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One of the greatest aspects of living in a high-tech world is seeing electronic signs on the fritz. Nothing gets me more excited than a slew of dead pixels, digital distortion, shorted out panels, muffed up colors, Windows alert box errors and the motherload : building sized blue screens of death.It goes without saying that much merriment and celebration followed the sighting of Wynn Las Vegas‘ sublimely creative marquee showing a bit of humanity by offering up a crazy quilt of digital distortion. Rothko meets Breakout in a slate/grayscale palette? Even in distortion Wynn provokes artistically. Kudos!

Between the sign FUBAR and the Encore website slowness, one wonders if WLV/E@WLV is still feeling the effects of the recently completed phase of Mercury in retrograde.

Perhaps Wynn should have an astrological consultation with Dionne Warwick and her network of psychic friends?

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Billionaire Steve Wynn is renewing the lease on his personal villa at the Wynn Las Vegas casino resort for two more years at an annual rent of $520,000.

Wynn Resorts Ltd. says in a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Wynn agreed to pay the company just over $1 million over two years for the villa at the Las Vegas Strip resort.

That comes to more than $43,000 per month.

The company says in the filing that the rental price was determined based on a third-party appraisal and a reduction in the cost of maid services.

The company will pay for cleaning services on weekends, but Wynn and his wife Elaine would have to pay for maid service during the week.

The filing says that Wynn is responsible for long-distance phone calls, but utilities are included. The lease ends in June 2010.

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I knew it was going to be expensive on the ride from the airport. Billboards and lighted signs advertised celebrities I thought were dead (Roseanne, Carrot Top) and everything seemed a little too new for a traveler used to paying eight dollars for a foam bed and twenty dollars for a crazy night out in places like Peru and Argentina. If you’re wondering what type of person stays in Las Vegas for seven days, it’s the type who’s used to lounging around in cities for weeks for no other reason than to see who he or she happens to come across. Initially I thought seven days may be too short.

It’s impossible not to have heard the crazy Las Vegas stories. Almost every single one of my friends has been to Las Vegas but their opinions seemed to wholly depend on their luck at the blackjack tables or in the nightclubs. No one had a similar experience, and my first couple nights showed me why. In Las Vegas, it depends.

It depends on if you get on a run at the tables and cash out early, blowing it on booze for new friends and $30 cover charges at the flashy clubs. It depends if you get in the red and have to spend your entire night trying to win back money you shouldn’t have been playing in the first place. It depends if you eat a meal or not beforehand and how fast that alcohol gets into your system, whether you eventually take home someone you wouldn’t have otherwise or stick it out the entire night in the bars and then the clubs and then back in the bars. The alcohol flows twenty four hours a day and it only helps that you can take it with you on the cab ride from one place to the next thanks to the city’s liberal public drinking laws. It depends on if you’re a high roller able to stay at the fancier Wynn and Venetian hotels with VIP access wherever you go or if you have to wait in line and count your dollars. If you go to Las Vegas expecting something you will be sorely disappointed, because it all depends.

Part of the reason Sin City has this almost mythical status as a must-visit city for any twenty-something out of a college is because almost anything is possible with just a little bit of money and a lot of alcohol.

Daytime skyline (Photo Credit: Christopher Chan)

The city itself is plopped right in the middle of a desert, originally as wayward transfer for railway shipping goods out of nearby mines. Then the mafia and Bugsy Siegel got its hands on developing the Flamingo hotel, the first “complete” casino resort that had the revolutionary idea of making visitors go through the gambling area to get to their rooms. Just like how modern sports stadiums follow the model of Rome’s Colosseum, casinos still match the Flamingo of 1946, with no windows, no clocks, dim lighting, and jacked up air conditioning to prevent gamblers from dozing off. And just like in 1946, everything but sand has to be trucked in from somewhere else.

What has changed in the past decade is a focus on more luxurious and glamorous casinos and lodgings. Long gone are the days of $1.99 buffets that were so common to see in the 80’s, and in have come the Mirage and its exploding volcano, the Paris and its faux Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, the Venetian and its Gondola rides, the Bellagio and its art showcase, and the Wynn and its Ferrari dealership. Over the top is the rule with the Strip turning into a playground for tourists catching just a glimpse and the well-off indulging in bites, usually three days at a time.

If you want the “old” Vegas you’ll have to travel four miles north of the main action on the Strip to downtown, which the old casinos and the city converted into the Fremont Street Experience with light shows and concerts. (For you poker fans downtown is also home to the Binion’s Casino which used to hold the World Series Of Poker tournament, now at the Rio casino.) When it comes to lodging, the internet is your friend. The second-tier casinos like Hooters, Excalibur, and New York New York have average weekend rates of $120 per night and lower for two queen beds. Compare that to the Wynn, which charges over $300 for their most basic rooms.

Fremont Street Experience (Photo Credit: Roadsidepictures)

There’s not too many things to do in Vegas during the day. Besides the Fremont Street Experience you can head towards the top end of the strip to the Stratosphere for a stunning view of the city, followed by a long, hot walk on the Strip with a slushy alcoholic beverage in souvenir container to view the decorated casino lobbies. Less than an hour drive away is the Hoover Dam where you can hop on a mediocre tour and then spend your day on the dammed Lake Meed for boating, hiking, and fishing. But unless you’re towing your family I doubt you’ll be come to Vegas for an outdoor adventure.

At night the main thing you’ll be doing is waiting in line, especially if you’re a guy. Unless you come with many attractive girls or are ready to spend hundreds on bottles of Grey Goose and Belvedere in the clubs, you won’t get in during the crowded weekends without greasing the bouncers in addition to paying cover. This is true for the hottest clubs in Las Vegas, like Tao in the Venetian, Pure in Caesars Palace, The Bank in Bellagio, Tryst in Wynn, and Body English in Hard Rock. Mobs of beautiful people buzz around tables of minor celebrities and sports athletes while mostly friendly people share the dancefloor with a few who act like a celebrity but aren’t. Like your gambling luck, crowds can be hit or miss.

The Wynn

If you’re looking for a more relaxed nightlife experience away from the clubs that literally have slogans such as “Status Is Everything,” the bars may be more your style. My favorite was Hard Rock Casino’s circle bar, pumping well after 5am on weekends with music low enough to mingle and flirt. Other bars include Freakin Frog and Crown & Anchor near UNLV for the locals experience, McFaddens for the corporatized Irish experience in the Rio, and the Firefly restaurant for a more distinguished setting to drink while nibbling on Mexican-American tapas. The problem is not if Las Vegas has your type of bar, but if you can find it. At least with buses operating 24 hours a day and taxis everywhere you go, exploring from place to place is not much of a challenge.

