{"id":26018,"date":"2020-02-04T09:19:34","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T17:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=26018"},"modified":"2021-01-19T07:21:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T15:21:30","slug":"case-bets-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/case-bets-32\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Bets"},"content":{"rendered":"

My head feels more disorganized than the Iowa<\/strong> Democratic caucuses (and that’s going some<\/a>), so take a few Case Bets and call me in the morning …<\/p>\n

* Our salient recollection of Valentine’s Day<\/strong> in Las Vegas<\/strong> involves taking the wife-to-be to a romantic dinner in Nob Hill<\/strong> (now defunct) in MGM Grand<\/strong>, only to have it disrupted by the … uh … rowdy<\/em> fans of NBA All-Star Weekend<\/strong>, one of Sin City’s biggest mistakes. A \"\"couple of trips to the ATM necessitated negotiating the casino floor between apparent members of rival gangs, hurling heated imprecations at each other across the gaming tables. It was a miracle that the disputes weren’t settled by gunplay, which seemed imminent. Since then, Valentine’s Day has passed uneventfully on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> and WalletHub<\/strong> deems the fair city of LV to be the fifth-best place to celebrate the occasion. Pourquoi<\/em>? Well, we’re tops in the number of attractions, fourth in restaurants (and gift-card stores) per capita, fifth in florists and sixth in jewelry stores (we can well believe it), albeit only 26th in weather. Really? This is the best time of year to visit Las Vegas. An interesting, non-Vegas stat: Men are 3X times as likely as our ladies to think it’s worth racking up credit-card debt for a romantic V-Day. So pick up the tab, guys. You’ll thank yourself for it.<\/p>\n

* Last night’s closure of the Hard Rock Hotel<\/strong> does not mean the end of Nobu<\/strong>. In lieu of its Harmon Avenue<\/strong> location, its sushi operations will transfer to Bally’s<\/strong>, taking the place of Sea: The Thai Experience<\/strong> “which closed without fanfare earlier this year.” Minimal redesign is expected<\/a> (the better to get up and running quickly). The original Sin City Nobu had a 20-plus years run at the HRH, phenomenal for a Las Vegas restaurant. There’s an asterisk next to that stat because the end of the Hard Rock is not the end for Nobu on Harmon: It will return as part of the Virgin Hotels<\/strong> makeover, bigger and presumably better.<\/p>\n

* As an unwitting antidote to that douchey Pitbull<\/strong> residency announced yesterday, Venelazzo<\/strong> just disclosed a three-night stand by former American Idol<\/em> contestant and sometime Queen<\/strong> frontman Adam Lambert<\/strong>. Lambert will play the 1,800-seat Venetian Theater<\/strong> April 22, 24 and 25, with tickets ranging from $40 for $300 (plus fees), going on sale Saturday morning. Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> may not be gay-friendly but thankfully his business sense is.<\/p>\n

* Religious conventions and Las Vegas are two things that don’t normally converge. Until \"\"next week, anyway, when the National Faith Forum<\/strong> convenes at the Mirage Events Center<\/strong>. The NFF is described thusly, “the three-day national gathering of clergy, faith leaders, [Faith in Action<\/strong>]\u00a0federation directors, organizers and partners was created to train leaders to move our local, state and federal work forward as a unified response to systems that conspire against black and brown people.” Presidential aspirants Pete Buttigieg<\/strong> and Tom Steyer<\/strong> will address the faithful. Serious business aside, we hope conventioneers\u00a0take time to check out the Mirage volcano.<\/p>\n

* What do the numbers 40, 51, 28, 31, 24, 13, 32, 31 have in common? That’s what the Kansas City Chiefs<\/strong> scored in their last eight Patrick Mahomes<\/strong>-led losses<\/em>. To say the\u00a0Las Vegas Raiders<\/strong>\u00a0have their work cut out for them may be an understatement<\/a>. (Woe betide anyone who took the ‘under’ on total points scored in those games.)<\/p>\n

* Super Bowl<\/strong> ad ratings are out and my wife’s favorite, Bill Murray<\/strong>\u00a0spiritedly reprising Groundhog Day<\/em>, came up\u00a0tops with viewers. (My personal favorite finished second.) Political ads tanked.<\/p>\n

* Scientific Games<\/strong> issued a brief statement that it “confirms it has expanded its existing partnership with Flutter Entertainment<\/strong> to cover online and mobile sports betting and iGaming content offering with FanDuel<\/strong> in the United States<\/strong>. OpenBet<\/strong> has been at the core of Flutter’s proprietary sports platform for over a decade in Europe<\/strong> and we look forward to expanding this partnership to the U.S. market.” Not big news, at first flush, although anything that strengthens its alliance with potent FanDuel is a plus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My head feels more disorganized than the Iowa Democratic caucuses (and that’s going some), so take a few Case Bets and call me in the morning … * Our salient recollection of Valentine’s Day in Las Vegas involves taking the … 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":[274,18,26,4,278,140,22,255,241,53,245,160,74,243,9,17,263],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26018"}],"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=26018"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29113,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26018\/revisions\/29113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}