Published last December, my Las Vegas predictions for 2023 were mainly meant to be satirical. Yet they managed to stumble upon a few grains of truth.
From the New To Las Vegas world headquarters, I divined that Cisco Aguilar, then the newly elected Nevada Secretary of State, would continue the policy of not enforcing a new state law requiring many telemarketers soliciting funds within Nevada for dubious causes to first register their cause with the state. During the year his office admitted this was true.
My prediction that the paid print circulation of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, then 45,383 and upwards of 215,000 as recently as 2015, would fall below 40,000 despite a sharp increase in the local population, proved to be spot on. The count dropped to 39,833.
I opined that Nevada’s unemployment rate would remain well above the national average. And it has. The national average right now is 3.7%. Nevada is 5.4%, or 46% higher. In fact, the Silver State has the highest state rate in the country.
Most of the other predictions bombed spectacularly: that Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara would be fired and rehired yet again, Elon Musk would ban the words “Las Vegas” from what used to be called Twitter, the world-famous “Body in a Barrel” case on Lake Mead would be solved as a non-Mob crime (still no identification).
So with this mixed record, here are my predictions for 2024.They’re still mainly intended to be satirical.
–The six state Republican leaders just indicted for being false 2020 presidential electors push the novel defense that because they openly met and signed the documents before cameras, they weren’t being stupid but simply were engaging in constitutionally protected performance art. As a back-up, they argue that being stupid is by itself constitutionally protected activity.
–Nearby Nye County, which is named for a governor who later became insane and whose voters a few years ago elected a dead pimp to the Nevada legislature, again becomes the center of national ridicule when a live bull is elected to the County Commission.
–The New Mexico city of Las Vegas files a lawsuit against the Nevada city of Las Vegas for trademark infringement, noting that it was founded 70 years earlier in 1835.
–A national medical study claiming that regular casino gambling delays the onset of dementia is discredited when journalists discover it was secretly funded by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
–Plans to bring the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas run into trouble when a title search shows some of the land under the Las Vegas Tropicana Casino Resort, to be demolished for the new baseball stadium, is still owned by descendants of Kansas City crime family members, famous for making offers recipients can’t refuse.
–Highway signage continues to list turnoffs for McCarran Airport three years after the facility was renamed for Harry Reid.
–Still beset by backlogs from the pandemic and a bad computer infrastructure, the Division of Motor Vehicles announces that customers will be served on a lottery basis, with names pulled out of a big drum during a YouTube feed.
–Retired mob lawyer and ex-Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman, 84, comes out of retirement to defend a local hood accused of breaking into buildings, telling reporters, “Tony the Ant is back!”
–Following a six-month jail sentence, expelled New York Congressman George Santos moves to Las Vegas (where he spent part of his campaign money on a honeymoon) and opens a cross-dressing nightclub.
–O.J. Simpson is sighted somewhere in town.
–During Super Bowl LVIII in Allegiant Stadium on February 11, a seriously injured player is immediately helicoptered to a hospital in Los Angeles out of concerns there are inadequate medical facilities and personnel in Las Vegas.
–After refusing to pay ransom, the newly opened and world-famous Sphere is electronically hijacked by Russian hoodlums who display porn images on its gigantic exterior that can be seen for miles. Business booms around the Sphere.
–Republican Congressional investigators looking into the Hunter Biden money trail discover use of a business that is registered in Nevada to take advantage of the state’s secrecy laws but organized as a foreign corporation in a nonexistent country.
–Two more bodies in barrels are found in Lake Mead.
–Clark County judges pledge publicly to spend at least two hours a day in court.
–Lawyer advertising on local TV hits a new low when an attorney is depicted shooting a rival barrister in court, turning to the camera and declaring, “I’ll do anything for my clients!”
–Campaigning for president, Donald J. Trump threatens at a Las Vegas rally that if he loses, he’ll take his name off the top of the state’s tallest non-casino building.
–Accused of posting and allowing antisemitic comments on X, Elon Musk admits his Boring Company, which is building an underground transportation network in Las Vegas, uses tunneling protocols developed by Hamas.
–In an effort to conserve water, the Las Vegas Valley Water District proposes replacing all residential flush toilets with water-less porta potties.
–Las Vegas residents stage a mass protest after it is announced that the set-up for the 2024 Las Vegas Formula One race will require road closures for six months.
–The race for Nevada’s six electoral votes in November’s presidential election is so close it comes down to 23 challenged mail ballots all sent in by individuals listing an address in the same hotel.
–Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar continues the policy of not enforcing a new state law requiring many telemarketers soliciting funds within Nevada for dubious causes to first register their cause with the state.