By Caitlin McGarry   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

When temperatures rise and the soft air of spring gives way to the shimmering heat of summer, Las Vegas locals seek shelter from the blistering sun. No need to hibernate until September, however, because the city offers both sizzling outdoor fun and air-conditioned activities. We have compiled a sampling of events to help you beat the heat and make the most of summer.

May 3—Lei Day Festival

Central Las Vegas—Hawaiian dancing and dishes will be at the center of the 11th Annual Lei Day Festival, hosted by the California Hotel & Casino. Located at 12 E. Ogden Rd., the casino parking lot will be the destination for fans of Polynesian food, music and art. The festival takes place May 3 from 9 a.m. to midnight and May 4 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and will feature performances from Hawaiian artists Tony Conjugacion, HualHalua’Okaleo oaliani and more. For more information, call 702-614-1884. Admission is free.

May 2 & 3— Pride Parada & Festival

Central Las Vegas—The Southern Nevada Association of Pride Inc. (SNAPI) will wrap up its 25th year of GLBTQ Pride festivities with the annual Pride Parade and Festival. The parade will begin May 2 at 8 p.m., with attendees, vehicles and floats traveling north down 4th Street from West Charleston Boulevard to Ogden Avenue. There will be an after party for those 21 and older immediately following the parade at FreeZone, located at 610 E. Naples Dr. The 2008 Pride Festival will begin at noon on Saturday, May 3, at the Clark County Government Center Amphitheater. Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for ages five to 17. Children under five will be admitted free of charge. Visit www.lasvegaspride.org for more information.

May 4 — Cinco de Mayo Festival

East Las Vegas—The annual Cinco de Mayo festival will take place from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Freedom Park, with food vendors, musical performers and activities for children the centerpiece of this year’s celebration. Admission is free for children and $5 for adults. For more information, call 702-649-8553.

May—7-11 San Gennaro Feast

West Las Vegas—The 29th Annual San Gennaro Feast brings authentic Italian food and fun to the Grand Canyon Shopping Center. This five-day festival kicks off May 7 at 4 p.m., with fireworks scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Food vendors will be offering a wide array of Italian specialties, from fried calamari to cannoli, and local talent will be performing nightly. Carnival rides are a draw for children and parents alike—moms can ride the Davis Amusement rides for free on opening day. Tickets are $7 for adults and $6 for seniors. For more information, call 702-286-4944.

May—9 & 10 Cars, Stars & Guitars

Central Las Vegas—Custom car lovers will gather for the 13th Annual Cars, Stars & Guitars Motorhead Festival at the Fremont East District in Downtown Las Vegas. The festival, which was founded in 1996 by automobile enthusiast Mike Privette, draws hundreds of motorheads and their favorite toys—hot rods, trucks, bikes and boats are a few of the main attractions at this two-day event. Entertainers Paul Casey and the General Lee will wow the crowds both nights from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. To register for the event or to find out more information, visit www.carsstarsguitars.com. Event registration is $45.

May 10 & 11—Artfest of Henderson

Henderson—Hundreds will take to the streets for southern Nevada’s largest art festival, the 11th Annual ArtFest of Henderson. There will be more than 200 art displays as well as three stages featuring performances from reggae, rock and jazz musicians. The two-day festival opens at 10 a.m. and shuts its doors 5 p.m. in Henderson’s Water District. Admission and parking are free.

May 10 June 7 & 21—Jazz in the Park

Central Las Vegas—Clark County Parks and Recreation will present its 14th annual Jazz in the Park series at the Clark Country Government Center Amphitheater for three nights this summer and one night in April. The summer dates will feature performances from dynamic artists like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, DeeDee Bridgewater and Nick Colionne. Admission is free, and each concert begins at 8 p.m. Seating starts at 7 p.m. For more information, call 702-455-8200.

May 16&17—Taste & Tunes

North Las Vegas—The Taste & Tunes festival will open at 5 p.m on May 16. The sixth annual festival, sponsored by the city of North Las Vegas, will feature food, live entertainment, art, boxing and dancing, as well as the city’s first salsa recipe contest. There will be three contest categories for salsa chefs: hot or mild, sweet and fruity, and overall. Winners will be announced at 8:30 p.m. on May 17. Admission is free, but tickets for the carnival rides are $25 if purchased at the festival. For more information, call Anessa Snowden at 702-633-2563.

May 24—Summer of Fun

North Las Vegas—The Cannery Casino & Hotel will start the summer of 2008 with a retro celebration that will remind you of summer 1968. The Cannery’s Summer of Fun Kick-Off Festival features headlining acts Jay and the Americans, Badfinger, Jr. Walker’s All Star Band, Sal Valentino and The Beau Brummels and local band GoodFellas. Partygoers will dance the night away to classic hits like “This Magic Moment” and “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” while car lovers show off their hot rods in the early heat of summer. Admission is free but requires a ticket, which can be picked up at the front desk of the Cannery.

Throughout May—Helldorado Days

Central Las Vegas—The Las Vegas Elks Lodge hosts this year’s Helldorado Days in celebration and remembrance of Las Vegas’s Western heritage. The month-long festival features a trail ride in Cottonwood May 3; a charity golf tournament at Angel Park Mountain Golf Course May 7; a parade, fireworks and concert downtown May 17; and a poker tournament at Binion’s Hotel & Gambling Hall May 24 and 25. For pricing, registration and ticket information, visit www.elkshelldorado.com.

June 6-8—Vegas Cruise

Central Las Vegas—The 8th Annual Vegas Cruise will set up shop at the Fremont Street Experience for three days this summer, inviting classic car lovers to show their vintage automobiles and perhaps even win an award. At night, attendees will twist and shout to tunes from the rock ‘n’ roll era. Admission is free. Call 702-678-5600 for more information.

June 21-21—CineVegas

Central Las Vegas—Film fans can catch the latest in underground cinema at the 10th Annual CineVegas Film Festival. The 10-day festival will be held at the Palms Casino Resort, and attendees can purchase special packages in advance. The festival line-up and party schedule will be announced May 9. For more information visit www.cinevegas.com.

June 14—Reggae in the Desert

Central Las Vegas—Island breezes will offer much needed fresh air at the Clark County Amphitheater this summer as this year’s sixth annual Reggae in the Desert performers take the stage. Featured artists include Barrington Levy, Judy Mowatt, Wailing Souls, the Mighty Diamonds, Michael Black and the Jah Guide Band, and DJ Ramma. Caribbean food will complement the reggae sounds. Doors open at 2 p.m., and the concert lasts until 10 p.m. Tickets can be purchased through www.ticketmaster.com for $20, or concertgoers can pay $25 per ticket the day of the show.

June 29—Gourmet Grazer

Downtown Las Vegas—The Alliance of Black Culinarians’ annual Gourmet Grazer is a perfect opportunity for buffet fans to give to a good cause. Chefs from Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino, Tropicana Hotel & Casino, Mirage Hotel & Casino, Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming will be supplying some of the best food in town. Attendees can eat all they want for only $30, and the proceeds go directly toward providing scholarships for culinary students who demonstrate financial need. Live music and a fashion show will round out the evening. The Gourmet Grazer will take place at Cashman Field from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. with a pre-event cocktail hour from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.

For ticket information, call 702-567-6295.

July 4—Independence Day

By Jeffrey Compton   Thu, May 01, 2008

Slot club overhauls are not uncommon—many clubs are reaching the decade (or more) mark, so it’s time to research, re-think and possibly re-tool the club to reflect current realities, including what games are now on the casino floor, who the customer base consists of, what the competition is offering and what innovations are now possible through technology.

One of the most common possibilities discussed during a slot club overhaul is open-tiering: creating additional card levels, each based on a player’s action over a certain period of time. The reason for the word “open” is that all casinos already tier their benefits. The top players get the best goodies compared to once-in-a-lifetime low potential visitors who get almost nothing.

The subject being discussed is not so much the development of the tier process, but how to explain more of it to casino customers. While no two casinos are alike—nor are two players clubs alike—most marketing executives will confront similar issues when they decide to open-tier their club. Studying how others have handled these issues can avoid the most common pitfalls.

There are several reasons behind the increase in the number of casinos offering open-tiered players clubs. Most airline reward systems (a model for casino players clubs) are tiered, as are several high-profile casino industry leaders, including Station Casinos Boarding Pass and Harrah’s Total Rewards. Technology has made the entire process easier.

But the most important reason has been the tremendous growth of local-market properties. Open-tiered clubs work extremely well in casinos that measure player worth based on one month, three months, six months or a year of action, as opposed to those destination casinos that still use a theoretical per-trip measurement.

What is open-tier? Why should you consider it?

Again, all casinos have tiered benefit systems. Comps are based on a percentage of theoretical win, and direct mail offers are split into three or four groups with the top tier getting a comped three-day weekend while the bottom tier receives a weekday discount. So when a casino and its players club are creating the tier structure, they are not creating new benefits as much as they are telling the players what benefits currently exist, and what they have to do to gain those benefits. This may be the perfect opportunity to create a special parking area for your platinum members, but most casinos already offer room and meal comps, line passes and special events.

A well-designed open-tier players club can accomplish several things. The most important is that it tells your players what benefits they already have coming and what more they can get by playing more at your casino. Most players, even your best customers, tend to play at more than one property—if geography allows it they play at two or three. One goal of an open-tier club is to possibly increase their trips to your casino from four-out-of-10 to six-out-of-10.

An open-tier club can also improve the fairness of your overall comp distribution. There are many profitable customers on your floor who do not use their fair share of benefits because they are unaware that they earned them. If they did take better advantage of what was coming to them, they would form a much closer bond to your property. On the flip side, you have customers that are long past their prime playing days who are getting more than their share because they know how to work the system (i.e., your staff). An open-tier players club sends both messages, and hopefully more benefits to the deserving than to the demanding.

The process of creating tiers should never be a rush. If your players club is in trouble, it is not because you do not have open tiers, but usually due to other factors including poor marketing of the current club, inadequate amenities or poor customer service.

Also, before you begin, you should do a complete formal study of your competition’s club—what they are rewarding your players at different levels as well as the overall strengths and weaknesses of their player reward system. Being able to address a problem in their reward setup (badly constructed tiers or a lack of coherent information given to members regarding their club) could give you a competitive edge without having to resort to a costly benefit war.

Setting Up Open Tiers

Having open tiers for a brand new club at a brand new casino (especially in a new market) is probably not a good idea. Unless you already have extensive experience with your player base, you could make the top levels so hard to obtain that your players (who have no idea at this point how many points they would normally earn in a month or year) don’t even try—or worse, you have made the tiers so easy to obtain that the VIP line at the buffet is longer than the regular one. (As with most player club benefits, it is very hard to make massive changes to your tiers once they are established.)

More importantly, by holding off a year or so before offering open tiers to your club allows you to store a weapon in your marketing arsenal that can be used after the glow of a being a new casino has begun to wear off.

