Tourism

Western … sold?; Loveman takes a bath; Loving couples at the Flamingo

Update: The head of Tamares Group’s Vegas casino operations, Anthony Santo, has contacted S&G. He categorically denies that any sale of the Western has taken place.

Well, “the Internets” are jumping today with the rumor that the defunct Western Hotel Casino, most recent victim of absentee Tamares Group, has been sold. Zappos.com has been tipped as the likely buyer. We shall see. The Western occupies an entire city block, which would be space enough for a big-box grocery store … one of Mayor Carolyn Goodman‘s high-priority items on her wish list. Since the Western sits adjacent to the empty space once occupied by Tamares’ Ambassador East Motel, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a multi-block transaction were in the works.

Since Downtown living at former condos like

What the fuQ?; A dubious honor

Word around here is that Caesars Entertainment did an in-house survey on potential re-names of Imperial Palace — soon to become “The Quad” — and promptly dumped the poll results in the nearest wastepaper basket. Se non e ver, e ben trovato … that is, if it didn’t happen, it sounds exactly like the sort of time-wasting exercise for which the Gary Q. Loveman administration has become infamous, like the never-to-be-built Paris-Las Vegas pedestrian bridge. Seriously, this is a company that owns the Showboat, Harveys and — ahem! — Horseshoe brands and the best it can do for the Las Vegas Strip is “The Quad”?

Leave aside the blunt, rectangular and thoroughly unromantic connotations of the square peg thrust into the round hole that will always be “Imperial Palace” to denizens of Vegas — just as “Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall” will forever be thought of as the Barbary Coast. And let’s skip the cultural tone-deafness of evoking the character ‘4’ in an Oriental-styled casino. What I want to know is: Did the letter ‘Q‘ have a going-out-of-business sale? What is Loveman’s fascination with that particular part of the alphabet? Does he have market research that shows a high correlation between customer spend and a proliferation of Qs? First “Linq,” now “Quad.” No doubt his delusional Toronto megaresort proposal will be dubbed “Qanada.” The casino he’s helping to build in Baltimore could be slugged “Qamden Yards.” And if and when he and Richard “Coastal Marina” Fields get done spending an incredibly superfluous $1 billion on Suffolk Downs, they can finish by renaming it “Suffolq Downes” or something comparably pretentious. If he thought he could do it and escape ridicule, Loveman would surely rename his flagship property

Atlantic City: Revenues up, Seminoles out, Mohegans in

Stick a fork in the Dennis Gomes legacy at Resorts Atlantic City. Son Aaron Gomes is not only leaving but going halfway around the globe, to team up with former Borgata exec Larry Mullin and reboot Jupiters Gold Coast Casino, Down Under. He’ll have $625 million to spend on the Jupiters’ relaunch, which must feel like unparalleled lolly after having to reposition Resorts on a shoelace-and-chewing-gum budget. (Even Mohegan Sun‘s new cash infusion comes to a modest $35 million … actually more like $22 million-$26.5 million, once casino-tax money is recycled into the project.) Resorts A.C. owner Morris Bailey wanted Gomes to stay on but, with an offer like Jupiters’ on the table, who’s to blame Gomes for taking it? Besides, new plans like the incorporation of a Margaritaville restaurant into Resorts A.C. run a cart and horses through Gomes pere‘s Roaring Twenties theme.

New Jersey‘s freshly inked deal with Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority lands the latter “a cheap foothold in the nation’s third-largest gambling market,” as Wayne Parry writes, mincing no words. Pending a more-thorough vetting by the state, MTGA will only have unilateral authority with regard to which games are on the Resorts floor and in what configuration. Any wider-ranging decisions require Bailey’s say-so, although the majority owner recently betrayed a measure of buyer’s remorse. This would appear to preclude the casino’s next CEO — as yet unnamed — from being plucked from within the Mohegan braintrust. Mohegan CEO Mitchell Etess makes an array of salient points regarding the deal, not least of which is that the worm has turned and tribal casinos are coming to the private sector’s rescue. After decades of disrespect, that’s a victory lap I shan’t begrudge him. However, having made a selling point of the lack of proximity between other Mohegan properties in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, the tribe’s play for a Massachusetts casino looks all the more cynical. (I’ve heard informed speculation that MTGA wants the Palmer, Mass., site simply to keep it in cold storage for years.)

