Like it or not, this is the new Las Vegas, folks. If you don’t want to be trampled by the douchebagerie, you probably shouldn’t come here. Last night, Encore‘s casino floor and hallway looked like a Jersey Shores casting call. I’ve don’t think I’ve ever seen so many men whose heads were growing directly out of their shoulders. (Creationists, I’d say we’ve found that Missing Link you claim doesn’t exist.) And if our economy is down for the count, as we keep hearing, where are these people getting all that money? Reconciling a crowded Las Vegas Strip with anemic revenue reports is a cognitive dissonance to which one never gets accustomed.
“Corporate arrogance”: That was a phrase that was hand-wringingly used just before Nevada regulators rubber-stamped the 2004-05 takeovers that left us with the too-big-to-fail megaliths known as Harrah’s Entertainment and MGM Resorts International. Those leviations may also have become too big to regulate. Harrah’s took a whiz on the Nevada Gaming Commission yesterday, not deigning to send a single executive to a hearing at which Harrah’s was fined for letting things get out of hand in the Caesars Palace baccarat pit. Harrah’s has sent a pretty clear message that it don’t need no stinkin’ regulation. Commissioners should probably brace themselves for further rebuffs in the future.
Steve Wynn (I think) is seeing the writing on the wall way before the rest of us. It appears he doesn’t like the Jeresy Shore crowd in his casino — so he (appears) to be eliminating (slowing down) the night clubs.
A former/retired gaming exec told me once that nightclubs, shows and restaurants are there only to draw people to the casino floor, not extract them from the floor.
If Steve has noticed this extraction, the night clubs are toast.
“And if our economy is down for the count, as we keep hearing, where are these people getting all that money?”
[Hand waving wildly] I know! I know! Sharron told me that all those unemployed people are lazing around the pools spending our UnConstitutional tax dollars that they get from Harry Reid for not even looking for work because Reid keeps shoveling money to them so they’ll vote for him so he can keep conspiring with Obama and Pelosi to subvert the 10th Amendment, which is the last bulwark against Satan’s attack against the First Commandment!
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“Commissioners surmised that no one took action, fearing that doing so would potentially chase away a high-rolling customer.”
All they could do was surmise. Doesn’t the Commission have something like a “contempt citation”?
Let’s see: $250,000 fine for infraction; $1,000,000 for disrespect toward the Commission.
Bob Stupak was ahead of his time when he proposed the Titanic Resort and Casino at the corner of Sahara and the Strip back in 1999. Imagine a pool party on a ship that big. RIP Bob Stupak.
Paul,
Well, Stupak probably would have gone broke (again) building it. Then MGM/whatever would have bought it on the cheap, changed all the staterooms to condominium units, charged “resort fees” to prospective buyers to just look at the units; then, in the face of the economic downtown, would…
rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic!
[Sorry, couldn’t resist.]