Three basically unrelated stories about my hometown:
For the first time since the 1920s, there's been a population drop in Las Vegas. Clark County's official estimate shows a drop of 10,000 (0.5%), but another measure suggests an even steeper decline: housing vacancies have risen from 4.5% to 7%.
MGM Mirage CEO Terri Lannie abruptly announced his retirement this week, possibly precipitated by a story suggesting that he had falsely claimed an MBA from USC. On the other hand, the reason might be more fundamental: MGM Mirage stock is down 87% this year.
Peter Eastgate won the World Series of Poker earlier this week. At 22 years old, Eastgate is the youngest WSOP Main Event winner ever, pushing aside Phil Hellmuth who had formerly held that title. Also, this year the WSOP experimented with a terrible new format idea: delaying the final table for months after the initial stages of the tournament. There's a number of reasons why this is bad for poker (imagine playing the Super Bowl three months after the conference championship games), but it seems to have contributed to a boost to the TV ratings, which were up 50% over last year, and 18% over 2003.
Sin City Blogging
Three basically unrelated stories about my hometown:
For the first time since the 1920s, there's been a population drop in Las Vegas. Clark County's official estimate shows a drop of 10,000 (0.5%), but another measure suggests an even steeper decline: housing vacancies have risen from 4.5% to 7%.
MGM Mirage CEO Terri Lannie abruptly announced his retirement this week, possibly precipitated by a story suggesting that he had falsely claimed an MBA from USC. On the other hand, the reason might be more fundamental: MGM Mirage stock is down 87% this year.
Peter Eastgate won the World Series of Poker earlier this week. At 22 years old, Eastgate is the youngest WSOP Main Event winner ever, pushing aside Phil Hellmuth who had formerly held that title. Also, this year the WSOP experimented with a terrible new format idea: delaying the final table for months after the initial stages of the tournament. There's a number of reasons why this is bad for poker (imagine playing the Super Bowl three months after the conference championship games), but it seems to have contributed to a boost to the TV ratings, which were up 50% over last year, and 18% over 2003.