Chinatown in Las Vegas is not like the other Chinatowns.

The name might suggest a traditional ethnic neighborhood that evolved organically into a cultural center over several generations, but Las Vegas doesn’t have the luxury of 100s of years of urban history.

Our Chinatown is a master-planned commercial community, optimized to support over 200 restaurants and countless other small businesses. It was created from scratch on a seven-acre lot west of the Las Vegas Strip on Spring Mountain Road, mostly because a growing number of Chinese tourists couldn’t find a decent bite to eat.

Before Vegas

Chinese settlers were among the first to hit the dusty railroad town after it was named in 1905, and they arrived to Nevada before that in the mid 1800s, mostly to support mining and railroad construction. There were even a few Chinatowns in the northern part of the state, with towns like Dayton and Virginia City housing large groups of immigrants.

Throughout early Vegas history, Chinese immigrants ran the laundries and the restaurants, but they were barred from working in the construction crews on the Hoover Dam. Prejudice was common, and severe, a holdover from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

The pan-Asian community, though dispersed, continued to grow as Las Vegas transformed itself into the Entertainment Capital of the World. At the same time, the Chinese population in Los Angeles numbered into the hundreds of thousands, and everyone loved Las Vegas. By the 1980s, many families were making the trip at least once a year, especially around Christmas.

Chinatown Plaza was the first in a master-planned commercial development.

The idea

Henry Hwang, an immigrant businessman from Taiwan, was listening to the feedback from friends who were enamored with Las Vegas.

“‘We just want to have one meal of good Chinese, authentic Chinese restaurant.’ Nobody could really point out where. Inside the casino they’re very expensive and they were not that authentic, really, back then.”

“All had the same problem,” Henry said. “No real Chinese restaurants.”

Henry sat with his daughter Sharon Hwang in 2017 for an interview as part of UNLV’s Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American & Pacific Islander Oral History Project. The three-year effort collected 130 interviews, all of which were edited and cataloged digitally. In a long chat, Henry and Sharon describe their big gamble on Las Vegas, where Henry would go on to create what we now know as Chinatown.

The lack of restaurants was a big problem, Henry’s daughter Sharon said. “When you’re here three to four days, you kind of get tired of the same thing, and you want something authentic maybe for like a lunch or a dinner and you can’t find any.”

The bookstore is among several long-term cultural preservation efforts at Chinatown Plaza.

Henry saw opportunity for a cultural center in Las Vegas with great restaurants and local supermarkets to serve what was a growing population of pan-Asian immigrants, so he joined with two business partners, James and K.C. Chen, to grab around seven acres along Spring Mountain Road between Arville and Wynn. Chinatown Plaza was built on that lot, featuring around 90,000 square feet of business space.

In a time before Las Vegas stretched much further west than Rainbow Road, the location was everything.

“They had some criteria basically,” Sharon said about her dad and his business partners. “They wanted it close to the Strip if possible — obviously tourists, convenience — and then also big enough to accommodate a center that they were envisioning. So they kind of just drove everywhere and found this is actually the best because we're minutes away [from the Strip], and then large enough to host what they were going to do. Because everywhere else, even if you go on Arville [Street], Decatur [Boulevard], they're kind of either too small or ended up going too west too far.”

The location near the Strip as also perfect for locals. It was a quiet area. The only real concern being a nearby railroad that threatened to stop motorists for extended periods of time. An overpass would solve that problem a few years later, and Spring Mountain was open for business.

Spring Mountain Road is now a high-traffic corridor that leads to and from the Strip.

Growing pains

The Chinatown Plaza complex shows off a few Tang Dynasty-styled design choices, like a large ornate entrance gate and ceramic tiled roofs. It opened for good in 1995 with the still popular 99 Ranch Market as its main tenant. By 1996, Clark County had recognized it as the Asian Pacific American Cultural Center. By 1999, Nevada had officially named the three miles along Spring Mountain Road from the Strip to Rainbow Boulevard as ‘Chinatown.’

The plaza was a big success as the population grew in the Las Vegas Valley in the early 2000s and other businesses filled in along the three-mile corridor to create a melting pot of culture from China, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Korea, The Philippines, and more. Now, Chinatown is home to 100s of immigrant business, large and small, and it brings in millions of visitors every year. Locals seek out the top-shelf chefs and world class dining without the hassle of the Strip, and the word is out among a growing number of tourists.

The growth has led to a lot of challenges, like traffic, parking, and pedestrian safety issues. The buildings are getting older, and now rents are going up. The quality of the infrastructure now needs to keep pace with the rapidly rising value of the real estate.

Clark County installed what it is calling the first “smart crosswalk” with automatic cameras and flashing beacons.

Smart crosswalks

Clark County now calls the area a redevelopment zone, and they’ve formally adopted a plan dubbed “Inspiring Spring Mountain” — with the primary goal of improving walkability and transit options. The sidewalks will be wider with more shade, and the area will lean into technology for smarter, safer crosswalks.

One main problem, for both pedestrians and cars, was the jaywalking across Spring Mountain Road between Chinatown Plaza and the newer Shanghai Plaza. It can easily be the busiest spot in Chinatown at certain times of the weekend, and the most common place to get hit by a car.

A new grade-level pedestrian crosswalk features flashing beacons, high-viz signs, and cameras that can read the license plate of anyone who blows through it. They’re calling it a “smart crosswalk” and it’s the first of its kind around Las Vegas.

The grade-level crosswalk solves a major jaywalking problem in Chinatown’s busiest stretch.

A second smart crosswalk is planned across Jones Boulevard between the Mountain View Plaza and the Spring Mountain Center, and the roads will be resurfaced with more lighting and trees throughout the multi-year plan. The sidewalks will also get wider, mostly likely by reducing the westbound lanes.

The steps are essential to support Chinatown’s next step: housing. A $143 million, 380-unit apartment complex is under construction just south of Spring Mountain on Valley View.

‘Jewel’ planned for Valley View

Housing was not much of a consideration when Chinatown was originally conceived. It’s a commercial shopping district, with plenty of parking to support the residential neighborhoods throughout the rest of Las Vegas. The redevelopment efforts, however, are focused on growing the housing options in the era.

The new development, called Jewel, broke ground last month and it will transform what was previously a blighted plot along Valley View. Its 380 apartments will open in 2029 with around 25,000 square feet of ground-level retail space. Another development, Jade Promenade, is approved to break ground later this year for a retail plaza at Spring Mountain and Wynn. Their second phase plans 150 apartments.

The Jewel apartment complex is set to open in 2029.

The goals of the redevelopment will shift the area from what was purely a restaurant destination to one where people will live and work, which will provide even more customer base for evenings and weekends. The goals are simple: more housing, better walkability, cultural preservation, and support for small businesses. The steps to meet those goals are even simpler: safer crosswalks, better signage, and improved infrastructure. It’s a lesson to keep in mind as other areas of Las Vegas develop too quickly to maintain order and logic.

In February of this year, bingo returned to the Las Vegas Strip with a vintage-style game at Circus Circus — a long time coming for dauber fans who ride the Deuce.

