Sevened out?

People like reality TV, and people like Vegas. So, the plan seems to be, let's keep on combining the two until there is nothing else left on television. For good measure, throw in Paris Hilton's dad, millionaires, and high stakes gambling. Incredibly, this is the story from Reality TV World:

According to Daily Variety, Rick Hilton, the Hilton Hotels heir better known as the father of "celebutantes" Paris and Nicky Hilton, is preparing a reality-competition show focused on gambling entitled 777. The show will feature seven Las Vegas high-rollers who each ante up $1 million of their own cash to play, with the winner walking off with the entire $7 million pot.

Filming for the show would take place over seven days, with the contestants sharing a suite and engaging in several games of chance overseen by 777's resident "pit boss." The project is currently being pitched to networks, although it has yet to find a home.

The show came together as Rick Hilton talked to Jason Hervey, who is a producer (along with Endemol USA) of Rick's wife Kathy's upcoming NBC reality show, The Good Life. Hervey, part of Bischoff-Hervey Entertainment, connected Rick with producer Scott Sternberg (Rock & Roll Jeopardy), who was looking to make a Vegas show, and 777 was the result.

Sternberg says that he has been on the prowl for "whales" willing to ante up $1 million in return for (i) the publicity of reality TV and (ii) the chance to win $6 million. We note that this may be difficult, since they would be the real financiers of the show, but they aren't being cut in on any part of the production payments.

Paris Hilton's father Rick launches gambling reality-competition show '777'

The problem with this is that TV already has a reality show where people compete for a $5 million prize--this year's World Series of Poker. It would be better to see a "reality" show about seven millionaires who blow all of their money gambling and then have to take jobs at a casino to make ends meet. Or not. All I know is that if you've got any kind of reality TV idea connected to gambling, this is your moment.
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posted by Dave at 1:11 PM

Mergers complete

Boyd and Harrah's have finalized two separate mergers that make these two companies that much bigger. From ABCnews:

Boyd Gaming closed the $1.3 billion deal with Coast Casinos, creating the fifth-largest gambling operator in the country, while Harrah's Entertainment cemented its $1.45 billion merger with Horseshoe Gaming Holding Corp.

Harrah's now becomes the largest casino operator in the country with combined revenues of $5.1 billion. But it could quickly lose that title if regulators approve a pending merger between MGM Mirage Inc. and Mandalay Resort Group Inc.

The Boyd Gaming merger will create a powerhouse company in Las Vegas that will cater to area residents, Chairman William S. Boyd said Thursday.

"This brings us to a totally new level as one of the two major companies serving the dynamic and growing Las Vegas locals market," Boyd said in a prepared statement, referring to rival Station Casinos Inc.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Coast will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Boyd Gaming. Michael Gaughan will remain Coast's chief executive and become Boyd's second-largest shareholder.

"We built a great company and now we are joining a great company," Gaughan said.

Boyd said Gaughan's agreement to stay on in a management role was critical to the deal.

The two companies signed the merger agreement February 6 and obtained approval from gambling regulators last month. The Coast brand will remain intact and all company management will be retained.

The combined companies will keep the Boyd Gaming name and will have revenues of about $2 billion, operating 18 properties with 10,000 rooms nationwide.

In addition, Coast has a 461-room expansion under way at The Orleans and recently broke ground on a new $350 million property, which will have 700 rooms in the developing area south of Las Vegas.

Boyd Gaming has 7,600 employees in southern Nevada and 18,000 nationwide, which will be combined with Coast's 7,500 employees, all of whom work in Las Vegas.

Boyd Gaming, Harrah's Complete Mergers

This isn't really breaking news, but it's a nice reminder of the steady path towards consolidation that the industry is taking. If I were a gambling man, I'd wager that Harrah's might be looking to improve its station in life soon.
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posted by Dave at 12:59 PM

News of the inane

I love news stories that aren't news stories. I flipped on the TV this morning and saw that a local station had gone through the trouble of sending a crew out to the freeway to interview a police official who had some startling news: With more people driving and more cars on the road, there might be more accidents this weekend. You think?

Then I flipped over to the national all-news networks, and it wasn't much better. Three channels devoted time this morning to talking about the lottery. With our country currently involved in two wars, national elections a few months off, and dozens of other major issues, the freaking lottery was a news story.

Here's the print version, from the Albany Times-Union:

George Frany Jr. hasn't bought his ticket yet. But have no doubts, he will.
A lottery skeptic, Frany knows better than anyone that his chances of winning $290 million in tonight's Mega Millions jackpot aren't good. Since the jackpot hit $200 million, he's seen hundreds of hopeful multimillionaires walk through his convenience store door to dish out as much as $50 on tickets and strategically fill in the little numbered boxes with parents' birthdays and children's ages.