Hard Rock Circle Bar

It’s doubtful the nightlife alone will pull you in. And it won’t be the locals either — not because they are lacking in any particular trait but because odds are you won’t even meet them. California, New Jersey, Texas, and Washington State are where the people I met live and besides the waitresses and bartenders and table dealers you won’t get to know what it’s really like to live here. The Strip itself and even downtown is eye-catching but manufactured and too perfect and organized, everything new and flashy with very little history or culture. What is the “real” Las Vegas about, besides boozing and gambling? Seven days wasn’t enough to find out. Something is missing that prevents you from falling in love with the city and that’s probably why most people only come for a weekend. Do the same, and then see how much you can remember.

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When in Vegas for the WSOP, give the Chilean Sea Bass at Red 8 Asian Bistro in the Wynn a try. (Bodog Beat Image)

We’ve been on kind of an Asian kick recently, the best example of that being our hour-long trek to find that one Thai place that we still can’t remember the f&%$!ng name of. Ugh. Anyway, in an attempt to quench every craving at one time, we headed out to a restaurant that we definitely know the location of since it’s one of our favorite spots in Vegas, Red 8 Asian Bistro at the Wynn Vegas.

Red 8 doesn’t focus in on any one particular Asian cuisine, preferring to settle for a pan-Asian menu that features the best of Chinese, Thai, Korean and Vietnamese foods. From Dim Sum to Korean ribs and Mongolian Beef to Pad Thai, the menu really has a little something for everyone or, in our case, a little everything for someone. (There’s another food coma coming, can you feel it?)

We started out with some vegetable spring rolls, shrimp wonton and Korean ribs with our new favorite Korean lager, Singha, but really these things just postponed the main goal of the trip. So, in our previous visits to this restaurant we’ve only ever ordered one thing and being creatures of habit and tradition, we ordered the exact same thing again. The Chilean Sea Bass come either steamed in a ginger soy sauce or deep fried with salt and pepper and, with all thoughts of eating healthily out of the window, we went with the fried version.

The unassuming dish comes out in simple white bowl with a large spoon and just looks like a bunch of fried fish pieces thrown in a bowl. Once tasted though, it is melt in your mouth tender with just an edge of salt and spice. The key is to make sure that you mix the bowl up thoroughly and get the sea salt hanging out at the bottom to coat the pieces of fish and then make sure that each bite you take has a piece of fresh jalapeño with it. Some people like to use soy sauce to up the flavor, but we really enjoy it just as it comes.

After every bite of that was savored and washed down with another Singha, you guessed it, we were on the verge of yet another food coma. The good thing is that we now walk back and forth from the Rio hotel rooms to the Amazon Room like 14 times a day, so that should burn off at least one piece of fish. Feel…fatter….daily.

With great power comes great responsibility, or something like that.

Stay tuned for more WSOP dining guides from the Bodog Beat and come enjoy some of these Vegas restaurants as part of a $12,000 WSOP VIP Prize Package. WSOP online satellites are going on daily in teh Bodog Poker room for as little as $1.50.

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Ok, enough with hamburgers. This last burger will end my little foray into burgers, from fast food to the “glamorous burgers” with glamorous prices.
If your budget is a little tighter now days, and eating out has been cut back, try one of the burgers below. You might even find it better without the crowd, the price tag, knowing the quality of the food used and the peace of mind in knowing how and who has been handling you food. Have fun with these recipes.

SW Steakhouse All-American Hamburger With Red Onion Compote

Recipe By:
Chef David Walzog executive chef at SW Steakhouse at Wynn Las Vegas;
From Best of Beef via Food & Wine, Jan 2007

Description: “A Burger made with great ground beef needs two things: A screaming hot skillet and a terrific topping, such as this red onion compote.”

For the Red Onion Compote
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon ground coriander
3 Medium red onions, finely diced (3 cups)
2 Cups dry red wine
1 Cup sugar
2 bay leaves
1 Teaspoon orange zest, finely grated
3/4 Teaspoon Juniper berries, ground
1 Teaspoon fresh thyme, finely chopped
1 Cup fresh orange juicesalt, to taste

For the Burgers:
2 Pounds ground chuck
salt, to taste
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
4 Kaiser Rolls, or brioche rolls, split and toasted
Lettuce leaves, (optional)

MAKE THE RED ONION COMPOTE:
In a medium saucepan, heat the vegetable oil. Add the coriander and cook over moderate heat for 30 seconds. Add the red onions, wine, sugar, bay leaves, orange zest, juniper berries, thyme and orange juice and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens and is reduced to 2 cups, about 1 hour. Let the compote cool to room temperature. Discard the bay leaves and season with salt.

MAKE THE BURGERS:
Heat a large cast-iron skillet. Gently form the ground chuck into four 4-inch patties about 1 1/2 inches thick. Make a 1/2-inch indention in the center of each patty and season generously with salt and pepper.
When the skillet is hot, add the patties and cook over moderately high heat until browned, 4 to 5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer them to a large plate and let rest for 5 minutes.
Place the hamburgers on the toasted brioche buns, top with the compote, garnish with lettuce and serve.

MAKE AHEAD:
The red onion compote can be refrigerated for up to 5 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.

WINE:
Juicy burgers love a juicy young Chianti, like the cherry-flavored 2005 Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi Castiglioni Chianti.

NOTES :
A great hamburger starts with great ground beef, says David Walzog, executive chef at SW Steakhouse at Wynn Las Vegas. He advocates ground-to-order beef with at least 20 percent fat content, seasoned generously with salt and pepper. “After that, it doesn’t need much else,” he says—just a sturdy bun and sauce that won’t overpower the beef, like this sweet-and-sour red onion compote. To make the juiciest burger possible, Walzog says to shape the patty gently and make a small indentation in the center; this ensures even cooking as the burger swells during cooking

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Packing an entire summer’s worth of fun into one trip has never been easier than in fabulous Las Vegas. Whether it’s the hottest new headliner, a chic restaurant opening or a VIP event at a trendy nightclub, there is always something exciting happening in Vegas. Below are the top ten reasons to finally cash in some of your hard-earned vacation time and head to Vegas right now.