Enter the Mohegans, exit the Seminoles. The Florida tribe’s attempt — in tandem with Och-Ziff Real Estate — at a Hard Rock-branded boutique casino was nearing a preposterous $465 million just to build 208 hotel rooms. Of the various rescue measures for Atlantic City passed by the New Jersey Lege, the “boutique casino” law was

The rains came, 9/11/12

It may not be a David Lean epic but this video gives you an idea just how heavy the waters were on the Las Vegas Strip, over by Harrah’s Las Vegas. Strangely, local TV stations are concentrating upon the effects of the flooding on outlying parts of the valley, venturing no nearer the Strip than the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and the routes to and from the airport.

“Mob Attraction” inundated

… and not with customers unfortunately. Las Vegas is currently experiencing torrential downpours and flash flooding — including on the Strip. This suddenly closed the Tropicana Las Vegas‘ “Mob Attraction,” thanks to a wee bit of a design flaw. According to a Trop source, the Mob expo is just off the lowest point of the pool area. So when rainwater came sloshing down the landscaped “hills” surrounding it, the deluge burst an emergency-exit door and made a beeline for the Mob Attraction. The latter was quickly sandbagged, its electrical equipment unplugged. (It’d be a frightful shame if digitized Jimmy Caan got shorted out in mid-cliché.) The Attraction is temporarily on day-to-day status, post-flood, so double-check before paying a visit. They might still be sucking water out of the carpets tomorrow, from the sound of things. Alex Yemenidjian just can’t catch a break. The rainfall was so thick that 

Bad for Trump, good for me

Do you own a Trump International condo? Guess what? In another instance of the impotence of the Trump brand name, he’s sublicensing part of Trump Int’l to a genuinely powerful hotelier. Vegas Today and Tomorrow blogger Mark Adams has ferreted out the news that Donald Trump has quietly offloaded 300 units of his supposedly super-smash-hit golden phallus to Hilton Grand Vacations. “Leave it to the The Donald to put his wallet before his guests and condo owners,” Adams writes. Indeed, ’twas ever thus.

While the Hilton moniker doesn’t convey the same nouveau-riche pretensions of “Trump,” it’s one people are hella more inclined to trust. It also means 300 additional units on the Las Vegas Strip in which you can access my USA Today guidebooks to the Strip and Downtown. These are only available through an online portal at Hilton-branded properties. Ergo, Trump may be losing additional stature but I’m picking up more “eyeballs.” It’s a win-win!

Insufficiently “Awesome”

After seemingly endless previews (months of them, I believe), Sirc Michaels Productions has folded its second V Theater show, Awesome 80s Prom. Actually, to call it a “show” would be a misnomer. It was more of a semi-scripted “happening,” at which one was encouraged to “[mingle] with characters from their favorite 80s movies like The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink. You will dance and sing along to the ‘gnarliest’ hits of the decade like ‘Wake Me up Before You Go-Go’ and ‘Jessie’s Girl’ and more!” Did you hear that? You will dance, tourist monkeys! It is commanded of you!

As will happen with any vortex of suckage and ‘meh’ whose basic elements include le cinema de John Hughes, plus Rick Springfield and Wham!, Awesome 80s Prom collapsed like an unstable wormhole. I could explain why … but

Pinnacle’s cockeyed optimist

Call me Nostradamus: As Hurricane Isaac essentially sits parked on the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines, I am again given cause to wonder what in Heaven’s name made Pinnacle Entertainment CEO Anthony Sanfilippo think he could hold the L’Auberge Baton Rouge ‘dry run’ today (postponed from earlier this week). Isaac is in no particular hurry to get to Red Stick, en route to Memphis and points northward. If L’Auberge gets to test-drive its slots and table games by this weekend, it’ll be a miracle. One could blame it on Pinnacle’s choice of Las Vegas as its corporate headquarters — but unless Sanfilippo hasn’t paid

Non-quote of the day; After Harmon, what next?

