As Yr. Humble Blogger opines in this week’s Las Vegas CityLife, Céline Dion may be quite something but Gladys Knight is Something Else. If you’re a paying customer, Knight’s Tropicana Las Vegas show is by far the better value: longer, more spontaneous, less expensive and incomparably more intimate. You just can’t replicate that kind of audience rapport in a 4,000-seat auditorium (although Dion’s drawing power is packing the Caesars Palace parking garage on weekends and has enabled to the Colosseum to reopen its top balcony, shrouded for Bette Midler and Cher). Also, Knight could be gone — given the will o’ the wisp nature of Trop headliners — in a matter of weeks, so make haste.
Sahara, R.I.P. In the same issue, you’ll be taken on a valedictory visit to the soon-to-be-closed Sahara. The patient’s not dead yet but Lissa Townsend Rogers finds manager Navegante Group already hammering the coffin lid shut. If, as she reports, owner Sam Nazarian is still planning to replace the Strip dowager with Continue reading
“When Boyd [Gaming] stopped work on Echelon, everyone thought they were crazy. Now it looks like genius.” — executive from a rival Las Vegas Strip casino operator, overheard at a media event in Town Square recently.
In the wake of a March revenue report from Louisiana‘s casinos, a reader asked why the Crown Lake Charles and Grand Palais riverboats report revenues separately, despite being berthed cheek by jowl. My surmise was that they hold discrete licenses. Ergo, separate revenue reports. Through the magic of Twitter, however, I was able to put the question to Isle of Capri Casinos CEO Virginia MacDowell and her marketing chief, Julia Carcamo (above, with office visitor). Ms. McDowell replies: “You are correct re Crown LC and Grand Palais.”
Suicide mission. Do you ever wonder if Trump Entertainment Resorts‘ lead owner, Marc Lasry, just wishes his casinos’ namesake would just shut the hell up, especially after a March shellacking in Atlantic City? (The latter was mainly the fault of Lasry’s hand-picked CEO, Robert Griffin, but still …) Having accomplished his mission of ticking off “the blacks,” Donald J. Trump 
“Provocative design and erotic revelry will converge to create a uniquely aesthetic nightlife experience at Gallery Nightclub at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. Oversized frames adorn the walls, showcasing original photography depicting voyeuristic imagery as an erotic backdrop for guests. State-of-the-art sound and lighting blanket every room of Gallery, where renowned DJs will spin intoxicating music until the sun rises. 
While U.S. coverage — including ours — of Las Vegas Sands COO Michael Leven‘s recent “fireside chat” tended to focus on his backward-thinking tirade about those confounded new social media, Macau Daily Times zeroed in on the continued vacuum at the top of Sands China, 
We’re just past two years to the day when S&G predicted, “Good luck finding any takers” at $39.5 million for the old Castaways site. Even now, at a priced-to-move $8.3 million ($414K/acre), it’s not budging. The site’s threefold curse is, of course, location, location, location. This was a purchase Station Casinos didn’t need to make, shouldn’t have made, 
It sure looks at lot like the old one, especially with Robert Vannucci still calling the shots over there, according to the grapevine: “Experience action-packed wrestling as Lil Macho Man, Tiny Terminator, Lil Rampage, Nasty Boy, Baby Chucky, Lil Devil and more go head-to-head at the Riviera …” Or maybe you could just stay home at watch The Terror of Tiny Town, Hollywood‘s first (and last) 
Despite a decidedly underwhelming financial performance in 2009, MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren managed to take home $13.75 million in overall compensation. Last year, he had to make ends meet on $9.8 million. Snarkiness aside, this actually shows that — at least to some extent, the system works. The shriveled worth of MGM stock in ’09 (disproving my faith in it, as proclaimed on Face to Face with Jon Ralston) came back to haunt Murren 
Casino podcasts (MGM Resorts International‘s in particular) have been razzed in the past for a lack of content. No such gripes about Las Vegas Sands‘ latest offering, 10 minutes in the company of COO Michael Leven (who derives his nickname from being paid a higher base salary than Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman and as much as MGM CEO Jim Murren). The generic-sounding — and distracting — background noise sounds like it was either piped in afterward or the interview was conducted at 
In the wake of 
… an occasional series. S&G keeps referring to Donald Trump‘s glass jaw — an obvious liability to his 
You want good news? We’ve got your good news right here: Casino revenues in Pennsylvania rocketed 24% last month. (35% if you include SugarHouse but that’s an apples-to-oranges metric.) Since, on a same-store basis, slot winnings were just slightly down, the infusion of table games into the Keystone State industry has proven a real “force multiplier.” Only Presque Isle racino didn’t post a double-digit increase, up “merely” 9%.
Last week, we were discussing United Coin‘s assertion that a Marriott-branded hotel-casino may be erected on the acre formerly occupied by the old Sport of Kings gambling parlor. I recently had a chance to scope out United’s Little Acre and am more puzzled than ever by the slot route-operator’s claim. The footprint of the site might barely hold a hotel tower (with a very small gaming floor — I mean tiny) but there’s no room whatsoever for the all-important parking garage. The latter would be a valuable asset during conventions, when parking along Convention Center Drive becomes a lucrative source of ancillary revenue for hotels and office towers nearby.