How many tiers should you have? Probably the fewer the better; there are successful players clubs with only two open tiers. For a first-time effort, three or four tiers are better, based on the following:

Top Tier // the top 1 percent of your database.

Second Tier // the next 9 percent of your database.

Third Tier // If you have a third tier (with the base card being the fourth tier), consider aiming for the middle of your business—thus, everyone with this card is in the next 40 percent of your database. Or do what Station Casinos does and make the third tier extremely easy to obtain ($500 coin-in every three months), thus putting the majority of your active customers into some sort of VIP status.

Run a list based on the percentages above (or similar scenarios) and see how many people fall into each category. Increase that number by 20 percent and decide what benefits would work (and you can afford) based those numbers. That will give you a good idea what to base your tier point minimums on.

It is true there are still a few players clubs out there (primarily in Atlantic City and Reno) that do not disclose exact point-earning information to their players. While I am a big believer that players should know how the basic club works, I am not about to tell an experience marketer how to do his job. Please realize that a player enthusiasm in pursing a goal is directly tied to his knowledge of what’s involved. At the very least, he should know how many points (or whatever) are needed to reach each tier—even if he doesn’t exactly know how to earn each point.

How long should the earning period and subsequent benefit period be? Much of it depends on your current technology and staff skills, but six-month periods are a good beginning.

For example: players earning 12,000 points between January and June 2008 automatically become Diamond Members and maintain that status through December 2008 (or possibly through June 2009). Three-month periods can be overwhelming to your staff and/or system, and one-year periods create too long of a benefit period for declining players.

What you name your tiers is up to you—as long as the players and the staff can quickly figure out which is which. Although overused, the words Gold, Platinum and Diamond are more intrinsic than Spring, Summer and Winter.

After they were up and running awhile, many open-tier players clubs, including Station Casinos’ Boarding Pass, Harrah’s Total Rewards and My Borgata, created an uppermost “stealth” tier for their absolute best players.

Besides requiring at least $1 million in coin-in per year, the tiers are advertised (when they are advertised) as invitation-only, thus allowing management to completely review a player’s record including number of visits and overall profitability before handing out unlimited rooms, comps and entertainment.

Benefit Construction

The first area to research in setting up open-tier benefits is whatever the casino currently offers to players at a particular level. If these benefits are in line money-wise and working marketing-wise, why not tell everyone about them? Yes, your benefits will (and should) increase because more people know about it, but the purpose of this entire effort is to increase awareness to increase comp effectiveness to increase player interest, and thus increase profitable business.

Almost every benefit listed on an open-tier players club brochure falls into one of the four following categories:

1—Hard cost benefits that begin when a player attains the tier. These costly cookies include an additional cashback percentage or automatic point multipliers; cash bonuses or gifts given upon tier attainment; automatic meal discounts or point redemption discounts; guaranteed invitations to special tournaments and events; free self-parking (if there is normally a charge) and/or monthly car wash; and (if it offers extensive food and drink) membership to a exclusive on-site club.

Although these are frequently the benefits that really sell a tier to a player (especially one who is reading the brochure very carefully), they can be very expensive, and require both marketing and financial analysis—especially for benefits that do not require continued play to take complete advantage of.

A lack of facilities and amenities may limit your choices, but if your casino is like most (where the top 10 percent of the players earn 90 percent of the points), think carefully before offering increased cashback. This goes double for casinos that also have low-hold (99 percent to 100 percent optimal payback), $1-and-up video poker on the floor.

2—Priority service including line passes, VIP check-in, preferred restaurant and showroom seating, host assignment, VIP cashier/players club line, special parking area or priority valet parking. Managed correctly, these benefits benefit the casino as much as the upper-tier player (who has more time to play while not standing in line) at relatively low cost. And mixed properly with the list above it can create a very effective (and competitive) menu of benefits—with one caveat. Please make sure that your regular check-in, players club and cashier services are above average. It’s bad enough to (overly) remind new customers that they are not among the elite, but it’s even worse if they have been standing and waiting 10 minutes to cash in their voucher or pick up a players club card.

3—Benefits based on play (but not tier)—this includes basic slot club cashback, comps and free play, special event invitations, room offers and discounts, and almost anything sent through the mail. It is important to realize that this type of benefit should not be tied to a tier, but remain based on play over more recent periods of time—and in the case of direct mail offers, should not be completely spelled out.

When you guarantee too much direct mail cash or comped rooms or special events you are at best creating a player entitlement (completely destroying the surprise gift element of the benefit) and at worst inviting abuse. These benefits should referenced in the club brochure but not overly emphasized as the reason to obtain a tier. And each one should have the appropriate “based on play” asterisk.

4—Puff! This includes benefits that no one understands (exclusive items in the casino’s annual gift catalog) or non-benefits (small discounts on the overpriced items sold in the gift shop or free admission charge to the spa where anything else costs money). Too much puff can cheapen a good program, and there should be no benefit listed that a first-month booth worker can’t explain.

Marketing the Tier Club

A complete discussion of how to effectively market a players club is another article, but there are several efforts that can make the job of selling your club and its tiers a bit easier.

Players clubs need an effective, well-designed brochure that explains the club, tiers and benefits in language that everyone understands—and remember that many people do not understand the terms cashback, free play or comps. Unless your club never gives out such information, the brochure should also contain the point-earning formula, the basic redemption formula for cashback/comps/free play and how to use the kiosks, and/or card displays to obtain basic information and download benefits.

All of the above information should be available on the casino’s website, allowing any customer to obtain this information without having to sign in or give any form of personal information, including an e-mail address.

Booth personnel should be trained to not only be able to explain the benefits of the club and the benefits of each tier (and yes, this is a tall order) but they should try to convey the specialness of each tier. You are trying
to sell a club and its tiers—not create a caste system.

Growing in Las Vegas

It’s not surprising that Las Vegas casinos are on the leading edge of the tiered system trend. While MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment have been working with tiered systems for several years, major locals players Boyd Gaming and Station Casinos are introducing new tiered clubs of their own.

Boyd Gaming introduced a tiered approach to Club Coast earlier this year as the first part of an effort to unify its player clubs. The Club Coast system has three tiers designated by color. The basic level is ruby, next up is sapphire and the highest level is emerald.

The club cards are accepted at four casinos in Las Vegas—the Coast properties as well as Sam’s Town—and the Blue Chip Hotel and Casino in Indiana. Boyd Gaming has plans to incorporate at least eight more casinos into the program soon.

“Our goal is to build and reward customer loyalty, drive cross-property visitation and offer the ability to seamlessly earn and redeem rewards at any Boyd Gaming property throughout the country,” said Boyd Gaming COO Paul Chakmak.

Station Casinos has been promoting the Amigo Club, which is the tiered program for the Fiesta properties—Fiesta Rancho and Henderson as well as Texas Station. The tiers start with the compadre level, followed by macho and ultimately el presidente. The Boarding Pass for the other Station properties is also tiered with five different levels, including preferred, gold, platinum, president and chairman.

But ultimately it’s the Amigo Club that is getting the heavy publicity.

By Greg Jones   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Master planned communities are nothing new, but as Las Vegas continues to deal with skyrocketing populations and unprecedented growth, such projects are being developed throughout the valley.

Inspirada, Mountain’s Edge, Nevada Trails, Park Highlands, Aliante, Southern Highlands, Anthem, Lake Las Vegas and even Summerlin itself are all master planned communities. And while they are all designed around the same principals, they each offer something a little bit different.

The idea of the master planned community has its roots in the Southwest, where land tends to be plentiful, outward growth is possible and populations continue to climb. The first of such communities was developed in the 1960s in Scottsdale, Arizona, when city officials forsaw the need for strategic growth to prevent unsightly and uninviting sprawl.

What sets master planned communities apart from normal suburban developments is the logical inclusion of amenities like parks, lakes and golf courses as well as retail and commercial components. Where the typical subdivision might be located near a park or golf course and close to a mall, office or industrial complex, the master planned development considers the relationship between these differently zoned areas before ground is broken. The result is a more structured and more organized community that in many ways resembles a small city or town as a self-sustaining part of a larger metropolitan area. Some communities are even being designed to include schools, police departments and fire stations.

“Master planned communities are suburbia’s response to the boring, cookie-cutter, detached globs of housing that still make up much of America’s suburban nation,” said Chris Fiscelli, of the non-profit Reason Foundation. “They offer numerous amenities without losing the lower-density, suburban feel that attracted so many people to the suburbs in the first place. Residents get quality infrastructure like parks, schools, and new roads, shopping close to home, community services, a ‘city inside a city’ feel and neighbors that genuinely feel connected in some fashion.”

The same, but different

The master planned idea centers around creating communities and attracting like-minded people together. This is done through a number of ways, such as bringing together golfers with a community designed around a golf course such as Anthem or Aliante or attracting active people with a community that incorporates a large number of walking, running and biking trails as is the case in Nevada Trails.

At Focus Property Group’s Mountain’s Edge, it is philanthropy that is a large part of the esprit de corps. Public spaces and community facilities are made available for charitable events, and the community partners with civic organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

At Somersett in northern Nevada, parks, golf courses and a 25,000-square-foot recreation facility allow the homeowners association (HOA) to schedule events for all members of the community, including potluck dinners, dances, parties and even things like pottery classes. In North Las Vegas, the Aliante community has 428 acres of recreational land in addition to a 1,700-acre golf course, children’s parks and 24 miles of trails (there will also be a casino component).

“I think one of the things consumers are aching for is a return to communities that embrace neighborhoods and embrace social interaction as opposed to the post-World War II urban-sprawl neighborhoods that really were built more around the car,” said John Ritter of Focus Property Group, developer of Mountain’s Edge and Inspirada.

Inspirada is an enormous development off St. Rose Parkway in Henderson with housing for 26,000 residents—enough to be classified as a city unto itself. But through creative design elements—narrow streets, trails and sidewalks, homes positioned near the street with garages hidden in back alleys—developers hope it will maintain the same feeling of a small and intimate community.

And while the guiding principals behind the development of a master planned community are the same, the end results often differ significantly. Not only are there the different amenities, but the various communities take on unique looks with the HOA continuing a continuity of design and appearance as set out by the original developer. In Summerlin, for example, a design review committee approves all add-ons and other structures, while the so-called “garden communities” must include elements like trellises and utilize colors indicative of a garden. Such restrictions help protect the value of a neighborhood by ensuring that homes are in good condition and appearance, but they also help set neighborhoods apart.

“Every community takes on a life of its own, has its own identity,” Ritter said.

Building smart

The current trend in master planned communities can be tied to the new urbanist movement, which dates back to the 1980s. This movement looks to develop neighborhoods that are diverse and walkable, contain a mix of residential and commercial zones and promote green and sustainable development. The walkability component in a project like Inspirada comes from the fact that the series of trails puts all residents within a quarter mile of the community’s center park.