As Hurricane Isaac forced the closure of 18 casinos in Louisiana and Mississippi (including the Silver Slipper [left]) and casino-expansion measures in Illinois and Michigan came to a head, what story did the American Gaming Association deem its highest priority today? You’ll never guess. “Fifth Street to Manage Two Siegel Group Casinos.” Yes, a rinky-dink management deal covering 300 slot machines and a smattering of table games trumped all other news of the morning … at least from the AGA’s screwy point of view. Pressing news from the Gulf Coast and from Illinois, among other places, was buried halfway down the page. Nice sense of urgency there, AGA.

Now that Harmon Hotel has a date certain with the wrecking ball, what will arise in its place? Phil Hevener provides a strong hint in the latest edition of Gaming Today (Motto: “News That You Can Bet On!”). MGM Resorts International, Hevener reports, “has big plans … that will provide improved visibility” for CityCenter, “where first time visitors sometimes find it difficult to tell one front door from another.” (True that.) He then segues into an amusing encounter with a Vegas newbie who, seeking CityCenter, went to The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas by mistake. Inexplicably tenured

Living here can be hazardous to your health; “Summer Camp!” and Shakespeare in Sin City

We live in a fair city where a trip to the nearest Dairy Queen means being in mortal peril of being attacked with a whacking great sword. Also, you’ll get to learn more about Commercial Center than you probably want to know (including where the swingers’ club is). Then you get some brand-new musical theater that hopes to follow in the footsteps of Evil Dead The Musical … with a side order of S&M retail.

Here are snippets of two of Summer Camp!‘s funniest songs. First, “We’re Getting Laid,” featuring Joe Hynes and Tony Blosser …

Speed: The Ride … found!; Dueling Ferris wheels and Caesars’ wonderful life

Remember all those rumors that had the Sahara‘s now-vanished Speed: The Ride packed up and headed for Circus Circus? Not so! The good folks and inquiring minds at VegasChatter.com were sussing out some dormant South Strip developments and discovered …

… our old friend Speed adorning an as-yet-unbuilt shopping mall called Akita Plaza. I have my suspicions about the future of Circus Circus but, one way or another, MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren had better things to do with precious company money than buy another rollercoaster when he already had a perfectly good one at New York-New York, offering a superior Strip view (and a Las Vegas Advisor coupon deal).

VegasChatter and S&G also have a slight difference of opinion regarding the likelihood of Caesars Entertainment finishing its Ferris while out back of what used to be O’Shea’s. While Howard Bulloch‘s erection — officially called SkyVue — makes the more impressive sight, VegasChatter sees modest evidence of activity and, digging more deeply, finds Bulloch to have been rather free and easy with the truth. Also, Bulloch’s satellite map is nearly six years out of date, perhaps more. It still shows Aztar Corp. owning the Tropicana Las Vegas, to say nothing MGM’s eternally mysterious South Strip “Project Z.” An apt choice of initial as, whatever it would have been, it’s dead as a doornail in the company’s current financial state and new, overseas focus. MGM needs another Strip resort like

Taylor Hicks: Vegas’ newest star?; Adelson hates on Vegas

Last  night being my wonderful wife’s birthday, I took her out to dinner and thence to Taylor Hicks at Bally’s, now in the 10th week of an eight-week run (and, no, that’s not a typo). Big ups to Caesars Entertainment, incidentally, for supplying patrons with illuminated cocktail menus that can be read in the dark. Now that — is what I call progress. Rather than the usual, self-laudatory video montage, Hicks opens just with this …

Fortunately, his technical people show the video correctly, not reversed. Besides, having Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon as your de facto warm-up act isn’t a bad way to start. From then onward, it’s just Hicks and his band, flat-out jamming for 110 minutes (at insanely good prices), including a marathon version of Elvis Presley‘s chart-topper “In the Ghetto,” penned by the unjustly forgotten Mac Davis. At the close quarters of the The Indigo Lounge, Hicks’ voice and his incredibly fluent combo really pack a wallop. It’s what “Vegas” used to signify:

Atlantic City: Revel debuts disappointingly, Mohegan Sun moves in

OK, let’s take a deep breath and remind ourselves that one swallow doesn’t make a spring and one month doesn’t determine history’s verdict on a casino, but there’s only a single word for $2.4 billion Revel‘s first full month of operation: poor. The megaresort grossed $17.5 million, making it the eighth-place finisher for June. So much for the “novelty factor.” Perhaps that’s what occurs when you make “the casino seem almost an afterthought.” If there’s an upside to this, it’s that Atlantic City‘s gross gaming revenue “only” fell 9% in a summer month … down 15% when Revel is factored out of the equation. In other words, par for the 2012 course.