"It's strange. At $3 million, people will say, 'I'm not going to bother,' " said Frany, owner of a Mobil gas station on Delaware Avenue. "But now their odds are five times worse because the tickets are so hot."

From behind his convenience store counter, it's easy for Frany to shake his head at the unlikely dreams of his customers.

But it's hard to ignore the scrolling marquee on his cash register that, in flashing multicolored figures, repeatedly reminds everyone who passes that they could win "$290 million" and encourages them to "Play Now!!"

So Frany's buying his Mega Millions ticket today. Though barely of legal age, 18-year-old George Frany III has already purchased $10 worth using the $7 he won when he matched three numbers in the $210 million jackpot.

With 400,000 Mega Millions tickets selling per hour in New York alone, the Franys are far from alone in their guilty pleasure. The odds of winning today's jackpot are 1 in 135,145,920.

For a shot at $290M, you bet they're irrational

It's funny that, for years, anti-gamblers attacked the numbers as the most pernicious form of gambling, with the worst odds. Now that state governments profit from it, it's impossible to make it through breakfast without listening to "newscasters" basically promoting the lottery.

I wouldn't dwell on this, but the line between news and stupid is getting very blurry. One news network actually ran an extended piece on, "What would you do with $300 million." Gee, let me think...buy stuff? How is this a news story? Of course, before the lottery, everyone will talk about all of the charitable work they will do, because they're trying to curry divine or karmic favor (just like people heading into casinos, who need a little luck, are usually more polite than those heading out). But I guarantee that most people think "car, boat, expensive electronics."

Of course, what I would do with the money would be a legitimate news story--I'd buy the Boardwalk casino and turn it into a living carnival of the absurd.

If I played the lottery and won, this might be mine.

I don't know exactly what I would do with the property (besides retaining the evil clown facade), but isn't it fun to dream? I wouldn't dream of taking up bandwidth with musings like these, but apparently dreamy speculation is considered hard news today.
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posted by Dave at 10:19 AM

Best Vegas story...

...I've read in a newspaper in a while. While I'm quick to pounce on what I perceive as uninspired or erroneous reporting (check out USA 5 minutes ago or Dogs not playing poker), I'm also the first to recognize excellence.
The piece in question concerns a lesser-known Las Vegas casino, the Western. Adam Goldman, an AP writer whose work has not gone unnoticed here, has wriiten a real gem about that casino. Here's a sample, from the LV SUN:

On a stretch of despair that tourists in Las Vegas seldom see, the Western Hotel-Casino stands out as a beacon for the broke and nearly broken.

With their crumpled dollars and gloomy gait, they stumble in off Fremont Street through the wide, doorless entrance, beckoned by the sounds of penny slot machines and cheap table games.

The Western is a poor man's dream, a downtown casino where sad Las Vegas cliches collide.

"This is the underbelly of Vegas," said 28-year-old Byron Hilton, who was playing $2 blackjack on a recent Friday night. "This is not the Strip."

There is no uniformed valet parking Porsches here. Instead they come on foot, in beat-up cars and wobbly bicycles. For many, it's been a short journey to the Western.

The boxy structure is planted among a slew of low-income houses and budget motels -- the Downtowner, the Uptown and the incongruous Lucky. The Western feeds from one of the city's bleakest ZIP codes, stained by high poverty and unemployment rates.

Inside they gamble, pouring nickels and quarters down the throats of always hungry machines.

The roulette table sees an occasional gambler, but the blackjack tables -- marred by cigarette burns and beer stains -- get plenty of action at minimum $1, $2 and $5 bets.

"You can't win no money here," said 38-year-old Ace, who has frequented the Western since 1995, the same year he said he "pulled a job" in Reno, and had to get out of town "real quick."

In the early morning weekend hours, the smoke hangs in the air like a veil, a giant gray cloud that wraps itself around the customers. The booze is working its sleepy magic.

Gritty Western casino survives in 'the underbelly' of Las Vegas

Seriously, this deserves better than a daily newspaper--I could definitely see it expanded in the New Yorker. This is about a thousand times better than most of the casino stories running today. Click through and read the entire story--you will be glad you did.

For some visuals, I have a photo I took of the area around the Western a while ago:

It isn't much, but you get the idea.
This is the Vegas that you won't see on reality TV, but these stories are just as important as those of high rollers, vacationing frat boys, and ambitious executives.
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posted by Dave at 10:02 AM

U.S./Antigua settlement?

