MGM Conspiracy, Card Counting Robot, Virgin's New Direction & More Fontainebleau Leaks!

Hello and welcome to the MTM Vegas podcast. I'm Sean Coomer, your host joined as always by Mark Ostriman. We have a great show for you. As a reminder, you can watch this entire show along with all the visuals that go with it at youtube.com forward slash miles to memories that's youtube.com forward slash miles to memories. We record two shows a week on Tuesdays and Fridays, release them on youtube, and then combine them into this audio podcast once a week for your listening enjoyment. We hope you enjoy it. If you do like the show, consider leaving us a five star review and Apple podcast or your preferred podcast app. It helps us out tremendously. And as a final reminder, you can find all of our Vegas content that's posts, podcasts and videos at MTM Vegas.com. Thanks again for listening. Let's hit it. So Mark, did you see that video of the guy, the legend? I don't know what you want to call him doing that backflip at the chandelier bar at Cosmo. This guy went for it and people can see how it ended. The backflip he attempted the black. I can't believe there was no security either when he stood up there or after he felt like that video. I mean, Kudos to his friend for just, you know, filming him in pain for about 30 minutes, but nobody comes over and says anything. Trash is the chair, definitely broken. How dare you do it in the chandelier bar? That's saved that for like circus circus or something. I'm a little disappointed. You've never done this. I mean, I feel like this is right up your alley. No, I know I would die trying to backflip. How many ribs do you think you broke in the filming of that video? Yeah, quite a few. And he's ego too. That's the Las Vegas awards came out from Las Vegas weekly. And this is one of the best awards, you know, review journal has theirs Las Vegas weekly. This has been around for a very, very long time. And you know, they have all kinds of different things from different restaurants to best hotels. And we'll talk about some of the bigger categories. But let's start with this. Best jazz sushi fusion restaurant goes to Max and jazz. Did they pay for this category? Like how is it more than one of these places? I was going to say if we need any more evidence that these are pay for play for at least a chunk of these things. The next one on the list is also definitely a pay for play. But jazz fusion. It doesn't make any sense why this is a category at all. All right. So let's talk about some of the other categories. Best trip. Casino is that the one you're talking about? Resort the old. Yeah. I mean, people voted for it. Money people voted for it. Some other interesting things. Area 51 for best attraction. Omega mart specifically won for best immersive attraction. So both of those are winners. Pink Box one for best donuts, which I don't agree with. I like their donuts, but they're not the best donuts in Las Vegas. Best brewery, Abel Baker. I know you liked Abel Baker and they're pretty popular downtown. Circa wins for best hotel. So you know, that's probably good. Yeah. I mean, the rest of the list actually makes a lot of sense. I don't have too much to gripe with. Circa is, you know, by and far away the best hotel, I think, on the strip. If you're just going for like set up quality, all that stuff, I'm sure people have other properties. They like more, which makes sense. You have your favorites and everything. I don't think you can argue too much. Abel Baker. I'm a little sore on them because we tried to have a meet up there and they wouldn't let us do it a couple of years back. But, you know, they they've good beer and in a good area and art district represented. I'm just, you know, resort world. I can't get past that. Last one, best place for IG, the Neon Museum. So shout out to them. They did let us have a meet up there. So or what we did tour there. So that was fun. Almost got kicked out, but yes, we did. Yeah. That's another story. Maybe deservedly so. Let's just let's just say that. So on the last show we talked about ESPN bed and pen entertainment and how they are doing this weird thing with bar still giving it back, going with ESPN, Disney really focusing on the gambling and kind of getting into this market. At the same time, win announced like the next day that they're getting out of the win bet market. They're shutting down win bet in almost every state. There are a couple states. I think New York and Michigan where they say they're doing a study and then the other states being Massachusetts and Nevada where they have a physical presence. They're keeping everything else. They're giving up basically saying marketing costs are too high. The acquisition of customers are too high and they're not making enough money. Yeah. And we saw that here when they launched and we were one of the earlier states to adopt it and one of the few that has casino attached to the sports book and the type of promos they rolled out with were just huge. And you know, you can go state to state and just sign up for these programs. Some allow you to do multiple states, you know, with the same account and get the bonuses and you can make money off the bonuses and never play again. So the acquisition cost is huge, especially for big players like draft kings was rolling out all kinds of insane promos. Like you came to Michigan just to take advantage of one. So I had thought, you know, maybe it was just casino states, the casino brings enough money in, but they're shutting down New Jersey. As you point out, there was sort of a wild west when it came to these sports betting apps and acquisition. And we've seen this another like Uber and all kinds of different, you know, apps where they give these really generous promos to track customers and they're basically losses and the idea being you'll grow enough of your customer base to make the money up in time. And when it seems like they're just saying we're going to focus