Gaming

Las Vegas Sands analysts see signs of improvement

The financial outlook for Las Vegas Sands Corp. has improved somewhat thanks to the company's capital-raising program in Asia, but the growing supply of hotel rooms on the Las Vegas Strip continues to worry analysts.

Experts predict Las Vegas Sands casino will dominate Singapore market


Construction takes place in July at a hotel tower in the Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort, scheduled to open early next year in Singapore.

The world’s newest gaming venue will be halfway around the world — with a Las Vegas company in the center of the competition. Experts say the Marina Bay Sands will likely be the more visible and enduring property of two opening in Singapore in early 2010.

Vdara hotel marks opening of CityCenter

Jim Murren, MGM Mirage chairman and CEO, applauds employees as they enter Vdara during its opening Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009. The 57-story, 1,495-suite luxury property is the first to open in MGM Mirage's $8.5 billion CityCenter project.

MGM Mirage and Dubai World executives on Tuesday marked the unveiling of the first phase of their CityCenter project — Vdara — giving invited guests and media a glimpse inside the first completed property at the urban metropolis. The non-gaming, 1,495-room hotel marks the first of CityCenter’s openings, with Crystals and Mandarin Oriental opening their doors later this week.

MGM Mirage begins lifting veil on CityCenter today

A view of MGM Mirage's CityCenter project Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009.

MGM Mirage has placed its biggest bet ever, an unprecedented $8.5 billion, on its new CityCenter complex - planned to be a city within a city – with residences, hotel towers, gourmet restaurants and an upscale retail and entertainment district.

Harrah's moves ahead with possible Planet Hollywood acquisition

Harrah’s Entertainment has filed an application with state gaming regulators to acquire Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino, the Nevada Gaming Control Board said today.

Binion's to close all 365 rooms, lay off 100 workers

Binion's Gambling Hall & Hotel in downtown Las Vegas.

Binion's Gambling Hall & Hotel in downtown Las Vegas will close a 365-room hotel tower on Dec. 14 and lay off about 100 workers. Spokeswoman Lisa Robinson said the decision was made as a result of the economic downturn, which has decreased occupancy at the property and other hotels across the Las Vegas Valley. Binion's also will close the Binion's Original Coffee Shop and discontinue keno.

Ex-NBA star Antoine Walker to pay $12,835 monthly in gambling debt case

The gambling debts of former NBA star Antoine Walker have been negotiated and today at a court hearing Walker made his first payment toward resolving $905,050 owed to three Las Vegas casinos.

Slot makers team up at behest of CityCenter

Casinos have long complained about incompatible slot machine hardware and the increasing cost of upgrading their floors. But that’s changing with CityCenter and its 4,004-room Aria resort, which will open Dec. 16 with many of its 2,000 slot machines connected by a high-tech system developed with the cooperation of major slot manufacturers. It’s an unprecedented effort, unusual in the gaming industry as well as most of the business world, where Apple and PC-based computers and AT&T and Verizon cell phones, for example, run on discrete systems.

Frenzied appeal to finish the job

Jim Murren was MGM Mirage’s chief financial officer when he conceived of CityCenter and persuaded the company’s directors to build it. That was during a good economy.

CityCenter: One man's concept of a real city

 Jim Murren, the CEO of MGM Mirage and a transplanted New Yorker, stands in front of the Aria at CityCenter, a project he conceived based on what he thought Las Vegas lacked: a world-class urban gathering place for the city's  residents. "We were missing so many important quality of life building blocks -- what I would consider to be not extras but essentials, culturally and medically. The diversity that I grew up with in New York isn't here."

Visitors to CityCenter, the Strip’s newest spectacle, will be driven to look up at the glistening glass and steel. It is an inexorable pull, to cock your head backward and take in the sweep of six high-rise towers — including two that lean — that create an urban scene unlike any other. The man who conceived of this place, however, would like to draw your attention to a small park bench. It is found near the center of the 67-acre site, alongside Aria, the flagship high-rise filled with 4,004 guest rooms.

Experts say online gaming in U.S. still a long shot

A survey of 260 gaming industry professionals indicated most expect the legalization and regulation of Internet gambling in the United States would be the world’s top industry story in 2010.

G2E trots out server-based games (yawn), and little new content

How appropriate it was for this year’s Global Gaming Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center to be parked next door to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.

Casino venue in Singapore will have Las Vegas flavor

An undated handout photo shows the lifting of the steel structural pieces of the Sands SkyPark to the top of the hotel towers at Las Vegas Sands' Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort in Singapore, provided to the media on Oct. 14. A 360-ton steel structure will form a bridge between two of the hotel towers.

The world's newest gaming venue will be halfway around the world, but a Las Vegas company will be in the center of the competition.

Fontainebleau retail component seeks bankruptcy protection

The retail portion of the idled Fontainebleau Las Vegas casino resort filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday -- introducing a new set of creditors and controversies to the massive case.

Contractors make another bid for Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau Resort on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip is shown under construction.

Contractors owed hundreds of millions of dollars for work on the Las Vegas Fontainebleau casino-resort moved again Wednesday for the right to take over the project by making a bid for what they're owed, known as a credit bid. Their attorneys filed a motion for credit bidding in Miami's bankruptcy court the same day that Judge A. Jay Cristol signed paperwork approving investor Carl Icahn as Fontainebleau's stalking horse bidder.