The United States and Antigua might be able to settle their dispute over the legality of Internet gaming out of court. From Reuters.com:

The United States and Antigua have suspended litigation over Internet gambling and want to resolve the World Trade Organization dispute through negotiations, an American official said on Tuesday.
"We look forward to working with Antigua to discuss the issues surrounding the dispute and hopefully to resolving it," said Richard Mills, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office.

Tiny Antigua and Barbuda successfully challenged the U.S. ban on Internet gambling, U.S. trade officials said in April. At the time, the officials said the Bush administration planned to appeal the WTO confidential ruling.

Online gambling is growing rapidly worldwide, with spending of around $7.5 billion this year, according to industry estimates.

Antigua stands to capture only a small portion of that total. But the twin-island Caribbean country, one of the smallest in the world with a population of about 67,000, has been trying to build an offshore casino industry to offset declining tourism.

The WTO panel found that the United States' ban on Internet, telephone and other remote gambling services violated U.S. trade commitments, according to sources last spring.

While the WTO panel agreed that the American prohibitions were designed to protect public morals and public order, it faulted the United States for failing to negotiate with Antigua on alternatives to the ban.


US News Article | Reuters.com

This is another twist in the developing story of online gaming's legal status in the U.S. Should the U.S. agree that foreign companies can accept bets from American citizens, there would seem to be no reason why American companies couldn't do the same, leading to the rapid entry of Las Vegas-based casino companies into serious online wagering.
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posted by Dave at 9:53 AM

Over-exposed?

It seems that Las Vegas is everywhere these days...at least to people who watch television. From my perspective, Las Vegas is everywhere because I live here. With all of this media exposure, it was only a matter of time before a backlash began. Here's a sample from a website called "TV Barn." It sounds like a retail discount center, but it appears to be the online haunt of television critics. The general gist of the piece is:

Just for the hell of it, though, I plugged “Las Vegas” into my TiVo’s subject guide and hit “search.” It pulled up more than a hundred entries, before moving into a second week’s programming. Naturally, most of the titles were on the Travel Channel, which seemingly couldn’t exist without at least one Las Vegas reference every half-hour or so. Indeed, some of the shows were so old and dusty that a hotel publicist interviewed for one show was shown an hour later representing a completely different property.

In another bizarre coincidence, at the same time that Discovery’s “American Casino” was examining the intricacies of invitational slot tournaments, the same cultural phenomenon was being dissected on Travel’s “Non-Stop Slots.” I’ve competed in these tournaments and am living proof that, while fun, they’re about as fascinating as your average dunking booth at the county fair, and absolutely no skill is required.

Then, too, the Weather Channel is doing a special this Wednesday on a surprise storm that swamped the Strip. Comedian Dave Attell is staying up late for the Comedy Channel to mind-meld with denizens of the Strip. “Bugsy” is being shown on Encore, while “Lives of Crime” is profiling the visionary gangster on Biography. Over on TBS, via the miracle of taped reruns, the “Saved by the Bell: the College Years” gang will once again visit Sin City. Meanwhile, the Science Channel is taking viewers on a high-tech tour of several hotels; A&E’s “Airline” is making a stopover at McCarron; E! will revisit Evel Knievel’s motorcycle jump at Caesars; and, by popular demand, “Showgirls” is airing on the Sundance Channel. (Wait, that’s got to be a mistake … Sundance?)

And that’s just this week, not counting the countless hours devoted to poker, blackjack, billiards, martial arts, NASCAR and a dozen other Vegas-centric shows on Travel. Fewer cop shows have been set in Los Angeles in the last 10 years than the number of pseudo-documentaries about Sin City.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s occasional Shooting Stars column, the end is nowhere in sight. Coming up is a Discovery documentary at a local addiction-recovery center; a music video from country singer Dierks Bentley, staged at the Fremont Street Experience; Britain’s QVC UK channel, which is in town shooting “Las Vegas Gems Lifestyle”; an Italian feature film, “A Dream Called Las Vegas”; a comedy, “The Indie-Pendant,” about an “embattled” independent filmmaker; TBS’ new reality series “All American Man,” in which several blokes are separated from their wives or girlfriends (or both) for three weeks; and a Swiss soft-drink commercial. Sandra Bullock just wrapped location shooting for “Miss Congeniality 2.”

Forget “Hollywood East” — Las Vegas is becoming America’s Bollywood.


TV Barn | Will the last camera crew to leave Las Vegas please turn out the lights

The author, Gary Dretzka, touches on a point that I've mentioned to anyone who will listen: the reality is that casinos are, for the most part, just as boring as anywhere else. When you are working on the casino floor, waiting for your break so you can get off your feet for a few minutes, reality is far from enticing: you are mostly watching people doing the same things over and over again. Of course, every now and then, something exciting happens, which makes it all worthwhile.

