Gaming

Bill that transformed a city

The Wide Open Gambling Bill of 1931 was the cornerstone on which Las Vegas’ economy was built.

15 May 2008
By Ed Koch

The Wynn sues Barkley, claims $400,000 gambling debts unpaid

Wynn Las Vegas filed a lawsuit in District Court on Wednesday to force former National Basketball Association star Charles Barkley to pay back $400,000 in gambling markers the casino alleges it extended him last year.

15 May 2008
By Jeff German

In anti-tax Nevada, policy can be pawned

Casino moguls jetting to meet with the governor, clandestine sessions between gaming executives and the teachers union president, eleventh-hour jockeying over raising the room tax — this is how public policy gets made in Nevada.

14 May 2008
By David McGrath Schwartz

Despite few layoffs, workers feel fear

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, thousands of hourly Strip workers were laid off as tourists stayed home. In the current economic downturn, casino companies are moving more cautiously. But workers worry the shoe is still going to drop.

13 May 2008
By Liz Benston

Vegas slump hits Station Casinos

Station Casinos has historically reaped impressive gains by putting most of its eggs in one basket: Las Vegas. But the housing slump appears to be hurting Station more than companies that own casinos outside of the Vegas.

13 May 2008
By Liz Benston

Despite slowdown, casino giant spending big

Even as gamblers, shoppers and diners are clutching to their dollars and Las Vegas reels from the worst economic slowdown since Sept. 11, MGM Mirage is spending billions of dollars on itself.

12 May 2008
By Liz Benston

One man’s theories on Vegas’ economy, then and now

News item: The Nevada casino industry reports a significant decline in gambling revenue for a third consecutive month, blaming weakness in the national economy.

12 May 2008
By Jeff Haney

CityCenter still selling condos despite slowdown

While some Las Vegas condos are in foreclosure as buyers walk away from purchase contracts, MGM Mirage — defending a lawsuit filed by unhappy Signature condo-hotel owners — says no buyers have canceled purchases at CityCenter despite the housing slump.

9 May 2008
By Liz Benston

Mischief-making blockers are signature gatherers’ bane

A man who declined to be identified, left, shows a flier to Vance Borton, center, as Andrea Grefrath, right, tries to gather a signature for a ballot initiative at the North Decatur Department of Motor Vehicles (MMV) office Friday. Grefrath is gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would raise gaming taxes to increase funding for public education. The man who declined to be identified represents a group that opposes the initiative.

Russ Stevens walks out of the North Las Vegas DMV office and is approached by a woman asking him to sign a petition in favor of raising casino taxes to benefit teachers and schools.

5 May 2008
By J. Patrick Coolican

Brian Greenspun knows a leader when he sees one

I decided a few weeks ago that I was no longer going to act like a common scold in this space. The people of Nevada should know by now that I believe we are in desperate need of new leadership at the state level and any other part of government that doesn’t recognize that we are in trouble or, worse, refuses to do anything about it.

4 May 2008
By Brian Greenspun

Slot makers pull together

Slot makers pull together

As steel girders and shimmering glass define the exterior of the rising CityCenter, slot machine engineers and computer techies behind the scene are trying to figure out how to wire the casino of the future. Their new slot machines will behave like a network of personal computers with high-speed Internet access, linked to a computer server in a back office that will give players and the house alike unprecedented control over the slots.

29 April 2008
By Liz Benston

New device makes it harder to walk away from the game

This mobile gadget, which lets players gamble with real money away from tables and machines, is being testing at the Venetian.

A new crop of gambling machines has arrived in town — stacked on a countertop at the Venetian like so many GameBoys or the buzzers that a restaurant hostess uses to let you know when your table is ready.

27 April 2008
By Liz Benston

Station Casinos banking on biggest being best

Station Casinos owners Lorenzo Fertitta, left, and brother Frank explain their vision Tuesday for Viva, which, at $10 billion, would become the most expensive casino complex ever built.

At a time when businesses across the country are cutting back in the face of economic turmoil, the brothers at the helm of Station Casinos are accelerating plans for an enormous Las Vegas resort larger than CityCenter.

23 April 2008
By Liz Benston

Garage goes up next door, and condo owners want out

Some residents of Turnberry Place (towers at left) are selling their condominiums because of construction of a parking garage, at right, for the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

Several dozen Turnberry Place residents in the 120-unit luxury condominium tower are selling their units because they don’t want to look at the parking garage of the under-construction Fontainebleau Las Vegas high-rise resort next door.

22 April 2008
By Liz Benston

Beers takes center stage

A lobbyist with close ties to the Strip doesn’t mean to be arrogant, and indeed, he isn’t. But his description of the calculations on the Strip heading into the 2008 election, and his gaming out of the possibilities, sounded like a TV director musing about the arrangement of actors on the set, the timing of the comic lines, the timing and pitch of audience laugh track.

20 April 2008
By J. Patrick Coolican
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