Even though the game is popular throughout the rest of Las Vegas, this was bingo’s first Strip appearance since the Riviera was torn down in 2015. Bingo is a major reason why locals-focused casinos expanded so far and so fast, but it is a no-show on gambling’s most popular thoroughfare.

It’s cheap, popular, and a reliable source of profit. It would seem like a no-brainer amenity for any casino. So why can’t you find more of it on Las Vegas Blvd?

Workers rights in, gambling out

At one time, bingo was the backbone of Nevada gaming, and a great way to spend an hour during the Great Depression. It was also a bridge from an era when gambling was forbidden in the state to a time when the revenue was needed most.

Progressive-era reforms whipped Nevada into shape in and around 1910. The movement brought direct primaries, workers’ compensation, a public service commission, a mine inspector, and eventually women’s suffrage in 1914.

Nevada also banned just about every form of gambling in 1910, and the ban persisted through 1931. Not surprisingly, people gambled anyways. Small-stakes social games found loopholes in the law, and it is difficult to enforce rules in a state with endless nothing.

Club Bingo opened on The Strip in 1947 before it was replaced by what is now Sahara Hotel and Casino.

The Great Depression, for all of its misery, is the reason so many states turned to legalizing some form of gambling in the 1930s, and it is probably why any of us live on this patch of desert today. In 1931, Nevada Governor Fred “Fightin’ Fred” Balzar worked a ‘Wide Open Gambling Bill’, which allowed almost anything that could be gambled on. The restrictions were few: sheriffs controlled local licenses, minors were banned, and there was limited, if any, state oversight.

Most of the first legal gambling spots were the bingo halls and cardrooms that already existed. State regulation would come later, after World War II, when everyone got serious about taxation. Commissions and boards would form in the 1950s, and the rest is bureaucratic history.

Then, now, forever

Bingo has been around in some form or another since the 1500s. Italians played a game called Il Gioco del Lotto d’Italia as early as 1530. Lotto was played with a pre-printed grid, and players would gather in a hall to try and match them up in a line as numbers were pulled at random.

The game was big enough that massive lottery scandals would follow in the 1600s, and a similar game would catch on in France in the 1700s. By the 1920s, bingo started to be a standardized game that you could find at fairs and carnivals in the US, with versions of the game that were toured around by their investors.

Bingo evolved into the backbone of depression-era gambling. It was cheap and could accommodate an endless number of players, which made for great fundraisers at churches and a cheap weekend activity for everyone else. This was especially true in Nevada, where gambling operators were pouring in from California to avoid the shakedowns from increased enforcement.

Bill Harrah’s gambling empire started with a bingo hall. (Source: UNR Library, Special Collections)

Guys like Bill Harrah built an empire that started with bingo in Reno, operating halls throughout the 1930s that eventually grew into full casinos. Las Vegas began to develop The Strip after WWII and one of its first casinos was Club Bingo, a 300-seat parlor that opened in 1947 before it was eventually replaced by Sahara in 1952. A different Club Bingo opened downtown in the 1960s, and it ran until 1983 when the Pioneer Club expanded into its space.

Later, another Las Vegas casino empire would get its start in the bingo halls, as Frank Fertitta Jr.’s Bingo Palace developed what we now know as the standard concept for a local’s casino. Bingo, cheap food, lots of giveaways, and plenty of parking helped Bingo Palace transform into Palace Station. The concept was ported to several other locations throughout the valley under the Stations Casino name.

This is all before we get to the impact that bingo has had on tribal gaming, especially in Nevada and surrounding states like California. Early bingo halls challenged state authority and enforced tribal sovereignty, and the legal battles around them shaped the future of the industry with the Indian Regulatory Gaming Act of 1988.

Will bingo work on The Strip?

Bingo on The Strip disappeared when they tore down the Riviera, but it thrives today in just about every other corner of Las Vegas. You can find a game at just about any hour at places like Red Rock, Sam’s Town, South Point, and Gold Coast, while Plaza Hotel and Casino continues to offer bingo on its third floor in Downtown Las Vegas.

Now, Circus Circus is taking a swing with a new(ish) bingo hall on the Promenade Level. The vintage style game is ink-and-paper only, and it runs from Thursday through Sunday at 3pm. It’s part of a Circus Circus rebrand that started earlier this year, where the casino leans into its “vintage” look, feel, and smell. The effort also includes an increase in coin-operated games, which can be found near the bingo hall.

Las Vegas Valley casinos with bingo

• Circus Circus

• Plaza Hotel & Casino

• Palace Station

• Gold Coast

• Red Rock

• Boulder Station

• Green Valley Ranch

• Santa Fe Station

• Sunset Station

• South Point

• Sam’s Town

• Suncoast

• Aliante (North Las Vegas)

• Cannery Casino (North Las Vegas)

• Arizona Charlies Boulder

• Arizona Charlies Decatur

• Jerry’s Nugget (North Las Vegas)

• Rampart Casino

There’s no doubt that bingo is a big deal throughout Las Vegas, and will likely remain so long after we are all gone. But can bingo thrive on The Strip?

It’s a tough sell. Casinos don’t really want to lock up tourists at a fixed-cost for a fixed period of time. They have relented on this idea when it comes to shows, but bingo isn’t going to bring in the same amount of money as other games.

A vintage Circus Circus welcomes back the bingo crowds.

Its fixed cost and predictable nature can be great for a locals casino, where consistency is profit. You can shear a sheep as many times as you want at $60 per session, but Strip casinos need to draw dollars in a different way: faster — and more of them. It’s much better for out-of-town guests to fire $100 into a slot machine in the five minutes before dinner than it is to drag out $60 in a bingo hall over 60 minutes.

It’s a good fit for value casinos, like Circus Circus, but there’s no reason to expect a Caesars Bingo Palace. Either way, bingo deserves our respect, both as a game that is fun to play and as a cornerstone of gambling in Nevada. It made gambling popular, affordable, and legitimate, and it planted the seeds for two very large gambling empires in Harrah’s and Station.

The future of bingo remains bright. If the economy goes to shambles, we will still be able to afford it. Locals can find a game at any hour, and big jackpot events continue to draw a large crowd. You can probably find a bingo game anywhere in America that has Catholic schools. It has been played for hundreds of years and it will be played for hundreds more — but you probably won’t play it at Aria.

^{Lead photo: UNLV Libraries Single Item Accession Photograph Collection}

“I answer my phone.”

John Distefano owns Casino Supplies & Services, Inc., a local company that does exactly what it says on the tin. If your casino needs something, he can get it for you.

“I'm up at 4 a.m. until 9 o'clock at night, and I'll answer the phone.”

Even after 9 p.m., you can expect an answer. 24/7.

For a small local business in a global gaming marketplace, answering the phone is a competitive edge. If you have a problem, you can call John, day or night.

“I answer the phone and it's solved within two minutes. We get to our technician and he solves the problem. That's it.”