By encouraging pedestrian traffic, the community hopes to cut down on the reliance on automobiles. Inspirada developers are even looking at transit stops that can be easily incorporated into the community if Henderson ever develops a mass transit system. Outside of the health reasons to reduce automobile use, there are also environmental reasons, and environmental sustainability is another key component of the master planned community.

Water and power conservation are taken into consideration by developers as more communities look to integrate green features. Such conservation efforts are appreciated in southern Nevada, where electricity usage skyrockets in summer months as people attempt to keep their homes cool despite 115-degree temperatures and where some experts say the only thing that could stymie growth is limited access to water.

While electricity usage is largely passed on to the individual customer, water usage—and more importantly water waste—is something that has an impact that goes beyond the Las Vegas Valley and impacts the entire state. With the Southern Nevada Water Authority looking to tap into ground water resources in central and northern Nevada, and with some scientists predicting that Lake Mead could be empty by 2021, water conservation is an idea that is finally taking hold among the non-native desert dwellers.

One way developers are finding to conserve water is the use of centrally located community pools. With maintenance and upkeep costs covered by HOA fees, everyone who lives in the development has access to a large pool that is usually part of a larger recreation area. Not only does this foster a greater sense of community by providing a location of residents to gather, it also reduces the water lost to evaporation from having hundreds of smaller pools spread throughout the development.

Another feature that is catching on is desert landscaping. While some people refuse to abandon the idea that they have a right to grow non-native, water-intensive grasses in the desert, a large number of homeowners are accepting that desert landscaping is more sensible for a yard in the desert.

At Mountain’s Edge, there is a garden planted with native plant species to show residents what plants are sustainable in the desert environment. Focus Property Group even went so far as to publish a book called Legendary Landscapes and give it to homeowners to help them in creating yards that use water efficiently.

“When we first decided to do the project this way about five years ago, there was a lot of resistance and a lot of people said it wouldn’t be successful because homeowners want palm trees and lawns,” Ritter said. “What we found is quite the opposite.”

The ultimate amenity

In Las Vegas, no community is really complete without a neighborhood casino, and that is something that an increasing number of developers are taking into consideration. Two new projects in North Las Vegas, Aliante and Park Highlands, include casino projects that are partnerships between the community developers and major locals casino operators Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming.

Aliante Station is the appropriately named development that is part of the Aliante development. The $675 million casino will feature 202 hotel rooms, 14,000 square feet of meeting space and a movie theater. When it opens later this year, it will also bring some 2,000 slot machines, table games and, of course, a handful of restaurants to the area. It is worth noting that the casino is also master planned to allow for future growth as the community demand for entertainment increases.

Down the street, the Park Highlands development recently announced plans to work with Boyd Gaming to develop a casino, resort and spa on 66 acres within the community. This project is in the early stages and doesn’t yet have the necessary zoning to allow for gaming, but most experts believe that it will come to fruition.

“Boyd Gaming provides Park Highlands with a casino entertainment component that completes our vision for a community-centric, master planned development, “said Gerry Goett, chairman and CEO of developer Olympia Group.

These new project follow in the tradition of projects like Station Casinos’ Green Valley Ranch in Green Valley and the Red Rock Casino in Summerlin.

By Martin Baird   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

It’s rare that I use the federal government as an example of outstanding customer service. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever used Uncle Sam as an example of anything. But the time has come to let Casino Connection readers know that the Internal Revenue Service blows me away with truly superior service—service better than that provided by some casinos.

I’m telling you this story because there is much to learn from it.

Normally, I keep myself at arm’s length from the IRS, but I received a statement in the mail and had to call and ask some questions. There was no way to avoid it, so I reluctantly grabbed the phone and dialed. The pleasant surprises started as soon as the IRS picked up on the other end.

A lady with a soothing, calm voice answered and identified herself as Mrs. Smith. She gave me her employee number and asked how she could help. I told her about the correspondence I had received, and she asked for my phone number. I gave it to her but wanted to know why she needed it. Let me ask you something right now. How many times have you called customer service at a company and were 10 minutes into trying to get your problem resolved when you lost the phone connection? It is beyond discouraging when that happens.

Mrs. Smith explained that, at times, calls can be 20 minutes or longer and she would hate to make me go through it again with a new person. Immediately, I gave her a gold star for thinking of the customer first. From the very first moment with the IRS, I did not feel like I was a number instead of a human being.

I was already comfortable with this nice lady when she proved herself yet again. She explained that, for security purposes and to look up my records, she needed to ask me a few rather sensitive questions about marital status, date of birth, etc. I gave her the information and then pulled a fast one. I asked, “So can I ask your date of birth?” I wanted to try a little humor on someone you would think is usually lacking in such. She immediately shot back, “Today is my birthday.”

This little exchange brings up two important points for your casino. First, please tell callers or people that you are talking with why you need the information you are asking for. If the lady at the IRS had not told me that the questions were for security purposes and to prevent other people from obtaining my private information, I might have been concerned about it. Second, your employees need to be prepared for the unexpected. When I asked Mrs. Smith for her date of birth, she handled me with great style. Your employees need to have answers for the tough questions guests often ask. They need to be ready.

As I continued talking with Mrs. Smith, I realized we were having a real conversation between two people. How often have you been on the phone with a customer service representative and you could tell they were trying to get you off the line as quickly as possible, that there was no way you could describe the interaction as a conversation? Much to Uncle Sam’s credit, Mrs. Smith was a person, not a machine. She didn’t pepper me with rapid-fire questions. She didn’t hide behind policies, procedures or rules. I thought I was in a tough situation, but she made it easy for me by being human.

Go figure! The IRS provides great service! To this day, I can’t believe the IRS understands that it is in the service business as much as it is in the tax-collection business.

Every employee at every casino in the world is in the service business, too. You’re not just in the business of raking in people’s money. Guests know they will lose money, but they visit your casino anyway because they expect to be treated with courtesy and to have a bit of fun. Guess who’s responsible for providing the human touch and the entertainment? You are.

Mrs. Smith didn’t have to treat me with respect because her employer gets my money no matter what. But she did, and I now actually have positive feelings about the IRS. Casino employees don’t have such a choice. You can’t simply be money handlers and expect guests to return to your property. But I guarantee they will feel good about your casino if you learn from Mrs. Smith and provide nothing less than the best in service. They will become advocates for your property and they will return… again and again.

By Greg Jones   Thu, May 01, 2008

The poker-playing community is said to be essentially one big extended family. So too are the people who make their living from the safer areas of the poker room: in the cashier’s cage or the dealer’s box. For Gemma Truman, that’s the greatest part of her job as a poker cashier at the Cannery in North Las Vegas. “The dealers, the bosses, the players—everyone is part of one big family,” she said. She’s been working in the poker room at the Cannery for two years and has no desire to be anywhere else within the property. The Cannery is enjoying some success with its new poker room, and with people like Truman who look forward to coming to work staffing it, it’s no small wonder why.

By Dave Bontempo   Thu, May 01, 2008

Scott Frankel was once an executive recruiter. No wonder he’s an ace in Sunset Station’s Boarding Pass Card promotion.

The four-year dual-rate veteran shatters the company’s new-business standard.

Sunset seeks at least one new signup per day from its floor people. Frankel averages close to six, and once led the entire property despite spending half his time dealing.

For him, salesmanship boils down to friendly assertiveness.

“You start by just being nice, asking if they want to sign up,” says Frankel, a New York native. “Being a locals place, we can see if someone does not have a card. You’re offering free slot play, it’s definitely something they want and you can have fun with the people. It also gives you the chance to know more customers by name. It’s always nicer when you can use someone’s name instead of something like ‘sir.’”

Frankel’s product push involves the new Jumbo Jackpot program. Each individual casino now has its own version of what had been a Station-wide promotion. At Sunset, the jackpot is guaranteed to hit between $50 and $100,000. All active players at the time of the hit receive anywhere from $25 to $100 in free slot play.

“You tell people, ‘Look, the casino is taking your money anyway, why not get something for it,’” he says. “I think it’s good to let people know that you are on their side. Many people think we work for the house and that they are playing against us. I tell them that if we got paid commission, this would be the greatest job in the world. We don’t get commission. We have no problem with them winning.

“To me, it’s just about being personable, talking to people but not twisting their arms the New York way. I’ve become more diplomatic out here,” he adds. “I can’t help bringing a little bit of New York with me, though. If I see somebody in la-la land, I might say, ‘Hey, how you doin’?’”

Is Frankel happy? Fuh-get-a-bout-it.

He escaped the high-pressure New York world nearly five years ago. He read about dealer’s school, available Las Vegas apartments and moved here. Frankel went through dealing school, obtained employment and received a warmer climate than back East.

“I know I could have gone to Atlantic City and Jersey is nice, but it’s not Vegas,” Frankel says. “You have everything here. There are people who can be meeting and you can almost always go outside. I love golf, so it’s a year-round thing now. One December day, I called my brother in New York and said, ‘How’s the snow back there? I’m on the 14th hole.’ I think he wanted to kill me!”

Vegas fits Frankel, with a capital ‘F.’ He obtained a wife, a comfortable lifestyle and an endearing locals market.

“You do see the same people four or five times a week,” he says. “You talk to them, get to know them a little bit, you look forward to the next time they are going to be in your property. And then you see all that entertainment and excitement. You watch people hoping that any hand now is going to be the 7-card straight flush, or that anything big can happen with the next roll of the dice.”

It’s a perpetual fantasy. And if you can dream it, Scott Frankel can sell it.

Thu, May 01, 2008

I’m already a big fan of Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith, but his March 30 column profiling a 65-year-old woman known as the “first lady of fingerprints” for the Vegas cops was one of those classics I just adore. She’s got some terrific tales about the hands she’s printed, from Elvis to Liberace to Johnny Cash. Find it by Googling “John L. Smith” and “fingerprint.” •  We caught an early Jersey Boys preview at Palazzo. It put to rest any question we had about whether this Broadway import—brought with an intermission, no less!—would succeed on the Strip. Fellow audience members of a certain age, namely my parents’, were having some sort of religious experience. There are a LOT of those, too. And they gamble.

Thu, May 01, 2008

Sure, the whole Eliot Spitzer-prostitution thing is very over, but this was such a funny little nugget popped up during an interview I had with Steve Wynn during that debacle. I was curious about his take on Spitzer, whom Wynn said he hadn’t ever met, and he offered this anecdote about Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd. I asked him why powerful men with everything going for them do stupid things.

Wynn paused, took a deep sign and said: “I think, truth be known, Steve, that on the subject of sex, that one subject, there’s more hypocrisy in this world than anybody ever dreamed.... Everybody lies about sex. This is a crack that Chris Dodd made when we were playing golf at Shadow Creek one day. We were talking about Clinton. I said, ‘America’s got to get over vetting politicians by checking their sex life. Everybody lies about sex. Don’t go there. Men and women don’t tell the truth about the subject. Sex is sort of a weird area of human behavior.’ And then Chris Dodd, it is on the 18th green, made the funniest remark. He said, ‘Steve, most people lie during sex!’ That was a good one, wasn’t it?”