Gambling itself, as many might not be aware, is also not as exciting as seen on TV. People who watch ESPN's televised coverage of the World Series of Poker might think that every hand features bold bluffing and drama on the river, but it is important to remember that, out of hundreds of hands, only a few make it to the show. Serious poker players know this.

In sum, there are definitely interesting stories in Las Vegas, but there are also a lot of uninteresting ones. But hey, if you've got so little happening in your own reality that you need to watch "reality TV," you could do worse.
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posted by Dave at 9:35 AM

Drive-through lottery: real or satire?

Today's other news story, riverboat horseracing, seems to be out-and-out whimsy. But what about this one? I pulled it off the LV Sun site, and it is credited to the AP. But I think that this could be published in The Onion pretty much as is:

There's no fuzzy intercom and you can't "super size" it, but a new drive-through dedicated almost entirely to selling lottery tickets has popped up near the North Carolina state line.

The DriveThru Lottery I-777 has been open about a month, selling everything from scratch-off games and Powerball tickets to cigarettes and soda. It's off Interstate 77 near the Carowinds amusement park less than a mile inside South Carolina, where the lottery is legal.

A menu board picturing some 20 scratch-off games greets customers just like a fast-food restaurant, but instead of speaking blindly into an intercom, the player drives up to the window and places an order with an attendant.

Some folks drive away before playing, while others scratch off their tickets and drive back around to collect their winnings.

"I'll come through there and cash them in next time," said Alonzo McKinney, who decided to walk into the store on a recent afternoon and buy $50 worth of $2 Weekly Bonus scratch-off games. "I just wanted to come in and see how it looked."

The inside is mostly bare with a few electronic machines that offer sweepstakes games and jackpots worth up to $1,000. There's also a television to watch the drawings and countertops where customers can sit to scratch off cards or pick numbers.

A back room offers quiet for serious players who want to think about the numbers and make calculations, said Chad Sangaree, who along with Randy Salter opened the DriveThru Lottery.

The article's final paragraphs seem more like a desperate cry for help than any kind of "entertainment." Is this for real?

Rasheda Nicholson, 27, rushed in just before the midday drawings.

Extinguishing a cigarette, the courier company owner looked at her scratch piece of paper of calculations.

Unfortunately, Nicholson couldn't get her numbers in before the deadline and she paced around the building dejected.

"I don't believe in luck. Luck is when you win the lottery and didn't buy a ticket," said Nicholson, who once won $10,000 playing Pick 3.

Drive-through lottery store opens

The next time someone seems a little down, I'll cheer them up by saying, "Luck is when you when the lottery and didn't buy a ticket." That sounds like a lottery ad from Bizarro world. The whole story has a touch of the surreal and I would not be surprised in the least to find that it is all a fabrication. Then again, I would be just as unsurprised if it were real. We live in a rapidly-changing world.
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posted by Dave at 3:40 PM

Riverboat horseracing exposed!

Or, I'm going to try to expose it before it gets out of hand. I read a few months ago that an international paper picked up a story that ran in The Onion as a legitimate news story. Apparently someone was reading the online site without figuring out that it was a satire.

I can only imagine the phone calls I'll get if this news item gets into general circulation. Under the headline "Riverboat horseracing fails utterly, the June 30 2004 Onion had this gem:

Owners of the nation's first riverboat-horseracing facility announced its closure Tuesday, minutes after the inaugural race. "I guess we planned it pretty poorly," said Ronald Frisch, president and CEO of Gambling Concepts Unlimited. "We figured that once we opened the dining-room doors, the horses would know to race through the grand buffet room to the other side of the boat." Twenty-five people were trampled to death in the chaos that resulted, and eight horses drowned when they fell from the riverboat's lower deck. Gambling Concepts Unlimited officials said they still plan to hold next month's airborne rodeo as scheduled.

Thankfully, this story is false. I wouldn't even bother to mention it, but I get more than my fair share of emails and phone calls about stories of dubious merit. A while ago, I even speculated about the existence of a "giant alien base" under the Strip. One can only hope that the subtlties of satire are not lost on everyone.
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posted by Dave at 3:26 PM

Taj bans kids!

One of the most frustrating things about working casino security was, for me, the fact that people brought their children to the casino, parked them in the lobby or corridor, and then planted themselves in front of a slot machine for five hours. I've always thought that this showed incredibly bad judgement, and I made it a point to let particularly egregious offenders know. In plain English, small children have no business being in a casino, where people are gambling, smoking, and drinking.

