Category Archives: Las Vegas

Hey, check out this slide show of photos from the earlier days of Las Vegas. I wish I'd been around in those days.

As a follow-up to our report on the economy in Las Vegas, we've heard that the Golden Gate casino has finally raised the price of its famous, somewhat edible shrimp cocktail from a buck to two bucks. As explained here when I predicted this increase (an easy call), for years people visiting downtown L.V. have tramped to the back of the Golden Gate — which means they pass every slot machine in the place twice — for the sheer novelty of buying a shrimp cocktail for one dollar. I don't think too many of those folks particularly wanted a shrimp cocktail but the bargain was always too good to resist.

Then in the spring of '08, legions of cheap tourists were jolted by the news that the Golden Gate had doubled the price…but there was an "out." If you joined the Golden Gate slot club, you got your mini-crustaceans for the old price. So everyone did. The same folks traipsed to the rear of the place for the same bay shrimp at the same price. They just stopped en route at the booth where you sign up for the free membership card.

And now that deal is gone and it's two dollars for everyone. I suppose sales will not decline much since the way the economy's going, "two dollars" is the old "one dollar." It's still a bargain but it's still a shame.

It's kind of interesting what's going on with Las Vegas. The fragile economy has sent grosses plunging and the casinos are coping with it by galloping off in all directions. Most are dropping prices on rooms to the point where you can pick up some incredible bargains, especially if you go mid-week…but they're still building new hotels with higher prices. The base prices of show tickets have never been less affordable but there are more and more "half-price" ticket booths around. Cirque du Soleil has recently begun offering deep discounts and they're like half the shows in the city. Low-minimum games are disappearing and it's costing more and more to eat in that town…but if you hunt a bit and stay out of the megaresorts, you can easily find affordable slots and grub. My last trip there, my friend Tom Galloway and I had darn good steak dinners for seven bucks each.

Due to low occupancy, some hotels are literally closing down floors or whole towers. The Mirage, which is a pretty big and usually-successful place, has closed down more than a dozen floors due to low occupancy. The Sahara and I think the Riviera have closed some of their floors, as well. Binion's has shut down all their hotel rooms and is just operating the casino part of its operation. But at the same time, Planet Hollywood just opened a new 1,200 room tower while the Hard Rock, Golden Nugget and Caesars have all added new towers and a brand-new hotel/condo complex called City Center is opening incrementally. It will soon have added nearly 6,000 rooms to the game. Other expansions and new casinos are still planned. This is at a time when airlines that fly in and out of Vegas are cutting back on the number of flights.

Several other major condo projects are under construction but quite a few have been aborted. They announced, sold some rooms, perhaps started building…and then plans collapsed, leaving buyers scrambling to reclaim their deposits. That whole market is in chaos. At one point, I somehow got on the mailing list for a new condominium complex a mile or so off The Strip and they were sending me messages, urging me to purchase a one-bedroom condo for $350,000. The same folks are now trying to get me to buy the same condo for $125,000. Less than half. That's gotta make the people who did buy at the old price feel grand.

So I don't know what's going on there and you kinda get the feeling that the companies building (or not building) all these projects don't know, either. There's a casino term for a gambler who's mindlessly throwing out — and therefore, generally losing — money in the desperate hope of getting some outlier of a lucky break. They call that "streaming" and that seems to be what's going on with the financiers in Vegas these days. They're streaming.

If you aren't insistent on staying in the newest hotel to open, you can get some decent bargains there these days. Low-to-mid-range hotels will sell you a room for $25-50 a night if the night isn't Friday or Saturday. Some of the nicer places will take you in for $75-100. You just have to shop around a bit on the Internet…and here's a little tip if you think you might want to take a trip there soon…

Get yourself a special "junk mail" e-mail address at some place like GMail or Hotmail — an address you'll use only for this. Then take twenty minutes and go to the websites of all the major hotels (this page will get you to them) and sign up for every promotional e-mail list you see. Most of 'em have such a list and when they get desperate to fill rooms, that's the first place they offer the deals they maybe don't want to advertise too blatantly. I'm on some and I've received some amazing bargains, including package deals that basically give you back your entire low room fees in promotional coupons.

It's been so long since I was much of a gambler there that I don't think these offers are to get me there in the hope that I'll be wagering serious bucks. I think they're now anxious to get anyone there. It might as well be you.

In Vegas and other gambling venues, they speak of "whales" — customers who come in and wager huge sums of cash at the gaming tables. Casinos have been known to do extraordinary things in terms of gifts and personal services to keep such players coming back…especially if they're the kind of whales who consistently lose.

This article details some of what the Harrah's organization did for a gent named Terrance Watanabe, who managed to lose a shocking $5 million dollars at their casinos. That's an awful lot of money, right?

Well, I left off the end of that sentence. He lost $5 million dollars a day. His total losings came to more than $127 million.

And when I hear a total like that, I always think something like the following: At some point, this man had lost $10 million…and he kept on playing because he thought, "My luck has got to change soon." And then at $20 million, he thought, "My luck has got to change soon." And then at $30 million…

Mr. Wantanabe has paid nearly $112 million but he's refusing to pay the last $14.7, insisting the casino got him drunk and kept him that way, and also that they reneged on a promise to forgive some of his losses. He's being threatened with up to 28 years in prison and is being represented by lawyer Pierce O'Donnell. I presume this is the same Pierce O'Donnell who won the famous Art Buchwald lawsuit against Paramount Pictures and who more recently has won some major victories on behalf of victims of Hurricane Katrina. I think I'm gonna follow this case.

I'm on a number of mailing lists for Las Vegas news and others for magicians. In the last hour, I received a Vegas News bulletin that said it "doesn't look good" for Roy Horn, who was mauled by a tiger last night, and a Magic News bulletin that says he'll pull through. Naturally, we hope the latter is the case.

But I have a feeling that either way, this incident is going to have impact, above and beyond the question of whether half of "Siegfried and Roy" survives. For some time now, there's been a growing movement against performing animals. The fact that they don't have any is a major selling point for the Cirque du Soleil shows, and activists have not been unsuccessful in arguing that such acts are cruel to the animals and dangerous to humans. Now, they have a powerful debate point to emphasize the latter: Roy was as qualified as anyone alive in the handling of "big cats," more qualified than many. If he couldn't control that tiger, then the danger is probably greater than previously imagined…and not just to the trainer but to the audience, as well. Groups like P.E.T.A. have gone after circuses, especially the Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey operation, which is also involved in the Siegfried and Roy show in Vegas. It will be interesting to see how the animal rights groups use this new, tragic development. It will also be interesting to see how the circuses deflect (and probably try to head off) criticism.

For myself: I am utterly conflicted on the subject. I love animals, as evidenced by the vast legions of them I feed in my backyard.  But I eat meat and direct my charitable donations towards groups that help human beings, not wildlife. I've stopped buying leather (but still have it all over my home and car) because I decided synthetic fabrics were just as good for my purposes. I once did a TV series that booked a lot of animal acts and my observation was that the animals were generally treated pretty well.

So I honestly don't know what to think. I can see both sides of the issue. And I have a feeling we're all about to hear a lot more from both sides.