Liz Benston
Story Archive
- As market gets tougher, CityCenter to sell in Dubai
- Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008
- Six months ago, Dubai’s government-owned conglomerate hot to invest on the Las Vegas Strip and enthralled by MGM Mirage’s CityCenter development came knocking with an offer to buy a half-interest in the project and acquire a 9.5 percent stake in the gaming giant.
- Online bookies: Clinton going to the White House
- But gamblers lost big-time on Kerry in ’04
- Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008
- The political pundits had all but written off Sen. Hillary Clinton when she pulled out a victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Online bookies, meanwhile, have Clinton winning her party’s nomination as well as the presidential election.
Though there’s plenty of evidence that betting action has been a more reliable indicator of results than polls, it’s possible Clinton’s popularity in the books is a fluke. - Sports betting made easier, at bars and beyond
- Saturday, Jan. 5, 2008
- While other states fend off sports betting, Nevada is making it easier for residents to exercise their exclusive rights to bet on sports.
- Seeing no profits, condo owners sue
- At issue: What hotel unit buyers were promised
- Friday, Jan. 4, 2008
- Nevada's biggest Strip developer is embroiled in a dispute with mom-and-pop investors that offers a cautionary, buyer-beware tale involving the sale of high-rise residential units.
- Harrah’s: Slump hasn’t hit us
- Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008
- Consumers nationwide may be tightening their purse strings but they're still opening their wallets at Harrah's properties, the company's top executive said recently.
- Stretching out the fun time
- Friday, Dec. 7, 2007
- Consider this year's introduction of a machine feature called "Guaranteed Play."
- THIEVES INSIDE THE MACHINE
- Thursday, Dec. 6, 2007
- High-tech thieves have discovered a new way to rip off slot machines - stealing more than $1 million from the Orleans before management shut down their computer-assisted heist.
- Slots for a new generation
- Thursday, Dec. 6, 2007
- Years from now, slot machine players may wander into a casino and wonder if they've landed in a game arcade.
- States look to casinos for cash fix
- Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007
- The teachers’ effort in Nevada to raise the top gaming tax from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent is just one example of how the citizenry views casinos as a cash cow — and almost makes the Nevada tax hit look like chump change.
- THE DICE DEALER
- Monday, Nov. 19, 2007
- As a child in Las Vegas, Don Anderson thought dealers were rock stars, the height of class and cool. Once, in a grocery store, a dealer who recognized his mother picked up the tab with a quick nod to the cashier.
- THE CARD DEALER
- Monday, Nov. 19, 2007
- Ernie Acevedo had not yet turned 21 when he first walked into Caesars Palace - a wide-eyed UNLV student who wanted to witness the casino's opening day in 1966.
- Thousands watch as historic casino imploded
- Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007
- The New Frontier, which will be replaced by the multi-billion-dollar Plaza-branded resort, does not elicit the same nostalgia that the demolition of the historic Stardust, Desert Inn or Sands casinos did before it.
Visitors associate these more-famous hotels with the vintage glamour of Las Vegas before the Strip was bought up by corporations and promoted globally with the help of hundreds of millions' worth of marketing campaigns and Vegas-related media and entertainment. Despite being the destination where Elvis Presley made his Las Vegas debut, or hosting other popular acts like Siegfried and Roy and Wayne Newton, the New Frontier, for many tourists, was just another cheap room on the Strip. - Economists: Casinos would shrug off tax hike
- Sunday, Oct. 14, 2007
- When the state teachers union announced it wants voters to approve a 3 percentage point increase in the gaming tax, MGM Mirage Chief Executive Terry Lanni offered a stark warning: "It would drive investment out of Nevada."
- In a bold move, teachers reach for gaming's pockets
- Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2007
- So now the moment of reckoning has arrived. For years, the political warning signs have been building for Las Vegas Strip casinos: a smaller slice of the population working on casino floors; a fast-growing city lagging in education, health care and transportation systems; and a steady stream of news about record casino profits, stock prices and executive pay.
In time, someone was going to take on the Strip, and the Nevada State Education Association, 28,000 strong, is steeling itself for the fight in 2008.
- So far, track is clear for Station to go private
- Monday, Oct. 8, 2007
- Station Casinos bosses are taking the company private.
- LOOKING IN ON: GAMING
- Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007
- LOOKING IN ON: GAMING
- Catching up to Las Vegas
- Sunday, Sept. 30, 2007
- When the Macau government opened its gambling market to foreign investment a few years ago, it sought companies that could help transform the Chinese seaport from a seedy outpost into a top luxury resort destination where gambling is but one of many popular attractions.
- EAST COAST STYLE, VEGAS PROPORTIONS
- Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007
- Miki Naftali is the first developer to pay more than $1 billion for land on the Strip. And he's barely breaking a sweat.
- Dubai takes a lesson from Vegas on how to become a resort destination
- Sunday, Sept. 9, 2007
- Even though the Islamic-steeped government of Dubai rejects gambling, there are striking similarities between Las Vegas - specifically the Strip - and Dubai, one of seven emirates making up the United Arab Emirates.
- Q+A: Robert Frey
- Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007
- But then he watched the 2000 movie "Coyote Ugly" and saw what could happen when you combine appealing women, impromptu dancing and vodka shots.
- Own your own casino
- Sunday, June 17, 2007
- Own your own casino
- Surprise offer a shrewd move
- Bellagio, CityCenter deal would enrich all
- Tuesday, May 22, 2007
To understand why billionaire dealmaker and MGM Mirage majority shareholder Kirk Kerkorian made a surprise offer Monday for the Bellagio and CityCenter - the most expensive and luxurious jewels in MGM Mirage's impressive crown - one need only look at recent deals occurring in the gaming industry's plainer, yet more visible, sister: the hotel industry.