Distefano arrived in Las Vegas in 1994, and he spent the early years as a sales rep for the winning number displays that are now ubiquitous on roulette machines around the country. After other jobs in and around sales and manufacturing, he started his own company refurbishing roulette wheels in 2006.

“It was a niche market. We were probably doing maybe 20 wheels a month but it took a while. We did roulette wheel service for the casinos and then from there it started moving on to different products.”

The company grew into accessories and other value-adding ideas, like refurbishing original casino furniture to sell to the public. Now, Distefano supplies everything, but his main product is the LED display that you see on casino table games.

Together with Tom Cramer and Peter Connolly of TekVisions, they have developed the Peacock Pro, a table-limit and advertising display that you can see on most table games around Las Vegas. Its 10-inch touchscreen shows the minimum and maximum bets, with room for advertising and a color display that can be seen from across a crowded casino floor.

The displays link to a back-end software system that allows easy management, and the color-rich screens are perfect for rotating promotions. They’ve now sold 15,000 units to over 250 casinos throughout the country since 2017.

Some have tried, and failed, to knock-off the product. Other competitors have piled in a number of extra features, like cameras and AI, but the Peacock Pro remains simple and easy to use.

Over 15,000 casino displays have been sold to 250 casinos around the country.

Meanwhile, on top of a good product and an extensive catalog, Distefano answers the phone. Distributors are getting slower, prices are going higher, and even the largest casinos are just looking for someone to pick up the phone. In Nevada alone, he says about 80% of all of the casinos carry his products. Whether you’re one of the big players, like Caesars, Penn, or Boyd, or one of the many small casinos throughout the state, Distefano will pick up the phone.

“I’ve never turned down a customer. I didn’t care if you wanted a single roulette ball or if you wanted a hundred signs.”

Strange bedfellows

The combined TekVisions/Casino Gaming Supplies booth at 2026 Global Gaming Expo was just one small sliver of local flavor in an otherwise international affair, but all gaming issues are local in Las Vegas.

A glance at the seminar schedule can provide a lot of insight into the industry’s priorities. More than 70 sessions are spread out throughout the three days at Venetian, and the topics cover anything from casino security to player retention and VIP programs.

This year’s schedule featured more than 20 sessions devoted to AI, with a dozen more about prediction markets — two massive shifts to the way these companies have been doing business for a very long time.

One is an existential threat, as prediction markets threaten to undermine the way states have regulated gambling. AI, on the other hand, is seen as major step forward in technology by operators around the world.

The major keynote address on Tuesday featured CEOs from MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, and Wynn Resorts, along with American Gaming Association’s President and CEO Bill Miller. Hockey’s own Wayne Gretzky stopped by, too. They were primarily focused on prediction markets.

“They have contorted the Commodity Exchange Act into something that is unrecognizable,” Miller said about companies like Polymarket and Kalshi, who have turned sports betting into commodities trading. The scheme avoids the licensing, taxation, and regulation that states like Nevada have worked so hard to build.

It was another successful casual shoes and sport coat convention.

“Prediction markets are hurting the industry, full stop,” MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle said at Tuesday’s panel.

It’s also a major issue for tribal gaming companies, who were gatekept and shunned from G2E and the AGA until 2015. The two old courtroom foes are now friends as they circle the wagons against the threat of prediction markets.

The tribal prediction market battle is in California, where it has been argued that the contracts violate Indian Gaming laws. Tribal casinos are spread throughout the giant state, but there are also a few tribe-owned gaming operations throughout Nevada, and two major ones in Las Vegas. Avi Resort and Casino is near Laughlin on the Fort Mojave Reservation, while Wa She Shu Casino sits upstate in Gardnerville. It’s in a travel plaza, like other tribal gaming spots in Moapa and North Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, Palms is owned by the San Manuel tribe and The Mirage/Hard Rock will be owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

Prediction markets rely on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to exist, and states rely on local gambling control laws to protect their industry. Meanwhile, tribes draw leverage from federal Indian gaming laws, which have withstood a number of well-funded court challenges over the years.

It’s messy, but the industry stands to benefit in Nevada and California if this cooperation can keep up beyond their common enemies.

Humanoid robots are still a fixture at conventions of all types.

The prediction market issue is likely headed for the Supreme Court, with major consequences at stake for local gaming business, large and small. If prediction markets are allowed to continue with sports, the commodification of slot bets, table game bets, and even poker hands may not be far behind.

The industry is very excited about the possibilities. At a panel on Monday, Resorts World Director of Surveillance Zachary Koep called AI surveillance technology a “boon.”

“It’s amazing how many things you’re not aware of,” Koep told the panel.

Quite a few AI gaming companies have popped up in the last couple of years, and Resorts World is working with several of them. The technology can catch dealer mistakes, cheating players, and perhaps most importantly, create a perfect profile of guests.

“You get perfect player ratings,” Resorts World CEO Trevor Outman said. “Marketing knows exactly what players to reinvest into, to what degree.”

Casinos have been automating the way they perceive their customers since the beginning, and this is nothing new. New casino displays with AI surveillance features will replace some employees down the line. For now, a product like the Peacock Pro is designed to do exactly what it promises, and Distefano can focus on customer support instead of chasing innovation — with maybe a few small tweaks.

“It would be great if you had 3D stuff.”

It’s harder than you think to dig a hole in Las Vegas.

Layers of thick caliche cover the valley, settled below ground like natural cement. The evaporating rain left behind calcium carbonate deposits over thousands of years in the Mojave Desert, and now it has fused together the gravel, sand, and clay.

The caliche spreads throughout Las Vegas but its impact varies. In some spots it is thin, only a few inches, but it can be a lot thicker than that.

Your shovel isn’t getting through it. Regular-grade digger equipment won’t either. You’ll probably need a big rock hammer, and some hydraulics to power it.

A high water table adds to the issues in Vegas, with groundwater sitting close enough to the surface to flood your underground project without much effort.

All of this is say that Las Vegas probably isn’t fit for a subway system.

But The Boring Company offered to built an underground transportation system at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and they had the equipment to back it up. So we went for it.

The Vegas Loop’s Central Plaza Station features a sample section of the tunnel.

Boring Las Vegas

The Boring Company was started under the umbrella of SpaceX in 2017, and the tunnel digging outfit spun off into its own thing in 2018. Elon Musk, its founder, remains its owner and general figurehead.

They use custom boring machines with high-strength alloy steels and tungsten teeth, and they’re highly automated for the task with remote controls that are used above ground. It’s a major innovation for underground drilling and digging, with no humans required in the tunnel.

When the project was announced in March of 2019, the $50 million contract was the first for TBC. It was a pre-COVID era when Las Vegas was trying to position itself as a great place to start a tech company, and local officials praised the disruption of technology at the time.

The $50M bid called for the design of what they coined a “people mover” for the Las Vegas Convention Center. It was to be a novelty for convention crowds, and the next phase for The Boring Company after a successful test tunnel in California. They started drilling in November of 2019 and the 1.7 miles of tunnel finished below the LVCC in May of 2021, in time for an opening later that October.