1. Party at a different pool and nightlife hotspot everyday of the weekend. Kick things off at Ditch Fridays at the Palms then head to LAX inside Luxor for late night dancing. On Saturday, head to WET Republic at MGM Grand followed by an exclusive party at The Bank at Bellagio. Conclude the weekend at the infamous Rehab at Hard Rock and a night at Jay Z’s 40/40 Club at The Palazzo. Call in sick on Monday and grab one more day in the sun at Relapse at Flamingo.

2. Be styled like a celebrity. Visit the hair colorist to the stars at Caesars Palace’s Color, a Salon by Michael Boychuck, or get an enviable new do at Kim Vo at The Mirage. Meanwhile, a custom tan from Sunset Tan at Palms Place ensures that your body is ready for a glamorous night on the town.

3. Dining alfresco at top-notch restaurants with unmatched view. Enjoy a beautiful poolside setting at Bouchon at The Venetian or dine by a shimmering lagoon at Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare at Wynn Vegas. Spend the afternoon playing a game of bocce ball while enjoying mouthwatering menu options at Rao’s new Bocce Bar & Grill at Caesars Palace. The large Strip-side patio at Trader Vic’s at the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood provides some of the best people-watching in the city.

4. The biggest shows and brightest stars within walking distance. Elton John, Bette Midler and Cher have taken over The Colosseum at Caesars Palace and Barry Manilow packs the house at the Las Vegas Hilton. The curtain rises on Mamma Mia! at Mandalay Bay and Jersey Boys at The Palazzo, while five different Cirque du Soleil shows entice guests to enjoy a different world.

5. The hottest entertainment, poolside. Friday Night Live at Hard Rock offers entertainers like Lit, Unwritten Law and Smashmouth. The Sandbar Backyard at Red Rock Resort hosts Crosby, Stills & Nash while Gnarls Barkley will light up Mandalay Beach with the Outernational Festival.

6. A stunning collection of designer shops. Vegas is home to more than 700 different retail outlets and 11 million square feet of shopping. The Las Vegas Premium Outlets offer ultimate savings on top designers like Coach, Dolce & Gabbana, A|X Armani Exchange and Kenneth Cole. After a big win at the tables head to one-of-a-kind shopping venues including Mandalay Place, Wynn Esplanade, The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood, Fashion Show Mall, Town Square and The Shoppes at Palazzo.

7. Rooms to suit every taste, desire and budget. Whether you need a basketball court in your room like the Hardwood Suite at The Palms or simply an extravagant suite fit for a mogul like those at the new Trump International Hotel, Vegas has you covered.

8. Vegas is a golfer’s paradise. More than 60 courses boast challenging play, beautiful landscaping, flowing waterfalls, rolling greens and amazing mountain views. The sexy T-Mates at Rio Secco provide personal golf concierge services, while the exclusive 18-hole championship course at Wynn is located right behind the resort on the Las Vegas Strip.

9. Have fun without spending. The Fountains at Bellagio and Sirens of TI are shows playing nightly on The Strip. Head indoors at Rio for the all-new Show in the Sky or see the Gondoliers at The Venetian for some romance. Catch the Fremont Street Experience at the newest downtown hotspot, Gold Diggers at Golden Nugget.

10. Travel the world without a passport. Where else but Vegas can you take in some of the world’s most iconic landmarks all in the course of a day? The Venetian, Caesars Palace and Bellagio provide a whirlwind tour of Italy. Take a photo at the Eiffel Tower at romantic Paris Las Vegas or get a taste of tropics in the desert at Flamingo and Mandalay Bay.

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If you’re looking for a giant yet relaxed resort that offers everything from a man made beach to an old fashioned burlesque show, then Mandalay Bay is the one stop Vegas destination for you. Located at the south end of the Strip, Mandalay Bay offers all the options that every type of Vegas traveler is looking for, from chilled out relaxation to wild and varying nightlife. There’s so much to do at Mandalay Bay that we’re splitting it into two segments! Mandalay Bay is great for families traveling with kids or adults looking to get naughty. The resort has plenty to do for visitors of all ages, including their Shark Reef Aquarium, where visitors can have close encounters with the world’s scariest fish species. But the most impressive thing at Mandalay Bay for visitors of every age is their famous, 11 acre man made beach, which sports a wave pool and a lazy river, and is covered in 2,700 tons of real sand, imported grain by grain for your enjoyment. Mandalay Bay also features the recently opened, boutique styled “The Hotel at Mandalay Bay,” a second resort tower which promises visitors understated luxury and elegance for a price below those at The Wynn Las Vegas or Bellagio. …………

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…In Las Vegas, the construction is mind boggling. MGM Mirage’s massive $7 billion CityCenter stands to change the Strip. Then Boyd Gaming’s Echelon is a $4.8 billion multiple use luxury development on 87 acres, with five hotels, 750,000 sq. ft. of convention space and meeting rooms, 30 dining and nightclub establishments, and residences, is opening in 2010 to the north, across from the Wynn Las Vegas, itself in the throes of doubling in size. General Growth Properties is managing the retail portion of Echelon, after just opening the Palazzo, and still not having announced anything for Fashion Show. General Growth of course also has Summerlin Town Center opening to the northwest in 2009. And now, Marnell Correo Associates, an architectural firm with extensive Las Vegas experience, has partnered with MGM to build M Resort ten miles to the south, with Taubman handling the retail portion. No one seems terribly concerned about overbuilding. Las Vegas does go through spurts, and the traffic is so bad and the weather is so hot in the summer, that, as far as retail is concerned, people are probably not going to want to wander too far to shop. On the other hand, every time we fly over Lake Mead, we wonder where the necessary water will come from to keep up with the city’s growth….

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There are some good really good buffets on the Strip Bellagio is amazing, Cravings at Mirage is stunning and probably represents the best value, Mandalay Bay is home to my personal favorite, but the Las Vegas buffet crown now goes to Wynn Las-Vegas and best of all with a little cunning you can sample this for free.

1. Sign up for the Red Card and you get $10 in free play, if you give them an email address you will get an additional $5
2. Check how many points are needed for the buffet it’s normally it’s 25 points
3. Go to a video roulette machine
4. Put $40 in the machine and activate your free play.
4. Bet $18 on black, $18 on red, and $1 on 0 and $1 on 00
5. Repeat step 4 six more times.
6. You should lose $2 per spin for all 7 spins, and will have $41 left in the machine, if 0 or 00 come in you will lose $4 but this is unikley to come in more than once. Cash out and head to the players club to activate your buffet

Best Deal on the web for Mirage from $72 a night ! - valid until 28th December 2008

Best Excalibur rates from $41 per room per night

MGM Grand from $49 per night

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Elizabeth Blau Tells Graduates to Find Their Inspiration

Elizabeth Blau, founder and chief executive officer of the successful consulting firm Blau & Associates, was commencement speaker at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) on Thursday, May 22, 2008.

