Derrick Lewis is a -170 favorite over Rodrigo Nascimento in tonight’s UFC main event. In the other featured match, Joaquin Buckley is -140 over Nursulton Ruziboev.
The LVA YouTube Weekly Update is live and kicking. Our very own casino influencers, Anthony and Andrew, dive into the details coming out of Virgin: Mohegan Sun is out as the casino manager and the Culinary Union is on strike this weekend. Then they segue to the latest “trailer casino”; find out where it will be and when and what the video poker payouts will probably be like. The Downtown Rocks concert series is starting up in a couple of weeks and Andrew’s excited about several of the bands, Anthony’s excited about a steak special (16-ounce ribeye dinner for $19.99) at a bar in North Las Vegas that also has a stellar sign-up bonus, and the Question of the Week is how to become an advantage player. And speaking of advantage play, the Jackpot of the Week is a good example, plus it’s a sweet story. It’s all here with a quick click.
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Confirming a rumor on VitalVegas, Eater Vegas reports that Holsteins, the burger restaurant that opened with Cosmopolitan in 2010, will close on July 9. Employees were notified yesterday of the impending shutdown. A new restaurant is in development, but nothing has been announced — or rumored — about it yet.
Last year around this time, we learned that Las Vegas Spaceport, Inc., had quietly acquired 240 acres roughly 50 miles west of the city near Pahrump to build a hotel-casino-astronaut-training-center-spaceport — words that don’t often appear together. The company has a plan to get a jump on space tourism, while locating the spaceport near major military bases and their pilots and technicians, plus rocket scientists. Now, Clark County has just approved construction permits for the Las Vegas Executive Airport, slated to be the “cornerstone” of the complex, which will serve both commercial and private space tourism. The overall plans include a passenger terminal, rooftop deck, restaurant, and hotel; there was no mention of a casino in the recent news reports. Construction is expected to begin in late summer, with an operator selected in four years and space travel “at least five years” away.
EDC 2024 invades Las Vegas next weekend, running May 17-19 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Upwards of 520,000 people are expected to pass through the gates during that time. Costs are rising of course, but transportation will be particularly dear. According to some transportation information sent to us, the official shuttle bus is $279 per person,just under 100% more than the Coachella shuttle at $140. For taxis and rideshares, there will be a $100 surcharge on top of the trip fare ($40 dropoff, $60 pickup). Limited parking starts at $165 per space. And the helicopter ride is $650 one-way.
Following on the heels of a $30 million capital investment to redo the hotel rooms and casino restrooms, the El Cortez has announced another $20 million upgrade. This one will be an expansion, adding a high-limit lounge, two bars, an Asian restaurant (noodles), and a Starbucks. The project will begin this summer with a completion date of early next year.
- San Gennaro Feast kicks off this weekend at M Resort (5/9-12)
- Justin Timberlake is center stage at T-Mobile Arena (5/10-11)
- Don’t miss REO Speedwagon at the Venetian (5/10-11)
- The Cosmopolitan welcomes Toni Braxton and Cedric The Entertainer (5/12)
- Take the family out and enjoy the Helldorado Days Parade at downtown (5/11)
- And The Rolling Stones takes over Allegiant Stadium (5/11)
For the first time in over 22 years, the Culinary and Bartenders Union has called for a strike at Virgin Las Vegas beginning tomorrow at 5 a.m. and continuing through Sunday 5 a.m. The strike will involve more than 700 hospitality workers, including room attendants, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, and kitchen workers, and picket lines will cover all entrances to the property. Negotiations are ongoing, but the next scheduled meeting between management and the union isn’t until next Tuesday. Virgin is the only hotel-casino in Las Vegas that remains without a labor contract, which expired on June 1 of last year. For Virgin’s part, executives claim that they’ve been making “sincere efforts to meet and negotiate,” but the union “isn’t negotiating in good faith”; they’ve also filed an unfair-labor-practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. The most recent Culinary Union strike was in 2002 at the Golden Gate; it lasted 10 days.
The Venetian opened in early May 1999, making this month its silver anniversary. Perhaps in conjunction with the milestone, Apollo Management (casino operator) and Vici Properties (landowner) just announced a 36-month $1.5 billion (yes, with a “b”) capital investment in the property, which includes a major renovation of the Venetian Expo, a remodel of the high-limit room and sports book at Palazzo, a number of new restaurants, the new small Voltaire Theater, and a complete refresh of all 4,000 Venetian suites. You can see some good photos, especially two of what the new suites will look like, on a Travel & Leisure web page. And thanks to Canada Roy for the link.