The Westgate Loop station loads above ground before entering the tunnel system.

Almost immediately, Clark County Commissioners entered into a 50-year agreement with TBC, and the company received permission in 2023 to build a 65-mile tunnel network with 69 stations. The plan lays out a tunnel system that stops at casinos, Allegiant Stadium, the airport, and downtown Las Vegas with parts in between.

TBC claimed an eventual capacity of over 90,000 passengers every hour, or about half of New York city’s hourly passenger load.

The original $50M deal was funded by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority with hotel taxes, but the remaining network of tunnels will be paid for by TBC, and casinos will pick up the tab for the stations. Clark County and the City of Las Vegas has cleared the rights-of-way, and the LVCVA will take care of ongoing maintenance.

It’s hardly a major spend of tax dollars, especially compared to building any other type of transportation system. But is it a real transportation system? Or are we being taken for a ride with a gimmick that distracts Las Vegas from building real transit?

We already have one gimmick — the Las Vegas Monorail — and it’s mostly useless. Promises to connect the Monorail to the airport, or anything else, remain unfulfilled.

You can reach any station without stops

Private money, public problems

Earlier this year, TBC received permit approval for a tunnel from The Strat to LVCC, and a connection to the Arts District and downtown Las Vegas. Airport connections are right around the corner, too, with an above-ground version available until the tunnels are complete.

But the costs of the system are piling up. Safety and environmental issues have been a serious concern, and the regulation is limited without public and federal funding. Meanwhile, capacity promises are not true, and there’s a gap between what Musk and TBC have promised and what they have delivered.

The capacity issues are obvious. The tunnels use Tesla cars, and they hold 4 or 5 people at most. The system is likely moving thousands of passengers per day, not per hour, as promised. It can not, and will not, ever move 90,000 people per hour. It’s possible that new, high-capacity vehicles are created just for tunnel use, but that’s just a bus, and it’s still well under the ridership that a train can offer.

Ben Leffel, an assistant professor of public policy at UNLV, called it “The biggest, most absurd transit scam” he had ever seen in a meeting before the Nevada Regional Rail Transit Advisory Working Group, before he went further and coined the project a “neoliberal nightmare.”

Leffel’s main point of contention is that the project privatizes planning, which means that developers and real estate owners make all of the decisions, far away from what might be considered the “public good.” But it’s their money, right?

Not all of it.

Future plans call for Monorail integration, but Westgate is the closest transfer for now.

Oversight issues

The initial money for the starter system came from hotel taxes (taxpayer money) and ongoing maintenance will come out of the same pot. Public rights-of-way have value, as well, and they’re being handed over without a lot of oversight.

That lack of oversight extends to safety issues, which are many. A ProPublica investigation in early 2025 found building, labor, and environmental issues, like digging without permits, hundreds of alleged missed inspections, chemical burns from concrete accelerants, and standing water in tunnels. Nevada found almost 800 alleged violations in two years, but reporting from City Cast’s Dayvid Figler and Anjeanette Damon found that fines that should have been in the millions were reduced into the six figures for bad drilling and dumping. Even the OSHA citations went away after high-level state officials swept them under the rug.

It’s all too-fast-too-soon for a town like Las Vegas, which is always open for business when a transportation salesman comes to town. Yes, the people mover system does move people. It’s mostly convention traffic, and for that it earns some credit. The LVCC is its own planet, and it deserves its own transportation system.

But the rest of Las Vegas needs a serious approach to its serious transportation problem, not a tech-heavy gimmick with limited impact. An autonomous high-capacity network that sits far away from traffic sounds like a dream, but that’s because it is a dream. The reality, right now, is a system that is low-capacity and not automated, with a driver required to be physically present at all times.

Resorts World was the first casino station on the Vegas Loop network.

The sprawling design of Las Vegas is almost completely focused around cars, and the metro area has struggled to address its public transportation problem. An inconsistent bus system is not enough to move around a city of three million people, regardless of how many highways and beltways it builds. Especially if that city wants to get serious about sports, with 81 baseball games and 41 basketball games joining a schedule that already includes the Knights and the Raiders.

By struggling to address the transportation problem, Las Vegas has also worsened its affordable housing problem, and cheaper living is pushed to the edges of the valley where people are forced to live much farther away from work. There is no other choice but to own a car, and all of the costs that come with it, just to get to work every day. This shouldn’t be the case in an American city founded in the 20th century.

While Mathew Bowyer was in prison for cheating on his taxes and running an illegal bookmaking scheme, Nevada gaming regulators stopped by to ban him from every property in the state.

Bowyer’s entry into Nevada’s “Black Book” was a punctuation mark on a gambling scandal that continues to ripple through Las Vegas.

Bowyer had run his illegal book for 25 years, making more than $1 million a month at one point. His list of clients was 1,200 names long, and it included Ippei Mizuhara, otherwise known as Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter.

That little detail boosted the already unraveling scandal in every direction, and it took down a few Vegas executives with it. Bowyer had been gambling with ease at Vegas casinos with large cash deposits, raising plenty of red flags with little or no investigation. And he wasn’t the only one, as it became clear that Vegas has an anti-money laundering enforcement problem.

Game runners banned

It is believed that hundreds of millions of dollars are laundered through US casinos every year. Enforcement is difficult, but the penalties are strong. The Bowyer case and others have led to over $30M in recent state fines from Strip casinos, including $10.5M from Resorts World, $8.5M from MGM, $7.8M from Caesars, $7.2M from Venetian, and $5.5M from Wynn.

The feds tacked on some more costs, and millions were lost in unpaid markers and other forfeitures. The long-standing strategy of bringing in big whales without deference to anti-money laundering regulations had blown up in everyone’s faces.

Now, as expected, things are tightening up, and Brian Okin, who organizes high stakes poker cash games at Venetian, has sounded the alarm.

”A lot of changes for high stakes poker in Las Vegas. All the game runners are being banned for loaning money without doing a full KYC,” Okin said on X. “We need a Clarity Act for poker in Las Vegas or else high stakes poker will be moved to home games.”

^{MGM paid out $8.5 million in fines related to anti-money laundering regulations.}

KYC stands for Know Your Customer, and its the process that has become standard practice throughout the world of regulated gambling. If you want to deposit a large amount of cash for gambling, or take out a large marker loan, the casino will put you through due diligence to make sure you aren’t gambling with illicit money.

Chip loans are dead

New regulations in April of 2026 addressed the anti-money laundering enforcement in Nevada. There are now tougher rules, more training, and a stronger focus on investigating the source-of-funds of casino customers. The strict rules have forced an extreme internal shift at casinos, which now invest more in compliance teams and training. Review processes are now formalized, and hundreds to thousands of customers have been banned.

The new rules have all but eliminated chip exchanges, and that is what threatens to drive a stake into the heart of high stakes cash poker in Las Vegas. High stakes games exist in an ecosystem where player-to-player loans keep the game afloat. It can be hard to carry large amounts of cash around, and chip exchanges move the game along expediently when a player needs to rebuy.