“Developing your passion is the next step toward culinary greatness,” Ms. Blau told 83 recipients of associate degrees in culinary arts and baking and pastry arts. “It’s about continuing to be inspired and finding your niche.”

Ms. Blau’s company, based in Las Vegas, develops restaurant concepts that have helped establish that city as a top culinary destination. She was instrumental in bringing Le Cirque to the Bellagio and was responsible for developing the restaurants for the MGM/Mirage Resort properties. She later worked with Steve Wynn on the opening team of Wynn Las Vegas, serving as his vice president of restaurant development and marketing. Ms. Blau has also partnered with CIA graduate Kerry Simon ‘81 on several projects, including the award-winning Simon kitchen + bar at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

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by Alexis Byter

My earlier posting about the ‘Berlin Buns’ struck a note with a number of people with a interest in techie matters (What are you doing reading this blog, you should be working? – Actually, what am I doing writing this bog, I should also be working!) as it appears that cakes, pastries and sundry bread products play an important part in their lives. So, I thought I would dig out another cake-related photograph – taken with a pretty basic point-and-shoot digital automatic. The picture was taken in the shopping arcade of the Wynn Hotel, which is currently the top venue for weddings in Vegas, and shows a wedding cake that appears to be decorated with icing-covered donuts. Here is a haibun I wrote about the trip…


Honeymoon in Vegas

They always tell you Las Vegas is the wedding capital
of the United States – if not the world. On my short
trip I encounter two brides. The first, clad in traditional
long white dress and veil, is standing in the queue for
a cab outside the Bellagio at midnight on a warm June
evening.

The second is when I’m on my way back to the airport.
I’m standing outside the Wynn, waiting for another cab.
But, there’s a delay and a plane to catch so I order a
limo – not as flash as it sounds as they are cheap to
hire. A couple, waiting in the queue next to me, ask
if they can go dutch and share the limo as they too
need to get to the airport in a hurry. “No problem,”
I say. Turns out they have been in Las Vegas to get
married and took a honeymoon suite at the Wynn that
had a floorspace of 1800 square feet. “That’s bigger
than many people’s homes in the UK,” I say. “That’s
bigger than many people’s homes in the United States,”
they reply.

Vegas honeymoon – in a bridal suite
bigger than the home they’ll share.

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All too familiar with the gambles of war, Jimmy Kinsey, Kyle Riley and a few dozen fellow soldiers landed in the desert. But for these guys this Memorial Day, the most at stake is a few bucks.
The soldiers-turned-high rollers took a private jet to Las Vegas over the weekend for an all-expenses-paid getaway with all the perks normally saved for casinos’ richest regulars.
They were greeted at the airport by Wayne Newton, chilled backstage with the guys from Blue Man Group and hobnobbed with Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who runs Las Vegas Sands Corp. and paid for the trip.
The trip, organized by the Armed Forces Foundation, brought 40 wounded soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md., to the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
“I’m gonna be bragging about this for a long while,” said Kinsey, 23, while hanging out in his penthouse overlooking the nearby Wynn Golf Course. Each of the soldiers, mostly in their 20s, stayed in a penthouse, and several who came alone got one to themselves.
Kinsey, a Marine corporal from Foley, Ala., who lost part of his left leg to an improvised explosive device in Iraq in 2006, said he hadn’t spent too much time gambling — just a few slots.
“On a scale from one to 10 I gave this trip a 15 when I got on the plane,” he said.
Riley, a 21-year-old from Catlett, Va., who also lost part of his left leg to an IED in Iraq, was so overwhelmed by the trip he decided with his fiancee, Alyssa Mergler, to make it their wedding weekend. They planned to wed Monday on a gold and white gondola, courtesy of Adelson, whom Mergler said insisted on having his staff handle the plans.
Mergler, 21, said a wedding coordinator showed up at their suite with a thick book of flower choices.
“I don’t have the money to do that,” said Riley, who asked Kinsey to be his best man.
Armed Forces Foundation officials said the trip was a dream distraction from the everyday life at the hospitals, where the soldiers lived while recovering from their injuries.
Armed Forces Foundation spokesman Doug Stone said the trip would be the first of many, and said Adelson wanted to eventually extend the all-expenses-paid offer to every veteran who had been admitted to the two hospitals.
A spokesman for Adelson said the executive was not available for comment because he was traveling.

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The award-winning “Monty Python’s SPAMALOT” has brought the bright side of life to the Las Vegas Strip since opening at Wynn Las Vegas on March 31, 2007. Performed nightly in The Grail Theater, SPAMALOT tells the legendary tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and their quest for the Holy Grail. SPAMALOT features silly songs, dancing divas, knights in tights, feisty Frenchmen and a happy ending! Featuring a book and lyrics by Eric Idle, music by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, direction by Mike Nichols, and choreography by Casey Nicholaw, SPAMALOT is based on a screenplay by Monty Python creators Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. The show is lovingly ripped off from the motion picture, Monty Python and the Holy Grail , and stars John O’Hurley as King Arthur. John O’Hurley, who stars as King Arthur, is best known as J. Peterman on Seinfeld . O’Hurley was the ultimate champion on season one of Dancing with the Stars and is the new host of Family Feud . O’Hurley, who has worked on stage throughout his career, starred on Broadway in Chicago as Billy Flynn. Erica Ash plays The Lady of the Lake. The principal cast also includes Harry Bouvy as Sir Robin, Aaron De Jesus as Patsy, James Ludwig as Lancelot, Randal Keith as Bedevere, Mika Duncan as Galahad and Josh Grisetti as Prince Herbert. SPAMALOT has been honored with numerous awards, including the Grammy Award for Best Original Cast Recording and three Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Ticket prices are $69, $89 and $109, plus tax. Tickets for the V.I.P.P. (Very Important Person package) are also available for $179, plus tax. Monty Python’s SPAMALOT plays at The Grail Theater at Wynn Las Vegas at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. There are two performances on Saturdays at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. The theater is dark on Thursdays. To reserve tickets for Monty Python’s SPAMALOT at Wynn Las Vegas, please call 888 320 7110 or 702 770 WYNN

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This was the most fun I’ve had in Las Vegas in the past five or six trips. There really is a stark difference between this trip in May and the previous trip in April.

