Sh*t You May Have Missed While The Roof Was On Fire
It’s SYMHM in Las Vegas news from April 14th to the 20th, 2017.
Hey, all! BigAZMarty here with last week’s happenings around our favorite place, Las Vegas.
1. Bellagio caught fire during one of the fountain shows and some people actually thought it was part of the show. Read LV Sun here. Damages of $450K to the facade, roof of the restaurant, and shopping area on the corner of LV Blvd and Flamingo. While it did look similar to the Monte Carlo fire in 2009, LVRJ is saying they are looking at the electrical systems here. Finally, it was determined that a faulty light fixture was to blame. Read LVRJ here….look at the gallery as that section of Bellagio has been “brown bagged” until repairs can be made. HA…never thought I’d ever be able to use Bellagio and brown bagged in the same sentence.
2. LVRJ covers the 10 most notable fires in Las Vegas as well as some videos where available (including #1 above). Read and view here.
3. I had this to report last week with the Plaza Pickleball item and then completely forgot the source and couldn’t find it again (thanks, MarC from EDGE Vegas, who had the link in one of his many TravelZork articles). So a year after a major redo of the Plaza Pool Deck, they ain’t done-a-tweak’n it yet with $25k more in pool furniture to put around the pool area. Read VegasNews here. Further down in the article a little Palm Springs at the Plaza? You bet as five new Poolside Suites come online just in time for summer. I’d like to see the Poolside Suites first though, the bathroom design needs to be much better than the regular rooms before I’d pay that much. The room picture is of the glass and the small furniture-less patio for the room to the pool deck. The square footage matches the Junior Suite, so it might be a decent value if you want to pool party from 8 PM to 1 AM and swerve to your room without leaving the pool deck. Being a SoCal guy when Palm Springs was spring break HQ for SoCal (RIP ~1990, after extreme policing activities). I remember groups of us renting out some of the condos and the patio decks would open right to the center pool areas for easy access.
4. Is Roulette making a comeback due to millennials? Sounds like it. As visitation increases, those wheels are making cash for the casinos. Read LVSun (Vegas, Inc.) here.
5. Here is why you don’t use more than one Social Security number (re: Vegas Dave) when making bets, and it’s interesting info that you just never really think about. Casinos are considered BANKS. Read LVSun (via Vegas, Inc.) here. It’s interesting that the IRS gets involved when that happens even if the bet was considered legal and you won using another number when making the bet… you lose millions and will probably serve time.
6. Are Fertitta sisters getting famous via a Fashion Blog? Yes, read LVWeekly here. These siblings also work in the family business….you know, Red Rocks Resorts (formerly Stations Casinos)? If you want to actually see the blog here is the link…looks to appeal to female teen/young adult demographic.
7. Sad as it’s gone to the lawyers, but Westgate is still holding onto the Elvis memorabilia that was part of the Graceland display that closed up at Westgate. The judge told Graceland to pony up the $9M bond to get stuff back….Graceland pursued another avenue and it’s still at WestGate in storage. Just sad, read LVSun here.
8. An interesting juxtaposition of CEO earnings for Caesars (CZR) and Caesars Acquisition Corporation (CAC). CAC is the company that was started anew and property sold to it from CEOC (the bankrupt division)….it is in the process of getting merged with CZR as part of the CEOC Bankruptcy plan. Mitch Garber CEO of CAC, just got a huge payday from the sale of the Playtika portion of Caesars Interactive Entertainment to the tune of almost $100M for last year read LVRJ here. Oh, and by the way, he’s the CEO of Cirque du Soleil now as well. Now for the CZR side….CZR CEO Mark Frissora is making 26% LESS than he did last year at $9.5M read LVRJ here. What’s really interesting, and just a footnote in the article is that Chairman of the Board for CZR Gary Loveman dropped way down…from $76M for the previous year to just $6M for the latest year….a $70M drop…no wonder he’s been doing side jobs outside of the casino industry. Of course, by next year none of them may be around as Apollo and TPG will no longer be majority shareholders and will not have board majority fairly quickly due to that.
9. Very interesting in that it could compete or possibly beat Las Vegas–an Osaka Strip for casino properties is being discussed by Japan, read LVRJ here. So much gambling being planned in Asia, when will it hit the saturation point?
10. J.K. Houssels, Jr. passed away, read LVRJ article here, an interesting historical read of someone that was pretty much raised in Las Vegas and watched and helped it become what it is today. Condolences to his family.
11. Changes at the top of the Hakkasan business ladder as Neil Moffit leaves and Nick McCabe replaces him as CEO. Read LVRJ here. No sure if this will affect the merger with SBE at all, but wonder who is going to be top dog after that merger?
12. Mandalay Bay’s expanded convention center is up and fully running now, read LVRJ here. Huge margins for food and drink catering for MGM as this convention center is now the 5th largest in the U.S.A. by space. My that’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen…read for details.
13. IGT selling the Double Down social gaming portion of the business for $825M to Seoul-based DoubleU Games Co, Ltd. read LVRJ here.
14. See? Charging for parking does get the CEO more money….MGM CEO gets a 25% increase in pay, read LVRJ here. That and $5 coffee kits (paper cup, K-Cup, sweetener, creamer and probably a small stir stick…maybe $1 for it all in costs…and huge profit margin) for Keurigs in the rooms.
15. Vital Vegas has renderings of a possible new resort to be built on MGM’s Rock In Rio festival grounds. Read and see here. Just one observation to the people who decide to build this….lose the steps. Heck even Planet Hollywood has issues getting people in the casino/shopping due to those steps and this looks like a Sh*t Ton more of them. If they do it, I am betting they will suddenly put in escalators and ruining the look. Oh, as for the Cricket Fighting PETA meet AEPA, AEPA, PETA. As for the guessing of the site….even the former Alon site kinda has that shape.
16. Vital Vegas also has some drone shots of the deconstruction of the old buildings next to the Neon Museum that was removed for the new expansion, read and see here.
17. Vital Vegas spent a whole lot of time with the Gamblit folks at Planet Hollywood and has an excellent write up on skill-based gaming machines here with photos and everything. I actually was not that impressed with it…think you can have more return on real BlackJack and Video Poker. Read and see here.
18. Vital Vegas also has some fun with interesting facts about the movie “Casino” here.
19. Vital Vegas has some info on the Smith and Wollensky Steak House closing on the strip just down from MGM Grand. Read here……I remember that building when it wasn’t so close to that mall and had a really big parking lot right there where the building next door now stands. I’d say parking access is probably why it’s not heard from anymore. That parking lot used to be rather full when it existed.
20. Per Vital Vegas twitter feed….someone hit the Royal on the DDB VP $10 machine at Harrah’s on 4/19 for $40K. And it’s a 9/5 machine to boot. See here. Congrats to whoever hit that…and hopefully they did it fairly early to enjoy eating, exploring and shopping for the rest of the trip. Remember Mama always needs a new pair of shoes!
[Photo: Sean N Kim]
A computer professional who has worked at several types of positions with several different businesses and still learning and changing.
Introduced properly to Las Vegas and Laughlin by the spouse and have been going ever since 1990.
A frequent visitor from not to far away where it’s almost always 10 degrees warmer than Vegas.
