), "Sunset Sessions" at TAO Beach (hosted by Holly Madison today), and "Daylife Sundays" at Wet Republic (MGM Grand). For more details on these events and all the other pools that are open to the public, visit our "Cool Pools" feature in "Shows & Nightlife."
Don't forget the book signing today with poker stars Elky and Blair Rodman. Both will be at the ALL IN Magazine booth in the Rio's PokerPalooza show today from 3 to 4 pm to sign Kill Everyone and Kill Phil.
Las Vegas Boulevard will be closed to traffic from Harmon Rd. to Bellagio from 8:15-8:45 p.m. tonight while daredevil illusionist Steve Wyrick attempts a "death drop" escape in celebration of Club Tattoo’s grand opening. At 8:30 p.m. Chester Bennington, assisted by band members, will lock and shackle Wyrick into one of the band’s equipment boxes. Connected to a crane by only a few thin ropes, the box will be dangled over a bed of 500 flaming spikes 80 feet below. The ropes will then be set on fire, forcing the illusionist to make his escape before the last rope breaks and sends him plummeting to a fiery death. The public is encouraged to come and watch and free MollliCoolz Shakers will be available to keep spectators refreshed and cool during the stunt.
A total of 1,116 players anted up in Day 1A of the World Series of Poker main event. The chip leader is Eric Cloutier, with 150,750. Notable Day 1 eliminations include Andy Bloch, Men Nguyen, Mark Vos, David Grey, Orel Hershiser, John Phan, Allen Cunningham, Freddy Deeb, and former champion Jerry Yang. Day 2A kicks off at noon today.
Club Tattoo inside the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood is one of the growing number of celebrity-owned tattoo studios in Las Vegas and today, from 2-4 p.m., co-owner and Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington will be here for the grand opening, signing autographs and giving away tickets to see his new band, Dead by Sunrise, which performs this evening inside the Steve Wyrick Theater.
It’s one of the biggest party weekends in Las Vegas and if you haven’t already made plans, check out our feature in Special Events (on the home page) for a last-minute lowdown on parties, concerts, and firework displays. In the casinos, South Point is awarding 2X points today, Silverton and the casinos in Primm are awarding 4X points, and Gold Coast is awarding 5X points for VP and 7X points for slots. Downtown, the El Cortez is reprising its free White Castle hamburger promotion today for Club Cortez members.
This weekend the Tropicana, Las Vegas is hosting the Sixth Annual Las Vegas Salsa Congress --a music and dance festival with workshops, shows, and parties. Click here for more information.
Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier and Blair Rodman will sign the second editions of their respective books on Saturday at the Rio's PokerPalooza show. Elky and Blair will both be at the ALL IN Magazine booth at 3 pm. Elky will sign Kill Everyone and Blair will sign Kill Phil. Both books are discounted for the show -- Kill Everyone (normally $34.95) will be sold for $25 and Kill Phil (normally $24.95) will be sold for $20. Get both, plus a Kill Phil hat, for $40.
Our outside processor has fixed its problem and ShopLVA is working properly again. Thanks for your patience.
As of 12:01 a.m. yesterday, gamblers in the casino towns of Cripple Creek, Central City, and Black Hawk are permitted to wager $100 instead of $5 and play craps and roulette in addition to just poker, blackjack, and slots. They can also play all night long, no longer having to stop between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. It's the successful conclusion to a $7 million campaign to persuade state voters to make these moves in a bid to increase tax revenues from gaming.
A new restaurant called Burger Joint opens today at the Flamingo. Located in the space previously occupied by Voga, the resaurant has a big selection, including salmon, buffalo chicken, turkey, veggie, and design-your-own traditional-style burgers.
Our outside credit card processor is down, which means orders are currently not being accepted at ShopLVA. We expect this to be a short-term situation that will be resolved today. We are monitoring and will put up a notice when the problem is corrected.
Todday is Day 1A for the $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker main event. There will be four such prelimanary flights in all, each with up to 3,000 players. No attendance figures have been released yet.
Travelocity's Roaming Gnome is asking for your help choosing where to go on his next adventure -- here, or Atlantic City? Vote for Vegas!
It's one of the biggest weekends of the year for parties, so without further ado, here's the line up for July 4 weekend in Sin City:
The former "Gaming Life Expo," now re-branded PokerPalooza, is underway in the Rio Pavilion, as the property gears up for the 2009 WSOP Main Event (kicks off noon tomorrow). It's a mélange of poker vendors, autograph-signing poker celebs, carnival games, food and drink stands, and a must for any poker fan. Look for the ALL IN Magazine booth, where Anthony Curtis and other LVAers will be, showing off the just-deliverd 2nd editions of both Kill Phil and Kill Everyone.