April was a poorly planned and poorly conceived trip with minimal planning and a completely botched execution. We drove out there in the middle of night, arrived in the middle of twilight, got housed at the tables, and went to sleep dazed and woozy. We woke up, got hammered at the tables again, and then drove home. In between, we had decent meals at the coffee shop at Planet Hollywood, a pretty good meal at Bradley Ogden, and a really good meal at the Wynn Buffet. Other than that, the trip was forgettable.

Oh, and I swore off Vegas, gambling in general, and poker forever. It didn’t last long to bring me back to the tables.

The nominal excuse for this Vegas trip was Jaron’s return from his first year from the University of Missouri’s Law program. Ultimately, there were going to be six of us there: myself, Johnny, Caywood, and Laura would be driving in from Los Angeles Sunday morning. Laitch and Jaron would be driving in from the other direction Sunday night. Johnny and I would leave Tuesday night on a Southwest Flying Bus back to LAX. Caywood and Laura would drive back Wednesday afternoon, and Laitch and Jase would drive to LA Thursday afternoon. The planning required several degrees of complexity, none of which was my responsibility. I took the easy way out.

After a fantastic meal at the Original Pancake House on PCH, we left Los Angeles at about 10AM for the drive across the Mojave. Except for one quick restroom break at the Home Depot in Barstow (don’t even get me started on that decision), we made fantastic time arriving in Las Vegas at around 2PM. Check-in at the Tropicana was a breeze except for the fact that they gave Johnny and I a room with a decent view, not too far from the elevator, and one king-sized bed. Oops. Once we got that figured out, we hit the Tropicana pool.

The pool at the Trop sucks.

The choice for dinner also sucked that night, since the American Country Music Awards were across the street at the MGM Grand, and somebody (me) decided that it was a fantastic idea to eat at the MGM Grand. Reservations were impossible and there were no empty tables at any decent restaurant. We ended up eating a rather putrid meal at the MGM Grand food court, eating doughy pizza, cold chicken wings, and completely uninspired breadsticks.

On the plus side, the tables were very kind that night. I did not have a losing session at any single table, breaking even at Pai Gow, and winning over one twenty at the blackjack tables.

Monday, we hit the new adults-only pool at the MGM Grand, Wet Republic. It was really nice in there, with hot cocktail waitresses, two salt-water pools, a volleyball court, and plenty of lounge chairs and beds. There was even a little ultra-lounge area off to the side where the DJ was playing 80’s pop and this week’s hip hop song de jour. I’d guess we there there for about six hours, just hanging out, getting tan, and playing volleyball. I loved it.

Monday night, we drove over to the Red Rock Station casino out on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t my favorite place, especially after I lost two bills in seven minutes before our dinner reservation at Terra Rosa, the Italian restaurant where the winner of the second season of Hell’s Kitchen was installed as the head chef. Well, Rock was nowhere in sight, but the food was spectacular. The calamari appetizer was the absolute best calamari I’ve ever had, and the carbonara entre I had was pretty good too. As an added bonus, the meal was fairly reasonable, with the six of us getting out of there for under two hundred bucks.

After Red Rock, the plan was to catch a quick nap and then head back down to the tables. My quick nap turned into ten hours of nap. I’m not sure it was worth it considering how much time I’ve slept in the past two days, but it sure felt good at the time.

Tuesday was gettaway day for Johnny and I. We hit the Bellagio Buffet for a quick brunch, and then hit the tables again, this time downtown. Again, the tables were very kind to me, and I recouped my losses from Red Rock plus some extra. I even got to play a little poker at Binion’s, something I’ve been wanting to do for some time.

All in all, not including hotel and airfare, I spent twenty-five dollars in Las Vegas. You can’t argue with that. Throw in about sixty for the airplane and another two hundred for the hotel, I essentially spent less than one hundred dollars a day in Las Vegas during this trip, something I have trouble doing when I’m home in Redondo Beach.

here…

Originally published at Las-Vegas, Luxury Hotels. Please leave any comments there.

A fun way to try and gauge the health of a city’s economy is to go somewhere high up — a skyscraper, an observation deck, a roller coaster — and count cranes.

Cranes mean construction, construction means growth and growth means more money is flowing in and out of the coffers of local business, boosting the tax base and generally making the city an exciting place to live. We can write until our fingers fall off about new leases, secured financing deals and imaginative architectural renderings, but until the crane goes up, there’s no guarantee that development will move forward.

The last time I took the elevator to the top of Baltimore’s World Trade Center, which must have been about six months ago, I remember being able to count the number of cranes on one hand — and they were mostly concentrated in Harbor East, the east Baltimore Science + Technology Park, and the Westside BioPark.

Visiting Las Vegas this week for the ICSC’s ReCon Global Real Estate Convention, I realized just how futile such an exercise would be in that city. You can’t count all the cranes even if you take your socks off. Even if you limit yourself to the Strip — the common name for Las Vegas Boulevard, the centrally-located, hockey stick-shaped road where most of the major casinos sit — it’s hard to get a handle on what “growth” means in America’s fastest-growing city.

Consider, for example, that by the end of March, Las Vegas had hosted nearly 10 million tourists. In 2005, Baltimore marked a seven-year high in tourism by attracting 12 million visitors, for the whole year. One tour guide in Vegas told me that the city was preparing for 45 million visitors in 2009.

What that means is incredible rates of growth and construction, especially along the Strip. According to recent numbers, the city is expected to add 9,119 new hotel rooms by the end of the year, 17,223 by the end of 2009 and11,785 by the end of 2010, bringing the grand total over the next 2½ years to somewhere around 171,000 hotel rooms, plus 33,000 more in proposed projects with undetermined completion dates.

Two projects in particular account for a combined 10,000 of the rooms of the 2009 growth spike: the MGM Grand’s $7.8 billion, massive “CityCenter” project (at ReCon, when I saw Baltimore developer Mark Sapperstein, who is building a new hotel site downtown with the same handle, I asked what he thought of the MGM’s version, and he said, “Well, they stole our name…”), and the $2.9 billion, 4,000-room Fontainebleau, which was going up right near my hotel, at the north end of the Strip.

A few other notable projects are the Encore tower, a 2,000-room, $2.2 billion hotel that is part of the Wynn, the casino and resort of choice for Maryland delegates to the ReCon convention, which is expected to be finished this fall (it looked great, and almost done), several expansions, including the Tropicana (4,000 rooms, $2.5 billion) and Trump International (1,300 rooms, $625 million), and the and two new projects, the Grand Hyatt (3,000 rooms, $3 billion) and Echelon Place, a 5,000-room, $4.8 billion project that is due to deliver in 2010.