on our physical presence and a few other states. But the one thing that a lot of people don't talk about in every state is different, but states are taxing sports betting at huge margins. And that puts a huge tax. I think New York is like 50 per I forget what the number is. It's really high now when getting out and saying we don't need customers in all these states. We'll just focus where we have casinos. You know, we've talked about there's not a lot of money to be made in sports, but we saw that in the numbers last week. How that, you know, providing profit in Vegas is what, four, five percent I think we saw. So it's not a major player on an in scale compared to slots or table games. So let's talk about how the casinos make money and specifically how much money the casinos are holding. I saw Jacob. I think Jacob's life in Vegas. He shared this, but it still comes from UNLV, but it's the whole percentage by year for casinos. Basically, how much of your money they're keeping each year? And when you look at this and it goes statewide downtown, the strip. So you have all the different markets. But when you look at it, it's very clear pretty much across the board. Casinos are taking more money. That means that the odds are worse for you. Just year by year, less and less money, staying in people's pockets, more and more money going to the casinos. It kind of kills the whole downtown gives you better odds, too. You know, downtown's the worst place to play slots. According to these figures, almost 10 percent that they're keeping, which kind of blew my mind. Like, I expected that to be on the lower end of things, the law flints a little bit higher than I would have thought. I, you know, Reno's where you go for bang for your buck. So if you want to go, you know, hit up some slots, I guess Reno's the best place to play. Yeah, Reno buck the trend, right? They're basically the only market that didn't really increase. 5.18 is the average over the entire span from 2004. And they were at 5.22 in 2023. So almost right at the average, whereas you point out downtown Las Vegas back in 2004, kept 5.87 percent. And in 2023, 9.93 percent, the highest of anywhere in the entire state. Yeah, downtown, last year, not good to gamble there at all, better to gamble on the strip, actually, based on these numbers. Yeah, which, you know, I think that'll blow people away. And I know they have better table game odds, lower limits, but for slot play, you would think that would go along. And that's, you know, another misnomer that we saw, like higher limit slots don't necessarily pay better. And everybody always believe that. So downtown, not great for slots. And big time, $25 and up machines are not great either. It's insane. And I think these numbers do reflect the changing casino landscape, right? You have worse odds on table games. And we see this in blackjack and roulette. This has been happening across the board. And then you have the prevalence of these video slots used to have a lot more video poker machines with higher paybacks. Now you have these video slots with very low paybacks. And oftentimes they're multi denomination. So you're getting the lower odds where we saw in those numbers, if you do do like a quarter slot or even a dollar slot, your odds are better. Whereas you start to go really high end, your odds get worse or even multi denomination or penny slots, they're worse. So the most popular things in the casino, all worse odds than you would have gotten 20 years ago, slots, tables, pretty much everything across the board. Three zero, triple zero roulette. There we go. When I was on the strip at the Bellagio last week, I got a chance to walk through the new mall at Harmon right next to crystals in city center. And we've talked a little bit about the architecture and the concept art and what it was going to look like. And you know, the fact that it has a Ross, but it's next to crystals and they were trying to go for this high end experience. And so I finally got to walk through there. And the top level has these like little stalls, almost little shops. It really looked to me like a little bit nicer of a version of the Grand Bazaar shops. I really hate to say it. Other than that, it sort of fits in fine. The Ross is huge. It's nice, but it's still Ross, right on the strip, but it's big and it's there right next to crystals. You don't go to Ross and then go do the high end shopping next door. You know what? Vegas needs less of besides CVS's on the strip is Ross. Speaking of that, I messed that up when I said that the showcase mall that it was Ross in the basement, it's Marshall. So things to everybody who corrected me on that. But now they have the Ross across the street. They've added the screen on the facade of the Miracle Mile shops across the street as well. And so now we're really starting to get that Times Square look more and more of these big screens there. And the work on the facade of Miracle Mile shops continues as they're kind of refreshing all of that. So all that's been happening. It looks pretty good. The new screen is very bright. I think a little bit more vivid than the older screens that are kind of right next door on that building that has the Bubba Gump and the Taco Bell Cantina. I like that area. I feel like that's the most, I don't know, the energy on the strip in that area is my favorite. Yeah, I think it definitely is kind of like the center feature of everything right now. And you know, we've talked about the bar at Waldorf Astoria and that this is only going to make it better. Go up there at night. Do yourself a favor. Get off this for a little bit. Go up there. Have a drink at the bar at night sunset when all those screens are popping it because it's a unique view where everything else is like top tier or rooftop bar. This is like mid right in your face. You're seeing all this stuff. So definitely go check it out. So version hotels, your favorite thing to talk about. We know they're getting a