Thu, May 01, 2008

One of the most important books on Vegas in many years was published last month. Winner Takes All is a very good read despite some shocking sloppiness by its author, Christina Binkley, the Wall Street Journal’s gaming beat writer for almost a decade. Binkley renders some terrific behind-the-scenes reconstructions of three major gaming-industry mergers, but she nearly destroys her own effort with a litany of factual errors.

Yes, I have a list. Binkley calls Restaurant Guy Savoy the most expensive restaurant in the world when it’s not even the most expensive in Vegas. She calls the 1980 MGM Grand blaze a “tragic grease fire” when it was caused by an electrical malfunction. She says the Dunes took 27 seconds to implode when YouTube clips show it took less than 10. She claims the Wynns flew to Sun Valley, Idaho, in an MD-87 jet owned by Mirage Resorts even though a plane that large can’t land at the airport there. She claims Starlight Express at the Hilton “died an ugly death” when it was at the time the longest-running Broadway import in Vegas history. She even misspelled the Mirage performer as “Danny Ganz.”

There are many more. But the one that sticks in my craw the most, and loyal readers of this space know this well, is that she misstated that now-loathsome city tourism slogan as “What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.” Someone that familiar with Vegas has got to know the words “Las Vegas” never appear in the official phrase.

By Dave Bontempo   Thu, May 01, 2008

You can get as crazy as you want betting the 134th Kentucky Derby May 3. Here’s a real popular prop, one that’s also budget friendly—the 10-cent superfecta. For $12, you can box five horses and get a sliver of the superfecta payout. How good was it last year? The 10-cent super was worth nearly $1,500 in a race during which favorites ran unusually well. Remember to respect the horses coming off the pace and that millions of dollars change hands in the last quarter of a mile. No horse in the race has ever gone this distance, so false favorites abound. Another strategy: take two of the five horses you box in the super and place them with three others in a separate ticket. For $24, you have a nice value pack. If the two horses you liked hit the top four, you have six other entries aimed at the other two spots.

Casino Connection Sports Editor Dave Bontempo will broadcast the event in Primm and the Mosley-Judah fight for HBO International.

By Dave Bontempo   Thu, May 01, 2008

The Golden Boy could not bring his annual Cinco de Mayo extravaganza here. Oscar De La Hoya’s May 3 matchup with Steve Forbes seemed better suited for Los Angeles, where he grew up, than for Las Vegas, where he personally bankrolled the town’s last two celebrations of Mexican heritage and pride.

De La Hoya brought a nearly $7 million gate here for his 2006 victory over Ricardo Mayorga. Last year was the mother of all Cinch de Mayo gifts. His battle with Floyd Mayweather produced a Vegas record $18.4 million gate and an estimated citywide impact of $100 million.

Not every major fight can come here, but De La Hoya will return as a promoter. One of his employees, Sugar Shane Mosley, will headline at Mandalay Bay against Zab Judah May 31. Mosley has a multi-dimensional relationship with De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. Mosley is a natural salesman, who fights and works for De La Hoya. Mosley is also the only man ever to defeat De La Hoya twice. He also became embroiled in boxing’s version of the steroid clamor, filing a recent lawsuit against a company that claimed he knowingly took them before the second De La Hoya fight in 2003.

Now, Mosley needs a Vegas fix. He opposes Judah, hoping for more home-ring magic. Mosley’s best high-profile victories occurred right here. In 2003, he outpointed De La Hoya at MGM. It launched a string of desert triumphs, including David Estrada at Caesars Palace, Jose Luis Cruz at MGM, Fernando Vargas once each at MGM and Mandalay and Luis Collazo at Mandalay Bay in his last fight here. In between these efforts, he lost two gritty battles to Winky Wright in Las Vegas. But Mosley, a pro since 1993 and a champion in the lightweight, welterweight and junior middleweight divisions, hit career overdrive by coming here.

The win over Collazo, a lefty, was one of Mosley’s most dominating performances. He will need a similar effort against Judah, another southpaw. The event’s “High Stakes” billing could not be more accurate. The Mosley-Judah loser will suffer severe ramifications. The penalties would entail a long road back to the limelight and the specter of retirement.

“You better believe this is an important fight,” Mosley says. “The stakes are high, for both of us. It will be an excellent matchup because we both have a lot of speed and power. I respect Zab—he can really punch—but I’m on a mission to get through this and be ready for the top welterweights in the world.”

Mosley’s best fights may have occurred when he was 147 pounds. As he gained weight, his power waned. Meanwhile, Judah promises to be in better shape than previous fights. Thirty-six-year-old Mosley is 44-5 with 37 knockouts. He needs to win handily against Judah, 36-5 with 25 knockouts, a hyped former Olympian who never achieved his full potential. Unlike Mosley, Judah has lost his major battles—to Carlos Bloomer, Floyd Mayweather, Cory Spinks, Kosta Tszu and Miguel Cotto. The last name links these fighters.

The Mosley-Judah winner hopes De La Hoya wins a scheduled September rematch with Floyd Mayweather and then opts to fight him. De La Hoya has never let politics stand in the way of who he fights. He opposes the top names, for the top price.

By Dave Bontempo   Thu, May 01, 2008

The 51s have three four-game sets in May. The home stand starts May 6 with a series against Memphis, followed by a series against Nashville. After those eight games, the team will hit the road before coming back to play Fresno May 23-26. Games unfold either at 7:05 p.m. or 12:05 p.m. The Dodger farm club remains a jewel to Las Vegas natives. Some have even completed the major league to minor league journey, watching the Dodgers in Los Angeles during the afternoon and making it back here for the 51s the same night. Now, that’s a double-header.

By Dave Bontempo   Thu, May 01, 2008

Jeff Voyles unfurls his own twist on an educator’s cliché: he is the teacher who can do, too.

The St. Louis native and MGM veteran enjoys the best of several worlds. For 12 years, he juggled an MGM executive position with a UNLV faculty role. Despite leaving MGM a couple years ago, he continues dispensing the fine points of business and helping students receive jobs.

Voyles thus enjoys an unusual perch in the gaming world: He can view it both from the inside and out simultaneously.

“It’s always been a passion for me to bring academics and industry together,” says Voyles, whose teaching role has gone increasingly online as his consulting company, Globalysis, takes off. “It’s very rare to see professors who are actually in the casino business. In some cases, you have chefs teaching gaming courses. Yet the importance of the industry grows. Now you are seeing many universities come up with a gaming and hospitality program.”

Voyles helped UNLV add courses covering gaming regulations and control, marketing, hotel assets and security, advanced management and games protection. He says UNLV now offers the only bachelor of science degree in gaming management in the world.

In gaming, Voyles found practical use for his knowledge. His MGM roles included dealer, corporate trainer, scheduling coordinator, gaming instructor, pit manager, detection specialist and training manager. For five years, he was also a floor supervisor, which highlighted a specific hobby.

“I would count cards at night and catch the same people in the casino I’d seen the night before,” he says. “That helped build the foundation of my research. I went to MGM and implemented it.”

Throughout his tenure, he has stressed the marriage between academics and reality. He urged students to accept any casino job simply to establish an operations base. Then he landed entry-level positions for them. Voyles believes the rapid expansion of gaming opened the workplace like never before.

Like a gambler surrounding roulette numbers with mounds of chips, he was bound to hit something big. Voyles once taught a student whose father helped create Korean gaming. That led to a consultant’s deal and a position with Globalysis, which lists Asian gaming as a specialty.

In February, he became a partner.

The Long Road Traveled

The gaming picture looked unlikely several years ago. Voyles appeared groomed for a food and beverage career. His grandfather had been head chef for the Washington Redskins. An uncle had been a vice president at U.S. Foods. At 19, Voyles owned his own catering business but was too young to buy the alcohol for it. His mother handled the duty.

Yet enticed by UNLV’s gaming and hospitality niche, Voyles spread his wings. He drove cross-country and made it to Las Vegas just in time. Moments after he closed the car door, the vehicle caught on fire.

“Not a good first day,” he recalls, ruefully.

At times, it got more stressful. Twice, he has survived cancer. He has lost and re-grown hair, survived chemotherapy and in the process learned to seize every moment.

One of them provided a chance to skip ahead in the proverbial dealing line—if he passed a high-pressure audition.

“I’d never even played Bingo before,” Voyles says, “but I had been told dealing would be more exciting and lucrative than anything I’d ever done. MGM was going to train their own dealers and if you qualified, you’re dealing right into the Strip. That was unheard of then. People would deal for 10 years before getting a shot at the Strip and now here was this chance.

“The shoe was stacked, the cards were pre-determined. Six executives sat at your game. You dealt the hands, had all the multi-bets. The auditions were 10 nerve-wracking minutes.

“Those of us who got through knew it would be sink or swim after that. It was 15-hour shifts and we took heat. People who had worked their way up did not really appreciate a new person. Every hand we dealt was scrutinized. But you kept your head down and get through it.”

New properties were emerging. Competition demanded skilled labor, but produced hefty rewards.

“It became clear that this business makes so much money, but if you are only living within your walls, you will never be forced to become better,” Voyles says. “It looked like you would either see a lot of education and no experience or a lot of experience and no education. It seemed that if you were educated and experienced, there was a big window to jump through. That’s why I kept trying to leverage the two.”

Now it’s three—consulting has rounded out the picture. It might even become four—Voyles is working on a card game with a Major League Baseball theme.

By David Schwartz   Thu, May 01, 2008

The Algiers opened in 1953, as an adjunct to the Thunderbird casino next door. As the Thunderbird went through ownership changes, the Algiers emerged as a property in its own right, it remained under the ownership of Marion and Lillian Hicks, and later passed into the hands of their daughter, Marianne Kifer.

While other motels disappeared to make way for larger resorts or remodeled themselves into casino hotels, the Algiers kept its same look for decades, thanks to the patient leadership of longtime general manager Jack Walsh, who moved over from the Thunderbird in 1961 and lived on the property until his death in 1996. Walsh, who served as a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1973 to 1985, was respected throughout the state for his integrity and concern for all Nevada citizens.

Though the Algiers didn’t have a casino, its bar, with video poker machines, was a favorite haunt for locals and savvy tourists alike, becoming the most unlikely of places—a genuine neighborhood watering hole on the Las Vegas Strip.

By 2001, the Algiers’ days seemed numbers, as plans to expand the property—or tear it down and build a Ferris wheel—circulated.

The Algiers managed to avoid the bulldozers until August 2004, when it closed to make way for the Krystal Sands, a 45-story condo-hotel. By the following spring, the Krystal Sands had been cancelled amid a round of lawsuits.

Today, the Algiers land is part of the Fontainebleau, a 3800-room, 63-story casino hotel that’s rising quickly and which is due to open in 2009. While the massive, stylish Fontainebleau will be a far cry from the homey Algiers, it is certain that the new hotel will make Nevada history in its own way. Still, the tiny Algiers will not soon be forgotten.