By contrast, Baltimore’s two biggest hotel projects under construction are the $600 million, 200-room Four Seasons in Harbor East and the 750-room, $300 million Hilton convention center hotel. Last year, 100 hotel rooms were added to downtown Baltimore’s 64,400-room inventory, and 1,700 more are under construction for delivery between 2008-2010.

In addition, countless sites around Baltimore have lain fallow, development-wise, as the market adjusts to a tough credit market. The site of the old McCormick spice plant at 414 Light Street, the proposed location of the long-fabled “10 Inner Harbor,” a skyscraper that would be Baltimore’s tallest building, has seen no construction to date, and 300 E. Pratt Street, the site of a proposed condominium complex, also remains quiet.

In Las Vegas, there are comparatively few open lots ripe for new construction. One of the few I saw was the former Frontier casino site at the far north end of the Strip, which workers water every day to keep the dust down in front of the shimmering, golden Trump Tower in the distance. A plan on the site for a hotel and casino modeled on New York’s famous Plaza are rumored to be stalled by financing issues.

Of course, Las Vegas is a different city than Baltimore. In fact, most of what we think of as Vegas — the Strip, effectively — is part of unincorporated Clark County, but the city of Las Vegas itself, along with nearby North Las Vegas and Henderson, all dip their cups into the deep well of revenue provided by property taxes, liquor licenses and hotel taxes produced by the Strip’s casinos. The Vegas metro area has three times the population that we do. All their power comes from the Hoover Dam, which makes arguments about utilities a bit simpler than our Byzantine conflicts over Constellation’s regulation issues. Come to think of it, I would take an all-expense paid vacation in quirky, temperate Baltimore 10 times out of 10 over the seedy, plastic, suffocating heat of Sin City.

But wouldn’t it be nice, every once in a while, to not be able to count the cranes that dot the skyline? Anybody know what’s going on with slots?

here…

Originally published at Las-Vegas, Luxury Hotels. Please leave any comments there.

Program Expands With a Number of New Partners Across Popular Categories, including Wynn® Las Vegas, Air Tahiti Nui, Legal Sea Food and USGA®

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–American Express today announced the 2008 partner lineup for its industry-leading Membership Rewards® program, which includes the addition of several new partners across popular categories and gives Cardmembers even more ways to redeem points.

Among the latest additions to the program are Wynn Las Vegas, one of the premier resorts in Las Vegas and Air Tahiti Nui, which provides non-stop flights from New York and Los Angeles to Tahiti. Other new additions to the 2008 Membership Rewards program include:

• Retail partners, such as west elm®;
• Dining & Entertainment partners, such as Legal Sea Food, Forth Wall Restaurants, U.S. Golf Association [USGA®]; and
• Travel partners, such as Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and The Peninsula Hotels.

These latest additions are among the hundreds of redemption options that are available to enrollees and span across the program’s nine major categories: Airlines, Car Rentals and Rail, Charities, Dining & Entertainment, Financial Services, Hotels, Merchandise, Retail, and Sports and Adventure.

“Continuing to grow and enhance the Membership Rewards program is a key goal for American Express,” said Tracey Beberman, vice president, Membership Rewards, American Express. “We know that Cardmembers value the program’s redemption options and by adding more partners we give them more ways to redeem points and get the kinds of things they want.”

The 2008 Membership Rewards Program Partners are:

Airlines: Aeromexico, Aeroplan®, Air France KLM, Air Jamaica, Air Tahiti Nui, AirTran Airways, Alitalia Airlines, All Nippon Airways (ANA), Cathay Pacific Airways, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, EL AL Israel Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines®, JetBlue Airways, Mexicana® Airlines, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, Southwest Airlines®, SWISS and Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Car Rentals and Rail: Amtrak®, Avis®, Enterprise Rent-A-Car®, Hertz® and Rail Europe.

Charity: GivingExpress [run by JustGive.org].

Dining & Entertainment: AMC Entertainment® , American Express ® Gift Cards Especially for Dining, Benihana, BLOCKBUSTER®, By Invitation Only® Events for Platinum Cardmembers, California Pizza Kitchen, Cinemark Theatres®, CityPass®, Create Your Own Reward, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar®, Fourth Wall Restaurants, iTunes®, Legal Sea Food, Lettuce Entertain You® Enterprises, Inc., McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants, Morton’s® The Steakhouse, Olive Garden®, Patina Restaurant Group, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro®, Red Lobster®, Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine, Regal Entertainment Group, Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group©, Telecharge.com, The Capital Grille®, The Cheesecake Factory®, The Melting Pot, Ticketmaster, Tribeca Film Festival and USTA^TM.

Retail: Banana Republic, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Bath & Body Works®, Bloomingdale’s, Brooks Brothers, Cole Haan, Crate and Barrel, Dell^TM Computer, ESCADA, FTD.COM®, Gap, Lands’ End®, Linens’n Things®, L’Occitane, Nike, Pottery Barn®, Pottery Barn Kids®, Red Door Spas, Restoration Hardware, Saks Fifth Avenue, Smithsonian Institution, SpaFinder®, Talbots, The Home Depot®, Tourneau, 800wine.com, west elm®, Williams-Sonoma® and Williams-Sonoma Home®.

First Collection: Baccarat, Bergdorf Goodman, Chopard, Davidoff Cigars and Accessories, Ermenegildo Zegna, Exclusive Resorts, Girard Perregaux, Gucci, IWC, Lamborghini, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Mikimoto, Monarch Billiards, Montegrappa writing instruments, Neiman Marcus, Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, Pebble Beach Resorts®, Piaget, Premium Wines, Raffles Hotels & Resorts, Relais & Chateaux Grands Chefs Restaurants, Salvatore Ferragamo, The Peninsula Hotels, The Ritz-Carlton, Tiffany & Co. and Virgin Limited Edition.

Financial Services: American Express® Gift Cards, American Express® Gift Cheques, American Express® Travelers Cheques, MileageManager, Link2Gov (www.pay1040.com/mr), Official Payments Corp.® (www.officialpayments.com/mr), Points.com and Upromise®.