It’s very common, and you can see it happen on the high stakes livestreams shown on PokerGO throughout the year.

Hosts, like Okin, are now under scrutiny for their role in recruiting the game and facilitating these loans. Players are also held to a higher standards, as we saw this summer when Britney Jing was removed from a WSOP livestream over compliance issues.

There’s no official word of a sweeping game runner ban, but Okin predicts it will happen. “It’s just a matter of time,” he said in the X thread.

“It’s possible that we will have clear rules on when and how to loan. We need a Clarity Act. Otherwise, the game runners are loaning in the shadows and the grey area. Make no mistake— all game runners are loaning out money to facilitate the games.”

High stakes poker going private?

The Clarity Act that Okin refers to is a proposed bill to create a common framework for regulating cryptocurrencies and digital assets. It clears up the enforcement jurisdiction and creates rules that will determine how a digital asset will be treated, whether as a security or as a commodity. The bill also furnishes guardrails for crypto exchanges and other rules that protect customers and reduce money laundering.

Some may argue that Nevada’s new regulations ARE the “Clarity Act”, and now it’s up to everyone else to make adjustments. There might not be new rules for chip loans because there aren’t going to be any more chip loans.

Poker room managers and gaming executives are not taking any chances with the new rules, and high stakes game runners are currently acting outside of those expectations. Game runners can adjust to the new regulations and work with room managers and gaming execs to create a new world, but it might be easier to just find a private mansion.

Will this push high stakes poker cash game action with unverified players to private home games in Summerlin? Yes.

Is that exactly what the casino wants? Also yes.

“It’s too expensive.”

If you’ve ever seen the Jockey Club, a dust-colored 348-unit condo complex wedged in the shadow of the 600-foot Cosmopolitan, you have probably wondered why it’s still there.

The answer is simple: you’d need to get a supermajority of over 14,000 whole condo and timeshare owners to agree to sell it.

Forney Smith, who developed the Jockey Club with his partner Louis Schreiber in the 1970s, explained why the resort didn’t give way when the Cosmo was built in the early 2000s — and why it will likely stand “forever.”

“When [original developer Bruce Eichner] first bought the land to build the Cosmopolitan, they came and asked what I would do to buy the owners out here, and I told them how to handle it,” Smith told vegasseven.com in a 2011 interview. “And they went back and put their numbers together and said, ‘No, it’s too expensive.’”

^{You can still capture that “Visiting Grandma” vibe at the Jockey Club.}

Developers would have to buy out every condo and time-share owner with lots of cash and future condos at the new resort. If that’s not challenging enough, it would cost over $500 million in early 2000s dollars, according to Smith, if anyone could even pull it off.

Profitable timeshares?

The arrangement dates back to 1974, when the Jockey Club opened its doors as a whole ownership condo resort. The two condo towers, Astor and Derby, hold 348 suites, and the original property had plenty of room for classy restaurants and shopping. Condos sold for between $29K and $40K in 1974, which would be about $200K-271K today.

Timeshares came along in 1975, a unique concept in the 70s, and a group of investors bought up 270 condos over time to split into 52 weeks per year, creating over 14,000 intervals that sold out back in 1997.

^{Most of the property was sold to the Cosmo, but residents retain parking access and other amenities.}

The other 78 condos are still owned outright by their owners, and families can live in them, vacation in them, or rent them out. The units were bought and paid for long ago, and owners are only on the hook for HOA fees, which amount to $800-$1,100 a month with utilities and security included. The situation creates a rare Vegas version of “rent control” on The Strip.

You can grab yourself a room in one of these condos via any number of online booking platforms, and it appears to take about a week of rentals every month to cover the modest HOA fee. You can also rent the units monthly for around $2,500, which would give you a one-bedroom with access to amenities at the Cosmo.

Good neighbors

The amenities are the result of negotiations with developers, which began before the resort was announced in 2004. The agreement invested $9 million in the fire safety and security of the property, and it handed over most of the land on the 10-acre plot, which was primarily used for parking, for $90 million.

^{The 600-foot Cosmo towers over the Jockey Club.}

Condo owners get access to the parking and two tennis courts, as well as private elevators that connect the two properties and a stack of daily passes to the rooftop pool.

It was a welcome change for residents of the Jockey Club at the time. A third tower was a false start, and plans to start a casino on the property fell apart in the early 1980s. The Strip started to grow around the Jockey Club, but it was impossible to grow with it.

“When they announced that they were building [the Cosmo] at our annual meeting, the owners were delighted,” Smith said in 2011. “‘We’ve been waiting 25 years for this.” Smith passed away in 2015, but the resort’s legacy lives on as one of the rare properties in Las Vegas that will likely never change.

Next time you’re near the alley that connects Bellagio and Cosmopolitan, take a walk down and get a look. You’ll be amazed at the two towers on just 1.5 acres of land, and a property that once offered what might be the only Vegas timeshare investments to ever turn a profit.

Just one decade ago, Las Vegas was a laughable choice for a pro sports franchise.

‘Las Vegas is a Terrible Place for an NHL Team’ squawked Nate Silver in a 2016 header, which sat atop a think piece where Silver estimated a pitiful 91,000 fans in metro Las Vegas.

Richard Peddle, who ran the company that owns the Maple Leafs for a period of time until 2011, called it a “bad mistake” and claimed that NHL owners would grow to regret the decision. “It’s not a great community economically,” Peddle said on a Canadian radio show in 2016. “Fan avidity will not develop.”

The claims that a city like Las Vegas had no attachment to hockey were undoubtedly true, but early haters missed a grassroots effort by the organization to create a long-lasting relationship.

^{America First Center is a large part of a reinvigorated Downtown Henderson. (Photo courtesy America First Center)}

To start, the Golden Knights broke ground on a new practice facility in Summerlin in 2016, laying down two NHL-sized ice rinks that can also be used for local youth hockey leagues. Meanwhile, the team partnered with the City of Henderson to build Lifeguard Arena/America First Center, a two-story facility that opened in 2020 with two more ice rinks.

The Knights also partnered with existing travel hockey programs, and rebranded them with improved resources under the Vegas Jr. Golden Knights banner. Early tryout sessions drew hundreds of kids and the program has since expanded to cover age groups up to high school. The massive increase in available ice time for local youth programs has been a major source of their growth, and the many Learn to Skate/Learn to Play programs have created brand-new hockey players.

Most of this happened, or started to happen, before the Golden Knights even took the ice for their inaugural season. The grassroots push would eventually pair with eight winning seasons, three Finals appearances, and one Stanley Cup win to create a legitimate source of fan excitement. However, the sustained effort throughout the rest of the community means the team doesn’t have to rely on tourism to fill seats throughout the winter.

^{T-Mobile Arena would need privately funded renovations to accommodate an NBA team.}

Everybody wants in

In the 10 years since the Golden Knights took the ice at T-Mobile Arena for the first time, the city has secured a $2 billion football stadium and a team to go with it. The Raiders, who moved to Vegas in 2020, also have a practice facility in Henderson, Nevada, which sits right next to the one that owner Mark Davis built for his other pro team, the Las Vegas Aces.