In a story on LVSportsBiz.com, “What Is Clark County Hiding about Recently Submitted Formula 1 Traffic Report?”, local reporter Alan Snell wonders aloud why the county “refuses to allow the public to see the Las Vegas Grand Prix traffic report.” Snel has made several requests to county officials to release the report, which was submitted by the Las Vegas Grand Prix on May 1; the county maintains that “the report is a draft and not allowed to be seen by the public.” Really? Snel quotes Nevada’s open-records law, which says that unless a document is “declared confidential by law,” information is “by default” public record. There’s a lot more to this story and if you’d like to read it, you’ll find it here.
The Clark County Commission has voted to grant Bally’s Corp. a two-year waiver with two possible six-month extensions on license requirements; this allows the company to keep its gaming license for the Tropicana site. Without the extension(s), Bally’s license would be suspended, with the possibility of nonrenewal, 30 days after closure. The extension requires the Trop to be completely demolished by April 2025. Meanwhile, the Review-Journal reports this morning that the exact placement of the Oakland A’s stadium hasn’t been determined, awaiting the overall property design, which will include where and how large a new casino will be, along with non-relocation, development, and lease agreements that the team still needs to submit to the Stadium Authority.
Teased earlier this year, the National Hockey League made the official announcement yesterday that its 2024 draft will be held at Sphere on June 28-29. The NHL will be the first sports league to sponsor an event at Sphere and the draft will be the first event to be televised live from the arena. In the statement, the league promised “an NHL Draft like no other, introducing the bright future of hockey in an innovative and exhilarating setting.” The first round on Friday will be televised starting at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN, ESPN+, SN, and TVAS with rounds 2-7 on Saturday starting at 11:30 ET on ESPN+, NHLN, SN, and SN1. Reportedly, the draft will be open to the public, though no ticket information was included in the announcement. This is expected to be the last centralized draft for the NHL; starting next year, the teams will make their picks from their home markets and only the draft-eligible players will congregate in one place.
Virgin Las Vegas and Mohegan will part ways by the end of this year, both entities announced in a joint statement yesterday afternoon. Following Mohegan’s departure as manager of the Virgin casino, Virgin will take over operations, pending regulatory approvals.
The Last Showgirl has wrapped production in Las Vegas. The movie’s title character is a Vegas dancer in her 50s, “who struggles with what to do next” when her show abruptly closes after a 30-year run on the Strip. That character is played by Pamela Anderson, who returns to the big screen after a role as a sheriff in the forgettable 2022 horror film Alone at Night. The Last Showgirl is directed by Gia Coppola, granddaughter of Francis Ford and niece of director Sofia Coppola. It also stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Song, and Dave Bautista. The film is now in post-production, but no release date has been announced. We’ll look for it.
Interest rates? What interest rates? Mortgage rates have been inching up all year, but they aren’t having an impact on prices for houses, townhouses, and condos in Las Vegas; in fact, townhomes and condos set an all-time record in April for the median price: $290,000. That’s an increase of 7.4% from April 2023 and beats the old record of $287,000 set in August 2022. As for houses, the median price was $469,000, up $4,000 over March and $39,000 from a year ago. Sales were brisk, up 16% for condos and nearly 20% for houses over 2023.
After a long residency last year at Zappo’s Theater at Planet Hollywood and one at the Colosseum at Caesars in 2019, country singer, songwriter, and guitarist Keith Urban will play 10 shows at BleauLive Theater; the dates are October 4, 5, 9, 11, and 12 and February 14, 15, 19, 21, and 22. This is the first “residency” at the 3,800-seat BleauLive, which has been defined since opening by single shows; Fontainebleau apparently doesn’t like the residency label and is calling the 10 shows an “exclusive engagement.” Tickets go on sale to the public Friday at 10 a.m. PT at Ticketmaster.
Anime is a style of animation that originated in Japan and has become popular worldwide. “One Piece” is a long-running (1997) anime and manga (graphic-novel) series, one of the most popular in Japan. It chronicles the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat pirate crew as they search for the ultimate treasure known as One Piece. It combines elements of action, adventure, comedy, drama, and fantasy in various formats, including a TV series, movies, and video games. “One Piece” will open its first U.S. fast-food cafe in Las Vegas on Saturday. The eatery will be located in Chinatown at 5600 Spring Mountain Rd. (north side of Spring Mountain just west of Lindell). You can see the menu, inspired by the series’ characters, and the presentation of the food at the website. The cafe will be open daily 11 a.m.-11 p.m.
