It’s football contest time at the casinos
Football season is here and in Las Vegas that means promotions, parties, betting specials and contests. Two contests are particularly good for visitors.
The first is the Gridiron Glory contest at any Station casino, where you have a chance to win $10,000 if you pick the most winners in Sunday’s NFL games. The second is the excellent Pick the Pros contest at Orleans, Gold Coast, Suncoast, Sam’s Town, California and Fremont casinos, which has a $30,000 prize every week.
Both are free to play and require only that you have a players card that you swipe at a kiosk to enter. You don’t have to know anything about football; just pick the teams you like and watch the results unfold. There are a lot of players in these freebies, so you’ll probably have to pick all the games correctly to win, but the worst you can do is break even and have some fun.
New sports books: Four new sports books have opened in time for football. Along with a big shiny one at Wynn, smaller books have opened at the formerly sports book-less Encore and Cromwell, and the sports book at Rampart has undergone a complete redo.
Guitar retired: Say goodbye to another Las Vegas icon. The 75-foot-tall neon guitar on the corner of Paradise and Harmon at the Hard Rock has been removed. Not to be confused with the guitar jutting out of the roof of the casino that was focal in the movie “Con Air,” the removed sign was part of the Hard Rock Café, which closed last year. It will be moved to the Neon Museum.
Fontainebleau sold: The hulking blue building on the north end of the Strip was sold to two real estate investment companies for $600 million. The 3,900room Fontainebleau was built to near-completion for $2.8 million before construction was halted in 2009. Carl Icahn bought it for $150 million in 2010 and it has sat empty since. No specific plans for the property were disclosed, although there are indications that there will be a name change and rebranding.
MBay happy hours: Mandalay Bay has instituted resort-wide happy hours from 8 p.m. until closing on Saturdays and Sundays, with drinks and appetizers costing $4-$10. This is similar to happy hours at Cosmopolitan and Red Rock, where you can move from place to place within the resort. MBay food specials include oxtail crostini at Libertine Social ($5), crab Louie cups at Stripsteak ($6), black cod lettuce cups at Kumi ($9) and bacon-wrapped sliders at Aureole ($10).
Zombies downtown: A new interactive attraction called “Fear the Walking Dead Survival” has opened at the Fremont Street Experience. The walk-through experience has motion rides, mazes and video games. Tickets start at $30.
Question: How much will single tickets cost for the Las Vegas NHL games?
Answer: Single tickets for the Vegas Golden Knights are listed on vegasgoldenknights.com at $75$750, but there’s been a just-announced bargain development. Standing-room-only tickets will start at $50.
Q: How big was the betting on the MayweatherMcGregor fight and how did the sports books do?
A: It was easily the highest-bet fight ever, generating a handle that could exceed $100 million, which approaches Super Bowl numbers. While there was only one reported $1 million+ bet on the Super Bowl, there were six on the fight. All were on Mayweather, but the books were still heavy on McGregor action, making for a big bookie win all around.
For information about shows, buffets, coupons and deals, go to www.LasVegasAdvisor.com.