From the mailbag #8

“Doesn’t the IOC realise it will be winter in Brazil in August, 2016?” — comment Blackberried in by a reader, regarding the award of the ’16 games to Rio de Janeiro. Y’know, I’d been wondering about that myself. The average August temperature in Rio hovers between 66 and 78 degrees. Not frigid but not exactly torrid, either. Meanwhile, the IOC promises to keep an eagle eye on the betting lines for the Vancouver games in 2010.

From Jeff in OKC, regarding the recent National Coming-Out Day promotions on the Strip: “Casino ads need a gambling reference in their marketing, I found it cute. If I want to offend easily, I would say that ‘Two queens are more fun than a straight’ suggests that straight people are inherently less enjoyable than gay people, and NY-NY doesn’t want my money. I think we can always be offended, if we look hard enough.”

From kerr_mudgeon, on the growing possibility that Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman will tilt at the 2010 gubernatorial race: “I don’t think he’ll run because the odds are less than 50% in his favor as a non-partisan + he’d not want to disrupt his family by taking a job in Carson [City] – BUT if he runs and wins, he’ll start pushing immediately to move the state capital to Las Vegas (maybe to take over one of the partly-built Strip complexes in/near bankruptcy).”

It’s not the worst idea I’ve heard. Nor is this …

Singapore is building an expansion of its ocean-liner terminal, enabling it to berth four cruisers at a time. The good news for Las Vegas Sands and Genting Bhd is, obviously, that this means more potential customers for their ultra-megaresorts. The not-so-good news is that the new berths won’t be ready until late 2011, by which point both casino-based resort will have been open nearly two years.

Everybody’s got a private equity fund these days, like the 21-year-old owner of a Persian restaurant in Maryland. Youthful Artin Afsharjavan claims he’s got the scratch to buy Trump Entertainment Resorts, prompting Trump CEO Mark Juliano to reply, “Show me the money.”

Hey, if some kid wants to throw as much as $500 million into acquiring five (mostly) bottom-of-the-barrel Atlantic City casinos, including Resorts Atlantic City and the A.C. Hilton, I’d like to see the color of his money, too. If it’s for real, TER and the others ought to pluck the guy clean. You don’t get a pigeon like this every day.