Table win at Revel was $1,771/day and slot handle was $150 per day … but without comparable data from other casinos, those numbers are almost meaningless. As expected, beach-deprived Revel took a chunk out of table play at Borgata (-18.5% drop), where gamblers played lucky and casino win was -38%. Still, Boyd Gaming can take consolation that, even with an overall 16% plunge in casino revenue, Borgata still kicked

Opening tonight!; DIY Vdara Death Ray

Hoping to join Evil Dead The Musical and Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in the progression of locally produced musicals to casino showrooms is Summer Camp! The Musical, which opens tonight at the Onyx Theatre, near what used to be the Sahara. (Say, we haven’t heard much from Sam Nazarian lately, have we?) Seen above are lead actors Joe Hynes and Tony Blosser in the show’s first number, which was previewed Wednesday at, of all unlikely places, Downtown‘s tony Smith Center for the Performing Arts, aka “St. Smith’s.” (Composer Angela Chan is at the ivories.) Author/lyricist/director Troy Heard‘s writing should hold no shocks for audiences reared on Family Guy and Adult Swim. Older casino patrons might be given pause, particularly when the “glory hole” manifests itself or our heroes compete to win the “Kotex 500” race.

However, if Sirc Michaels could do it,* perhaps

Nevada: We’re skewed!; Dark Side of the Force

I always hate doing Nevada gaming numbers because A) it’s redundant with the coverage in the local dailies and B) almost every month you have to trot out the caveat that — as was the case in June — the month went out on a weekend, meaning that there’s unreported slot drop that won’t show up for another 30 days. So it’s a rare month when you’re not having to deal with some form of skewed revenue reportage. Ergo, when you hear that June manifested a 6% drop, partly due to low slot hold, how much credence can you put in that statistic? Carlo Santarelli of Deutsche Bank calls the numbers “stale,” which is somewhat unfair, considering that heavy baccarat losses drove a 32% surge a year ago. But how much do you wanna bet that we’ll see at least a single-digit uptick in July, which ended midweek? Sheesh!

(Update: Visitation rose 2% in June and ADRs were up 8.5%, making me look on the gambling-revenue numbers with even greater skepticism.)

No surprise, the Strip (-4.5%) did better than the state overall, which is par for our slow, shallow trajectory of recovery. 21% more baccarat play still translated into 4% less win. Non-baccarat table revs were flat, however, despite 8% less money dropped. Even a lower slot hold (93%) couldn’t stave off slight declines in handle (-2%) and winnings (-8%). Where accounting quirks may really be creating mischief is in the seesawing, schizoid numbers coming from the locals and drive-in (more like “drive-by”) markets, although Mesquite seems to be on the comeback trail, thanks to Michael Gaughan. April, which ended on a Monday, saw boffo biz for Downtown (+25%), North Las Vegas (+42% [!]) and Boulder Strip (+25%). Flip the script to June and it’s -13%, -26% and -23% for those three jurisdictions, respectively. Extrapolating a larger narrative from these yo-yo-ing stats must drive Dr. David G. Schwartz (above) to  deep sighs of exasperation. At least when we look back across 2011, we can see stolid but fairly steady growth, 3% overall.