- New owners brush Aladdin's old image under the carpet
- Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Last year the Aladdin, in the midst of a two-year reconstruction project, pulled in only about as much cash as the Tropicana or Riviera - properties decades older and supposedly less competitive.
- Herbst family looks south
- Monday, April 16, 2007
- Thirty years ago the Herbst family, busily running its chain of gas stations, considered buying the three casinos in Primm, the desert burg that greets Southern Californians crossing into Nevada. They thought about it for about as long as it took to drive past the place.
- Small casinos team up to play like the big boys, stay in loop
- Friday, April 13, 2007
In a state where the economic engine is driven by fewer than two dozen Strip resorts, Nevada is in many ways a state of small-casino operators like the Lee family.
- IRS tip: you made more, so you pay more
- Casinos and Uncle Sam wrangle as Vegas draws bigger tippers
- Thursday, March 29, 2007
The Internal Revenue Service believes that more than $9 billion in tips go unreported nationwide, and that Las Vegas casino workers - perhaps the largest concentration of big-tip earners in the country - are partly to blame. And now it thinks that they're earning more tips than ever, and it's ready to collect.
- Chips no longer good as cash
- Friday, March 9, 2007
If $5,000 casino chips could talk, what would this one say? It might explain its recent travels and how it has ended up in the custody of a cashier at the MGM Grand, who questioned whether it really belonged to the gambler who turned it in.
The gambler, a poker player, made the mistake of treating the chip like currency. And all he's got to show for it today is a piece of paper - a receipt for the chip he no longer has - and no money.
- Rich and famous towering above the masses
- Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007
The brisk sales at Mandarin Oriental, at MGM Mirage's CityCenter, were triggered mostly by word-of-mouth and suggest that Las Vegas Boulevard is maturing beyond a weekend playground for the rich and famous and into a chic residential address.
- Casinos not best seat in house for big game
- NFL rules have hurt Las Vegas' ability to show Super Bowl
- Friday, Feb. 2, 2007
Grant Hodson was just looking for a place to sit and watch the Super Bowl, and staying home wouldn't cut it.
His search quickly turned into an episode of "The Twilight Zone," with a bewildered Hodson making dozens of calls to casinos, flipping through newspapers and magazines and wondering why in the world casinos were being cagey about promoting the biggest betting day of the year.
- Hooters struggling with startup blues
- Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007
- The glow from those notorious orange shorts at the year-old Hooters Casino Hotel is struggling to be seen against the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip.
- Casinos see private funds as a way to go
- Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006
The private offers to purchase Harrah's Entertainment and Station Casinos reflect the evolution of who invests in casinos - from banks in the 1970s to junk bond dealers in the '80s to the stock market in the '90s, and now private, cash-rich equity firms on the hunt for places to invest their money.
Private investment has brought more advantages than drawbacks to casinos, leaving some gaming bosses wondering why they should continue as a publicly traded company, especially because the primary reason for issuing public stock - to generate capital - has diminished.
- Investors more bullish on Las Vegas casinos than ever before
- Sunday, June 4, 2006
Thanks to more attractive financing schemes and the growing ranks of wealthier visitors - and the money they're leaving behind - the investment appetite for Las Vegas is hotter than ever.
- Vegas boom going upscale
- Saturday, April 8, 2006
- The Las Vegas building boom under way will usher in a slew of new luxury properties over the next five years, continuing a transformation from Middle America playground to the desert version of Southern California and Miami Beach resort enclaves.
- New hands, new plans
- Tuesday, March 14, 2006
- Pinnacle's announcement Monday that it is buying Aztar Corp. gives Lee's company control of the Tropicana.
- For many, price isn't right
- Monday, March 13, 2006
- Myrna Huzan of Saskatchewan, Canada, has a strategy for how to find the best deals on the Strip.
- Tipping the scales of fair play by IRS
- Monday, Oct. 24, 2005
- When Margaret Neuman opened her mail last month, she received an unwelcome surprise: a letter from the IRS claiming she owed nearly $2,500 in taxes and penalties based on tips she received in 2003 as a waitress at the Palms.
- Online poker tourney winners reap benefits of low profile
- Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005
- One of the world's largest poker tournaments has just concluded, awarding nearly $13 million in prize money to 1,972 people. Yet the winners of these events may never be known to the public
- Megaclubs go mainstream
- Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2004
- Behind a massive construction wall wedged between an Elton John retail store and the sports book at Caesars Palace, a short-lived legacy is methodically torn down in time for a polished, adults-only image to emerge by the end of the year.
- Expansion in store for Herbst property
- Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2004
- Terrible's casino expects to begin construction next month on a new parking garage that will mark the first phase of a larger casino expansion.
- Boyd not interested in buyout
- Monday, Oct. 27, 2003
- Boyd Gaming Corp.'s top executive said he's not interested in selling the casino company that his father founded nearly 30 years ago.
- Herbst expands with slot route deal
- Friday, Dec. 6, 2002
- Herbst Gaming Inc. of Las Vegas has signed an agreement to purchase the Nevada slot route operations of slot making giant International Game Technology, a deal that would put No. 2 ranked Herbst in line with the largest slot route operator in Nevada.
- After 50 colorful years, resort remains a “jewel”
- Friday, Oct. 4, 2002
- It was called the "Jewel of the Desert" when it opened in 1952 on a windblown plain that was home to only five other casino resorts. The modest two-story motel -- formerly called "Club Bingo" -- was a harbinger of the extravagance that was to bloom decades later in the desert. The Sahara opened with the area's first Olympic-size swimming pool.