The last time the WWE held its largest event of the year, WrestleMania, in Las Vegas was in 1993 for WrestleMania 10. Minneapolis was the frontrunner for this year’s WrestleMania 41, but it was just announced that it will be held here at Allegiant Stadium over Easter weekend next year, April 19-20. It’s not exactly the Super Bowl, but it’s of a similar caliber; events around the host city take place for a week with lots of national publicity. Last month, WrestleMania 40 attracted nearly 150,000 attendees over two nights in Philadelphia and is projected to provide more than $200 million in economic impact for Las Vegas. Easter weekend is traditionally a slow time here, so we’ll see what WrestleMania can deliver. Allegiant Stadium also hosted the WWE’s sold-out SummerSlam in 2021. Ticket information is forthcoming in the next few months, but you can register for the pre-sale at this link.
The Vegas Golden Knights lost Game 7 in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs last night in Dallas by the squeaker score of 2-1. It wasn’t a big surprise; the VGK leapt out to a 2-0 lead in the series, then dropped three out of the last five games, and the Stars were the favorite to win at home. In the Knights’ seven seasons, they’ve made the playoffs six times, winning the Stanley Cup last year. They lost in the first round only once before, in their second season (2019) against the San Jose Sharks.
The Dallas Stars are -145 favorites over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 7 of their first-round NHL playoff series. The total is 5.5.
AirportParkingReservations.com took a look at the most popular museums in America, using search data and the highest positive ratings online. The site’s study found that the Mob Museum is by far the most popular in Nevada, with 40,500 posted reviews. That number also ranks it 15th in the nation, just below the Denver Art Museum (48,170) and Meow Wolf in New Mexico (47,835) and way above the 16th-ranked Baltimore Museum of Art (35,525). Perhaps surprisingly, or not, Graceland in Memphis was number one with nearly 1.3 million reviews, followed by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (781,558) and the Art Institute of Chicago (219,608).
The Cleveland Cavaliers are -3 favorites over the Orlando Magic in Game 7 of their first-round NBA playoff series. The total is 195.5.
One of our favorite Las Vegas restaurants, Peyote, closed with little notice last weekend. No reason was announced for the sudden move, but the speculation is that its location, Fergusons Downtown, will be sold off by the estate of Tony Hsieh and is emptying out beforehand. Though we hadn’t been there for a while, Peyote was a foodie haven, both for dinner and Sunday brunch, especially on the large patio on Fremont Street. The two south-of-the-border chefs who founded Peyote opened a new restaurant downtown, La Mona Rosa (that we didn’t like as much).
Alexandre Pantoja is a -200 favorite over Steve Erceg in tonight’s UFC main event. In the other featured match, Jonathan Martinez is -150 over Jose Aldo.
The Boston Bruins are -135 favorites over the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 7 of their first-round NHL playoff series. The total is 5.
The current odds for the Kentucky Derby make Fierceness the favorite at 3-1, followed by Sierra Leone at 9-2 and Forever Young at 6-1. The long shot is Grand Mo the First at 48-1.
This week’s video starts out with two “no-news” items: Bally’s doesn’t know what they’ll do with the leftover acreage around the Oakland A’s stadium and said as much in its recent earnings call; and a Las Vegas real estate company, LVXP, has announced a resort-casino and NBA-ready stadium for the site of the failed resort-arena project All Net. Different group, same idea — is it news? We’ll see. Beyond that, Anthony discusses the pool scene, which is open and in action, including the toptional pools and the ones where you can gamble (and be sure to listen carefully about getting in for free if you do). The Question of the Week covers what seat not to sit in at a blackjack table if you’re concerned about what other players think of you and the Jackpot of the Week launches a discourse on Triple Double Ultimate X Bonus Streak. Check it out.
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The huge one-day Friends and Lovers music festival, featuring some of the biggest acts in pop and R&B, has been canceled. The “heartbreaking decision” was announced little more than 12 hours before the gates to the Las Vegas Festival Grounds were scheduled to open today at noon, due to a high wind warning from the National Weather Service. According to the F&L statement, “Following advice from the National Weather Service and in consultation with local officials, we must make the safest decision for our fans, artists, and staff and cancel the festival.” Ticket holders for the sold-out event, almost all of whom are here, will receive a refund within 30 days to the original form of payment.
Lovers & Friends returns for its third music festival tomorrow at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. The one-day event features a wide variety of artists on five stages starting at noon and running through midnight. Headliners include Janet Jackson, Gwen Stefani, Mary J. Blige, Backstreet Boys, Usher, Alicia Keys, Brandy, 98 Degrees, Nelly Furtado, Nas, and Kelly Rowland; another 50 or so acts will perform. All tickets have long been sold out. You’ll definitely want to avoid the Strip at Sahara for the whole day.
