sands

Upcoming Talk: The Sands at the Clark County Library

I’ve got some good news to share for those of you who want to hear more about the Sands. On Thursday, October 7, I’ll be giving a talk in  the Clark Country Library’s main theater on the history of the Sands. It is an outgrowth of my most recent book, At the Sands. Here’s the […]

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book

At the Sands Playlist Now on Spotify

One of the major attractions of the Sands hotel was the music–whether it was in the Copa Room, the lounge, or, in later years, the Celebrity Theater. To commemorate the musical legacy of the Sands–and give you something to listen to while you read At the Sands, I’ve created a Spotify playlist featuring over 43

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book

Article Published: “Venomous in the Extreme”

I’ve got a new article published with the Gaming Law Review called “Venomous in the Extreme: Understanding Frank Sinatra’s Acrimonious 1963 Exit from Nevada Gaming.” Here’s a peek: Today, there are few personalities more intimately connected with the classic era of Las Vegas casinos than Frank Sinatra. Indeed, the pre-corporate period (1940s to 1966) is

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author

A Place in the Sun

When it opened in 1952, the Sands casino was known as “A Place in the Sun,” and once it signed Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin as entertainers, it became the most popular casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Today, the Sands name lives on in Las Vegas Sands, Inc., the company that owns the Venetian, Palazzo, and Sands Expo Center on the Strip as well as casinos in Pennsylvania, Macau, and Singapore.

As a result, the Sands name is found in the world’s top three gambling markets—a fitting tribute to the place where Vegas got much of its magic back in the 1950s and 1960s.

You can read more about the Sands and other Las Vegas hotels  in Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling

Go here to read an excerpt from the book, or learn where to buy your copy.

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fromthebook, life in vegas

Book review: The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister

There always seem to be a few lamentations when someone pulls down a Strip icon, but the protests are getting more and more muted. That’s mostly because Las Vegas resort architecture seems to be essentially disposable; it’s built for specific market conditions, and when they change, it is renovated beyond recognition or replaced. It’s just

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book reviews

Sands ends with a garage sale

It seems apropos. From the AC Press: Actually, hundreds of thousands of items will be up for grabs as the old Sands Casino Hotel clears out its vast contents in an “everything must go” sale beginning 10 a.m. Thursday. The public sale will continue for the next 30 to 45 days until the place is

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atlantic city, news about gambling