Now, my Atlantic City alma mater Trump Taj Mahal has taken a step forward by excluding children. From the AC Press:

Beginning Thursday, the casino will ban children younger than 18 unless they are registered hotel guests. Exceptions will also be made for children who are attending a show or convention, or are having dinner at the Taj Mahal's gourmet restaurants.

"Gaming is for adults. Gaming halls are for adults. They are not for children," said Mark A. Brown, president and chief executive officer of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc.

Brown explained that the Taj Mahal has been overrun by throngs of children pouring into the casino from the Boardwalk, the beaches and, most of all, the adjacent Steel Pier amusement arcade.
Rick Santoro, Trump senior vice president of corporate security, said the casino should not be considered anti-family and has no objections to the operation of the Steel Pier amusement site. However, he was critical of parents who allow their children to hang around the Taj Mahal's lobby and other public places while they indulge in gambling.

"By no means do we believe the Steel Pier is a bad thing. It's excellent for the city," Santoro said. "But the side-effect is that some people who patronize the building are irresponsible."

Brown estimated the new policy will cost about $300,000 a year to operate, mainly to pay for new security guards. Signs have already been posted at the Taj Mahal warning patrons that children will not be allowed. Extra security guards will be stationed at entrances and the fringes of the property to prevent children from slipping inside.

"We've added about 13 people," Santoro said. "We think at first it will take that many people at any one time to enforce the policy. But afterward, once word gets out, it should take fewer people."

The Taj isn't the first Atlantic City casino to adopt this policy:

Last year, the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa became the city's first gaming hall to prohibit anyone under 18 years old. Exceptions are made for registered hotel guests and children accompanied by adults at shows, conventions and restaurants. Borgata spokesman Michael Facenda said the policy has been a success and has met with very little resistance from casino patrons.

"We initiated the program very shortly after our grand opening after studying what was going on around town as it relates to children," Facenda said. "Our findings were that (casinos) were struggling to address the abandoned-child situation and it was our intention to avoid that problem."

The gaming industry nationwide has been tainted by tales of children who have been abandoned or abducted in or near casinos while their parents were preoccupied with the action at the slot machines.

"It's something that has come up a number of times in the past," said Daniel Heneghan, a spokesman for the state Casino Control Commission, which regulates Atlantic City's gaming industry.

One notorious case in Nevada in 1997 involved a 7-year-old girl who was raped and strangled in a casino restroom by a teenage boy while her father gambled.

In another case that drew national attention, a mother left her 10-day-old baby in a sweltering parked car while she played video poker for two hours at a South Carolina casino. The baby died of dehydration, which led to her mother pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
Taj bans children under 18 Gamblers’ complaints sparked policy, casino says

This is exactly the kind of policy that I would introduce if, through some strange turn of events, I was put in charge of a major casino resort. While the policy may inconvenience adults who want to gamble, it is definitely in the children's best interest. Since some people apparently lack the good judgement to voluntarily leave their children at home when they visit the casino, I think that more casinos might begin banning underage kids. If I'm not mistaken, the Bellagio already does this.
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posted by Dave at 3:22 PM

Celebrity poker

On Friday, June 25, I left work as usual but stopped off at the Hard Rock to catch the first ever "Hard Rock Celebrity Pro-Am Poker Tournament." The tournament was sponsored by partypoker.com, and gave amatuer players the chance to go head-to-head with celebs and poker pros.

Here are some of the celebs in attendance:

Jennifer Tilly, Linda Johnson, and other people who are probably celebrities as well.

Gary Busey and "Big Chuck" of The Casino fame.

As a media member, I got to talk to the celebs and learned some interesting things. For example, Gary Busey's favorite poker movie is The Cincinatti Kid, and he's played poker all of his life. Jennifer Tilly, in addition to playing on TV and with friends in Hollywood, plays online. Who would have thought it?

Big Chuck had an interesting story to tell. Apparently, he is going to be returning to the small screen in future episodes of The Casino. He seemed to take everything in stride, and was actually the antithesis of the character who got airtime on the show a few weeks ago--very down to earth and easy-going. My guess is that his career as a "casino instructor" is getting off to a great start.

This tournament had an interesting feature: all of the pros were given dog tags, and if an amatuer "took down" a pro, they got to keep the tags as well as a $100 bounty.

The eventual winner was Dan Alspach of La Jolla, CA, who walked away with $25,000. Barry Tannenbaum, who gave a primer on tournament no limit holdem before the big show, proved that he knows his stuff by finishing in the money as well.

The event seemed to generate a lot of interest. Maybe it will become a semi-regular thing.
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posted by Dave at 10:02 AM