Live Nation’s annual Concert Week returns next week. This is a strong promotion in which tickets for concerts and comedy shows are $25, including fees (but not taxes). This is the 10th annual Week, which will run Wednesday May 8 through Tuesday May 14. Buy tickets starting Wednesday at 7 a.m. PT for shows at 14 Las Vegas venues, including Bakkt Theater at Planet Hollywood, BleauLive Theater at Fontainebleau, Brooklyn Bowl, the Colosseum at Caesars, Dolby Live at Park MGM, House of Blues, MGM Grand Garden Arena, Pearl at the Palms, T-Mobile, and more. You can see the whole list here and get the tickets here when the sale starts.
It’s been a long time coming and the official word was that merging the two players clubs presented unique challenges that took a couple of years to overcome, but the Cosmopolitans Identity Club will disappear and be replaced by MGM Rewards on July 30. According to the FAQs, members will keep their existing Identity point and free-play balances when MGM Rewards takes over, but (ruh-roh) members will receive a “one-time adjustment” of tier credits in MGM Rewards based on Identity tier points earned over the past year. Those details “will be shared in the coming weeks” and we’ll be very pleasantly surprised if the tier points aren’t downgraded in some way. You can read all the FAQs here.
A “trailer casino” — a temporary gambling space created to preserve a gaming license — is scheduled for May 14 on the site of the former Moulin Rouge. Trailer casinos are so named, because machines are staged in a trailer for eight hours, then taken away. The machines will be open for play starting at 6 am. You might want to check it out to say you have, but we’ve done so in the past and never found anything exciting in the mix—video poker returns on the last one we attended ranged from 93.11% to 95.71%.
Shin Lim and Colin Cloud, who’ve performed together at the Mirage Theater since the show opened in May 2019, are going their separate ways. Las Vegas Review-Journal entertainment columnist John “Kats” Katsilometes reports that Cloud’s last performance with Lim will be on July 1 and one night later, he’ll open at Harrah’s in his own show. Lim has extended his show at the Mirage through September 2, though what happens at the theater after that is anyone’s guess. We saw Lim’s show late last year and were duly impressed with both performers; you can read our review here.
Downtown Rocks, the series of free concerts that run on random Saturday nights from Memorial Day weekend to late October, has announced the bands that will perform. We haven’t heard of any of them, but we think some of the names are cool, especially Boys Like Girls, Sublime with Rome, Hoobastank, and our favorite, To Be Announced, which is playing the final two weeks. (Just kidding.) Here’s the lineup. May 25 Seether, June 8 Hoobastank with Soul Asylum, June 29 Boys Like Girls, July 6 Chris Janson, July 20 Sebastian Bach, August 31 Common Kings, Sept. 7 Joe Nichols, Sept. 21 Sublime with Rome, Oct. 5 and 26 To Be Announced.
A topic that’s covered in the Review-Journal on an annual basis compares the pay of casino-company chief executive officers to that of “typical employees” and the R-J reports this morning that the ratios at several Las Vegas-based companies last year were, shall we say, unsporting. The ratio for Caesars’ CEO, for example, was a mere 560-to-1 ($18.6 million to $33,250 for the “median compensated employee”). Almost as much was Las Vegas Sands at 533-to-1 ($21.9 million to $41,185). Penn Entertainment (Tropicana, M Resort) was also close to the top at 405-to-1 ($15.5 million to $38,332), followed by MGM Resorts International at 374-to-1 ($17 million to $45,502). Boyd was 318-to-1 ($11.4 million to $35,904), Wynn 299-to-1 ($16.2 million to $54,100), the STRAT’s Golden Entertainment Inc. 151-to-1 ($6.1 million to $40,136), Bally’s 103-to-1 ($4.5 million to $43,956), and Station 84-to-1 ($3.5 million to $41,584). Interesting to us is the median income of the employees; Wynn was highest at $54,100, then MGM/$45,502 and Bally’s/$43,956. Why doesn’t it surprise us that Caesars was way down at the bottom at $33,250 and Boyd wasn’t much better at $35,904.
The first Lindo Michoacan opened in Las Vegas on E. Desert Inn Road nearly 25 years ago in 1990 with 12 tables; since then, its three locations (a second in Summerlin and a third in Henderson) seat more than 300 people and it’s one of the most popular and venerable Mexican restaurants in town. The fourth location will open at Palace Station tomorrow at 11 a.m., just in time for Cinco de Mayo weekend. Located in the former Tacos & Tequila space, the new room seats 106 guests and offers the same menu as the other three restaurants.
May starts out moderately hot and winds up summery hot. Average high temperatures range 83 degrees on the first and 94 on the 31st, while average lows go from 61 to 71. Record high temperatures, though are all in the triple digits, from 102 (seven days) to 109 (on the 28th in 2003). The record low of 38 was recorded on the third in 1948; otherwise, all record lows have been in the 40s, with two 50-degree nights (the 26th in 1980 and 28th in 1971). Average rainfall is a quarter-inch, tied with October for the third lowest month of precipitation.
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