Upcoming talks at the CGR

We’ve got two great talks scheduled for the Center for Gaming Research later this month. The first, “Commercialization, Crime, and Casinos: Legacies of 18th Century Gambling,” is by Dr. Nicholas Tosney, our April visiting fellow and a really cool guy to boot. You can see the flyer here. Dr. Tosney is speaking in Special Collections […]

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what's new

NV casino revenue down

The February gaming revenue numbers are in for Nevada, and the news is not good. From the LVRJ: Casino revenue statewide continued a 14-month downward spiral in February. But there was one bright spot in the avalanche of negative numbers — gaming tax collections increased for the first time in seven months. Throughout Nevada, gaming

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news about gambling

The personality of Nevada

Having picked up this personality study from Marginal Revolution, I followed it through to a handy interactive map that will help me share with you the aggregate personality of Nevadans. The United States of Mind – WSJ.com. Here is where Nevada ranks: Extraversion: 37 Agreeableness: 48 Conscientiousness: 24 Neuroticism:42 Openness:9 So your typical Nevadan is

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life in vegas

Rose thinks depression

Gaming law expert I. Nelson Rose apparently got misquoted in the LV Sun yesterday, so he sent out an unmediated version of his comments on the Las Vegas economy, which I posted to the UNLV Gaming Reading Room: Economic depressions have immediate impacts on gaming law. I have had more than one large U.S. investor

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news about gambling

AC feeling the crunch

No one ever said that Atlantic City was recession-proof, and now we have the numbers to back it up. Revenues fell 7.1% in 2008, with profits down by 25%. From the AC Press: The casinos can still make money, but the industry is far from recession-proof. While gross operating profits fell significantly in 2008 and

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atlantic city, news about gambling

College b-ball cashes in

The NCAA believes that legal betting on college games is antithetical to the purity of its student athletes, yet allows colleges to accept advertising money from casinos. Hypocrisy? You be the judge. From USA Today: From the $591 million in TV and marketing revenue generated this season to the masses awaiting Saturdays semifinals and Mondays

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news about gambling

Trump Plaza KOs robo-poker

Apparently Atlantic City poker players aren’t quite ready for poker to evolve. Trump Plaza has pulled its electronic poker tables, along with most of its East Tower casino. From the AC Press: They were fast, mistake-proof and didn’t need to be tipped. But they had no personality. So now they’re gone. Atlantic City’s experiment with

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atlantic city, news about gambling

Book Review: Parentonomics

Joshua Gans. Parentonomics: An Economist Dad Looks at Parenting. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2009. 240 pages. If there are two things that there is no shortage of opinions on, it’s parenting and economics. Yet books about both continue to be popular. So when one combines both topics, it’s of definite interest, at least to parents.

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book reviews

Book review: Crows and Cards

Joseph Helgerson. Crows & Cards. Boston: Houghlin Mifflin, 2009. 352 pages, with notes for further reading and a glossary. I don’t usually read or review books for the 8-12 crowd, but I don’t see many books in that market about ante-bellum riverboat gamblers. That being said, I really enjoyed Crows & Cards. In Zeb Crabtree,

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book reviews

Casino-owning losers

It’s all relative–these guys are still worth billions more than just about anyone who reads this. But their worth significantly less now than they were before, so they lost a great deal of wealth. From KLAS: Forbes Magazine is out with its annual ranking of the world’s billionaires, and the new list confirms the recession

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news about gambling

New poker podcast up

The fifth episode of the UNLV Gaming Research podcast series is up, and it’s a great one: Jacob Avery, our February 2009 Research Fellow, talks about his sociological research into poker, which started in an Atlantic City card room and has taken him to UNLV Special Collections’ Reading Room. Avery, a graduate student in sociology

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gambling & culture, what's new

Mission statement inn

I guess this is what’s going to become of the Cosmopolitan. from the LV Sun: Hilton Hotels Corp. of Beverly Hills, Calif., said Tuesday its creating an eclectic brand called Denizen Hotels and is working to bring that brand to Las Vegas and other major destinations. "Denizen Hotels, a lifestyle brand that will attract business

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haphazard world, life in vegas

AC, Vegas gamblers lose less

The revenue numbers for January are out, and they are not good, if you are in the casino business or are supported by it. From Bloomberg: Casino gambling revenue dropped 15 percent on the Las Vegas Strip in January and tumbled 19 percent in Atlantic City last month as the U.S. recession curbed spending on

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news about gambling

Utah gambling ahead?

Utah is one of two states that has no legal gambling, but that might be changing–online at least. From the Salt Lake Tribune: Prominent poker players have teamed with big Las Vegas casinos to push for a law legalizing — and heavily regulating — online gambling. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff likes the idea, as

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news about gambling