Sh*t You May Have Missed More Than Bally’s Missed Its ‘Y’

It’s Sh*t You May Have Missed for the week ending June 30th, 2017.

Hey all, BigAZMarty here with this week’s news about our favorite place, Las Vegas! Something to note: Caesars Entertainment has for some reason, this week, a lot more news than normal…but hey they have a lot of catching up to do on MGM right?

1. Well, it looks like Las Vegas will be starting recreational Mary Jane sales this coming Saturday…just in time for 4th of July weekend. I’m just thinking of thousands of Keanu Reeves characters from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Journey (implied but never shown getting stoned) watching 4th of July fireworks and saying in unison, “Whoa Dude, Garley!” and then when it’s over “Party On Dudes!” Las Vegas Sun has an article here stating “Amsterdam on Steroids.” I’m not sure what the changes to Las Vegas will be now that it’s legal (not in Casinos or Hotel Rooms), but I’m sure it will be felt far and wide. What is really surprising is that the CEO of one of the dispensaries was previously a VP of Casino Marketing & Operations at The New Tropicana Las Vegas (pre-Penn Gaming takeover). Either that or there are two people with the same exact name in Las Vegas. UPDATE…LVSun has the approved locations for purchasing legal Mary Jane here.

2. Tipsy Robot at Miracle Mile Shops (near Cabo Wabo) is now open per Las Vegas Sun here. I suspect Vital Vegas has been there and already programmed in some Captain and Diet. Now if they can do a decent job of mixing Strawberry Daquiri’s with Malibu Rum…well it would make the missus so happy. LVRJ here has a video of the robots in action.

3. The Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con has come and gone, LVSun has daily gallery fests to view, Day 1 here, Day 2 here and finally Day 3 here. Nice to see Robin (Burt Ward) in the passenger seat of the Batmobile again (day 3). KNTV has a good cosplay gallery for the event as well here.

4. LVSun has galleries of two nights of Deana Martin; the first her “Deana Sings Dino” tribute to her father at South Point here. The second she hosts a “Man of the Hour” roast for Dennis Bono see here.

5. Aristocrat’s new HQ in Summerlin has broken ground, two buildings totaling 180K square feet. Read LVSun here. Nice to see what all those losing sessions at Walking Dead, Batman, and Britney Spear’s penny slots buys the company.

6. Sunset Station is celebrating its 20th year of existence, and LVSun has a very interesting article on how it changed Stations Casinos forever, read here. I’ve been there early on a Sunday passing some time before having lunch and continuing onto our stay on the Strip. It really is an expansive casino, and some of the items are art worthy. The Gaudi Bar is something you don’t see built much anymore…it’s all gotten sanitized and corporate. Now if they’d change their slot points to yearly instead of six-month point expiration I might play there more often (as well as The Palms, Red Rock Resort, and Green Valley Ranch Resort).

7. Remember when the Cosmo was working on the top floor high-roller rooms around New Years Day, well Bloomberg has photos and good reading on what these high roller rooms look like and what it takes to get one here. I personally think there is an almost “Delano” obsession with white in these, but it is a personal opinion….other mileage may vary.

8. Local LV millennials listen up, free or almost free pools exist in Las Vegas for party/playing in. Some are owned by a resort, some city run, see five of them here via LVSun. I remember being in LV for a weekend bachelor party weekend for a friend at the Dunes in the crappy motel buildings in the back and going down to Tropicana daily because at the time it was “The Pool” to be at in Las Vegas. Of course circa mid to late 1980’s…no room key checks or anything.

9. Bally’s is getting something new, care of the same company that runs Kiss Mini Golf at the Rio. Mini-Golf, Bowling, and an Arcade read it at LVRJ here. This will be down in the lower shopping/food area that leads back to the pool and cost a mere $323K worth of permitted construction work.

10. Woo hoo!!! Caesars is dropping plans to turn Cleopatra’s Barge into a night club per LVRJ’s Kats report here. Now if they’d just put back the aquarium at the old Seahorse Lounge and do away with the automated ice mixers and do classic blender drinks again.