new CEO Cliff Atkinson and he's coming in or he's already there and he's going to make some changes basically admitting that the place isn't doing as well as it should. And the first place he's starting or at least he's sort of hinting at in this review journal article is that he's going to reinstate the center bar. At least they're considering doing that. And this was really the centerpiece of hard rock. The big kind of thing was that if you sat on one end of the bar, you could whisper and somebody on the other end of the bar could hear you talk because of the way the ceiling was. They removed this and put a walkway there. They didn't even really put anything in the space. The ceiling is still there. Yeah, this is a smart idea to bring it back. One of the dumbest things they ever did getting rid of it. The most signature thing of the property and you just get rid of it. I'm glad this guy is going to hopefully bring it back. Yeah, I mean, what's your job at a casino to get people in the door? And the first time I went to hard rock was just because of that bar. So you could experience it and everybody that's come to Vegas since they shut it down. That's never experienced it. You know, that's a person that you could have gotten in there because everybody wants to go there and sit and just have a drink and you can, it's crazy. And people forget that you can hear them. So they start talking about stuff they price. They wouldn't if they realized you were listening. But if you sit there in silence enough and have a beer or whatever, you're going to hear some people say some stuff and it's kind of funny and or you can say things to see what their reaction is. And it's a fun experience, something you don't really get anywhere else. I can't think of another bar where that happens. So they have this unique once in a lifetime type of thing that would draw people in and they have no people on the floor right now. So why would you take that away? So they better bring it back. Thankfully, they kept everything in tact. So hopefully they can just build it and get it back to the way it was as far as the shape of the ceiling and getting that. He also mentioned the formula one race and how they're going to have their own grandstands and how they're doing that. It's a big marketing push for them to kind of show the world that Virgin Hotels lost Vegas is here. Richard Branson may come for the for the festivities. So this might be a whole kind of them coming back out to the world again. But he focused said they're focusing on entertainment, filling their theaters. That's the way they draw people into the property. I agree with that. They have a lot of venues there from a bigger concert venue to more intimate 300, 400 seat venues. If they can get good entertainment and get people there, that will fill the casino. The hotel is decent. I think he has a good strategy as good as it can be given where they're at right now. Yeah, they need to get rid of the airport shopping district. They're the Hudson News and stuff like move that out. But they filled in a pool to put this outdoor concert venue and we went there when shortly after it was redone. And it's a cool spot. And it's something that I thought that they would really take advantage of and have bands. Or even if you just had local bands come and play popular local bands, you could fill that outdoor area and get people in the casino walking through. And I don't I can't think of anything they've done out there with that area, you know, as far as a big concert or anything. So it's kind of crazy that they haven't used that. So I think it's a good plan. Sounds like they got a good guy in there, you know, thinking ahead and not just trying to like, hodgepodge this thing together. So hopefully they do well. Yeah, they need a lot of help. That's all I'm going to say as far as just everything being so disjointed. But I do wish them the best and I do like the hotel. And I'm glad to hear that that bar hopefully will come back. He didn't commit to it. So he definitely should do that. That should be a top of his list. Should be in there before Grand Prix is done and like get it up and running. And have that be like, hey, come to our grandstand. Check out our center bar. Let's get this rolling. That's too soon. Too soon. Not enough time to do it. Man, the Grand Prix, people have heard us talk about traffic, but this is the week. These last two weeks, everything is closed. Like there are so many construction closures. Just, oh, it's so ugly. I think Las Vegas locally put it on Twitter whoever decided to do all this construction ones should be arrested. And I agree with that. Yeah, exactly. You'll win more. So this other Nevada Health District released information on bedbugs, specifically related to six Las Vegas strip casinos. So I'll start by saying that every hotel at some point, especially ones with this many rooms, will deal with a bed bug problem. It doesn't really matter if they're low end, high end luxury hotels get bedbugs. You know, motels get bedbugs. It happens, but the six hotels circus circus, Caesar's Palace, Planet Hollywood, Palazzo, Tropicana, and MGM Grand, oh, sorry, Sahara as well. So seven hotels. So there you go. A mixture of all different companies, different levels. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Yeah, and I mean, do an inspection. We actually have a video about that on this channel that you can, you know, maybe Sean can link to it, but do a quick view of your bed and your box springs and stuff and just, you know, check under the sheets a little bit around the corners. And you can kind of catch it if there is a problem. But, you know, circus circus, everybody's like, yeah, no duh that there's bedbugs there. But then everything else listed in his high end or nicer, it doesn't really matter. It's not about how much of a place costs bedbugs just come. Like it's a thing you have to deal with at some point in your life if you own a hotel. So hopefully they have like those, you know, bomb sniffing dogs, but the bedbugs sniffing dogs that come in and check it every month or whatever run through the rooms, they can inspect a room in a couple of seconds. And it's kind of cool and something that they do all this training for. So hopefully Vegas uses those and keeps it as minimal as possible. I think the headline of all this is that all these hotels have done a good job. They've dealt with every time they get an issue of this. It's just an ongoing battle for hotels. So yeah, I think that's the takeaway. I think the big sort of headline is bedbugs on the strip. And if you actually read into it is, you know, isolated incidents, hotels take care of it. They deal with it right away. And you do the best you can. People are going to have bedbugs at their house that they're going to bring to a hotel. I don't know how you prevent that. So yeah, good on them. And yeah, you can make your jokes about circus circus in Tropicana, but then you also got to joke about Pilotso. The last story is a craziest one. This video of this guy who used a card counting robot to cheat Las Vegas casinos or quote unquote cheat card counting. I'm not saying he's a cheater. I'm just saying maybe from the casino's perspective, they would see it that way. Either way, they hook up this rig. They get this robot. They hook up video feeds. They're, I mean, and they film all of this and put it up on YouTube. And essentially, you know, they didn't do this over a period of time. They were trying to prove a point. So they were, you know, waiting for the for the deck to get to an advantageous place came in, placed the bed. This is pretty clearly illegal under Nevada law. At least my understanding of it using a device to age you. Some people say they'll probably just get banned because, you know, they only one five hundred dollars, but it is crazy to me that you would film all of this, put it on YouTube. And the fact that this robot worked spectacularly. I mean, it worked great. I don't know why they need a robot. It's just like a computer program. You think you could just, I know they did it because it's cooler for the video, but you think you just have a video and a computer program would track the count. Like you don't really need a guy sitting next to you and saying plus 17 plus 13 plus, you know, all that stuff, but it is a bizarre video. And they got lucky because when the counts plus, it doesn't mean that you're going to win all the time. Like the dealer could have still pulled a 20. You just are more likely to have more bus cards or whatever. So they should really when the counts plus, you want to play a longer period because I've watched videos of these guys and they'll lose $50,000 at once. You know, and then went up the next because it doesn't guarantee that you're going to win. So even then, winning 500 doesn't prove anything, except for that they're never going back to Vegas again. Yeah. And who knows how many times they filmed it? I could imagine a scenario where they filmed several hands and he wins that big one. And, you know, that's all that you show. So who knows if it actually won? As you point out, it just improves your odds. You can still lose a single hand. If you play over time, you should win more, you know, compared to if the deck wasn't in your favor. Either way, this is just an insane thing. I, you know, I don't know if whether I should be in awe of them or just call them stupid for doing this. I don't know if they'll get like officially banned from casinos. I think this was the golden nugget as far as I could tell people could correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was the golden nugget that they were playing at. So we'll see, but Vital Vegas said gaming regulators are looking at it. At the very least, you would have to think, if I owned a Vegas casino, I would ban these guys from coming in. I mean, you're talking about video. It's a very sophisticated thing and you're right. They didn't need the robot sitting there. A program could have done that, but it's reading the video feed and actually counting the cards in real time, which is fun. And the fact that they did get a robot to like do it in real time. I don't know. It wouldn't have been the same video without that. No, the robot definitely had something to it. It's a very entertaining video. Like, I love watching it. So I get why they did it and it is good entertainment. It's a good video. I'm sure everybody here will watch it. It's definitely worth checking out. I definitely, I just would have gone to like Montana's casino and done it. So I wouldn't be banned from Vegas for like, like get banned at some, you know, backwoods casino in the middle of nowhere. Go there and do it. It works the same way, but it's kind of funny that, you know, they went to Vegas, did it up, did it big, got their video out of it. So maybe they don't care. I think that's it. Their whole channel is about getting dared to do stuff. So this was a dare and I guess they'll move on to the next one and hopefully they don't have too big of repercussions. I'm sure, like you said, at the very least they won't be allowed back in casinos. So Mark, did you see that slot machine Superman running back and forth between the bank of machines, hitting them? He did slow down a little bit towards the end, but I think he gave it a good effort. I mean, you got to get tired doing that. I like when he goes to like, Frogger mode and is like hopping to them. Like, and then he's doing like spins and I don't understand what's happening here. Like, I could get it if you're in a slot tournament, but I don't know why you'd be playing four slots, but to just like be burning through your money that quickly and not enjoying any of it, it is just crazy to me. Yeah, you can't even see if you're one or anything because he's just smashing the buttons. This reminds me, we were in Miami earlier this year, one of the casinos and they had a bank of machines that