Pac-12 football championship play could be coming to Las Vegas. I emphasize the “could” because there are several moving parts to this story, including the possibility 
that Las Vegas and Los Angeles are pawns in the conference’s attempts to shake down Santa Clara for a better deal. Both cities are building stadiums and both of those venues would be in relatively close proximity to a major international airport, Los Angeles’ new stadium would be four miles from LAX, Vegas’ even closer to McCarran International Airport. Whoever gets the game can look forward to an influx of 35,000 tourists, based on recent stats. The City of Angels will have the bigger seating capacity but Sin City is already playing host to the Pac-12 men’s basketball championship, to be played at T-Mobile Arena. (Funny how sporting leagues are suddenly drawn to Las Vegas now that the Supreme Court has said sports betting is kosher.) Call it a standoff at this point and root for the Strip.
* As suspected, Luxor Capital Group is the new owner of Ocean Resort and because private-equity funds have had such a disastrous record of 
running casinos (into the ground) we hope that Luxor has the sense to keep Bruce Deifik‘s management team in place. Unlike Glenn Straub, Luxor is going through the licensing process to own the casino, which will proceed temporarily under a trustee. So far so good. Ditto the commitment to $70 million in capex improvements, even though Ocean is relatively fresh. Deifik’s done a lot, from reconfiguring the infamous casino floor, welcoming back smokers and reversing Revel’s policy of looking down its nose at bread-and-butter gamblers. We don’t know what Luxor has in store with its $70 million but it’s intended to help Ocean through the hard slog that is winter on the Boardwalk. We wish them well.
* Citizens of China may be gluttons for gambling but that’s nothing compared to their absolute mania for the lottery. Some U.S. lottery firms must be looking at the numbers and weeping into their beer.
* Hotels — specifically Hilton and Accor — and airlines are getting nervous about climate change. The former worry about drought and water supplies, the latter are fretful over changed atmospheric conditions. A recent study found that the travel industry is worried about losing tourism to destinations that have become literally too hot to touch. There was some debate as to whether the problems were current or projected but general agreement that they are real. There are exceptions. Irish chain Dalata Hotels is whistling past the graveyard but it appears to be an outlier. Accor, Hilton, Host Hotels, Hyatt and Marriott were the companies most concerned with drought issues and most of that group cited more frequent hurricanes and cyclones as a worry. So did American Airlines, Delta, Japan Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United. Other concerns were increased precipitation and consequent flooding of airports. Of hotel chains active in Las Vegas, Hilton and Hyatt got ‘B’ grades for their efforts at ameliorating climate change, Marriott a ‘C.’ While they all might be doing better at least they’re doing something.