Hotels: Best Western Gold Crown Club® International, Destination Hotels and Resorts, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts/Raffles Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Honors® (Hilton®, Conrad®, Coral by Hilton, Doubletree®, Embassy Suites Hotels®, Hampton Inn® , Hampton Inn & Suites, Hilton Garden Inn®, Hilton Grand Vacations Club®, Homewood Suites by Hilton®, and Scandic), Hyatt Hotels & Resorts®, Priority Club® Rewards (InterContinental®, Crowne Plaza®, Hotel Indigo®, Holiday Inn®, Holiday Inn Express®, Staybridge Suites® and Candlewood Suites®), Joie de Vivre Hotels, Loews Hotels, LXR Luxury Resorts & Hotels, Marriott Individual Incentives, Marriott Vacation Club International, Miraval Life in Balance Resort and Spa, Omni Hotels®, Preferred Hotel Group (Preferred Hotels & Resorts and Summit Hotels & Resorts), Radisson Hotels & Resorts®, Sol Meliá Hotels & Resorts, Starwood Preferred Guest® (St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, W Hotels®, Le Meridien®, Sheraton® Hotels & Resorts, Four Points® by Sheraton, Westin® Hotel & Resorts), Swissotel Hotels & Resorts and Wynn® Las Vegas.

Sports and Adventure: Abercrombie & Kent, Aspen/Snowmass, Butterfield & Robinson, Classic Car Club, Epiculinary, ESPN Golf Schools Presented by American Express, Golf Academy at The Sea Pines Resort, Intrawest Mountain Resorts, Lake Austin Spa, Mountain Travel Sobek, Mizuno Golf, The Moorings, The Moorings Power, O.A.R.S, Richard Petty Driving Experience^™, Skip Barber Racing School, Six Flags, Smithsonian Journeys, Space Adventures Ltd., Tauck World Discovery, The Worlds of Busch Gardens, The Canyons, Troon Golf, Theme Parks Unlimited, USGA®, Vail Resorts, Van Der Meer Tennis and Xperience Days.

Merchandise: Adidas, All-Clad, Anolon, AT&T, Bang & Olufsen, Baume & Mercier, Bodum®, Bose®, Boston Acoustics, Bowflex®, Bulova, Bushnell, Callaway® Golf, Camelback, Canon, Casio, Celestron, Circulon, Cobra Golf, Coleman, Creative®, Cuisinart, DeLonghi, Dooney & Bourke, Dunhill, Dyson, Garmin, Hartmann, Hewlett Packard, Hoover, iRobot, Jabra, JA Henckels, Jansport, JBL, JVC, Kate Spade, Kenneth Cole Reaction, KitchenAid®, KOSS, Krups, Lagos, Lalique, Le Creuset®, Lenox, Life Fitness, Lladro, Logitech®, Magellan, Majorica, Maui Jim®, Microsoft, Mizuno, Monster Cable, Montblanc, Motorola, Movado, Nambe, Nautilus, Nike, Nikon, The North Face, Oakley, Ogio, Omas, Oreck®, Panasonic, Pentax®, Philips, Pioneer, Plantronics, Polar, Ray-Ban, Riedel, Royal, Samsonite, Samsung, SanDisk, SenrySafe, Sharp, Skagen, Skil, Sky Golf, SIRIUS Satellite, Sony®, Staub, Steiner Sports, Swarovski, TAG Heuer, Takamine, TaylorMade®, Timberland, Titleist® Golf, TIVO, Toro, Toshiba, Travelpro, Trek®, Tumi®, Villeroy & Boch, Waterford, Weber, Wilson®, Yamaha, and many more.

The Membership Rewards program from American Express has more than 140 redemption partners. The program allows Cardmembers to earn one point for virtually every dollar charged on eligible, enrolled American Express® Cards.

Membership Rewards points are redeemable in a wide selection of reward categories. Enrollees may also customize their own redemption experiences through the program’s Create Your Reward and Experiences options and use points for just about anything they can imagine. Points have no expiration date, and there is no limit on the number of points a Cardmember can earn.

For more information about the Membership Rewards program, Cardmembers can visit: www.membershiprewards.com or call 1-800-THE-CARD.

American Express company (www.americanexpress.com) is a leading global payments, network and travel company founded in 1850.

Originally published at Las-Vegas, Luxury Hotels. Please leave any comments there.

LAS VEGAS (AP)—Former NBA star Charles Barkley has retired his debt to a Las Vegas Strip casino that sued him after he failed to pay $400,000 in gambling loans.

But the civil lawsuit remains open, and it’s going to cost Sir Charles $40,000 more to get out of the legal doghouse.

Barkley, a basketball analyst for Turner Network Television, said in a statement released Tuesday by TNT that he didn’t know about the district attorney’s $40,000 processing fee, but intends to pay it.

“True to my word, I sent a $400,000 cashier’s check overnight to Wynn Las Vegas, which they confirmed they received,” Barkley said. “I was unaware of the additional 10 percent processing fee from the district attorney’s office and will make restitution on that promptly.”

Jennifer Dunne, a spokeswoman for Wynn Las Vegas, said it received a check Tuesday afternoon from Barkley and sent it to the district attorney. The resort filed a civil complaint May 14 in Nevada state court alleging Barkley failed to repay four $100,000 casino markers, or loans, received last Oct. 18 and 19.

“We’ve been paid in full,” Dunne said. “The rest is the district attorney fee.”

Clark County District Attorney David Roger said the case will remain open, with Barkley facing possible criminal prosecution until he pays the fee.

“We’ve been in contact with his representative,” Roger told The Associated Press. “We expect a check for $40,000 within the next few days.”

Barkley said during a pre-game show Monday that he was to blame for the outstanding gambling debt.

“I screwed up and didn’t pay them in a significant amount of time,” Barkley said. “Could they have handled it differently? Yes. But it was my fault.”

The 45-year-old Barkley also said he would stop gambling, at least for a while.

“For right now, the next year or two, I’m not going to gamble,” he said. “Just because I can afford to lose money doesn’t mean I should do it.”

Roger had promised to file felony theft or bad check charges if Barkley didn’t pay the Wynn debt. A theft conviction could carry a penalty of one to 10 years in state prison. A felony bad check conviction could bring one to four years.

Barkley played 16 NBA seasons for the Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets, and played on the USA Olympic “Dream Team” in 1992 and 1996. He was an 11-time NBA All-Star and was league MVP in 1993.

He has talked openly about his gambling, estimating during a May 2006 interview with ESPN that he’d gambled away about $10 million over the years.

from here

Originally published at Las-Vegas, Luxury Hotels. Please leave any comments there.

After 10 days in Texas, we all travelled together to Las Vegas, where Abby flew on to Los Angeles and then to New Zealand for the rest of her holiday, and we picked up a 4×4 hire vehicle for our trip to the canyons and national parks of Utah and Arizona. But not before seeing Las Vegas itself!