The public kicked in about $750 million of that initial price tag, backed by hotel room taxes. Another $75 million will come out of a Waterfall Residual fund of surplus hotel tax revenue to add a party patio on the stadium’s north side. The Raiders will pick up a little more than half of that price tag, and it should be ready to go by 2029.

By comparison, the Knights play at no-frills T-Mobile Arena, a privately funded project built by MGM and AEG, two giant entertainment companies, with a small stake from owner Bill Foley. The project cost around $375 million, and they expect another $300 million in renovation costs at some time in the future. It’s amazing what an arena costs when they pay their own money.

^{Steel trusses that make up the roof portion of the new stadium are coming together. (Sept 21, 2026)}

Now, with the Raiders settled in, it’s time for the MLB to make a home on the Las Vegas Strip. If you haven’t heard by now, it will be the Oakland Athletics, by way of Sacramento, and they’ll arrive in 2028.

Like the Raiders, the Athletics are a team that already had a home somewhere else, but it didn’t work out, so they’re coming to Las Vegas.

Brute force

It has been a confusing path for the Athletics, and there were doubts along the way, but the team looks to officially land at the corner of Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevard in the spring of 2028.

The rest of the story is still to be written. John Fisher, owner of the Athletics, is moving the team after several failed attempts to build a new stadium in Oakland. The Las Vegas version will cost around $2 billion, and he has agreed to fund more than half of it. Another $300 million will come from construction loans, and the remaining $380 million will come from us, the tax payers, through bonds approved by the state legislature.

Construction is well under way on the stadium, but there are still a lot of questions. Bally’s, the casino partner who was supposed to build right next door, is now broke and all but out of the picture. Fisher now has to build parking lots and a utility plant himself, which could add $100 million to his personal expenses on the project. Fisher seems to be throwing down the tracks while a very expensive train barrels toward him, but this is Las Vegas, and you can get a lot done with will power alone.

^{Stadium construction from the south entrance on Sept. 21, 2026}

But moving a baseball team to Las Vegas with such brute force masks the real problem: who is going to root for them?

There’s no traveling contingency of Athletics fans like the Raiders might have, and most of the baseball fans who live here have moved from somewhere else. We brought our baseball teams with us, and the Athletics aren’t exactly a tempting counter-offer. The Athletics have to compete for allegiance with the Padres, Dodgers, Mets, Yankees, and the entire Midwest in a transient town like Las Vegas.

With little-to-no community effort to speak of otherwise, what is the plan? Is this just a standard strip residency, but baseball? Can that work? Will away fans fly in every week to see three games of their favorite team on the Las Vegas Strip? I think they will, but will there ever be a home team?

^{Workers near what may be a home plate entrance at the new A’s stadium. (Sept. 21, 2026)}

The final piece

With the NHL, and NFL accounted for, and the MLB on their way, that just leaves the NBA.

Bids for the Las Vegas franchise were due on Sept. 17, the second such deadline for interested parties. Adam Silver, the leagues commissioner, says they will figure out if they intend to expand by the end of this year, with Las Vegas and Seattle at the very top of the list.

Seattle is ready to go, with an arena already built, but the Las Vegas team will need a place to play. Where that is will depend largely upon who wins the bid to develop the team.

Knights owner Foley is one of the reported bidders, but he would need to renovate T-Mobile Arena to accommodate an NBA team. It’s a possibility that Foley and his team have planned since day one.

Other possibilities include the vacant lots behind Horseshoe/Paris, as well as the festival grounds that run parallel to what will become the Athletics ballpark. The latter offers the possibility of a large stadium district, one with direct access to a private airport terminal.

^{A ‘Strip Stadium District’ could make use of a private airport terminal.}

Either way, it’s likely to be an NBA expansion team, and not an owner trying to get out of another town. That offers the opportunity to learn from recent history, and build from the ground up.

Community investment can start now, with an eye toward building an organization that represents Las Vegas and provides it with hundreds of jobs, all while sustaining a crowd for more than 40 games. Building from the ground up is a much cleaner path to being a hometown team than what we’ve seen so far from John Fisher and the Athletics.

The Las Vegas comedy scene has been a pillar of the entertainment “hub” since the post-war days of Rat Pack lounges and light roasting.

It started with a Murderer’s Row of Vaudevillian comedians, people like Don Rickles, Shecky Greene, and Phyllis Diller, who drew a new generation of travelers to luxury showrooms and the valley’s brand-new resorts.

When the booming Club Era hit in the 1980s, Vegas was well suited to dedicate space to the world’s best traveling comics. Variety shows started to fade, and the comics filled their space, eventually establishing outposts for long-standing clubs like The Comedy Store, which opened a room at the Dunes Hotel in 1984.

This week’s comedy shows

Today, Las Vegas hosts dozens of shows every weekend, spread across a number venues. Top headliners can be found at the larger casino arenas, while Carrot Top can almost always be found at Luxor, where he has spent the last 20 of his 30 years in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, independent venues like Wiseguys offer the latest up-and-coming comics just a short Uber away.

It can be hard to make sense of it all and find the right information in one place, so here’s a weekly roundup for September 14-20.

Comedy Cellar runs every night with a rotation of 5-6 different comics.

Monday, Sept 14

The early part of the week is usually dominated by the clubs that are open every night, like Comedy Cellar, Kimmel’s and Brad Garrett’s. Rich Little occupies the newer Laugh Factory at Horseshoe Monday through Wednesday, and Eddie Griffin follows the same pattern at Planet Hollywood.

Elsewhere, Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club in the Linq Promenade and Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at MGM Grand run a nightly show, sometimes two.

• Rich Little - Laugh Factory at Horseshoe Las Vegas - 6:30pm - from $68

• Comedy Cellar (Rotating) - Rio Las Vegas - 7pm and 9:30pm - $50-60

• Josh Wolf - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at the LINQ - 7:30pm - from $54

• Nate Craig (with Matt McClowry and Steven Roberts) - Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at MGM Grand - 8pm - from $55-75

• Eddie Griffin - Saxe Theater at Planet Hollywood - 8:30pm - from $100

• Luenell - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at the LINQ - 9:30pm - from $54

Take the escalators next to the poker room to get to the Laugh Factory at Horseshoe.

Tuesday, Sept 15

The Tuesday lineup repeats a lot of Monday’s acts, with the addition of Michael Yo at Jimmy Kimmel’s. Comedy Cellar continues its daily lineup of rotating comedians, who shuttle in from the New York City location for West Coast seasoning. It’s a time-tested format with 5-6 comedians performing 10-minute sets.

• Rich Little - Laugh Factory at Horseshoe Las Vegas - 6:30pm - from $68

• Comedy Cellar (Rotating) - Rio Las Vegas - 7pm and 9:30pm - $60

• Michael Yo - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at the LINQ - 7:30pm - from $96

• Nate Craig (with openers) - Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at MGM Grand - 8pm - from $55-80

• Eddie Griffin - Saxe Theater at Planet Hollywood - 8:30pm - from $100

John Caparulo is among a regular rotation of familiar faces at the Jimmy Kimmel Comedy Club.

