“It seems that if the [Las Vegas Review-Journal] is going to run a fluffy pucker piece about Ayn Rand, there should be some sort of disclaimer attached. The paper’s recent butt-kisser profile of the wacky novelist was so gushy that I almost had to wipe unidentified bodily fluids off the newsprint. Since Rand is the official deity of the R-J, and since Atlas Shrugged is the holy scripture, couldn’t the rest of us get some sort of warning before the paper unleashes another burst of love juice?” — KLAS-TV investigative reporter and CityLife columnist George Knapp, on southern Nevada‘s sorry excuse for a newspaper. I should add that Atlas Shrugged appears to be mandatory reading for high-level casino executives, a significant number of whom cite it as their favorite book.
D’ya remember that Flava Flav restaurant venture, just off “Crack Alley,” that sounded “
vote on interlocking Measures 82 and 83, which would approve 
a whole two bucks. However, The D’s PR reps have informed me that these brewski specials have been discontinued. (“They no longer have running specials but do run different random specials from time to time.”) Also, there are no longer any tables on the Vue patio, from which one used to be able to watch zipliners and other Fremont Street Experience denizens. Yes, I know Stevens has to pay for the recent makeover that expunged many of the remaining vestiges of Fitzgeralds from The D, but gouging patrons for a humble draft beer suggests he may be getting ideas above his casino’s station. And when that happens in Vegas, bad things usually follow.
If there’s a saving grace to August’s rather glum Nevada gambling win (-3%), it’s that the month ended on a Friday, so there may be some as-yet-unreported slot revenue that will fluff the September results. (That optimism must be offset, though, by the fact that August 2012 had one more weekend day than the year before.) Lighter slot play depressed Las Vegas Strip results (-1%), which were buoyed mainly by boffo baccarat win (+32%), hold (+12%) and money wagered (+30%). Other table games were down 8.5%, with metrics declining across the board.
Politico.com profile. Adelson (right, ca. 1998), who can often behave like a colicky infant, was on his best and most statesman-like behavior. Although his assertion that “I do whatever it takes, as long as it’s moral, ethical, principled, legal” should cause the Las Vegas Valley to resound with gales of laughter — partly because of how Adelson’s conducted himself in the past, and partly since it’s coming from a man who’s under scrutiny for possible Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations. Need I remind anyone that this is the man who considers it immoral to gamble on the Internet … but not in his casinos? He should have simply said, “I do whatever it takes.” Nobody would dispute that, not least in a year when he’s 
appears to be trying to regain the spotlight. His recent KSNV-TV marathon landed with a faint ‘plop’ in print media — 
audience, instead of just venting in the general direction of the nearest journalist he can find. However, the Culinary Union should prick up its ears at the 13-minute mark, where his meds wear off and he starts spouting anti-union blather. Wynn’s relationship with the Culinary has been one of the most proactive on the Strip — including floating its health program a loan recently — but if he thinks unions should be driven out of the school system, does he also believe Wynn Resorts would be better off with a non-union workforce? D. Taylor, take note!
doubly handicapped. Table-game revenues might put Maryland on par with Ohio but we’re 
Although you’d have to be either masochistic or insane to loan money to Caesars Entertainment at this point, the company has the nerve to ask for $180 million to fund this bizarre retrofit. Have the structural implications (and cost) of putting tons of water and a nightclub atop a 200-room casino-hotel been seriously contemplated? If they don’t require strapping a giant cement-and-steel truss onto the exterior of Barbary Bill’s, er, Caesars Drai’s, I’ll be pleasantly surprised, although Bill’s existing parking-garage infrastructure takes much of the lunacy off the concept.
CIO Advisors‘ Hugh Johnson. If Wynn were truly being honest, he’d cut to the quick: He’s scared witless that his high-income customers who play at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore, and the trust-fund babies who fill his night spots and Encore Beach Club (right), will have less discretionary dough to fling upon the green felt or into $500 bottle service. That’s a perfectly understandable concern but, self-righteousness being its own reward, Wynn can’t bring himself to tell the truth. “I’m watching my employees’ living standard go through the floor,” 
has perched the American economy. We will either be pushed over that cliff — and into a double-dip recession — or have it extended into Sometime Next Year (Maybe) during the lame-duck session, a situation in which neither an outgoing or an incoming president is going to have leverage. Either Wynn and Johnson naively subscribe to the Great Man Theory of history (or to what our German friends call 
that’s about it.) Sure, you feinted at Philadelphia and Atlantic City, played footsie with Massachusetts, but always cut and ran when the going got tough. When it comes to stateside investment, you may talk like a street tough but you throw like a girl (and that’s a libel on girls; my apologies, ladies). And if you’re going to resurrect the bedtime story that El-Ad Properties was going to hire you to build an arena and resort, and you didn’t do it because you’re “frightened” of the Evil Black Man in the White House* (a favored Wynn trope, freshly tinted with 
Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati (left). Ditto a pair of dueling racinos (one owned by Penn) in the Dayton area. Then there’s next year’s peculiar slugging match, when Dan Gilbert and subordinate Loveman open a racino at Thistledown, in direct competition with Horseshoe Cleveland, in typical Caesars form. As for Penn, its Ohio expansion has cost 160 Indiana workers their jobs at affected 
A reader in Arizona has run the numbers on Caesars Entertainment‘s proposed $180 million makeover of Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon and finds the cost rather alarming. Dividing it by Bill’s 200 hotel rooms, it breaks down to $900,000 per room. In other words, it’s comparable to spending $4.5 billion on a new, 5,000-room megaresort, “especially if they are aiming at the [Cosmopolitan] douche-baggery gang that really doesn’t gamble that much.” (For perspective’s sake, Onex Corp. spent less than $150 million on an extensive re-do of the considerably larger Tropicana Las Vegas.) Our correspondent adds, “I wonder if they are going to spend some of that money moving the bathrooms away from the outer walls so that you can have a window across the entire room (instead of only half of it like now). But only the building’s front half or so of the rooms really have a good view; the back half mainly has boring views of Bally’s and the Flamingo.” In other words, probably not.
Nightlife: 
Since S&G readers can’t view my big Las Vegas guides (unless you’re sitting at a computer in a Hilton-branded property at this very moment), I thought I’d share with you who made the cut. And the Downtown elect are …
Late last month, Bally Technologies landed a massive order of 4,000+ video poker terminals — VGTs in industry parlance — in Illinois. Y’all remember slot routes in the Land of Lincoln? They’ve taken so long to be put into place its legalization feels like an epoch ago. On top of those 4K worth of machines (half leased, half sold outright), Bally did such a good sales job for its MultiConnect management software, that 75% of the VGTs will be hooked into that. Two of the largest video poker outlets in Illinois will have a game inventory that is over 50% Bally-originated.
winner will receive a General Motors vehicle — make and model to be determined later. Unfortunately, the event is billed as a “Joint ‘Keep America Rolling'” promotion. That phraseology should bring the cannabis users out in force, although I don’t think we want them behind the wheel while rolling their own, let alone filling their lungs with loco weed.-
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