Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Feb 7, 2012, 11:02 pm
My commentary piece on casino debt came out in the Las Vegas Business Press yesterday: Like households, all businesses take on debt as a part of their usual operations. Without borrowing money, it is difficult, if not impossible, to grow. Casinos are no different; for decades, theyve been borrowing...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Feb 5, 2012, 7:30 pm
Xander Bennett. Screenwriting Tips, You Hack. 150 Practical Pointers for Becoming a Better Screenwriter. Amsterdam: Focal Press, 2012. 210 pages. I’ve never written a screenplay, but I still believe that Xander Bennett’s Screenwriting Tips, You Hack, has made me a better writer. I’m not being...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 31, 2012, 6:28 pm
I’ve had a busy day at the Center for Gaming Research. First, I interviewed Rick Santoro, security consultant, and produced the interview into podcast form. The result was the 38 UNLV Gaming Podcast: Rick Santoro Santoro is a thirty-year verteran of casino security who has worked executive prote...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 26, 2012, 3:20 pm
In today’s Green Felt Journal in Vegas Seven, I’ve got a piece about Chinese New Year’s impact on Las Vegas: Some people might consider the massive New Year’s Eve celebration—“America’s Party”—the ultimate night for Las Vegas casinos. True, that bash attracts more than 300,000 peo...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 26, 2012, 2:54 pm
The annual People Issue of Vegas Seven is out.  I wrote three profiles for it: Aron Ezra: Wizard of Apps Ezra is VP of Mobile for Bally Technologies Fred Keeton: The Pathfinder Keeton is VP of Finance for External Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer for Caesars Entertainment Joe Asher: The ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 25, 2012, 3:39 pm
I’ve got a new column in this week’s Las Vegas Business Press: Nor is this kind of chicanery limited to poker. MF Global was, until last November, a large global financial derivatives dealer, making its money on its traders abilities to correctly speculate on the upward and downward movement of...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 13, 2012, 8:19 pm
I’ve been busy lately. In addition to my day job and my writing, I’ve been working on a new website that combines Vegas, travel, and the incredible amount of time I’ve spent surrounded by little kids and little kid stuff in the past few years. The site is called Viva Tot Vegas. It’s a guide...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 12, 2012, 7:59 pm
I just posted three new reports over at the Center for Gaming Research. Together, they provide a snapshot look at the revenues and expenses of casinos in three very different Nevada markets. Here they are: Average Big Las Vegas Strip Casino, 2011  A statistical summary of the average Las Vegas St...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 12, 2012, 10:07 am
I had a busy morning yesterday. Every month, the day that the Nevada Gaming Control Board releases its monthly revenues numbers is a busy one. As usual, I prepared the historical summary for the month in question (November this time) and updated the rolling six-month summary. Here are the highlights...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 10, 2012, 7:31 pm
In this week’s Las Vegas Business Press, I look back at 2011, trying to see what the big lessons are: Closing the book on 2011 in the Las Vegas casino scene, one word comes to mind: paradox. There wasnt a clear trend leading us either into a more prosperous future or into the muck of even worse e...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 8, 2012, 12:12 pm
Jason Falls and Erik Decker. No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing. Indianapolis: Que, 2012. 253 pages. This book, with a word that you still can’t say on the radio in its title, is certainly trying to be provocative. Beneath the swagger, though, ther...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 5, 2012, 4:58 pm
In case you missed it, I’ve had two posts on Two Way Hard Three this week–each, in its own way, looking backward. The first, Biggest Story of 2011–Six Nominees, breaks down what I think were the six biggest stories of 2011. The second, The Las Vegas Hilton: Looking Back, takes a look…bac...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jan 1, 2012, 9:15 pm
As you’ve noticed if you’re reading this, I’ve given the site a slightly new look. I switched WordPress themes, to Retina, and did a little light editing of my own to customize it. I’m still not totally settled on the look (I think I’m doing to tweak the header color to tie in better with ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Dec 28, 2011, 6:31 pm
Thord Daniel Hedengren. Tackling Tumblr: Web Publishing Made Simple. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. 258 pages. When I got the chance to review a book about Tumblr, I figured I’d give it a shot. I’d heard about the web publishing platform and thought it might be a good fit for a project I...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Dec 27, 2011, 6:38 am
In an opinion piece vindicated by last Thursday’s adoption of online poker rules for Nevada and the DoJ ruling that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting, I argue in the Las Vegas Business Press that politics won’t trump pragmatism when it comes to online gambling. The opposition of Adels...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Dec 23, 2011, 7:03 pm
I’ve had a busy day. Going over yesterday’s changes to Nevada’s gaming regulations that open the door for online poker, I thought that it would be neat if someone created a sort of Cliff Notes guide to them. Then I realized that I was probably that someone. Five pages later, I was done. Here�...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Nov 2, 2011, 5:42 pm