SOURCE: Neon Survey Collection, UNLV Special Collections

David G. Schwartz (www.dieiscast.com), is the Director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He is the author of Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

There are two schools of thought surrounding the phenomenon that is Dane Cook: love him or hate him. As it stands, those who love him far out-number those who absolutely loathe him.

The Superfans are very vocal in their support of the comedian, saying his critics are simply upset because of his fame. His comedy albums have sales figures that match Steve Martin, George Carlin, Richard Prior and Bill Cosby. His shows sell out routinely, and his tour numbers match the above-named legends of the big-time comedy circuit.

Cook enjoys an extended stay in Las Vegas this month.

Dane Cook performs at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace May 23, 24 and 25 at 11 p.m. Tickets are $75, $95, $125 and $175.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

There are a number of bands on the “must see at least once” list: Bob Dylan, the Stones (if you can swing those ticket prices), Eric Clapton, B.B. King and Roger Waters come to mind immediately.

Often left off that list—largely because of being a somewhat obscure band—is Ozomatli.

The six- to 10-piece band from Los Angeles plays funk, rock, hip hop, salsa, dub, reggae and anything else they feel fit. Among those in the know, an Ozomatli concert is so much more than a musical performance and often times erupts into a drunken dance party that always ends too soon.

They’ve been legendary among college concert-goers for years, but have been enjoying a little more popularity recently thanks to increased media attention and several high profile performances, including the 2000 Democratic National Convention protest concert in L.A.

Band members have described their sound as what a person would hear driving down Sunset Boulevard with the car stereo off and the windows rolled down. Given that, the poolside venue at Hard Rock couldn’t be a better fit for the band’s May concert.

Ozomatli plays poolside at the Hard Rock Hotel May 30 at 9 p.m. Tickets are $20 and $200.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

I don’t know if it was the song in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed—which has since shown up everywhere, including in an episode of The Simpsons—but Dropkick Murphys have really come on strong lately.

This punk rock band has become the pride of the Beantown punk scene thanks to the song, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston.”

But these guys have been playing together for 12 years, mostly performing in smaller clubs while they toured in support of their earlier albums on Hellcat Records (an offshoot of the legendary punk label Epitaph). The hard work has paid off, and in 2007 the band released its major label debut, The Meanest of Times. The new album has enjoyed commercial success, debuting at No. 20 on the Billboard charts.

That’s a mixed bag for long-time fans, because it means that in addition to dealing with the damned skinheads, there will also be neophyte punkers, drunken frat boys and Top 40 fanboys at the show.

Dropkick Murphys play poolside at the Hard Rock Hotel May 16 at 9 p.m. Tickets are $27.50 and $275.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

It’s not often that bands stick around for 30 years, but that’s exactly what Duran Duran has done.

The venerable new wave band has placed 21 singles in the Billboard Hot 100 list, won two Grammy Awards for music videos and snagged an MTV Lifetime Achievement award.

They're touring in support of a new album, Red Carpet Massacre, but it’s likely most fans will want to hear songs like “Rio",“Girls on Film,“Hungry Like the Wolf” and “The Reflex.”

Duran Duran comes to the Joint at the Hard Rock May 9 and 10 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $92 and $247.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

The biggest tour of 2007 has been extended, and will bring the Police to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in May.

The members of the legendary band fronted by Gordon Sumner (you may know him better as Sting) had been pursuing solo projects for about 20 years before they got back together in 2007 to perform "Roxanne" at the Grammy's. That reunion led to a tour that has sold more than 2.5 million tickets and is continuing into 2008.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters join the Police for their Las Vegas performance.

The Police and Elvis Costello and the Imposters come to the MGM Grand Garden Arena May 23 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $78.75, $131.25 and $262.50.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

The man named the greatest living composer by the Recording Academy is coming to the Las Vegas Hilton for one show in May.

Burt Bacharach’s career has spanned six decades, during which he has composed 48 Top 10 hits and nine No. 1 songs. He has won three Academy Awards and eight Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 2008.

The songs Bacharach has put together are impressive, and include “What’s New, Pussycat,” “The Look of Love,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,”  “What the World Needs Now Is Love” and “That’s What Friends Are For.”

Burt Bacharach plays the Las Vegas Hilton May 11 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $60.50 and $82.50.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

One of the most influential country music stars is coming to Las Vegas when Kenny Rogers comes to the Orleans in May.

Rogers is practically a living legend. From his days with First Edition to his duet with Dolly Parton (“Islands in the Stream”) to his most famous song “The Gambler,” Rogers has established himself as a musical institution in the United States.

His popularity allowed him to launch side projects like the Kenny Rogers Roasters chain of fried chicken restaurants (as seen on Seinfeld) and even a slot machine produced by IGT called Kenny Rogers: The Gambler.

Kenny Rogers appears at the Orleans Showroom May 2, 3 and 4 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $66, $88 and $99.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

The Breeders had fallen off the map for a while, but the band, led by sisters Kim and Kelley, are on tour again in support of a new album, Mountain Battles.

The band has been less than prolific—four LPs in 20 years—and the lineup has seen some considerable changes, most notably when co-founder Tanya Donelly left to form Belly, and Kelley having to spend time in rehab and prison. Donnelly remains absent, but the sisters have reunited and sound as good as they did on the band’s first album, the critically acclaimed but commercial failure Pod.

The Breeders are a throw back to the ‘90s-style alternative rock and a lot of the attitude that goes with that. Expect to hear some deep cuts off Pod, new tracks off of Mountain Battles and some of the less radio-friendly tunes from Last Splash.

The Breeders play the House of Blues on May 2 at 6:45 p.m. Tickets are $20.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

Depending on your age, you are likely to know of Wayne Brady from either his talk show, The Wayne Brady Show, his spots on Whose Line Is It Anyway or his guest appearance on Chappelle’s Show. Or you may recognize Brady from his hosting duties on Don’t Forget the Lyrics, or countless guest appearances on a number of other shows.

But Brady is also making a name for himself with his show at the Venetian, Making It Up. He was named the 2008 Best All-Around Performer by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and he has become the permanent headliner at the Venetian.

Brady is a master of many styles, and because very little of the show is scripted and much of it is based on audience participation, each performance is unique.

Brady performs in the Venetian Showroom Thursday through Monday at 9 p.m. Tickets are $49, $69, $89. $149 VIP tickets that include a front-row seat and chance for a meet-and-greet after the show are also available.

Casino Connection: What was it like putting together your show? I know you’ve been performing on and off in Vegas for a few years, but you haven’t really put together a show if this kind of magnitude? So talk a little bit about what it was like to put this show together.

Wayne Brady: Well, in putting this show together, even now, I’m making changes and doing things because that’s just the kind of person that I am. I just get bored easily and I always want to try and do the next best, biggest thing. I want to satisfy the people who are fans of Who’s Line and know me in that world, but also as being someone who has done a lot more than that… being a romantic performer, being a singer and being a dancer as well, and an actor, and doing the whole nine.

I thought that if I was going to come out to Vegas, I wanted to do something that pretty much let me do everything that I have fun doing, everything that people expect of me and maybe some things that folks don’t expect of me. And, above all, to give them their money’s worth. So I tried to put on my thinking cap and say, well, what would Sammy Davis Jr. do, and what would those old school performers do? And I think that the type of show I have right now addresses that. It’s mostly improv, but it’s improv games that people who have seen Who’s Line would love.

There is a lot of audience participation, which is something that a lot of shows say that they have audience participation, but that pretty much just amounts to putting the audience into things that they already have planned. At my show, the audience is another cast member. And, so whether it’s me doing moving bodies, or doing props with them, or creating a story line with them, or doing a musical number with them, they are definitely a part of the show.

And how do the audiences respond to that?

They go nuts. They go absolutely nuts because the show, I think, keeps them on a ride. That from the time I hit the stage, there’s music, and there’s comedy, and that pretty much sets up the entire thing because that’s the dichotomy upon which I’ve based my whole career: The love of being onstage and doing comedy or drama or whatever, and also interjecting music, which has also been a lifelong love.

The crowds in Las Vegas are a little bit different from your typical crowd like, say , in a New York theatre, who comes specifically for a show. Talk a little bit about how that changes up the dynamic when you’re performing, since it’s such an interactive show.

Well, you definitely need to work harder to keep the audience’s attention because… now not all of the audiences, because a good half to three quarters of the audience that comes in, they are destination audiences. They have come in for the weekend; they want to have a great time. But your show is part of their plan.

And then the other part of that are people in the flip flops and the T-shirts, carrying that humongous, big-ass thing that they drink from… that big, big drink with a strap. Vegas is the only place in the world where they have a drink that’s big enough that people need a strap for it.

So you have those guys and you have to work harder to keep their attention because the casino is right outside those stage doors. So, slot machines are right outside those doors. They have partied all day. You are a stop on the road to more partying before they go home shamefully Monday morning back to their regular job. So your job is to really grab them and keep them.

What happens when the audience calls out for something and you have no idea what they’re talking about?

Then you still do it. You roll with it. The audience didn’t pay you to go, “Oh, I don’t know that one. Could I get another one please?” Because then it defeats the purpose of improv.

Improv itself is an imperfect art. It was never meant to be perfect or correct. So by virtue of that rule, nothing is actually right onstage, and nothing is wrong. Now, that works great in a classroom scenario, when the teachers are saying “Don’t be afraid to fail,” and it’s all wonderful and roses and flowers. But when an audience has paid big Vegas prices to see you, you can’t fail. But you can make a mistake that can then turn into a great laugh. 

So if someone gives me something that I don’t know what it is, I just take it and acknowledge it and I just make up what it is in my mind. Because that’s what the name of the show is, making it up. And so if I don’t know it, I make it up. And sometimes if I do know it, I still make it up because it’s funnier.

Thu, May 01, 2008

To paraphrase Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, it is the best of times and it is the worst of times for Nevada’s economy.

On one hand, more than $10 billion of commercial and high-rise residential construction is under way along a three-mile stretch of the Las Vegas Strip, and more major construction projects are on the drawing boards. Southern Nevada is still attracting 6,300 new residents each month. Tens of thousands of new tourism jobs are expected to be created in the state over the next five years. Our convention business is robust, and taxable sales remain strong.

On the other hand, housing sales, starts and prices are on the decline throughout the state, and the inventory of unsold homes is at historic highs. Unemployment has climbed above 5 percent and the state government is facing a large budget deficit.

The signals are so confusing that even economists, bankers and financial analysts can’t agree on whether Nevada—or for that matter the nation as a whole—is in a recession or just a temporary slowdown in growth. And no one knows for certain exactly what the state of Nevada’s economy will be 12 to 18 months from now.

But if history is any guide, there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic. Nevada’s gaming industry is the state’s largest employer and biggest taxpayer. And during past national recessions—which since the 1950s have typically lasted less than a year—the gaming industry fared far better than other segments of the economy.

