Dave

Writer, historian, and teacher.

2010-11 gaming fellowships

Good news: we are able to offer the research felllowship program for the 2010-11 academic year. Here is the job announcement: The Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas http://gaming.unlv.edu invites graduate students and academic faculty to apply for month-long residency fellowships. Fellows will spend one month doing research at UNLV […]

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gambling & culture, what's new

AC: Moving forward

A few more thoughts about Atlantic City, culled from a few Advisers to Gov. Chris Christie have called for casino regulatory reform, a public-private Atlantic City marketing initiative and possible state intervention in city government as ways to save New Jersey’s casino industry from competition and its “failed” business model. On Friday, Christie released 19

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atlantic city, news about gambling

Book review: America, Welcome to the Poorhouse

Jane White. America, Welcome to the Poorhouse: What You Must Do to Protect Your Financial Future and the Reform We Need. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: FT Press, 2010. 247 pages. I’m leery of anyone who tells you what bad shape you’re in, then says that they and only they can help you get out

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book reviews

PA slots > AC slots

There’s another negative milestone for Atlantic City slots: in December, they got less play than slots in Pennsylvania. From the AC Press: Gamblers are putting more money into slot machines in Pennsylvania than they are in Atlantic City.The Gaming Industry Observer says December was the first month ever that slot-machine handle in Pennsylvania surpassed Atlantic

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atlantic city, news about gambling

Book Review: A Desert Gardener’s Companion

Kim Nelson. A Desert Gardener’s Companion. Tucson, Arizona. Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2001. 328 pages. Gardening in a desert isn’t easy, but in A DESERT GARDENER’S COMPANION, Kim Nelson offers helpful advice about how to tend trees, flowers, vegetables, and herbs in the arid southwest. Written from her Arizonan perspective, it’s nonetheless valuable to those who

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book reviews

I’m gobsmacked

Breaking news from the LVRJ: Penn National Gaming will not submit a bid for next week’s planned bankruptcy court auction of the shuttered Fontainebleau project, a company spokesman said Thursday. via Penn won’t pursue Fontainebleau – Breaking News – ReviewJournal.com. What? I don’t believe this. It was supposed to be a sure thing! This is

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news about gambling

Why it pays to under-promise and over-deliver

…rather than the opposite, as this incident–unfortunately caught live on camera–from CES shows: Reporter Dan Simmons from the BBCs technology show Click managed to break a mobile phone marketed as “unbreakable”, during a demonstration at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. via BBC News – Reporter breaks an unbreakable mobile phone at CES. Click

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haphazard world, life in vegas

A November to remember

Things are looking up in Nevada for the first time in a long time. The state’s casinos won more money from gamblers this November than they did last November. Yet there may be another story that isn’t as positive lurking beneath the numbers. From the LVRJ: For the first time in 23 months, Nevada gaming

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news about gambling

AC had a bad 2009

The Atlantic City gaming numbers are in, and 2009 was definitely not pretty. From the AC Press: Casino revenue plunged for the third straight year in 2009, falling below $4 billion for the first time since 1997 as the soft economy and competition from neighboring slot parlors continue to erode the Atlantic City market. Year-end

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atlantic city, news about gambling

Book Review: The Book of Fathers

Miklos Vamos. The Book of Fathers. Translated by Peter Sherwood. New York: Other Press, 2009. 480 pages. This is a thoroughly Hungarian novel that has some crossover appeal, particularly if you think 19th century Russian novels are too light-hearted. Twenty pages in, an entire village is laid waste, not for any strategic military objective, but

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book reviews

AC tabled by PA

Great news for Pennsylvanians who like to play table games, bad news for Atlantic City, as Pennsylvania has, to no one’s surprise, approved table gaming. Here’s the reaction from the AC Press: Pennsylvania’s slot parlors won’t stop at table games as they prepare to evolve into Atlantic City-style resort casinos in a fierce battle with

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atlantic city, news about gambling

New direction for casino themes?

Did you know that there is a casino named the Las Vegas Sun? It’s in Cambodia, according to casinocity.com: Las Vegas Sun Hotel & Casino Address Chantrea District Bavet, Svaay Rieng Cambodia Contact Information General Information – +855 44 945 045 Las Vegas Sun Hotel & Casino Hotel * Las Vegas Sun Hotel (Casino located

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news about gambling

ACG podcast interview

If you’re curious, here’s another podcast interview that I’ve done in the past few weeks, with American Casino Guide: For the January podcast Steve interviews David Schwartz, Director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. They discuss some of the materials contained in the Gaming Research collection, plus

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what's new

Test your risk intelligence

Back in the summer I interviewed Dylan Evans for the UNLV Gaming Podcast. His main area of current research is risk intelligence. He’s set up a website where you can test your own risk intelligence. Here are the details: Risk Intelligence Quotient RQ is a measure of a person’s ability to estimate probabilities accurately. People

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gambling & culture

Words from the past

Speaking of dark and gloomy, here’s a quote from the day before Mirage opened back in 1989, from the LA Times via proquest: At the same time, though, the new competition is expected to drive struggling gambling halls out of business.”There’;s going to be a shakeout,” said Glenn S. Schaeffer, chief financial officer of Circus

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news about gambling

Book Review: Waiting on a Train

James McCommons. Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 285 pages. Transportation is a big part of the American national character. We’ve all learned how canals helped to tie the fledgling United States together in the ante-bellum period and railroads did the same

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book reviews

Post-Pinnacle AC=Post-war Berlin

Here’s a holiday update on the status of Pinnacle’s much-ballyhooed Atlantic City project. Remember the billboards? From the AC Press: The site has become yet another vacant city lot, a prominent symbol of broken promises and the weak economy.Fences line the gravel lot dotted with weeds and a few scattered slabs of old concrete. Local

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atlantic city, news about gambling