{"id":18480,"date":"2016-07-07T11:24:18","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T19:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=18480"},"modified":"2016-07-07T12:15:30","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T20:15:30","slug":"patient-heal-thyself-copperfields-new-crib","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/patient-heal-thyself-copperfields-new-crib\/","title":{"rendered":"Patient, heal thyself!; Copperfield’s new crib"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seemingly taking its talking points from Gov. Chris Christie<\/strong> (R), the Wall Street Journal<\/em> opened a can of whup-ass on Atlantic City<\/strong>. (It also tried to drag casino flip-flopper Hillary Clinton<\/strong> into the argument but that was too much of a rhetorical stretch for\u00a0WSJ<\/em> \"atlantic_city_boat\"writers to pull off.) If the WSJ<\/em> had its way, Atlantic City would have a one-dimensional, casino-based economy<\/a> … which it still does at this point, but Mayor Don Guardian<\/strong> (R) has been vigorously trying to turn that around. Anyway, the paper faults the\u00a0Casino Reinvestment Development Authority<\/strong> for offering economic incentives for businesses like Bass Pro Shops<\/strong> to come to the Boardwalk, not realizing that’s what Atlantic City needs<\/em>. (Battling this kind of ignorance is like trying to catch the wind in a net.)<\/p>\n

The city is also blamed for charging $1.50 parking fees — cheap, compared to certain Las Vegas<\/strong> casinos — for the sake of a convention center, something else Atlantic City could badly use. And, as much as we hate resort fees, the intent behind a state-imposed, $3 surcharge on hotel rooms was good: “to finance new hotel rooms and retail establishments.” (It’s a chicken-or-egg problem: Do you pursue big events and hope they’ll justify more infrastructure or do you build the infrastructure on the premise it will draw larger events.) The Journal<\/em> blithely ignores the fact that Atlantic City was still on the upswing when this was passed, saying it “had the effect of promoting unsustainable commercial and casino development.” (Number of new casinos since 2004: one.)<\/p>\n

And even though the casinos themselves backed it, in the interests of financial stability, the Journal<\/em> disses the PILOT program that replaces property taxes with set fees. Yes, Atlantic City spends more per capita that other New Jersey cities — but it’s also centered exclusively on tourism, which makes it something of a special case among Garden State metropolises. Dr. WSJ<\/em>‘s prescription for Atlantic City is basically to take it off life support and let it die.<\/p>\n

* Speaking of Atlantic City power players, there are two ways of looking at Donald Trump<\/strong>: either a vast pestilence loosed upon the land or the gift that keeps on giving<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* It has finally dawned upon the New York Times<\/em> that the casino industry is turning to skill-based slots. (It would also problem shock the Grey Lady to learn that Bob Dylan<\/strong> went electric.) The story is mostly a rehash<\/a> of what we already know about the new games — more talked about than seen — with a few new tidbits thrown in. As Nevada Gaming Commission<\/strong> Chairman Tony Alamo<\/strong> says,\u00a0\u201cWe are waiting, and we are here, our arms are open. We want to see product.\u201d However, industry figures say that deployment is a late-2016 or 2017 proposition. After all, these games have to be extensively vetted by regulatory laboratories.<\/p>\n

Compared to existing product, the new slots don’t sound particularly exciting. For instance, “One, called Smoothie Blast<\/strong>, gets players to make smoothies using different types of fruit. Unlike a random slot machine, players can choose which fruits go into the smoothie; some combinations are better than others, resulting in more points and an improvement in the original bet.” That doesn’t sound like a revolutionary change from existing bonus-round games. Harvard University<\/strong> researcher Tomer Perry<\/strong> frets that Millennials will be “weaker targets” for these newfangled slot machines but the driving impulse for skill-based slots is that the Millennial is much more persnickety about where he spends his gambling dollar. And, memo to the Times<\/em>: Themed slots are a phenomenon of “recent years” only if your idea of “recent” is 1995.<\/p>\n

* Speaking of the younger generation, when you turn 18 you can vote, drive, drink booze and sign up to get your ass shot off in Afghanistan<\/strong>. But you can’t play Arizona<\/strong>‘s lottery. No, for that weighty responsibility you must wait until you are 21. (Iowa<\/strong>, Louisiana<\/strong> and Nebraska<\/strong> have similarly imbecilic requirements.) Back in ’98, Arizona took a common-sense approach and set the lottery-playing age at 18 but regressed in 2003. Unfortunately, despite griping about this on the part of the electorate, it doesn’t look like the Lege is going to have an attack of sanity<\/a> anytime soon.<\/p>\n

* Life’s good if you’re David Copperfield<\/strong>, so much so that you can pay a record-setting $17.5 million for a Las Vegas pied-a-terre<\/em>. The new Copperfield manse formerly was the home of healthcare exec Kevin Hooks<\/strong>, so now you know where your HMO payments are going. Although the mansion wasn’t officially on the market, Copperfield got wind of it while house hunting and — Shazam!<\/em> — it was a done deal. Seventeen million and change buys you eight bedrooms, a movie theater, a gym, a full-on nightclub (for whenever the illusionist\u00a0feels like holding a rave) and a golf simulator. No pesky greens fees for Copperfield. It’s almost as impressive an acquisition as Copperfield’s hair weave. (I’ve seen it up close, so trust me.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seemingly taking its talking points from Gov. Chris Christie (R), the Wall Street Journal opened a can of whup-ass on Atlantic City. (It also tried to drag casino flip-flopper Hillary Clinton into the argument but that was too much of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,109,23,42,14,25,31,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18480"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18484,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18480\/revisions\/18484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}