The biggest economic downturn for Nevada gaming in several decades came in the aftermath of 9/11. The state’s casinos laid off thousands of workers because of the sharp decline in air travel. But within months, demand for air service began to rise and tourists began flocking back to the state in ever-growing numbers. In less than a year, the gaming industry had refilled most of those positions and was again posting record numbers.

While Nevada has experienced a slight decline in visitation numbers in recent months, we’ve also noted that the tourists visiting Harrah’s Entertainment properties in the state are spending more than they have before. This enabled our operations in both southern and northern Nevada to outperform their markets in the 2007 fourth quarter. Other Nevada gaming operators have also posted strong results.

Economists differ on whether the visitation numbers will continue to slip or if tourist spending will increase through 2008. One thing seems certain: Individual consumers as well as businesses will be impacted by the ripple effects of the credit crunch that started in the housing and finance industries. How much and how long those consumers are affected will play a key role in their decisions on how, where and when to spend their month.

We've historically provided consumers with compelling reasons to visit Nevada, regardless of the state of the economy. For example, we’re closing in on the biggest introduction of spectacular new resort, entertainment and lifestyle attractions in southern Nevada’s history. Each previous wave generated sharp increases in visitation as tourists clamored to see the latest attractions, and there’s little doubt we’ll see similar growth as the new properties begin to open over the next couple years.

The single most important consideration moving forward will be whether the state continues to provide the gaming industry with the economic incentive it needs—a fair and reasonable tax rate on gaming revenues—to justify the reinvestment of billions of dollars in Nevada. Or will we let ill-advised initiatives lead to higher taxes on our No. 1 industry, which would eventually shift capital investment from Nevada to tax-friendlier jurisdictions?

The urge to tax ourselves to prosperity is as old as it is misguided. As Jack Kennedy pointed out more than 40 years ago: “An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance out budget—just as it will never produce enough jobs or profits.”

As we move forward, I'm confident Nevada will heed JFK's advice and continue to prosper. We've weathered economic uncertainties before in large part because of the health of the gaming industry. We can continue to do so if we move ahead with an expansion of our tax base to avoid over-reliance on—and over-burdening of—the gaming industry.

By Casino Connection Staff   Thu, May 01, 2008

Do you spend hours at work standing behind a table or staring at a screen? Do you head home with an aching back, a headache or a stiff neck?

Chiropractor Jason Towey—known to his patients as “Doctor J”—says there are ways for casino workers to alleviate some of the stiffness, strain and fatigue caused by repetitious movements and poor posture.

“It all depends on your job,” he says. “People who stand for long periods behind tables should use their break time to walk around, get the blood circulating and do a few quick stretches. It’s inevitable to put more weight on one leg, but keep shifting, lean against the table occasionally and don’t stay in one position for the whole time.

“Sitters tend to have a lot of joint and muscle imbalance in the neck or back and chronic shoulder problems. If they’re on the phone, I encourage them to get a headset. If they use a computer, adjust the height of the chair, the keyboard and monitor to make sure everything is directly in front” to avoid twisting and turning. The computer screen should be slightly below eye level, to minimize neck and eye strain.

Ergonomic disorders are the fastest growing category of work-related illnesses, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The chief complaints of casino workers: low to mid-back pain, headache, and numbness of the hands and feet.

To stay fit as a fiddle on and off the job, Towey offers these tips:

Stay hydrated. “The body is approximately 60 percent to 70 percent water, and hydration plays a big role in muscle and joint function. When people say, “I’m drinking 10 cups of coffee a day,” they don’t realize that coffee is a diuretic, so you’re not getting that water.” Heed that old rule about drinking eight glasses of water per day. Your body will thank you.

Move it. If you are tied to one station at work, be sure to exercise at home or the gym, and again, drink lots of water. “The more circulation and movement and fluid exchange you have within the muscles, cells and joints, the better off you are,” Towey says. “Your body is meant to move, not sit or stand for hours.”

Get a grip on your emotions. “Many people overlook the fact that emotional stress has a huge impact on the body,” says Towey. “When you have to deal with stressful deadlines or angry patrons, the body stores that tension and doesn’t (easily) dissipate it. Take a deep breath, get up and walk around.” Now doesn’t that feel better?

Stretch. “When people are in sustained postures for many hours, the muscles tend to shorten and get a little tighter—the body is compressed and actually grows shorter,” says Towey. “Stretching before and after work for a solid 10 to 15 minutes (and whenever you can in-between) is very helpful.”

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Rent is going up as former homeowners lose their homes to foreclosure or are forced to sell properties they can no longer afford. But the most disturbing trend now hitting the major national papers is what is happening to renters in properties facing foreclosure.

There have been a number of stories about renters who are served notice and told they have 30 days to leave a house or condo that is in foreclosure. Not only are they losing a place to live and forced to endure the ordeal of finding a new place, many of them are facing the loss of security deposits or last month’s rent payments. USA Today ran a story in April about a family that was out $5,000 in lost deposits and advance payments.

While housing prices sputter, rentals are going gangbusters. The average rent is expected to increase 5.3 percent this year. The median rent in Las Vegas for the first quarter of 2008 was $1,056, lower than the national average of $1,368, but higher than the comparable southwestern city of Phoenix at $939.

You’ve heard it before, but we’re saying it again: Now really is the time to buy if you can afford it. With the future of rental properties looking bleak, and with housing prices significantly lower than they’ve been in previous years, a well-positioned buyer with a strong credit history is in an excellent position to find value in the housing market. For some advice, we talked to Zolt Szorenyi, real estate development manager at Performance Marketing Group.

1.) Should a buyer wait for the market to go lower before making an offer on a house?

The market is always being driven by supply and demand. The best time to make an offer is when the buyer has time to negotiate the best possible price without the pressure of competing against another buyer. This is that time now. Waiting too long for additional price reduction may jeopardize the opportunity. Do your homework and check the comparable sold and available listings.

2.) Should you be pre-qualified for a mortgage before making an offer?

Yes. The strongest negotiating power is being a ready, able and willing buyer. Being pre-qualified or approved for a loan before submitting an offer is also a requirement by most of the banks selling foreclosure properties.

3.) What’s the best way to negotiate with a motivated seller?

Use a realtor. It will not cost you anything. Having your own real estate representative will give you access to a lot more information for your market research and they will guide you through the whole process all the way to closing to ensure a smooth transaction. Always ask for a resume with references before selecting a realtor. These days, it will be helpful if the realtor has foreclosure sale experience with the banks.

By Greg Jones   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Vincent Wickliffe started in the gaming industry as a dealer in Downtown Las Vegas, and he is now running two casinos for Boyd Gaming Corp. His is the quintessential story about how to advance in the gaming industry: work hard, be flexible concerning hours and where you work and take advantage of any and all opportunities that present themselves.

After starting Downtown, Wickliffe has worked in burgeoning markets, including Kansas City, Missouri and New Orleans, before returning to Las Vegas where he now oversees the Eldorado and Jokers Wild casinos in Henderson.

Wickliffe recently spoke with Casino Connection Publisher Roger Gros and Managing Editor Greg Jones at his office—formerly the office of Bill Boyd—at the Eldorado.

Casino Connection: When you first got started in gaming, about 20 years ago at the Golden Gate in Downtown Las Vegas, at that point were you planning on making gaming a career, were you trying to work your way up or was it just a job at the time?

Wickliffe: At the time I came into the industry, my intention was to make it a career.

What are some of the things that you’ve been able to do that helped you move up from your entry-level position as a dealer at the Golden Gate to where you are today?

I think it’s hard work. I was very flexible. I was able to work long hours, I was able to work any shift, and I also availed myself for the opportunities with expansion within Boyd Gaming. I went to different properties out of state and they gave me an opportunity to move along.

You’ve worked at the Treasure Chest in New Orleans and Sam’s Town in Kansas City. What were you doing at those properties?

At the Treasure Chest, the initial intention was I was going to go there and I was going to be promoted into a pit manager’s position, but I initially went over there to help with the school. I taught blackjack and I taught dice for that particular property. When we came into that area, gaming was not there and it was an opportunity for me to not only see the operation from the beginning, but also get an opportunity to meet the people that would’ve eventually worked under me or with me at Treasure Chest. I was there during the summer months and I taught the dealer school and at the conclusion of dealer school I decided that New Orleans wasn’t the place for me. So I came back to Las Vegas and then shortly thereafter there became another opportunity for Sam’s Town Kansas City. That’s how I went out there.

When I went to Kansas City I was initially a pit manager. And then I moved up from being a pit manager to being an operations manager. Kansas City was a similar size property as Jokers and Eldorado is here in Las Vegas. It was a boat that was moored and was next to a land-based facility. I started out as a pit manager and became an operations manager. I already had an understanding of the table games segment of the business, and then I was exposed to the food and beverage and also the land-based part of the facilities, which were a valet and other operations outside the gaming operations at that property.

What did you learn in these new jurisdictions? Obviously neither one of these jurisdictions had had gaming prior to the late ‘90s. Was it a revelation for you to see what gaming had done to a community or what it brought to a community that might have been down on its luck?

Oh, absolutely. One thing I can say very favorably about the Kansas City experience in Missouri is the people had an outstanding work ethic. I’ve also been told in various stories that other jurisdictions we went into there wasn’t that great of a work ethic but in Kansas City it was. The other thing was you saw people that made very modest amounts of money, and with the gaming and the tip rate and all that sort of thing that comes with it, they were making a great deal of money in that environment.

The other thing it helped me realize, and I appreciate today, is when you come from Las Vegas you have a certain mindset about how gaming goes and how it should operate and professional skepticism, I call it, a basic mistrust of people, they have to prove their trust. In those environments, both in Kansas City and the New Orleans area, in particular when you’re talking about Kansas City, the people were very trusting. Midwest values—you can take a man or woman at their word and they mean what they say.

When we came in there with our professional skepticism, we kind of put ourselves in a bad light with the public, because if somebody says, ‘Hey, I gave you my word,’ and they stand by it, when you question that then they question you and your business, the way you do business. That was an eye-opening experience for many of us that went through the Kansas City experience. And again, it helped me to this day understand that when you’re in Rome, you’re a Roman, and when you’re in Greece, you’re a Grecian, and you can’t mix the two.

Eldorado and Jokers Wild are not too far away from each other, but you’re still drawing customers from somewhat different areas. What’s really your customer base for each of those properties?

Our target market is of course Henderson locals and the greater Las Vegas Valley area. Jokers Wild is unique as it doesn’t have a neighborhood so to speak, and because it doesn’t have a neighborhood most of our business that goes to Jokers Wild drives. So again they’re driving past many casinos to get to our casino, and what we hope to target is value-conscious, value-driven individuals. If you’ve ever been in our restaurants at Jokers Wild and Eldorado, you can see our food prices are circa 1980. Again, that’s our target market is value-conscious, value-driven customers. We share a lot of our common database between both properties, thus our player’s card can be used at both properties.

I'm assuming it’s not going to be very intimidating. Your dealers will be very friendly and help them learn the game.

