I’ve got a new Las Vegas Business Press article up. I got the idea after coming across the quotation that I mention in Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom: In the past 10 years, the national casino industry has become progressively more concentrated. Through buyouts, mergers, and acquisitions, effective control of the gambling business has been […]
LVBP column on the Strip and monopoly Read More »
news about gamblingI’m in the middle of the website update, and in answering a question about the Flamingo I found out that they have a restaurant named “Voga.” It’s the ultimate evolution of taste, according to the folks who wrote the copy for the website. It’s apparently the name of an Italian wine, but it makes me
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
NV casino revenue down Read More »
news about gamblingGaming 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
Rose thinks depression Read More »
news about gamblingNo 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
AC feeling the crunch Read More »
atlantic city, news about gamblingThe 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
College b-ball cashes in Read More »
news about gamblingI really said this on a recent Vegas Gang podcast, and taken out of context the quote looks almost, but not quite, pithy. But if you look at the entire transcribed section of the quote on the Poker Grump’s blog, you can see just how un-pithy I can sound: I mean, yknow, Ive seen people
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
Trump Plaza KOs robo-poker Read More »
atlantic city, news about gamblingGambling is down almost everywhere in the US, but it’s roaring ahead in Albania. From AFP: Albanians spent more than 100 million dollars on gambling last year, an increase of almost 70 percent on the year in one of Europes poorest countries, the tax office said Thursday. "During 2008, Albanians spent more than 100 million
Gambling’s up here Read More »
news about gamblingIt’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
Casino-owning losers Read More »
news about gamblingThe 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
AC, Vegas gamblers lose less Read More »
news about gamblingUtah 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
Utah gambling ahead? Read More »
news about gamblingSheldon Adelson’s drive to find America’s most boring city notwithstanding, most people agree that Las Vegas’ tourist strategy might need a little tweak. Should the town emphasize value, or carefree fun? It’s a serious question. Here’s one approach that I don’t think we’ll be dusting off anytime soon: Las Vegas, home of weapons of mass
An approach they won’t use Read More »
life in vegas, news about gamblingI got some ideas about the possible future of the Strip’s hotel inventory by reading this Wired article on Netbooks, which are ultra-cheap, low-performance laptops that are good to connect to the Internet and not do much else: Netbooks have ended the performance wars. It used to be that when you went to an electronics
What’s the Netbook of the Strip? Read More »
news about gamblingDoing some research for my epochal article on the Strip’s recovery from the travails of the early 1980s, I found this quote in a Boston Globe Magazine article written by Connie Paige: This year’s visit…was different. Life seemed to have switched into neutral. Snatches of conversation with some of the army of casino workers…soon made
More pessimism from the past Read More »
news about gamblingWith almost 14 million combinations to try, this would take, on average, seven million attempts – about 67,000 years if you play twice a week. Success would be guaranteed after 135,000 years. If you choose your numbers at random, however, success is never guaranteed, and tame mathematicians tell me that the average time to strike
Lotto advice from the Undercover Economist Read More »
news about gamblingI’ve got an article in the Las Vegas Business Press today that elaborates my earlier thoughts on the Las Vegas business travel flap: At the height of an unprecedented national crisis, a group of American leaders traveled to one of the countrys most expensive tourist destinations, where they set about the business of righting the
History sez it’s OK to party Read More »
news about gamblingI’ve traveled through Baltimore-Washington International Airport a few times, and there’s not a lot to do there. This proposal to allow a massive slot casino at the airport might change that. From the Baltimore Sun: A Baltimore County lawmaker is proposing slot-machine gambling at Maryland’s major airport, but Gov. Martin OMalley called the casino a
There’s a right reason for legalizing expanded gambling and a wrong reason. The wrong reason is, “the state needs more money.” Guess what’s afoot in Illinois? From the Chicago Tribune: Hoping to squeeze more money out of the state lottery, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton wants to sell tickets online and hire a private company
Squeezing the lottery Read More »
news about gamblingSome of you might remember how, in Back to the Future II, Biff owned a casino that was an obviously-redressed Union Plaza. I’m sure there are people out there who can’t look at the Plaza today without thinking about Biff and his sports almanac. Well, I was perusing the photo archives when I found this,
Biff’s Vintage Vegas casino Read More »
life in vegas, news about gambling