Wednesday, Sept. 16

• Rich Little - Laugh Factory at Horseshoe Las Vegas - 6:30pm - from $60

• Comedy Cellar (Rotating) - Rio Las Vegas - 7pm and 9:30pm - $50-60

• Michael Yo - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at the LINQ - 7:30pm - from $90

• Nate Craig - Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at MGM Grand - 8pm - from $75

• Carlos Mencia - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at the LINQ - 9:30pm - from $48

• Eddie Griffin - Saxe Theater at Planet Hollywood - 8:30pm - from $100

Eddie Griffin’s show runs M-F at Saxe Theater, tucked into the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood.

Thursday, Sept. 17

Silver Sevens, an off-strip casino just a short drive down Flamingo, joins the rotation on Thursdays with Don Barnhart and Friends. Barnhart is a comedian and a hypnotist, and he is bringing some friends. Elsewhere, John Caparulo rotates in as one of the regulars at Kimmel’s club.

• Don Barnhart & Friends - Delirious Comedy Club at Silver Sevens - 7pm - from $31

• Comedy Cellar (Rotating) - Rio Las Vegas - 7pm and 9:30pm - $50-60

• John Caparulo - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at the LINQ - 7:30pm - from $50

• Nate Craig - Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at MGM Grand - 8pm - from $75

Friday, Sept 18

Reg Thomas, a trusted regular at Comedy Cellar in NYC, swings through town on Friday for the first of two nights at Wiseguys, an independent club in the Town Square shopping complex just south of The Strip. He’ll do two shows at the popular club each night at one of the lowest price points in town.

For the Dr. Demento crowd, Weird Al is playing MGM Grand Garden Arena at 8pm.

• Reg Thomas - Wiseguys Comedy Cafe at Town Square - 7pm and 9:30pm - from $41

• Comedy Cellar (Rotating) - Rio Las Vegas - 7pm and 9:30pm - $50-60

• Nate Craig - Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at MGM Grand - 8pm - from $75

• Weird Al Yankovic - MGM Grand Garden Arena - 8pm - from $31

Reg Thomas has four shows at Town Square’s Wiseguys on Friday and Saturday night.

^{(Photo courtesy of regthomas.com)}

Saturday, Sept. 19

Kimmel’s club welcomes Chicago’s own Skillz Hudson for an early evening set on Saturday, and The L8nite Set to book end two shows from regular Caparulo. Otherwise, Saturday looks just like Friday.

• Cool Air Comedy starring Skillz Hudson - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at LINQ - 5:30pm

• Reg Thomas - Wiseguys Comedy Cafe at Town Square - 7pm and 9:30pm - from $41

• John Caparulo - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at the LINQ - 7:30pm and 9:30pm - from $50

• Comedy Cellar (Rotating) - Rio Las Vegas - 7pm and 9:30pm - $50-60

• Nate Craig - Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at MGM Grand - 8pm - from $75

• The L8nite Set - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club - 11:30pm

Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club is located on the Linq Promenade, just north of the Flamingo.

Sunday, Sept. 20

The week ends/begins with Josh Wolf back at Kimmel’s and the always-wonderful Luenell to follow later that evening.

• Comedy Cellar (Rotating) - Rio Las Vegas - 7pm and 9:30pm - $50-60

• Josh Wolf - Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club at the LINQ - 7:30pm - from $54

• Nate Craig - Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at MGM Grand - 8pm - from $75

• Luenell - Jimmy Kimmel’s - 9:30pm - from $54

Most shows will be at least 18+ or 21+, and you’ll want to check for drink minimums. As always, these schedules are subject to change up to the very last minute.

When poker exploded after Chris Moneymaker‘s WSOP Main Event victory in 2003, Las Vegas poker expanded right along with it. Poker rooms — once an amenity reserved to a few casinos for reasons of their own — became the must-have feature for any casino that wanted to drive traffic on and off the strip.

And while this has resulted in some of the greatest poker rooms in the world being built, there were quite a few stinkers along the way.

Thank goodness for PokerAtlas and its ongoing record of poker room reviews, both good and bad (mostly bad).

PokerAtlas has been a cornerstone of the Las Vegas poker scene since 2004. Its review scores — though not scientific — represent years of opining tourists and regulars.

Shuffle up and deal with it

The overall score represents six categories: quality, competition, dealers, cocktails, management, and comps.

Among the highest-scoring rooms are the obvious choices like the Wynn, Aria, Venetian, South Point, Mirage, and Bellagio — and a few surprises like the now-closed Club Fortune and M Resort. Scores range on a scale from 1-5, with 5 being the highest.

Most of the lowest scores belong to rooms that are now long gone. We hit the road in Las Vegas to track down a few of the old, bad rooms and see what they look like now.

Circus Circus (2.8 overall)

The Circus Circus poker room closed in 2013, but not before it earned review comments like “crooked, dirty tables” and “kids running and screaming.” It was not a well-reviewed room, to say the least, but there were a few positives — like the fact that it was located near the front valet entrance. Multiple commenters pointed out that this made it easy to turn around and leave when there wasn’t a suitable game.

The front area of Circus Circus — now filled with slots — made for a convenient getaway when players were repulsed.

Circus Circus carries a 2.8 overall rating, with an ultra-low 2.4 for quality. Its one bright spot is the competition score of 3.8, probably because the competition was drunk.

Rio (2.94 overall)

The Rio may be known as the home of the World Series of Poker from 2005-2021, but it was also the caretaker of a small cash poker room with around 14 tables next to the sportsbook. When the WSOP closed up shop and left town at the end of the summer, the Rio continued to serve regulars and tourists throughout the rest of the year with a modest daily tournament schedule and cash poker.

All that’s left of the Rio poker room — slots.

Most categories have the Rio pulling low scores and its overall sits just below 3, which puts it on the very bottom tier of the dozens of casinos that players have reviewed on PokerAtlas.

In fairness to the Rio’s low score, many commenters have left their negative feelings for the WSOP on the poker room page. These common WSOP/Rio complaints bring back memories of long waits and crowded bathrooms, but the room still catches a few strays in the review section — including a complaint about a very angry manager.

The room did not survive the WSOP’s move to The Strip and it is now used as an area for slot machines.

Linq/O’Shea’s (3.04 overall)

The Linq/Imperial Palace/O’Shea’s/Quad area has gone through massive changes over the last two decades and it’s hard to make out exactly where the poker room sat after multiple renovations.

The area near the Strip entrance at the Linq has changed dramatically to include a Dunkin Donuts — and slots.

The poker room area was just steps away from the Las Vegas Strip and it boasted small-stakes cash games and the occasional tournament, with free cookies for all players (not kidding). The location — a similar spot where a room once stood when the casino was known as O’Shea’s — eventually hopped around the casino with subsequent renovations and the poker room closed for good in August of 2016.