Bright, garish, trashy, classy, busy, noisy, fascinating, amazing, excessive, a “must see”. . . . like Blackpool in some respects, and in others, not like it at all! (it’s hot in Vegas, for instance!). The place has to be experienced, and the experience entered into, and the picture of the fruit machine gives a good idea of one way we entered into it! But first of all, we went to Paris where we had a buffet “pay one price and eat all you can” lunch, which was delicious. The food was good, champagne was served at the start, and the restaurant setting was a mocked-up Parisian square complete with outside tables on cobbles (but it was all inside the hotel itself which is H-U-G-E like everything Vegas!). The sky appears to be overhead, always summer-blue, with a few fluffy clouds, and the sun always shines. It’s a bit disconcerting when you notice the sprinkler valves in the ceiling painted into the overall sky appearance, especially if you’ve seen the Jim Carrey film, “The Truman Show”! What is reality and what is not. . .?We ate, we played the fruit machines (you have to get out when you’re winning - Maylis and I made a tiny profit!), we walked along the Strip and saw The Bellagio (setting for the film “Ocean’s Eleven”) and Caesar’s Palace, went into The Venetian which has its own Grand Canal complete with gondola rides propelled by singing gondoliers - and that is upstairs on the first floor!!The Wynn is the newest hotel there - very classy indeed, with patterned mosaic floors, giant lampshades which move gently up and down like slow yo-yo’s, and a shopping mall to rival Bond Street, dripping with designer shops, including Tiffany’s and Manolo Blahnik shoes (Sandra, eat your heart out). And I’m trying out a new photo display gizmo which both Maylis and Abbyhave used on their blogs to display photos of our time together in the States. It’s my first go at this, and for some reason I’ve not worked out yet the photo’s don’t all show the right way up - but what the heck, it’s OK as far as overall impression goes. As they say in the States, “Enjoy!”

source 

Originally published at Las-Vegas, Luxury Hotels. Please leave any comments there.

If you’ve ever been to the WebmasterWorld PubCon you know it is one of the best conferences for Internet marketing. Search, affiliate, social, design, development and usability are all included in the mix. The conference is usually held at the Las Vegas convention center near the Las Legas Hilton and the Las Vegas Renaissance. When registration opens, you can register for PubCon online and usually get a good deal if you register early.

Last year the conference had a special deal on rooms at the Las Vegas Wynn for under $200/night which is a killer deal for that property. However after going into the Okada Japanese restaurant at the Las Vegas Wynn and getting served what tasted like dirty laundry water and being offered $8 bottled water as an alternative, I won’t be returning to the Wynn again.

If you are going to the Vegas PubCon, there are lots of great hotels and restaurants there. The Las Legas Hilton is ok, and the Las Vegas Renaissance is outstanding for those who like to come back to come peace and quiet in Vegas at the end of a long day (or an all-nighter).

The Las Vegas Planet Hollywood is a nice new place that used to be the Alladin and sometimes you can get it for around $100/night on Priceline and other hotel aggregator websites. It’s a bit far from the convention center but in a great overall location for the Las Vegas strip.

While in Las Vegas there are some great shows to go to. You can save some $$$ on the top shows at Ticket2Night.com including KA, Zumanity, BlueMan Group, Crasy Horse Paris and others.

If you’ve got some great info to share with the Internet marketing industry, be sure to use the PubCon speaker proposal form pretty soon to have a chance at getting selected to present there.

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Originally published at Las-Vegas, Luxury Hotels. Please leave any comments there.

Last week, Steve Wynn hosted his quarterly conference call with investors for his company Wynn Resorts.

(A quick aside: When Wynn sold his Mirage Resorts to MGM he said he would never operate a public company again because of the short-term expectations of investors. That ended when he launched his present company and needed money to build in both Las Vegas and Macau.)

Anyway, an investor asked Wynn if he would consider layoffs at his Las Vegas property due to the poor economic conditions now afflicting the world’s gaming capital. It was a legitimate question since many Las Vegas companies, most notably MGM Mirage and Station Casinos, recently announced layoffs. Wynn responded that it would never happen.

“I am telling anybody who is interested in our company that under no circumstances will I give any consideration, even for a second, in changing our service levels or disrupting our work force,” he said.

He told the questioner that he didn’t want to instill a negative factor into his service team, a “who’s next” mentality. He also noted this was the sixth slowdown he’s experienced his his gaming career and has never laid anyone off as a result of slow business.

“In my career, I have never had a layoff,” Wynn said. “We don’t intend to do it. We consider the morale and feeling of security our employees have is the most important asset the company owns. More than our buildings or even our concessions.”

Now it is noteworthy that Wynn considers his people the most important asset of his company. That’s the Steve Wynn I knew when I worked for him in Atlantic City. This is the man who put his employees above all others. This is the man who gave new cars to his employees as a Christmas bonus the first year he was open in Atlantic City. This is the man who created such a bond with his employees that they cried and fell apart when he announced he was selling his Atlantic City property to go back to Las Vegas and build the Mirage. This is a man who truly understood his employees.

While his comments during the conference call last week were a reminder of this man, I have my doubts if he truly believes that anymore. And here’s why. Just last year, Wynn forced his dealers—who are the top of the heap when it comes to front-line employees—to share their tips with supervisors. You see, Wynn was concerned that the disparity in pay between his supervisors, who made around $60,000, and his dealers, who cleared around $100,000, would affect his gaming operations. He was correct in this concern. Apparently, no dealers would accept a “promotion” to supervisor because it meant such a dramatic decrease in pay.

The old Steve Wynn would have simply upped the salary of the supervisors, but the new Wynn apparently wasn’t concerned with “morale.” His method of telling the dealers of his new plan was ham-fisted, at the very least. He gathered them together and told them about the plan and, essentially, that they should be happy they have a job.

Not surprisingly, the plan has spurred several lawsuits (all of which have been won by Wynn so far) and a legislative move designed to make the tip-sharing policy illegal. The dealers also voted a union in—probably the worst union possible—but no contract has yet been signed.

The “old” Steve Wynn could have sold this policy to the dealers if he had demonstrated how everyone would benefit. But the “new” Steve Wynn took his legal opinions and tried to shove it down the throats of the dealers without considering the impact on morale.

So it’s nice to see that some of the “old” Steve Wynn has re-emerged in his loyalty and dedication to his workers. And I truly hope that he means it because he can be a charismatic leader when he wants to be.

—Roger Gros