This morning I had the great pleasure of having a nice conversation with a long-time friend, the University of Nevada Reno’s Dr. Bill Eadington. Luckily for all of us, I recorded it and released it a few hours later as the thirty-third UNLV Gaming Podcast: 33-November 2, 2011 William R. Eadington...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Nov 1, 2011, 6:21 pm
This week, my Las Vegas Business Press column takes a look not at what technology is being introduced into casinos, but how it’s being used–and should be used: The technology used on casino floors has evolved considerably in the past two decades. And, as showcased at the recent Global Gaming Ex...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 28, 2011, 10:43 am
Anthony DeBenedet and Lawrence J. Cohen. The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kind Needs It. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2010. 192 pages. Parents get mixed messages about physicality and child-rearing. On one hand, they remember running around, pushing, and just plain ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 27, 2011, 6:24 pm
This week in my Green Felt Journal column I talk a little about the role of food in marketing a casino, the future of Downtown, and how the Plaza’s going to fare by looking at Terence Fong’s Island Sushi. From Vegas Seven: In that light, recruiting chef Terence Fong, owner of Henderson’s Isla...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 24, 2011, 10:06 am
Dava Sobel. A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos. New York: Walker and Company, 2011. 288 pages. We take much of our worldview for granted. Most of us, if asked to relate where the Earth is, would without blinking respond that it’s the third planet from the sun. Its dai...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 21, 2011, 8:07 pm
If you’re not tuned into my Twitter feed or don’t regularly check Two Way Hard Three, you will be surprised and, one hopes, delighted to hear that I’ve had a very productive few days there. This came about because, in the run-up to the Vegas Internet Mafia Family Picnic,* I wanted to stoke ex...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 21, 2011, 10:11 am
In the past few weeks, I’ve been lucky enough to have some very good conversations with people in the casino business that, I hope, have translated into good writing about the business. Here’s the first, a Green Felt Journal column about the challenges that Ramesh Sadhwani is taking on at Caesar...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 18, 2011, 2:10 pm
I wrote up some of my thoughts on the new tech stuff at G2E for the Las Vegas Business Press. Take a look: The official theme of the Global Gaming Expo, held Oct. 3-6 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, was “innovation,”; but it could have been, more specifically, “convergence.” As al...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 14, 2011, 10:31 am
Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnese. Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the United States Constitution. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2011. 256 pages. As one of the foundation documents of the American Republic, the Constitution is an object of respect bordering ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 13, 2011, 10:23 am
The latest Green Felt Journal is out in Vegas Seven. I take a look at a few vendors at this year’s Global Gaming Expo and then talk about the bigger significance of the show: Purveyors to the gaming industry have three chances a year to show off their wares: the two Global Gaming Expos and London...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 10, 2011, 5:08 pm
After last week’s G2E-packed schedule, I’m glad to have a little time to post the Center for Gaming Research’s latest Occasional Paper: Paper 11: October 2011 Robert D. Faiss and Gregory R. Gemignani. “Nevada Gaming Licensing: Qualifications, Standards, and Procedures.” ABSTRACT: The pr...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 7, 2011, 6:07 pm
As usual, I’m posting a link to the latest UNLV Gaming Podcast. But, for the first time, I’m the one who’s featured. After getting several requests for video or audio footage of the talks I give around down, I figured that this talk would be a good one to share. A few weeks ago my dean, Pa...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 3, 2011, 5:57 pm
Mulling over two seemingly contradictory bits of news–that the Justice Department had labeled Full Tilt Poker a “global Ponzi scheme” and that the AGA was launching a renewed push for the legalization of online poker–I got to thinking. It’s a dangerous pastime, I know, but in this case it ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Oct 2, 2011, 12:43 pm
Audrey McClelland and Colleen Padilla. The Digital Mom Handbook: How to Blog, Vlog, Tweet, and Facebook Your Way to a dream Career at Home. New York: Harper Business, 2011. 256 pages. I’m not a mom, but the idea of mommyblogging intrigues me. It seems like most infant and toddler commerce is sold...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 29, 2011, 6:15 pm
Inspired by a conversation with September Gaming Research Fellow Kah-Wee Lee, I wrote a Green Felt Journal for Vegas Seven about Singapore and Las Vegas: Imagine a casino-resort complex built by a world-renowned architect responsible for iconic buildings on multiple continents. From the start, it�...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 26, 2011, 6:50 pm
One of the best things about my job at the Center for Gaming Research is that I get to read and share some great articles. A few weeks ago, I attended the i-Gaming workshop put on by Lionel Sawyer & Collins–you might have read about it (here’s a good Gaming Today piece). Reading through the volu...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 23, 2011, 1:48 pm
Here’s the latest info on the panel I’ll be moderating at this year’s Global Gaming Expo–at the Sands Expo Center for the first time–about social media and ROI. I’d love to see a lot of people there. Personally, I think this lineup of speakers will make a great start to anyone’s confer...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 22, 2011, 8:02 pm
