{"id":24575,"date":"2019-07-23T06:53:29","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T14:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=24575"},"modified":"2020-10-19T06:55:35","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T14:55:35","slug":"one-city-to-rule-them-all-cats-is-coming-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/one-city-to-rule-them-all-cats-is-coming-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"One city to rule them all; “Cats” is coming for you"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can you believe that San Jos\u00e9<\/strong>, Costa Rica<\/strong> is the seventh-best place to gamble? It might the best casino town of which you’ve never heard, with 30 \"\"casinos and “a quite attractive exchange rate.” That’s the conclusion of a TravelTrivia.com<\/strong> survey. Other cities that made the elite<\/a> list included New Orleans<\/strong> (“no shortage of tables and slot machines”), Reno<\/strong> (“a strong and vibrant casino community,” plus proximity to Lake Tahoe<\/strong>), Singapore<\/strong> “has busted out of the gate like that horse you wish you would have bet on” \u2014 no argument there, Monte Carlo<\/strong> (“the world’s most stylish gambling destination”), Las Vegas<\/strong>\u00a0has to settle for the #2 spot because if you’re not in Macao<\/strong> you might as well not be in gaming. Writes TravelTrivia.com, “gambling tourism makes up 50 percent of the economy. That\u2019s a lot! I\u2019d bet it\u2019ll be even more in the next few years.” Don’t let the central guvmint hear you. That’s exactly what they don’t<\/em> want.<\/p>\n

* There was one bright spot amid a litany of mostly depressing news from Louisiana<\/strong>: Video poker revenues were up 1%, bringing in $50 million<\/a>. As for Eldorado Resorts<\/strong>‘ Belle of Baton Rouge<\/strong>, you wonder if Eldorado can carry that property long enough to sell it. Last month’s $2 million take can hardly have been enough to keep the doors open and the casino is riding a 22-month streak of uninterrupted declines.<\/p>\n

* Something is on the upswing: casino self-exclusions in Macao. 291 gamblers asked to be barred<\/a> from the enclave’s casinos between January and June this year, a 26% increase from last year. While the vast majority were made by the players themselves, 39 were from third parties, such as family members who felt the need to intervene. A strange quirk in the self-exclusion law allows you to pick and choose from which casinos you are barred, if so inclined. However, the self-exclusion policy has teeth. Break it and you’ll find yourself in the pokey for a year.<\/p>\n

* Those liberal do-gooders who tut-tut about tribal gambling should visit Cherokee Indian Hospital<\/strong>, a state of the art facility made possible by the revenues from Harrah’s Cherokee<\/strong> in North Carolina<\/strong>. And, unlike their white counterparts, the Cherokee put a high priority on mental health. The psychiatric clinic is almost as big as the regular hospital. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t look like a hospital, and it doesn\u2019t feel like a hospital,\u201d a tribal member said of the main facility. “It actually feels good to be here.” The Eastern Cherokee<\/strong> have opted out of the criminally under-budgeted, federal Indian Health Service<\/strong>, apparently with success. If so, they point the way for other tribes which might want to do likewise. Where the Cherokee go, other gaming-enabled tribes are almost certain to follow.<\/p>\n

* Except for Danny Boyle<\/strong>‘s whimsical\u00a0Yesterday<\/em> there hasn’t been an Oscar-bait movie this year. Sadly, that changed last week when the instantly notorious trailer for Cats<\/em> (so creepy<\/a> that I refuse to embed it) landed on the Internet with a thud. Director Tom Hooper<\/strong> (The King’s Speech<\/em>) is an Academy fave, and Oscar voters lurve musicals, especially bad ones and Cats<\/em> will give you nightmares. Besides, it’s wall-to-wall CGI, which the Academy can never resist. (Ditto Dame Judi Dench<\/strong>, a terrifying Old Deuteronomy<\/strong>.) So take a dose of brain bleach, head for Atlantic City<\/strong>\u00a0and put your money down on Cats<\/em>. I just have this terrible premonition about it. “This Christmas, you will believe” warns the trailer, ominously. Or else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can you believe that San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica is the seventh-best place to gamble? It might the best casino town of which you’ve never heard, with 30 casinos and “a quite attractive exchange rate.” That’s the conclusion of a TravelTrivia.com … 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":[23,244,199,22,76,84,62,10,261,90,79,108,19,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24575"}],"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=24575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28563,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24575\/revisions\/28563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}