Atlantic City changes

Looks like change is in the air in Atlantic City. First off, Trump Marina is apparently going to change hands. As the Atlantic City Press reports, Landry’s Inc., which owns Golden Nuggets in Downtown Las Vegas and Laughlin, is planning to buy the property for $38 million and give it a through facelift, both inside […]

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atlantic city, news about gambling

Book Review: The Silent Land

Graham Joyce. The Silent Land.New York:Doubleday, 2011. 240 pages. I’m back with a review of a “suspense novel” that isn’t that suspenseful, but which has its charms. In THE SILENT LAND, a young vacationing British couple, Jake and Zoe, find themselves trapped in an Alpine ski resort, completely alone, after an avalanche. Unable to contact

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book reviews

December NV gaming revenue analysis

The Gaming Control Board released the December 2010 Gaming Revenue Report today, and I’ve gotten my historical comparison/analysis up. Here’s the executive summary, but you should really click through to see all of the numbers: As in November, December saw a decline from the previous year’s results, but there were bright spots. Statewide and in

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news about gambling

El Cortez suite competition winner in Vegas Seven

It’s Thursday, so I’ve got a Green Felt Journal column in Vegas Seven. This week, I dig a little deeper into the significance of the El Cortez’s Design-a-Suite Downtown competition: When the El Cortez announced the winner of its Design-a-Suite Downtown competition recently, the downtown stalwart did more than decide the look for its suites;

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news about gambling, Vegas Seven, writing

2011 Super Bowl Breakdown

The Nevada Gaming Control Board has released the unaudited figures for this year’s Super Bowl, and in spite of early reports that the books took a beating, they actually came out slightly ahead. Here’s a quote from the press release: THE GAMING CONTROL BOARD RELEASED FIGURES TODAY SHOWING THAT $87.5 MILLION WAS WAGERED IN NEVADA’S

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Sandoval’s message to gaming in the Las Vegas Business Press

My latest column in the Las Vegas Business Press is now available. In it, I consider Governor Sandoval’s recent call for modernization in Nevada’s gaming regulations: In his State of the State address, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval briefly noted the necessity of updating the state’s gaming regulations to reflect the new realities of 21st century

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Las Vegas Business Press, news about gambling, writing

2/24 UNLV Gaming Research Colloquium: Professor Darryl A. Smith

I’m pretty excited about the upcoming Gaming Research Colloquium talk that we’re hosting at UNLV: Please join us at 12:15 PM, Thursday, Feb. 24, as February Gaming Research Fellow Darryl A. Smith delivers a Gaming Research Colloquium talk titled “’Dark with Excessive Bright:’ Gambling Tells and the Gaming Taboo.” Smith, an assistant professor of religious

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gambling & culture

Book Review: Turn and Jump

Howard Mansfield. Turn and Jump: How Time and Place Fell Apart. Rockport, Maine: Down East Books, 2010. 195 pages. Today we take for granted that time is rigidly (and sometimes mercilessly) segmented. But the way people think about time has changed dramatically over the last two hundred years, with local and natural time, based on

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book reviews

Station hiring in Vegas Seven

It’s Thursday, which means another Green Felt Journal is available for your reading pleasure in Vegas Seven. This one is a look behind Station Casino’s recent hiring push: The local employment picture has been a dire one. In the past five years, the unemployment rate has more than tripled. That’s why a local company hiring

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news about gambling, Vegas Seven, writing

New report: Average Big Strip Casino, 2010

After some work, I’ve finally produced the first fruits of the Nevada Gaming Abstract 2010’s publication, over on gaming.unlv.edu: Average Big Las Vegas Strip Casino, 2010 A statistical summary of the average Las Vegas Strip casino (with annual gaming revenues of over $72 million) with both gaming and non-gaming revenues and information on employment, taxes,

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news about gambling

2010 Nevada Gaming Abstract released

The Gaming Control Board has announced the release of the 2010 Nevada Gaming Abstract. As of 8AM 1/31, the report isn’t up on the GCB’s site, but here’s the press release: The State Gaming Control Board has released its “NEVADA GAMING ABSTRACT – 2010.” The ABSTRACT is a report of combined financial information regarding Nevada

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news about gambling

Book Review: The Clockwork Universe

Edward Dolnick. The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World. New York: Harper Collins, 2011. 400 pages. In THE CLOCKWORK UNIVERSE, Edward Dolnick gives the reader a sense of the world that the scientific greats of the early modern period inhabited, and lets us see that there was

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book reviews

Modernizing Nevada’s gaming regs

I saw this story in the Las Vegas Sun and decided to investigate further. Governor Sandoval, in his State of the State address, very briefly called for the modernization of Nevada’s gaming laws. Here’s the entire relevant extract from the speech: Since I completed my term as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, the gaming

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news about gambling

Stratosphere renovations

After hearing–then reading about–one frequent Vegas traveler’s experience with the new Stratosphere, and seeing billboards trumpeting the “new” Strat splashed liberally around the valley, I was planning to head down to see what all the fuss was about. Then I got a call from KNPR’s State of Nevada to talk about the impact that the

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life in vegas, news about gambling

Kyle Markman profile in Vegas Seven

This Thursday, there’s no local news section in Vegas Seven since it’s a special People issue. Instead, I wrote a brief profile of Kyle Markman, who’s been doing some very interesting things at Station Casinos: Kyle Markman knows how to throw a party. In June 2008, it was his job to set up a celebration

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news about gambling, Vegas Seven, writing

New Podcast: RJ Rowley’s talk

Today I was fortunate to hear one of the best Gaming Colloquium talks we’ve had in a while: RJ Rowley talking about locals casinos in Las Vegas. Here’s the info you need: 26-January 25, 2011 RJ Rowley, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Platteville “Neon Beyond the Neon: The Geography of Locals Casinos” In this talk, Rowley

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news about gambling

A new hope for AC? in the Las Vegas Business Press

In this week’s Las Vegas Business Press, I share my thoughts about the just-passed Atlantic City casino regulatory reform: After suffering its fourth consecutive year of declining casino revenues, Atlantic City might finally be feeling the winds of reform. But will a planned regulatory overhaul be too little, too late to save the city’s slumping

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atlantic city, news about gambling

Big Six under study

My latest report is up over at the Center for Gaming Research. It’s a look at why Big Six is such a great game–for the house: Big Six is a minor casino game, but one that has high visibility on most casinos floors. Positioned where it is easily accessible by casual and novice gamblers, the

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atlantic city, news about gambling

Book Review: Spousonomics

Paula Szyuchman and Jenny Anderson. Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes. New York: Random House, 2011. 352 pages. Spousonomics is another addition to the growing popular economics literature that makes concepts like division of labor, comparative advantage, and information asymmetry digestible for a lay audience. As such, its publication is a

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book reviews