There have been a bunch of good articles in the past couple of weeks about Las Vegas, but I haven’t had the brain to do more than just read them. Instead of just letting them sit in the ether, I figure I’d share them and add a little commentary where needed.
Penn National get final approval for Las Vegas. Does this speed up their purchase of Rio? Maybe Mirage? Maybe Station?
Dr. Dave Schwartz has a couple of good articles on twitter use in Las Vegas. UNLV Center For Gaming Research has a study of how casinos use twitter. Vegas Seven looks at the Harrah’s social media team.
I finally made it to The Ridge at Bally’s on my last trip to Atlantic City. I haven’t heard too much about it, but what I read (and wrote) had me curious.
The Location – The Ridge is located where the old “gateway” games were between the Bally’s Casino and Claridge Casino. A wall was built to separate The Ridge (and the music) from the machines outside and it does a good job. More on that later. Also of note is that the rest of the Claridge casino has been closed and there is a large banner covering up where the Total Rewards desk used to operate.
The Casino – The Ridge is made up of about 24 blackjack table games, a couple roulette and craps tables and a small run of low limit slot machines. Table limits are the same low $10 limits that the gateway games used to be. Dealers dressed and acted very relaxed. They wore a kind of bowling shirt and were doling out fist pounds for almost every blackjack.
Decor - The decor is blue and gray based with a modern feel to it. Dealers were dressed in blue bowling type shirts. Very loose and comfortable looking.
Vibe - The vibe I got was somewhere between a wedding and normal pop music bar. One night there was just pretty loud new pop music. After going to the Bikini Bar, I think they just used the same mix that the DJ plays. When I went on Saturday it felt like dance time at a wedding. In between the table area is a dance floor. The DJ was playing a lot of wedding songs inclulding “Jump Around” by House of Pain and a couple of line dances. A lot of people danced, even a security guard on a segway.
There was a “hype man” for the DJ trying to get people involved with the party vibe The Ridge was going for. Special occurances got a bang on the gong which sat in the middle of the casino.
Automated drink ordering has arrived to Harrahs Rincon in south California. Initially this was a good thing. After reading about it on the Open Vegas forum I felt as if “Big Brother” may be watching. Here are the details…
Customers can order drinks from their slot machine, and the cocktail waitress brings it to your machine. Put your Rewards card in the slot machine, and you can order coffee or alcoholic beverages by punching in your drink order on the machine. It even saves your drink preferences for next time. Maybe this is a test, someone is on the ball at Harrah’s, and this will definitely keep gamblers glued to their machine until drinks arrive.
After thinking a little about this I don’t really care. Some seem worried that the casino will be able to track their drinking habits. Great, give me more Grey Goose or Caronas. Have a bottle or six pack waiting for me when I walk into my room.
I don’t like big brother watching over me, but that’s life at a casino. I give that up every time I walk into a casino with all of the eyes in a sky. I give it up further every time I put a players card on a table or in a machine.
As I’ve noted before I drink when I gamble, but I don’t play to get a “free” drink like many others do. If a cocktail waitress doesn’t stop by then a drink is not meant to be. I don’t think service will be much slower or faster, but it may be more efficient for the casino.
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