The Diss of Death went to Lake Tahoe and Reno, both of which Santarelli consigns to the nebulous

Surf’s out

It’s all over for Surf The Musical. That’s the word coming from multiple, credible sources in Strip entertainment circles. Cast members allegedly just got their two-week notice for the bloated extravaganza that basically consisted of wall-to-wall Beach Boys songs, with little Band Aids of dialogue to feebly bind them together … and sometimes not even that. It was evident the show was in trouble when “twofer” offers went out to locals in the show’s second week. When you’re discounting deeply to locals for a show that’s supposed to pull in the tourists, it’s a Very, Very, Bad Thing. For all the heavy propping in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, itinerant R-J reviewer Carol Cling could do no better than to damn Surf with faint praise. (A good thing they were spared the all-but-certain wrath of the R-J‘s drama critic Anthony del Valle, who takes no prisoners.) Jacob Coakley of the Las Vegas Weekly really nailed Surf‘s failings. Despite three weeks of preview performances, Surf was in ‘show doctor’ mode well past opening night.

Of course, what ultimately did Surf in — and Planet Hollywood‘s Web site shows no performances past Aug. 19 — was

Ch-ch-ch-changes at the Riv

CEO Andy Choy‘s makeover of the Riviera may be slowed by skepticism in the bond market but it keeps moving ahead. My Desert Companion profile of the Strip dowager has made print and, despite the long lead time, we were able to slip in breaking news with regard to the bingo room and its sad fate. Guess that’s the last time anybody’s going to try that on the Strip in a long while. Anyway, the removal of Kiosk Hell from the long passageway back to the garage opens up wide visibility of the pool, which seems to be benefiting from its greater exposure. A new paint job is still in the testing stages. But you have to root for any casino that partners with the Pinball Hall of Fame — not to make money, but to create a new and different entertainment option. The Riv still faces some tough odds but it’s a gambler-friendly place worth rooting for … and, hey, it outlasted The Harmon, didn’t it?

Choo-Choo to Infinity … and beyond!

Our favorite welfare queen, Xpress West (née Desert Xpress) isn’t letting its plans be constrained by anything so mundane as reality. Original pitchman Sig “The Fixer” Rogich has crawled off into the underbrush somewhere but his Choo-Choo-to-Nowhere has found additional front men. And Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) continues to push for a record amount of federal subsidy. It will take $6.9 billion, minimum (some sources say $8 billion), just to get the line from Las Vegas to that mother lode of tourism, Victorville. Xpress West hucksters now say they can get you all the way to Los Angeles — with the help of a big-ass loan (at least $1.5 billion) and an circuitous detour through Palmdale … by 2029, that is. Having drunk deeply of their own bathwater,

Good news for online gambling? Bad news for Rio

• Anti-gambling prick Rep. Steve King (R-IA) may find himself under investigation. Unfortunately, he’s not being investigated for being an anti-gambling prick. But it might remove one more obstacle to online poker.

• The online-gambling world wet its panties last weekend over the (dubiously sourced) prospect of the U.S. Department of Justice OK’ing a Full Tilt Poker buyout of PokerStars, theoretically enabling Full Tilt to re-enter the U.S. market. This was fueled mainly by chat-room chaff and a self-serving statement by PokerStars spokesman Eric Hollreiser. Supposedly, Full Tilt will pony up $420 million for PokerStars plus $330 million to cover unpaid winnings. “[C]ustomers will see their monies well in time for Christmas shopping,” trilled reporter Wendeen Eolis. (Note that the $330 million payout would still leave $60 million worth of winnings hanging in the breeze.)

While there is no truth to the rumor that I was present at the Battle of the Marne, I do recall something about World War I being “over by Christmas.” And that’s also what they said just before a little skirmish we like to call the Battle of the Bulge. Even Eolis herself appeared to be backpedaling yesterday. “Temperance” has been encouraged among online punters … like that’s gonna happen.

Elsewhere in town … I hear terrible things about the new

Starship to Victorville … and sundry curiosities

No, I don’t know who Cobra Starship is but their “#1Nite” (yes, that’s how they spell it) is the sort of bubble-gum pop that ought to stick to the top of the charts. It’s another entry in that can’t-fail music-video genre, “Wacky Weekend in Vegas.” What sets this one somewhat apart is the use of the Neon Museum and the Pinball Hall of Fame among its locations, which also include nightlife’s version of a pilgrimage to Lourdes: Pure.

Bet you didn’t know that it’s possible to simultaneously drive past Binion’s Gambling Hall and

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