Featured Articles Archive - Page 734

A Team With Keen Scents of Security

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Wynn Las Vegas went all the way to Europe to hire eight specially trained members of the $2.7 billion Strip hotel-casino's security detail. But they don't require much in the way of salary. Two Labrador retrievers and six German shepherds make up the key components of the resort's canine patrol, where the dogs, who came to Las Vegas highly educated in bomb-detection techniques, work with their handlers to find dangerous materials, explosives and other substances that might be brought illegally into the resort. The idea of having a bomb-detecting dog team on property isn't new to the Strip...read more

Horoscope for the Week of May 8, 2005

Tip of the Week: This year the New Moon in Taurus coincides with Mother's Day. Mothers are truly the portal to physical reality. Others would choose more sentimental words, yet when we stop to remember that we start our physical life in our mother's body, we can gain a glimpse of the miracle, the sacrifice and the holy nature of mother...read more

Trump Condo Project Reserves All Units

LAS VEGAS -- Prospective buyers have reserved 100 percent of the available condominium units in Donald Trump's first planned Las Vegas development, a project representative said Wednesday. Now, the trick will be to turn those who deposited either $10,000 or $20,000 for one of the 1,282 high-rise dwellings into actual buyers. Trump, the New York developer who has flirted with expanding his business operations to Las Vegas over the years, said a few months ago that interest in the $500 million, 64-story Trump International Hotel and Tower was so phenomenal that he planned to build a second identical tower on the site behind the New Frontier. Trump, along with Frontier owner Phil Ruffin, announced plans for the nongaming facility last summer. The tower will include 880 studio units and 352 one-bedroom condominiums on floors 16 through 59, and 50 suites of one, two, or three bedrooms on the top five floors. Prices range from $600,000 to $6 million. The tower would place Trump's name in lights high above Las Vegas, within walking distance of the Strip and across from Fashion Show mall. Jack Christie, vice president of sales and marketing for Trump International, said the development's sale representatives are taking names for a waiting list in case any of the reservations fall through. "We're still developing a list of interested buyers," Christie said...read more

Indiana Prohibits Internet Gambling

With the signing of Senate Act No. 92 by Gov. Mitch Daniels last week, Indiana became the latest U.S. state to enact a law prohibiting gambling over the Internet. If the government enforces the law, Internet service providers will have to begin blocking access to specific gambling Web sites when ordered by the state's attorney general to do so...read more

Pinnacle Entertainment Reports $2.2 Million Loss

Three weeks before unveiling its most ambitious project, Las Vegas-based casino operator Pinnacle Entertainment said Tuesday it increased its year-over-year quarterly revenues but suffered a loss in net income because of development costs and early debt retirement. Pinnacle, which on May 26 opens the $365 million L'auberge du Lac, a resort, casino and golf course on 227 acres in Lake Charles, La., reported a net loss of $2.2 million, or 6 cents a share, for the quarter ended March 31...read more

Sands Benefits From Macau

Las Vegas Sands Corp. said Tuesday its first-quarter revenues jumped nearly 69 percent from a year earlier helped by strong revenue growth at its Sands Macau property. However, the parent company of The Venetian said its net income fell almost 86 percent as profits were eaten up by a loss of revenues after the sale of the Grand Canal Shoppes, development expenses, early debt retirement and an "unusually large" charitable contribution of $5 million to the Guggenheim Museum. Las Vegas Sands said its diluted income per share was 2 cents, down from 15 cents per share a year ago...read more

The Strip: Wynn May Consider Dividend

For the first time since becoming a publicly traded company, the shareholders of Wynn Resorts Ltd. were able to hold their annual meeting in a building that was producing revenue toward their investment. Four days after the $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas opened, shareholders Monday filled a large ballroom in the Strip property's convention area to listen as company Chairman Steve Wynn recounted from where they had come. "It's nice to finally be in our home court," Wynn Resorts President Ron Kramer at the start of the hour-long meeting. Wynn spoke to shareholders at the meeting for about 35 minutes before taking about a half-dozen questions...read more

Nevadan At Work: Ex-Georgetown Basketball Player Works His Way to Top of Barbary Coast

When Barbary Coast General Manager Ronnie Highsmith talks about working his way up from the bottom, he truly means it. Highsmith, who has been the small Strip casino's lead executive since last year, started out 16 years ago on the property's loading docks...read more

Amateur Cameras Scoop Wynn Las Vegas Photos

And Chris Jones LAS VEGAS -- So much for Vanity Fair's exclusive on the first photographic images from inside the $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas. The high-end monthly magazine has been scooped by Joann Stabile of New York City. Sitting at a video poker machine near the resort's garden atrium, Stabile posed for a photo on her palm-size digital camera taken by her friend Camille Raccuglia shortly after the 2,716-room hotel-casino opened at 12:01 a.m...read more

Nevada Gaming Commission: Rawson Appointed to Board

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Former state Sen. Ray Rawson, whose 20-year legislative career ended last September when he lost his seat in a Republican primary, was appointed Tuesday to the Nevada Gaming Commission by Gov. Kenny Guinn. Rawson, 64, who said he is a consultant and teaches dentistry classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for free, will earn $40,000 in the position...read more