The off-Strip Greek Isles hotel-casino, which first opened as the Royal Inn Casino back in '72 and which has been blighted by financial woes in all its subsequent incarnations, is once again headed for the auction block.
Canpartners Realty Holding, the principal lender on the property, which was forced into Chapter 11 in April, is seeking bankruptcy court approval to sell the property at auction. Appraised at $120 million in late 2007, the Greek Isles is now valued at only $44 million. For more coverage on the Greek Isles saga, check out David McKee's Stiffs & Georges biz blog on this site.
USA Today's Travel News writer Kitty Bean Yancey highlights Las Vegas Advisor's July room-rate survey in her column today, under the title "Las Vegas hotel rates are on a losing streak." Click here to read the full article and use this link to search for room-rates with our booking service, Vegas.com, which offers a "Best Vegas Rate Guarantee": "If, while searching the Internet, you find a lower bookable rate on any other publicly available U.S.-based website for the same date(s), same hotel, same room type, same rate type, and for the same number of guests and notify VEGAS.com within 24 hours after booking your room with us, VEGAS.com will give you double the difference back, up to $150."
Magic, sharks, robots, poker, and CityCenter? Yes, it's the latest Las Vegas update from Anthony Curtis, whose nationally syndicated column was just posted to our LVA in the Media blog. Stay tuned: It's been a busy week for us media-attention wise and and there's another entry following hot on the heels of this one...
The World Series of Poker's USA Today supplement is in today's edition. We reported in the July Las Vegas Advisor that it didn't run this year, but now it has, making four years straight that the WSOP is getting major-sport coverage. There's also a good column in the "Sports" section providing an overview of this year's WSOP results to date, written by Daniel Negreanu.
The El Cortez is currently running the following promotion: Hit a jackpot of $1,200 or more and receive a complimentary two-night stay in their new Cabana Suites. If you don't hit the jackpot, remember you can still get one night for $45 and the second night free by using the coupon in the current LVA Member Rewards Book. Here's what another reader had to say about it recently:
"Just got back from the most recent trip and I have to say that the El Cortez Cabana Suites are off the hook! The first night I stayed at a Fremont Street hotel (won't mention which one but looking out my window I was well acquainted with the large metal roof of the skyshow). While I anticipated it being noisy, it was too much for me. After looking through the MRB, I came across the coupon for the Cabana suites. I called them up and got a mini-suite for the last two nights of my trip. The room was just flat-out awesome. Clean, modern, and an unbeatable price. It has its own fitness room, computer terminals in the lobby, and security guards inside and out. Just look for the blue building behind the El Cortez casino. I sorely wish I had acquired the coupon book first because I most certainly would have booked this room first. I will be back." (aerosmith3430)
Good news for thrill-seekers: Mandalay Bay's Shark Reef attraction is introducing a new program for guests of MBay or sister property THEhotel. Certified divers aged 18+ (max. two at a time) will have a chance to dive side-by-side with more than 30 sharks during the four-hour experience, plus they'll learn about shark health and behavior, and the Reef's preservation of endangered species program. For more information contact Wendie Mosca: wmoscaATmgmirage.com
Called the International when it opened on July 2, 1969, the Las Vegas Hilton will be celebrating its 40th anniversary tomorrow with casino promotions, commemorative gaming chips, and a 24/7 happy hour rotating among the properties bars and lounges. Happy Birthday Hilton!
This just in via Channel 8 "Eyewitness News": Apparently, beginning on Monday, the Venetian has laid of another 194 employees this week. This comes on top of the 283 Venetian/Palazzo employees pink-slipped in March.
Many thanks to Los Angeles Times blogger Richard Abowitz for highlighting David McKee's "Stiffs & Georges" as "an essential Vegas blog" in his latest addition to "The Movable Buffet." You can read all about it in "LVA in the Media".
The Minus 5 Experience ice bar at Mandalay Place is celebrating Independence Day with a half-price admission for men and women of the United States military. On July 4, all current and veteran personnel with valid military ID will receive a 50% discount on entry (normally $25, which includes first cocktail). Check out our 4th of July feature in "Special Events" (bottom of the home page, or just click the link) to see what other festivities are going on around town this weekend.
After a 20-hour final table, David Bach emerged the winner of the HORSE event at the World Series of Poker, taking the top prize of $1,276,802. The table set records for longest duration and most hands played in a WSOP final.
No more casino gambling in Russia's big cities as of today, when a law comes into effect exiling legal gambling to far-flung designated zones, including Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, the Primorsky region on the Pacific coast, the Altai region in Siberia, and near the southern cities of Krasnodar and Rostov.
Casino-culture had mushroomed in Moscow and other large cities since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and many predict that the new law will merely push gambling underground.
The law on poker remains ambiguous, so some former casinos may now operate as poker halls, while others have already shut down for good.
It's another deep finish at the World Series of Poker for