city center

Aria is open at last

But you didn’t need me to tell you that, you’ve probably seen pictures and more at ariaopening.com. And here’s a few words from the Sun about the opening: The wait is over. After a two-minute fireworks display, the Aria Resort & Casino opened its doors to the public late Wednesday night, giving tourists and Las […]

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life in vegas, news about gambling

Total pwnage

I can’t think of a time that I’ve seen someone put in their place this brilliantly. From NORM: Donald Trump and MGM Mirage management won’t be exchanging Christmas cards. The controversial New York real estate developer is raining on CityCenter’s parade, calling it “an absolute catastrophe.” “The biggest problem is it costs so much,” Trump

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life in vegas, news about gambling

City Center in perspective

I’ve been asked by more than one media outlet about City Center, and I thought that I’d just post some of my thoughts here for public consumption. My single-sentence response to “what does it all mean” is that City Center is a gamble in ways that previous Strip projects haven’t been. There’s been skepticism about

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news about gambling

The definite article?

Side discussion to the Vdara opening: I heard one PR person reference it as “the Vdara,” and it sounded wrong. It’s funny how some casinos need the definite article in front of them, others don’t, and others sound OK either way. I know there’s a debate about “the Wynn/Wynn,” but you’d pretty much never say,

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gambling & culture

Thoughts on Vdara

Now that I’ve seen the inside, I’ve got something to say about Vdara and City Center. The guy in charge of it all says that it can’t be explained, only experienced, but I’m going to give it a shot since it’s sort of my job to explain these kinds of things. To set the stage,

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life in vegas, news about gambling

Strip run

I had a pretty good marathon run on Sunday, and now that I’ve had a little time to think about it, here are some thoughts on running down the Strip. The headline is an allusion to the venerable “Strip Walk” feature over at Two Way Hard Three. Even though we ran only about 4 of

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life in vegas, news about gambling

An uncertain future

We’ve all heard the doom and gloom about casino stocks. I’m not sure I get all the fuss. Either they’ll be going up or they’ll be going down. It’s a 50/50 prop, right? So we shouldn’t be surprised when they decline in value for a while. Small comfort, I’m sure, to those who’ve substantially invested

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news about gambling

Aria alternatives

If you haven’t heard it, here’s the press release, more or less verbatim: MGM Mirage is naming the big casino resort at its in-development City Center project on the Strip the “Aria Resort and Casino.” I don’t have an inside line on the creative process that led to the choice, but from what I’ve read

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news about gambling