11. LVRJ also reports that May was the busiest for McCarran on record (for May) with 4.2M passengers, read here.

12. If you listen to the Vital Vegas podcast linked here, there was some news of a spin-off Absinthe show to be at Bally’s. If I remember, Robin Leach wrote about this on June 12th, it was called Misbehave and would be in the old Drai’s Club Space at Bally’s. I personally never saw this location and assume it would have been down in the lower level leading to the pool or behind the escalators (there was something there but was construction walled off a year ago).  This makes two stories about Bally’s.

13. And for Bally’s story #3, Bally’s had to take down the Y for maintenance last weekend (nothing like possibly getting bonked on the head by a 300lb Y right?). Funny to a lot of people was the new name of the casino….Ball ‘s. Read ABC13 here. It looks like the specific sign was between Casserole Joint and Wahlburgers above the escalators for the over the valet/pick-up/drop-off area.

14. Next door a new show is coming to the Paris main showroom that had been shuttered since Jersey Boy’s ended their run. Circus 1903 is upcoming and TR members have been notified already by email offers so this means Caesars Entertainment is running a marketing budget for the show. Read Kats at LVRJ here for details on the show. The embedded video is good, may have to do this…and those life-sized puppet elephants are fantastic.

15. Kats also has coverage of Drai’s After Dark 20th Anniversary celebration in the basement of The Cromwell, read here. Now that’s longevity to survive several ownership changes and redos of the hotel you are based in, not a lot to survive a complete remodel of the property. Robin also got a Q & A session with Victor Drai as well here.

16. Lucky Penny 24 hour cafe at The Palms will be open starting July 1st, LVSun has a good review/write up here. Waffle grilled cheese…interesting with a bowl of tomato soup.

17. Visitation will be high this extended holiday weekend according to LVRJ here.  343,000 expected, at the bottom of the article where the bus info also has the fireworks displays and dates/times for each.

18. May gambling revenues for the state of Nevada are up again marking the 3rd consecutive month of increases, read LVRJ here. Something of note in the article that Baccarat seems to be the volatility now. Having to cover those huge swings I am betting is causing casinos to have a higher cash on hand to cover this…that would affect the bottom line as that cash can’t be used to do other things….hence parking fees, resort fees to get more available cash back into the system to make that up.

19. Not sure where and what to do this 4th of July weekend in Las Vegas? KTNV has a fairly concise list of the weekend’s events here. Note they even go out of town as well, Pahrump, Laughlin are not in Las Vegas.

20. MarC with EDGE Vegas has some new slots that are already in or coming soon to an LV casino near you (if you are in Las Vegas). Read and watch the slot videos here. I have personally played that Betty White machine at Suncoast and it’s actually a fun time and for me at least it paid more often without the big dry spells shown in the video.

So that’s if for this week’s news around town now over to our burger loving Editor-In-Chief Michael Movestro for our stuff and other items.

Thanks, BigAZMarty! Enjoy your upcoming vacation, and no worries, I’ve got your back covering SYMHM for next couple of weeks. Hi, peeps! Here’s a look at the articles we shared this week.

21. It all started on Sunday with the Vegas Bright Podcast Episode 38, where I hosted while Vinnie and Larry did Vegas Gone By: The Landmark.

22. Blonde4ever reviews Defending the Caveman at The D Las Vegas.

23. Michael James met his wife’s challenge, so they both took to the air at Fremont Street Experience’s SlotZilla.

24. Michele Di Palma lists her top picks for Vegas Pool Season.

25. LasVegasJunkie shares Part 2 of his Memorial Day Weekend Vegas Trip Report.

26. I brought you a Resorts World LVupdate as a part of the facade is put up for testing.

27. BigAZMarty brought you 98% of this article, SYMHM which you’re reading right now.

That’s gonna do it for this week; we’ll see you next week. Have a great weekend!

[Cover: Courtesy of KTNV]

BigAzMarty

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.