Las Vegas health care woes make it apt venue for Super Bowl LVIII

Posted on by February 18, 2023
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Las Vegas health careNow that Super Bowl LVII is in the books, the countdown already has begun for Super Bowl LVIII. It will held on February 11, 2024, at Allegiant Stadium, the roofed edifice just seven miles from the roofed New To Las Vegas world headquarters.

The powers-that-be in the National Football League and Las Vegas are calling this the perfect marriage: the country’s most popular sporting event and the country’s most popular entertainment town. “Las Vegas knows how to do big things,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell proclaimed a day after Super Bowl LVII in a press release sent out by the booster Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “They have done an extraordinary job at understanding how we want to present the NFL in that community, and more importantly, how to do it Las Vegas-style.”

The union of the NFL and Las Vegas is fitting, all right, but to me for a far different reason. Both offer shameful healthcare to their constituencies, and have for a long time. Continue reading →

Las Vegas casinos get to bet after hand is over

Posted on by January 31, 2023
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Las Vegas casinosWhen you wager in a casino along the Las Vegas Strip, you have to place your bet before the roulette wheel is spun, the dice are thrown or the slot machine arm is pulled.

The casinos themselves, though, play by different rules. They get to make bets after the outcome is determined. How else to explain the huge amount of “campaign” contributions that Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo received from casino operators following his narrow win in November for governor over Democratic incumbent Steve Sisolak?

In the period from November 9–the day after Election Day–to December 31, Republican Lombardo received nearly $2 million in contributions, according to his report filed with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office. By my New to Las Vegas count, more than a quarter of that came from prominent Las Vegas casino interests–many making campaign contributions for the first time this election cycle.

This form of influence peddling–other than bribery, what else can it be called once the campaign is already over?–is legal under Nevada law, and probably the laws of most other states, too, and is nothing new. But in a unique economy like that of Las Vegas, where cheating at a game of chance is a felony carrying up to a five-year prison sentence, and can get someone banned from a facility for life, it seems downright unsporting to allow such late wagers. Continue reading →

Another cancer ‘faux charity’ solicits unregistered in Las Vegas

Posted on by January 19, 2023
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faux charityThe conversation was short but revealing.

The recent telephone caller to the New To Las Vegas world headquarters said her name was “Mary Brown.” The purpose of the unsolicited call: to seek a contribution to American Breast Cancer Coalition PAC.

OK, I said. Where is the organization located? “Mary” gave an address in Washington, D.C.

OK. I said. What will the organization do with my contribution? Here was the response in full: “Adding you to the do-not-call list. Goodbye.” I heard a click.

Now that sounds like something on the up-and-up, doesn’t it?

I’m using quotes around “Mary” because I wasn’t talking to a real person. Rather, I was conversing–if that’s even the proper term–with a computer generating a voice monitored by a real person using what is known as soundboard technology.

The abrupt ending led me to do a little digging about ABCC, which despite its political action committee status–that’s what PAC means–presents as a worthy charity. Here’s what I found: ABCC did next to nothing to fight breast cancer. In the 12 months ending September 30, 2022, ABCC spent almost all the money raised for fundraising expense and related overhead. Despite that period covering most of 2022, run-up to an important election, ABCC spent barely 1% of its budget on anything resembling advocacy or candidate support. And, oh yes, it appears to be soliciting me in violation of Nevada law.

ABCC is what I call a faux charity–a PAC that sounds meritorious but isn’t. By comparison it almost makes George Santos seem honest. Over the years I’ve written up a number of cancer-themed and other faux charities that called me. Click here and click here to see but two. Type the word “faux” in the nearby search box and hit enter to see more than a dozen others. Continue reading →

Publishers Clearing House teaches Las Vegas casinos something about odds

Posted on by January 11, 2023
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Publishers Clearing HouseThe unsolicited press release below recently arrived via email at the New to Las Vegas world headquarters. The sender was Publishers Clearing House. That’s the controversial well-known Long Island outfit fronted by celebrity Steve Harvey that promotes the sale of magazine subscriptions through big awards from dubious sweepstakes (one does not have to subscribe to a publication to win, even if some participants might be excused for thinking so). Judging from long-term circulation numbers in the magazine industry, I’m not sure how effective this ploy is.

But boy, PCH could teach Las Vegas casino operators something about setting odds.

The PCH press release announced a big event that will take place later today, Wednesday, January 11, in that mecca of risk, the Las Vegas area. The last line says “EMBARGO: DO NOT POST INFORMATION UNTIL WINNER HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED.” But since I never asked for the press release nor agreed to any embargo, and contract law in this country says an offer needs an acceptance to be enforceable, and this is not a matter of life or death, I am under no such legal restraint. (PCH’s sole remedy would be to take me off its email list, which would be such a shame.) So here is the text, with some contact information redacted by me out of sheer mercy: Continue reading →

Not far from Las Vegas: Nothing

Posted on by January 10, 2023
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Nothing Arizona

What’s left of Nothing, Arizona

On a recent car trip back to Las Vegas, I actually saw Nothing.

Or something.

The faded billboard sign pictured with this post, along with an abandoned falling-apart convenience store nearby, is all that’s physically left of Nothing, Arizona.

Nothing is about 180 miles southeast of the New To Las Vegas world headquarters at an elevation of 3,269 feet. It sits near the center of Arizona rattlesnake country along an extremely remote desert portion of U.S. 93. That’s the ancient, often treacherous direct road between the Phoenix and Las Vegas areas. U.S. 93 actually went over the narrow top of the Hoover Dam until a nearby bypass bridge partly prompted by post-9/11 concerns of a truck bomb was finally opened in 2010.

The population of Nothing, founded less than 50 years ago, topped out at something like 9. From what I know and could see, it’s down (appropriately enough for its name) to zero and has been there for maybe a decade. In my experience this is a pretty short time frame for creation of a ghost town (or perhaps ghost settlement, as Nothing never even rose to anything near the level of a town), especially in the present-day West. But then again, unlike the 19th and early 20th century mineral rushes that at least lasted until the mines played out, there wasn’t anything resembling a boom that triggered Nothing.

Literally, Nothing is the Seinfeld of places. And like the TV “show about nothing” with its seemingly inconsequential plots, the vicinage imparts a clear message even if at first not obvious.  Continue reading →