That is tantamount to our business success, is our employees. Our employees are very friendly. Because of our proximity, you’re closer to the customers because it’s a smaller property so you get to know them a lot easier. A lot of our employees have friendly relationships with our customers. They know them, they know their birthdays, they know a little bit about their families. Our employees are our biggest assets at both properties.

Boulder Highway is seeing a good amount of attention right now. Boyd Gaming made some additions at Sam’s Town and Cannery Casino Resorts is getting ready to open up Eastside Cannery this summer. With all that investment in the area do you think that’s going to help your two properties? Do you think it will increase interest in the product?

I'd like to be optimistic and think that the addition of the Eastside Cannery is going to help grow the pie, so to speak. What’s truly going to help impact our properties more than the Eastside Cannery is going to be the building of the SuperTarget right there off Lake Mead.

Anything that’s going to bring people to the area who might not have had a reason to come into the area is going to help us out. People who are going to the Eastside Cannery are going there because they want to gamble and they’re gamblers and they do that already. Truly what’s going to help invigorate both Jokers Wild and Eldorado is bringing people that come into the community for different reasons and then they discover our properties; they find that they’re small, intimate and friendly.

Boyd has been noted for advancing its people, they’ve been very noted for promoting people like Bill Boyd, Keith Smith and Bob Boughner, everyone has come up from the inside. Is that why you’ve stuck with them for so long—they’ve treated you well and it is a family atmosphere?

I couldn’t handpick a better person to work for than Bill Boyd. He’s a man of his word; integrity is one of the cornerstones of our whole company and there’s a lot of other places I could’ve worked, but I stayed here because of the way I’ve been treated, the respect that just permeates from Bill straight through to everyone else.

Bob Boughner was at this very property. There’s a long list of people that started at the Eldorado going back to the early days when it was Boyd… and the treatment that I’ve received has been nothing but the best.

Boyd Gaming is now a huge national company with properties all over the country. At a normal company the Eldorado would be an afterthought, but it isn’t. What kind of attention do you get from Bill Boyd?

He calls me regularly, he checks on me, he sees how everything’s going. He’s been a strong supporter of me. Recently because of his endorsement and sponsorship of me I’m on the board of directors for the Southern Nevada Boys and Girls Club and again I’m very proud to be a part of that because of the lineage that’s connected to that. His father founded it here in Nevada and Bill’s been a strong supporter of it. The Boys and Girls Club is a great organization and I’m just proud that he saw fit to sponsor me as being part of it.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

The Maryland General Assembly wrapped up its 90-day session last month with one question looming: Will state voters approve a fall referendum to legalize 15,000 slot machines across the state?

It’s a question that few in the state—including Governor Martin O’Malley, the main author of the slot initiative—can answer with accuracy.

“What remains, of course, is the referendum on slots in the fall, and that’s still a big question mark on the horizon here,” O’Malley told reporters during a bill-signing session last week. “We’re in a position of being more dependent on that than I think any of us would like.”

O’Malley is depending on slots to help close a $1.5 billion budget deficit. The state’s horsemen are depending on it to revive a failing industry. Educators are depending on slots for an estimated $500 million of new funding annually. The Maryland State Teachers Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union, last month joined the Maryland Association of Counties in voicing public support for the referendum.

However, the question of slots till faces fierce opposition. Ironically, the fiercest of that opposition comes from within O’Malley’s own Democratic party and state government. State Comptroller Peter Franchot has been the public face of the anti-slot campaign in the state, and has railed against legalization as much as the governor has stumped for it.

On the other side, with the governor, is For Maryland, For Our Future, a pro-slots group, as well as the financial might of the gaming industry and its lobbyists.

The pro-slot side also is, of course, joined by the racing industry—although support has been lukewarm from companies such as Magna Entertainment, whose flagship Laurel Park racetrack was excluded from the list of slot locations in O’Malley’s referendum bill. Last week, the Maryland Racing Commission urged O’Malley and slot supporters to include Laurel and Ocean Downs on the slot list. The two tracks are the only ones that would be excluded from having slots under the governor’s plan.

In any event, the  budget crisis seems likely to push the pro-slot forces over the top. “We have momentum,” said Craig Varoga, a consultant for the pro-slot group, in an interview with the Baltimore Sun.  “The reason everyone is united on this, and the reason we have such broad support in the coalition, is that it’s pretty clear from wherever you sit that the state budget is going to be in a significant crisis if the referendum fails.”

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Two states last month rejected gaming as a new revenue source and generator of jobs and infrastructure improvements. Freshman governors who won election on the pledge to approve casinos showed their lack of political acumen in the defeats.

The three regional casino bill proposed by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick went down to defeat after several days of intense arm-twisting by House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, who said he preferred other solutions to the state’s budget crisis.

Even before the vote Patrick conceded that the bill stood little chance of passage. During his appearance before a House committee, as hundreds of supporters, including union members in hard hats, demonstrated in favor, he told the committee: “I have no illusions about the plans in the House for this legislation… What you do in this committee will determine whether that full and open debate is even possible.”

Anticipating a loss in the House, state Senator Steven Panagiotakos, chairman of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, proposed a referendum in November to poll the public on the issue.

Such a measure would require being passed in both houses of the legislature, so DiMasi could still bottle it up.
In Kentucky, Governor Steve Beshear declared his floundering casino bill to be dead, at least for this session of the legislature.

“It is time we let the people decide this issue,” he said.

Beshear, a Democrat, says casinos could help plug a projected $900 million budget deficit and forestall severe cuts in government services.

He has also advanced casino gambling as a way to fund education.    

Beshear vowed the fight for casinos isn’t over.

“Obviously, we will see how things develop over the next year and a half, as we approach the 2010 session, to see what might be possible at that time,” he said.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Two casinos went different ways last month in response to financial troubles.

In Michigan, a bidder is reportedly offering $1 billion for the Greektown casino in Detroit, and several unidentified groups are negotiating to buy at least a partial interest in the Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa tribe’s commercial casino. The Michigan Gaming Control Board said last month it might put the casino up for sale if the owners cannot raise enough to finance construction of permanent facilities by April 30.

Greektown spokesman Brian Brown told a control board meeting negotiations are under way with entities he would not name. “We are confident these negotiations will produce a positive outcome very soon,” he said following the hearing.

Greektown needs at least $79 million from an equity partner or other source to meet undisclosed income-to-debt ratios regulators set in 2007. The operators don’t expect to match those for this year by target dates, either, although the casino remains profitable.

In Indiana, repercussions of the New Jersey decision to remove the gaming license of Tropicana Resorts has filtered down to the state.

At a meeting of the Indiana Gaming Commission last month, Tropicana’s parent company, Columbia Sussex, announced it had sold its Aztar riverboat in Evansville to Reno-based Eldorado Resorts. The sale short-circuited a possible commission move to pull the company’s Indiana license, which would have resulted in a sale similar to New Jersey, where a conservator is running the Tropicana and conducting a public sale of the property. Columbia Sussex will not be allowed to make a profit on any sale of the Atlantic City property.

Still, the commission appointed a trustee to run the property until the sale to Eldorado is completed. Former Harrah’s executive Robert “Tom” Dingman will serve as trustee to handle the day-to-day operations of the Aztar property. Tropicana will retain authority to make significant decisions such as incurring debt and settling lawsuits.

Eldorado will pay $245 million for Casino Aztar. The company will pay Columbia Sussex $190 million in cash, a $30 million note and $25 million in earnings incentives. Columbia Sussex said it will use the revenue to pay off debt.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Francoise Payard, owner of Payard Patisserie inside Caesars Palace unveiled a 13-foot-tall chocolate clock that dispenses free truffles throughout the day.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Nevada’s Attorney General is asking the state Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling from last month that found the free meals casinos supply to employees and guests are not subject to taxation.

The court ruled six to one in March in a case brought by the Sparks Nugget casino against Nevada’s Department of Taxation that the meals are not taxable.

The state is dealing with a budget shortfall of nearly $900 million, but the new ruling could make that situation worse. If it stands, the ruling state will have to refund $1.3 million to the Sparks Nugget alone, but that number will grow dramatically when the other casinos in the state seek reimbursement as well.

Requests for the court to reconsider ruling are often sought but seldom granted. Nevada law allows re-hearings only when the court overlooked or misunderstood relevant facts or when questions of law have been misapplied.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

The opening of Trump International brings some fresh air to the Las Vegas Strip, or so the operators are saying.

The $500 million hotel tower is smoke-free and has no casino.

“It will be a place of refuge for our residents and guests,” said Steve Shalit, vice president and managing director. “No clang, clang, clang sounds from slot machines anywhere in the building. And, it has a lot of Donald Trump in it.”

During the grand opening celebration, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman commented on how nice the property was, adding, “I can’t wait to be comped here.”

The tower features 1,282 suites—880 studio units, 352 one-bedroom suites and 50 penthouse suites on the top floor. The tower is a hybrid condominium-hotel property, with 95 percent of the rooms being privately opened.

Plans for a second tower are on hold until the market improves.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s Palazzo was awarded the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Energy Innovator’s Award” for its commitment to energy efficiency through the use of renewable technologies, services and policies.

“From the beginning, we were determined to create Las Vegas’ first truly eco-friendly property and we are extremely proud to have achieved it and be recognized for it,” said Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson. “There is an increasing necessity to employ ‘green’ construction principles and we are proud to be a leader in the evolution of environmentally-focused building practices, not only on the Las Vegas Strip, but at Las Vegas Sands’ properties throughout the world.”

The Palazzo is the largest Leaders in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified building in the world. It achieved such accreditation through the use of drip irrigation, artificial turf and solar heating. It also uses technology to control the use of lighting and air conditioning in areas when they are not in use.

“Las Vegas Sands’ development team worked closely with LEED consultants to establish an array of strategies and develop a truly ’green’ building,” said Brad Stone, executive vice president of Las Vegas Sands Corp. “The total annual environmental savings generated as a result of our commitment to ’green’ technology and construction is staggering, and we are convinced that this will have a positive impact for years to come.”

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Arizona Charlies Decatur celebrated its 20th anniversary with a re-dedication ceremony, complete with a ribbon cutting and an official proclamation from Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman (r. in dark suit), joined by Arizona Charlies Executive Vice President and General Manager Ron Lurie.

The casino opened April 22, 1988, one of the first neighborhood casinos for residents living on the west side. With favorable odds, ease of access and food values, it quickly built a reputation embodied by its nickname, “Player’s Place.”

The property remains a favorite locals casino, and its success resulted in a sister property opening up on the Boulder Highway.

To commemorate the event, Goodman declared April 22, 2008, “Arizona Charlies Decatur Casino and Hotel Day” in Las Vegas.

For Lurie, it was a special day because he attended the first dedication ceremony at the property in 1988 when he was then-mayor of Las Vegas.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

It has been raided by federal marshals, and following that was sold to Harrah's and raided again. Harrah's stripped the Horseshoe brand and the World Series of Poker, then sold what was left to MTR Gaming.