My column in this week’s Las Vegas Business Press takes a deeper look at July’s Nevada gaming revenue numbers. The more I thought about them, the more I thought that a good month might not be such bad news: On Sept. 12, the Nevada Gaming Control Board released its July gaming revenue report. In...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 16, 2011, 11:04 am
My piece on the Riviera is out in Vegas Seven as of yesterday. Busy day, so I didn’t have time to post this. It’s this week’s Green Felt Journal: As destroy/erase/improve gives way to rework/repaint/recycle, older Las Vegas hotels that a few years ago might have been imploded have gotten new ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 15, 2011, 7:17 pm
I’ve got the first UNLV Gaming Podcast in about 6 months posted. It’s Kah-Wee Lee’s excellent Colloquium talk. Here are the details: 31-September 15, 2011 Kah-Wee Lee "Taming Vice: How Machines and Architecture Changed the Culture of Gambling" Lee is a doctoral candidate in the department ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 15, 2011, 3:11 pm
If you’ve been thinking about running in the Zappo’s.com Rock and Roll Las Vegas Marathon and Half-Marathon on December 4 but haven’t been sure, this might tip the scales. You can–guaranteed–run the half marathon with me. I’ll be leading the 1:52 half-marathon pace group, so if you don...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 7, 2011, 7:18 pm
My column in this week’s Las Vegas Business Press is out. It’s a meditation on what less ambitious Strip developments really mean for Las Vegas. With just about everyone in the industry mistaking the 2005-2007 boom for a new normal, it made tons of sense to trade in your sun-faded casino for a ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 5, 2011, 1:31 pm
Clayton M. Christensen and Henry Eyring. The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011. 496 pages. In this book, aimed chiefly at university professors and administrators but also trustees, regents, and potential students, the ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Sep 1, 2011, 3:06 pm
When I was at the Linq-announcing press conference, I had many questions about how building this project would impact the casinos it will linq together. So I asked them. The result is this week’s Green Felt Journal in Vegas Seven: With all due respect to artists’ renderings, the recent unveilin...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Aug 25, 2011, 7:29 pm
Last week when I first tweeted news that O’Sheas was being closed as part of the great Linq construction, I got a lot of questions, testimonials, and eulogies about beer pong. So I asked Rick Mazer (I’m too tired to retype his entire title, but he’s in charge of CZR’s Center Strip properties...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Aug 23, 2011, 11:09 am
This week’s Las Vegas Business Press column looks at a travel operator I met in the vendors’ room at Creation Entertainment’s Las Vegas Star Trek convention: We all know that its getting harder and harder to bring visitors and their money to Las Vegas. But a small startup that specializes in ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Aug 18, 2011, 8:05 pm
At long last, an article that I wrote during the recent Creation Entertainment Star Trek convention is out as this week’s Green Felt Journal in Vegas Seven: The first thing you see walking into McFadden’s at the Rio is William Shatner in his full late-1960s Technicolor glory on one of the wide-...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Aug 11, 2011, 6:51 pm
A little while ago I received an invitation to participate in G2E‘s conference track. Here are the details: 9:15AM – 10:15AM (Wednesday, October 05, 2011) Social Media Insights, Part III: ROI Although it officially costs nothing to tweet, the hard costs associated with staffing and content de...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Aug 9, 2011, 7:43 pm
My Las Vegas Business Press column on the dubious benefits of cost-cutting in a hospitality company is out today: It goes without saying that there are several ways to cut costs. Shaving off some perks — first-class travel for jet-setting execs or caviar in the employee dining room — makes emin...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Aug 9, 2011, 1:35 pm
Going through my “My Documents” folder, I happened across something I wrote just after the Aria opening. It’s pointless little anecdote about my completely inconsequential run-in with Cesar Pelli. This was back when I still had the energy to write things on spec, which is broke writer-speak ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Aug 5, 2011, 6:51 pm
I didn’t post this here when it was first published, but this is a piece I wrote on eleven pioneers of Indian gaming for Tribal Government Gaming magazine: Indian gaming is a relatively new phenomenon. If someone had casually mentioned driving to an Indian reservation to play blackjack in 1978, t...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jul 29, 2011, 10:39 am
Michael Levy. Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China’s Other Billion. New York: Henry Holt Company, 2011. 256 pages. China’s burgeoning middle class and growing economic power is all over the news these days. But there’s more–about a billion people more–to the large Asian...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jul 29, 2011, 12:49 am
Today Vegas Seven‘s gigantic, double-wide “best of” issue hits news racks everywhere around Las Vegas. I contributed a few items (see if you can guess them), but I wrote more than made the final cut. So, for your reading pleasure, to spark discussion and stimulate debate, I’m sharing what I ...
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Dave S. posted an article on The Die is Cast - Jul 28, 2011, 6:34 pm
In today’s Vegas Seven, you can read my brief profile of Joe Magliarditi: In his new job as president of the Palms, Joe Magliarditi sees some obvious reminders of his earlier experiences.The Rio, where he got his start in gaming in the 1990s, was the prototypical casino with a visitors/locals mar...
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