Reviews are mixed with worn chairs and old tables dominating the negative comments. It’s too old to have a reliable set of scores, but it would rank among the lowest anyway. The air conditioning problems and its proximity to wandering drunks did not do the room any favors.

Palms (2.96 overall)

The Palms poker room closed in 2014 but not before review comments like “slow”, “the size of a restroom” and “full of locals that know each other.” Long waits and tough players dragged down the scores but a few bright spots included the regular $4/8 game and the energetic vibe of the casino at the time.

The scores are low across the board, except for the cocktail score which helped boost the overall to 2.9.

The area where the poker room sat is now occupied by slot machines and some sportsbook seating.

The Palms poker room used to sit near the sportsbook and it is now the home of — you guessed it — slots.

Poker Palace (2.5 overall)

Poker Palace was a long-standing Vegas Valley poker room that all of the cool kids know about, mostly because it sat far away from the heart of The Strip — in North Las Vegas — where you don’t expect to find much poker.

Reviews like “old”, “sad” and “unreadable chips” are peppered throughout a comment section that also includes accusations of coaching and betting line infractions. Positive comments refer to it as an “old school gem” with an excellent Friday night tournament.

It wasn’t much to the eye, but the negative reviews are wrong: Poker Palace was a great spot for $20 poker tournaments and 1980s-era food prices.

The now-closed Poker Palace was a legendary spot in North Las Vegas.

Honorable mentions

Plenty of now-closed and once-bad rooms like Arizona Charlie’s and Hooter’s have a small amount of reviews, but they never really occupied a large amount of space in their respective casinos for any memorable amount of time.

Arizona Charlie’s, a casino you can still find in two locations in Las Vegas, had one of the two rooms that still allowed smoking as of 2008. Almost every review of the era mentions it. The regulars were “bad players” and more than one commenter said that everything at Arizona Charlie’s is exactly how Las Vegas should be.

Hooter’s — now the Oyo Hotel — had two tables, sometimes three, and they all had frayed edges and wobbly legs. It was tucked out of the way and comments range from love for $3 rake to hate for extra-drunk players. The room closed in 2015.

^{A version of this story previously appeared on PokerOrg.}

In May of 1979, the Nevada Gaming Commission approved a plan by Doyle Brunson and Eric Drache to operate a card room at the Silverbird Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The approval came after the Gaming Control Board recommended that the application be rejected — since Brunson and Drache had not yet worked out a lease.

The two poker-famous figures were still going through the process, but they were eager to open the new room before the end of the 1979 WSOP. The Silverbird was equally eager to increase their poker revenue with the growing WSOP crowd.

The nation was also in the midst of a gas crisis, something Las Vegas casino owners were quick to blame for their problems.

“We’re off 25 percent in our drop right now,” Silverbird owner Major Riddle told the papers at the time. “It’s a very serious situation.” A card room fronted by a poker superstar like Brunson would mean “about $100K a year, more than I’m earning on my poker at the present time.”

The Ten-Deuce Club

The Silverbird, formerly known as the Thunderbird, switched names in 1977 when Riddle took over operations. Riddle had staked an early claim in Las Vegas going back to the Dunes in the 1950s, where he was a key figure in expansions funded by loans from the Teamsters Fund. He went on to open the Silver Nugget in North Las Vegas and the Silver City Casino on The Strip.

The plan was for Brunson and Drache to earn a salary until they would begin paying Riddle to lease the operation of the room. Drache (seen in the lead photo with Doyle at the 1976 series) was the tournament director of the WSOP and the man credited with inventing the tournament satellite. He was also featured in the Al Alvarez book The Biggest Game in Town, helping to earn him the reputation of a well-known stud crusher and future Poker Hall of Famer.

An early marketing budget for the Ten-Deuce Club put aside $2,500 in 1979 dollars for local ads (about $11K today.)

The two would lend their star power to what would become known as ‘The Ten-Deuce Club’ — named for the hand Brunson used to win the WSOP Main Event just a few years prior. Binion’s press agent, Henri Bollinger, handled the promotions, suggesting a direct link between Binion’s and the new venture.

Pros and amateurs welcome

The Ten-Deuce Club would be open 24 hours a day, and it would specialize in high-stakes hold’em games. Riddle would even sit in on the big games himself with buy-ins of $50K or more. An early press release touted the likely appearances of Bobby Baldwin, Johnny Moss, Puggy Pearson, and Amarillo Slim. Special features were also planned, like poker workshops for beginners.

A draft for an invitation to be given to players at the 1979 WSOP promised to fill the poker void after the series.

An invitation meant to be given to players at the 1979 WSOP welcomed them to the new room. Binion’s did not offer poker for the other 11 months of the year and The Ten-Deuce Club would fill that void. The invitation promised seven-card stud, 2-7 lowball, and limit draw poker — all 24 hours a day.

Drache promised a welcome place for high-level professionals and amateurs. “If someone wants to get into a high-stakes game, The Ten-Deuce Club is the place to be, day or night.” The room would fit 9-10 tables near the Silverbird’s feature lounge. Amateur players were encouraged to ask for advice and give their money away to a long line of waiting local pros.

Free physicals, health screen drawings

The Ten-Deuce Club also had an eye for promotional gimmicks, like an early idea by Drache to promote good health. During the month of November in 1979, players were able to get free limited medical examinations at the poker room and a referral to a doctor’s office for the full physical. The health spot checks happened between 6am and 10am — “when problems might more readily be caught.”

Tickets were handed out every two hours throughout the day for drawings at 6am and 8am, with winners sent to Las Vegas physician Dr. Edward Hoffman for a complete physical and medical history, including “urinalysis, a Med-screen blood panel, a sigmoidoscopy, in the case of a female a Pap smear, a pulmonary function study, a chest X-ray, electro-cardiogram, a TB skin test, an allergy screening panel, and other tests, such as an acid phosphatase, that may be indicated by the condition of the individual.”

Another promotion set up a heads-up clash for $200K between Gabe Kaplan and 1979 WSOP Main Event winner Hal Fowler. Kaplan, who was a big TV star at the time, sat down for the challenge on August 11 of 1979 and beat Fowler in just three short hours in a match that was set up to last for a full day.

A press release said Kaplan took his winnings and immediately left for a resort near San Diego.

The end of the Silverbird

Ultimately, the Ten-Deuce Club was short-lived. Riddle died in July of 1980 and his casinos went into bankruptcy. No successful bid was found to take over the lease on the Silverbird and the casino closed in December of 1981.

No sources indicate an exact closure date for the poker room or how long Brunson and Drache operated it after Riddle died. Drache, who went on to work for Steve Wynn at the Golden Nugget, would run into trouble with the IRS in the 1990s, leading to the loss of his Nevada gaming license. He eventually returned to poker a decade later as a consultant for Larry Flynt’s Hustler Casino in Los Angeles and was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2012.

Letters and correspondence obtained from Binion’s Horseshoe Casino Records on Poker, 1960-2006. MS-00325. Special Collections and Archives, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

^{A version of this story previously appeared on PokerOrg.}