This week in Vegas Seven, I also consider the Mob Museum’s first year: But the Mob Museum—together with the 2012 openings of The Smith Center and the Neon Museum—signaled a new era for Las Vegas’ cultural institutions, and a commitment to Downtown. These institutions have deeper local roots, and it seems more likely that they’ll […]
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Vegas SevenThis week in Vegas Seven, my “Seven Questions” interview with Tom Breitling is running: Tom Breitling’s career started humbly enough: In the early 1990s, he was a sportscaster and weatherman for a TV station … in Barstow. By decade’s end, Breitling had surfed the dot-com boom to a multimillion-dollar payout, which came in 2000 when
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Vegas Seven, writingThis week, I’ve got four pieces in Vegas Seven magazine. The first is the Green Felt Journal, where I take a look at whether nightclubs are reaching a saturation point: If there’s a proven moneymaker on the Las Vegas Strip today, it’s a top-flight nightclub. With tremendous margins on bottle service and measureless lines of
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Vegas Seven, writingIn this week’s Green Felt Journal, I take a look at what lies ahead for Las Vegas in 2013. Seem like the right time: The New Year has its restorative elements—the celebrations, the resolutions, the fresh hopes. But, against the background of the Great Recession, it’s also another occasion to fret about what lies ahead
The Strip in 2013: Recovery and Retrenchment in Vegas Seven Read More »
Vegas SevenVegas Seven’s nightclub issue is out today! And what better topic for the Green Felt Journal than…casinos without nightclubs: If you’ve been on the Strip in the past five years, you know that nightclubs are front-and-center at most big resorts. Which begs the question: What’s a Vegas casino look like today when you subtract the
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Vegas SevenToday’s Green Felt Journal in Vegas Seven is a look back at 2012: The people who run Las Vegas casinos were expecting a lot in 2012: a return to prosperity on the Strip, a revival downtown and a federal framework for online poker. They didn’t get everything they wanted, but at the end of the
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Vegas Seven, writingThis week, I’ve been honored with another cover story in Vegas Seven magazine. Here, I step a little bit away from the gambling beat and investigate the past and potential future of National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas: The Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, which comes to the Thomas & Mack Center Dec. 6-15, is like
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Vegas Seven, writingLast week’s Green Felt Journal in Vegas Seven took a look at how the repurposing of a nondescript piece of commercial real estate just west of the Strip is full of significance: The 20,000-square-foot converted warehouse’s history is just as interesting as its future. Before the new tenants started moving in, the building was the
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Vegas SevenIn addition to the cover feature, I’ve got a Green Felt Journal in this week’s Vegas Seven that takes us behind the scenes, into William Hill’s sports betting war room: It’s 8:30 on a Sunday morning in October, but for the crew of bookmakers at William Hill headquarters on Grier Drive, just south of McCarran,
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Vegas Seven, writingThis week, I’m privileged to have a cover story in Vegas Seven. It’s about the mostly-unsung hotelier who, I think, is the real discoverer of the Las Vegas Strip, Thomas Hull: The natural advantages of Las Vegas, Fisher said, would make it “the metropolis of Nevada,” but only if properly pushed: “If a good hotel
The Columbus of Highway 91 in Vegas Seven Read More »
Vegas Seven, writingLast week, Mike Colbert’s arrest was big news. I commented about it pretty extensively in a few places, but I didn’t have time until yesterday to pull my thoughts together and put them down in one place. The result is a Vegas Seven blog post: The arrest last week of 25 people—including Cantor Gaming’s sports
Colbert Arrest Highlights Hypocrisy of Prohibition in Vegas Seven Read More »
Vegas SevenThe rare Celine Dion headline title drop for a Vegas Seven piece this week. It’s about Professional Bull Riding: We’re used to early December being rodeo time in Las Vegas; that’s when the National Finals Rodeo takes over the town. But NFR’s not-so-little cousin, Professional Bull Riders’ Built Ford Tough World Finals, shakes the ground
With PBR, Rodeo’s Heart Will Go On in Vegas Seven Read More »
Vegas SevenThis week, Vegas Seven published its Storytelling Issue. The theme is “I Fought the Law, ” and in the Latest Thought, I discuss who and what the real Moe Daltiz was…and wasn’t: In the CBS version of Las Vegas in the 1960s, it’s pretty easy to know who the bad guy is: Michael Chiklis’ mobbed-up
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Vegas Seven, writingThis is probably the last literary spinoff from G2E: a piece in today’s Vegas Seven about the man behind the music in many Las Vegas casinos: Here’s the funny thing about music in public places: If it’s working the way it should, you don’t even notice it on a conscious level. There’s just an extra
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Vegas Seven, writingIn this week’s Vegas Seven, I have a Latest Thought about a Downtown preservation effort that, I think, says a lot about what the city is becoming: Which is why it’s interesting to see what new arrivals to Las Vegas notice the most. Slots in convenience stores? Franchise pawnshops? Tap water that’s somewhere north of
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life in vegas, Vegas SevenIn this week’s Green Felt Journal, I take a look at the origin of the Fremont Street Experience: Fremont Street and the downtown casinos might be on the verge of a renaissance. Several casinos have reinvented themselves with renovations and expansions that try to blend nostalgia, modern comforts and value. But this isn’t the first
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life in vegas, Vegas Seven, writingIn this week’s Green Felt Journal, I take a look at where poker stands in September 2012. On one hand, live poker’s been on the decline for a few years. On the other, online poker is, some feel, going to transform the state’s economy. Here’s where we are: Nevada poker is in an odd place.
Poker’s Perilous Perch in Vegas Seven Read More »
Vegas Seven, writingWhen I heard that South Point Poker,, LLC, had been awarded the first license as an online poker provider in Nevada, I was immediately curious about the company: who were the people making this historic step? Everyone knows Michael Gaughan, but I had a feeling he wasn’t coding the site in his spare time. So
South Point Puts It On (the) Line in Vegas Seven Read More »
Vegas SevenThis week, I’ve got a “Latest Thought” in Vegas Seven where I finally weigh in on whether we should rename McCarran International Airport. I say, why stop there? There’s been plenty of talk this summer of renaming McCarran International Airport. At first, it seemed like a lot of talk from people who hadn’t thought much
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Vegas SevenI’ve got something besides today’s Green Felt Journal in today’s Vegas Seven: a look at Revel, Atlantic City’s latest casino: Revel, Atlantic City’s first new casino in nearly a decade, has been called “Cosmopolitan East,” for its similarities, real and supposed to the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Like the Cosmo, it’s put a great deal
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Vegas Seven, writing