MTR had big hopes for the property, but did little with it, and it became even more outdated, even compared with the aging properties that line Fremont Street.

But a new owner with one success story in the same market is hoping to change all of that.

Terry Caudill, who doubled the cash flow at the Four Queens after taking it over in 2003, recently acquired Binion’s for $32 million.

He is hoping to restore Benny Binion’s motto to the property: “Good food, good whiskey and good gambling.”

Caudill plans to invest money into refurbishing public areas as well as the property’s 360 hotel rooms. He also wants to take advantage of two top-floor features the property has: a restaurant and a pool.

Binion’s is home to the only top-floor casino restaurant and pool in Downtown. Both offer amazing views of the Las Vegas Valley, and Caudill hopes to once again turn them into a first-class attraction.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Bill Lerner of Deutsche Bank released an 18-page report examining the teachers’ proposal—as well as another that was readily dismissed—to fund public projects on the backs of gaming operators.

Lerner attacks the NSEA proposal—which seems the most likely to pass based on recent polling—as “a smoke screen to increase currently higher-than-state-average teacher pay under the guise of a student achievement initiative.”

Lerner writes that teacher salaries in Nevada are already higher than salaries in other fields in the state.

“Surprisingly, we found that the median annual Nevada teacher salary is already 40 percent higher than the average Nevadan’s salary and could potentially be about 67 percent more than the average Nevadan if the proposal were to become law,” Lerner wrote.

He also notes that the “NSEA is a teachers’ union, not a student achievement advocacy group.”

The document also makes a comparison between Nevada and Illinois, which raised its gaming tax in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

“Casinos collectively laid off nearly 26 percent of their workforce. Why? Because casinos have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to seek the highest returns on invested capital,” Lerner wrote.

His ultimate conclusion was an ominous one for Nevada residents who approve the tax increase: “We believe a similar phenomenon would occur in Nevada should taxes be raised.”

The Nevada Resort Association is doing all it can to keep the initiative off the ballots by challenging it in court. A judge ruled April 3 that the NSEA could begin collecting signatures, but the NRA is asking the Nevada Supreme Court to issue a speedy decision in an appeal of the previous ruling.

A hearing has been scheduled for July 1.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Just as Station Casinos has tied the prospects for Aliante Station to the growing Aliante community, Boyd Gaming Corp. is also teaming up with a land developer to build a casino as part of a master-planned community.

Boyd announced it will partner with Olympia Group to develop a casino in the Park Highlands community in North Las Vegas. The casino will be jointly owned by Boyd and Park Highlands.

Boyd purchased a site in North Las Vegas in 2006 where it planned to build a casino called North Coast, but the new opportunity is better for the company because it's in a busier commercial zone and closer to housing.

 “Forming a joint venture with one of the prominent land developers in the Las Vegas Valley adds another dimension to our long-term growth pipeline, giving us the opportunity to expand our locals franchise as part of a larger commercial project located in one of the fastest-growing areas in the Las Vegas Valley,” said Keith Smith, Boyd Gaming president and CEO. “We envision this property will become the hub of Park Highlands, providing residents with a wealth of entertainment options in a complex designed to have minimal impact on nearby residential areas.”

There is no zoning approval for gaming as part of the development, and it may take some work to acquire it. North Las Vegas has expressed reluctance for approving any more casino developments.

Some think if Boyd agrees to sell its other casino site to a nongaming developer it may be able to avoid any difficulties.

By Casino Connection Staff   Wed, Apr 30, 2008

The Golden Gate in Downtown Las Vegas has a new investor who is hoping to help develop the property into a boutique hotel.

Derek Stevens bought a 50 percent stake in the 102-year-old hotel in March, a transaction that was celebrated in April with co-owner Mark Brandenburg (l.) and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman (c.).

Stevens, whose family owns a stake in the Riviera and the Las Vegas 51s baseball team, said he was attracted to the property because of its small, intimate feel. He also liked the fact that Brandenburg was on site to manage the property.

Stevens’ investment brings some much-needed capital to the property that could finance improvements in hotel rooms and public areas. While neither owner expects the property to compete with casinos on the Strip, they think there is a place for a boutique casino on Fremont Street.

That doesn’t mean they plan to price out the value-oriented customers who frequent the casino, Brandenburg said, noting the improvements will be for “all of our hotel guests, not just the high rollers.”

Stevens is already looking at plans to cross-market the casino with the 51s with a promotion awarding a free shrimp cocktail to ticket holders when the team scores 10 or more runs in a game.

Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Las Vegas is one of the most recognized cities in the world. Fine dining, shopping, resorts and, of course, gaming makes Las Vegas unique and attractive to our more then 38 million visitors a year. Las Vegas is also home to more than 591,000 residents.

Away from the Downtown corridor, there is a vibrant community filled with schools, churches, parks and libraries, all set against the bright lights of Las Vegas. Currently, Las Vegas ranks 42 in the Sperling Report’s “healthiest cities” to live in. I am committed to increasing the livability of our great city, so that Las Vegas is recognized not only as one of the best places to visit, but, more importantly, as one of the greatest places in which to live.

Essential to my vision is a healthy and active community. Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer in this country, and I have taken an active role in encouraging the public to get in shape. I launched the Mayor’s Healthy Lifestyle Initiative to increase the livability of our great city by becoming a healthy and active community. I encourage all of you to learn about the importance of diet and exercise and to take advantage of the many recreational opportunities offered by the city, including our world-class parks, recreation centers, cultural centers, swimming pools or sports complexes. Trail systems throughout the city provide ample opportunities for walking, bicycling or jogging.

You are all invited to join me at the third annual Get Movin’ with Mayor Oscar B. Goodman Walk and Sports-Fest from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 17. This free event will take place at the Kellogg-Zaher Sports Complex, located at 7901 W. Washington Ave.

There will be a one-mile or 2.5-mile walk, followed by Sports-Fest 3, which runs until 6 p.m. An annual event for the entire family to enjoy a full day of sports activities and entertainment, the Sports-Fest brings sports vendors from across the valley to show what they have to offer the community. A schedule of events and entertainment is available at www.lvsportsfest.com, or call 702-222-0233.

The leadership of Las Vegas believes that recreation, leisure and cultural opportunities are essential to our quality of life. We invite you to join us today and begin “Living… Beyond The Neon.”

Wed, Apr 30, 2008

The teachers' union is continuing its push to raise gaming taxes 44 percent. The Nevada Resort Association will take the issue to the Nevada Supreme Court where the justices will review the validity of the initiative. The court date has been set for July 1, but as an industry we cannot rely upon the courts alone to protect the public's interest.

To fight the harmful effects of this initiative, former Republican Congresswoman Barbara Vucanovich and former Democratic Speaker of the Nevada State Assembly Joe Dini are chairing a bipartisan effort to stop this “tax grab” by creating a group named Nevadans Against the Tax Grab. Congresswoman Vucanovich and Speaker Dini are urging opposition to the initiative, pointing out that we all have the power to protect ourselves by not signing the teachers’ union petition.

"It's designed by one special interest group to benefit its own members at the expense of our state economy,” said Vucanovich. The“extreme proposal” would“funnel hundred of millions of tax dollars into teachers’ pockets without any proof that it's improving the education of Nevada children,”she added.

Dini said he could not think of a“worse idea.”

What does this petition mean to you? Independent and respected Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Bill Lerner sums it up best: “Ultimately, we think the end result… would be to enrich teachers at the expense of ordinary workers throughout the state, as casinos would begin to layoff employees and lower overall compensation expenses in order to manage through the likely changes.”

You may have already seen paid political operatives collecting signatures at libraries and public buildings around the state. Most of these paid signature gatherers have no idea what they are asking people to sign and cannot explain how it could damage your employer and your job.

Nevadans Against the Tax Grab wants to inform everyone about what the constitutional amendment will actually mean for Nevada. They want people to know that this is not a 3 percent increase as claimed by the teachers’ union, but a 44 percent increase in the revenue tax the gaming industry pays. And they point out that the resort industry already pays for nearly $1 billion in education funding each year and is responsible for nearly 50 percent of the state's budget.

If you want to learn more about how the teachers union petition will threaten you and your family and would like to help Congresswoman Vucanovich and Speaker Dini in their effort to stop the tax grab, please go to www.notaxgrab.com and sign up.

Wed, Apr 30, 2008

Last month, I got a call that I don’t like to take, but I always do. In fact, I haven’t had many of these calls in the past few years, but unfortunately, they are picking up. A woman was on the line, complaining that she had been laid off from a major locals casino after eight years on the job. She told me she expected more loyalty from her employer since she had given them her loyalty and effort for the past eight years.

I explained how hard times have hit Las Vegas for the first time in many years and that I sympathized with her plight. But I also explained that because payroll is invariably the largest piece of a casino’s expenses, jobs will be one of the first places to cut back. I explained that all gaming companies have investors and the duty of corporate management is to run a profitable business so investors are satisfied with the returns. Or at the very least, don’t lose more money than is necessary.

I also told her that within a year or so, those huge new behemoths on the Las Vegas Strip are going to start hiring and anyone who lost a job, will have a good chance of finding another one there or in one of the other casinos that lose workers who move to the new Strip casinos.

But as you can imagine, all my sympathy, justification and hope for the future fell on deaf ears. After all, she is facing an uncertain future with not many prospects right away. And she was understandably bitter about it.

This is a sad situation and one that everyone may confront at some time in their careers.

So what can you do to avoid this situation, or at least prepare for it?

First of all, in this situation, it’s just not enough to “do your job.” You have to make yourself even more valuable than employees who are loyal and do what is expected of them. For front-line employees, you have to deliver a quality guest experience each and every time  you interact with a customer.

Secondly, you have to show an interest in your job and your company. Talk to your supervisor often. Find out what they think about how the business is going. Discuss the type of customers who arrive. Listen to their opinion on how you should approach certain situations. A supervisor is often consulted about who may be laid off, and a genuine interest in the job and company may keep you off that list.

In these trying days, a casino or a casino company will try to cut costs in any way possible. Their goal is to cut costs without impacting customer service, but that isn’t always possible. If you make your guests wait to check in for 40 minutes because there are two less front desk clerks on duty at any given time, all your cost cutting has been for naught.

But it’s often a numbers game. I know a casino where every department was given the directive to cut costs by 10 percent. In some cases, the last ones hired are the first ones fired. In other cases, it’s a matter of your reviews and your experience.

No one likes to lose their job. But during this tough time, you can prepare for this by not getting further into debt than you already are. This is good advice even if you keep your job. With the costs of everything rising so quickly (especially gas!), it’s a smart move to keep your payments steady so that you can ride out the tough times.

Remember, this won’t last forever. The economy always bounces back. If you lose your job, there are things you can do to prepare for the future, whether it be training for a new position or resuming your education.

But the bottom line is if you pay attention to the details, there’s every chance you’ll succeed in whatever  you do.