had a progressive that hits by a certain amount and this family of people locked up all the machines and they were holding machines on either side of them and and they didn't win. So there you go. Shocker. Shocker. Shocker. At least that makes a little sense with a progressive. I don't know maybe this had a progressive. It didn't look like it. Yeah, this is just not, it was laughing so hard when I saw this. You know, this is exactly why they changed it from what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas to what happens here only happens here. Talked about on a previous show that Venetian was going to start charging for parking and August 15th was supposed to be the day. According to their site, they still aren't, but we got some information on exactly how it's all going to work. To start, locals should be happy. They'll get three hours free. That's pretty much what Caesars and MGM does. So nothing better, nothing worse. And then Grazzy rewards premiere members and above will get free self-parking as well. So not a surprise. You're a higher tier member. You get free parking and a little bit of love to the locals, but not enough to get you through an entire night at the Venetian in the sphere. Well, I can get you through maybe like the show at the sphere. You just got to leave right after and not have dinner before or something, but yeah, I'd love to them. I don't know why they don't just have it where if you earn so many tier credits in a visit within a whatever hour period, if you get free parking for that day, it would be a reason to get people to go into the casino. And maybe people that are just trying to get some free parking will actually end up risking more than they would have paid for parking anyway. It just seems like it makes too much sense not to do for some reason. They just want the easy money and it's kind of annoying, but at least they gave the locals a little bit three hours. I mean, guess you could park there for three hours, then move your car to another one for three hours and go that way just if you're ready. That sounds like a lot. You know, it's going to happen. We expect wind to start charging for parking as well. And that's going to make it a little bit more difficult on that area of the strip. Treasure Island right across the street, though, does have free parking and they famously have those giant free parking signs. So it'll cost them a little bit of money to, you know, to take out the signs. But that's a good point about validation downtown. A lot of casinos have validated for a long time. I know main street stations still validates newer casinos like circuit do not validate. So it's been sort of a change in business model. But I agree. If you can get people to spend money on your property and prove it, maybe it is worth waving that parking charge. But on the strip, nobody wants to do that. You pay for the park and then you spend the money. You do both. They want to double dip your pockets. But yeah, I think they'd end up making more out of it if they if they made it like something is a little bit difficult to achieve, but reachable and people would end up spending more money on it likely. And then they feel like you get value out of it. Like, okay, I was going to spend 30 bucks to park or whatever. And I lost $40 gambling, but at least I got something out of it. It would be my takeaway. My takeaway is that this is really good for Treasure Island because I know not everybody's going to want to skip their parking fees, but I think some people will and they're going to park at Treasure Island, although it's still a long walk. We talked a lot on this show about betting absolutely ESPN bed and barstool sports with pen entertainment and then wind bets that they're going to shut down their app in a lot of markets and bet MGM's in the news this week by stepping a customer. So he made three separate parlay bets on the Netherlands versus Vietnam women's world cup game, $750,000, $1,500, the payouts for all of those that he won were $214,000, $500. But at MGM just canceled it said, the odds were wrong. They can't figure out what the correct odds were. So therefore, they don't owe them anything and it is canceled. Crazy, crazy stuff. But we've seen this happen before. We know people who they've done this too. They gave them $100 free bet, though. Don't forget that. No, I mean, you can tell the odds are messed up because like, what was it? Plus 60, 600. And I when I saw this, you know, the headline and stuff, I was expecting like a four or five team parlay and this was just a two thing. So that definitely was off probably by a thought like a six six hundred and 60 maybe would make sense, probably not even that. But you know, you can tell and that's why it's kind of a giveaway because he comes back to make the same bet over and over. And I thought maybe it was like different bets, but it's he's like, you know what? I'm going to keep adding to this and maybe you saw it on odds boom or something, but the fact that they can't even come up with an odds to pay him out is really kind of messed up. Like you could have just given them, you know, $5, $10,000. Let's say any probably would have been like, you know what? I'm not going to fight over this. But, you know, when you say you're getting nothing, a hundred dollar free bet, that's just so crazy and they're going to fight and they're going to end up settling for more than if they would have just probably paid him out. You know, these are regulated companies, right? They're regulated in the states that they're in and this was not in Nevada. But, you know, there has to be some middle ground if you're offering the prop bet. So that means you are offering that on your site. How can you not figure out what the odds should have been? I get that they have to have safeguards for mistakes. I mean, online retailers, right? They are able to cancel an order if there's a price mistake. I get that and that needs to happen, especially in today's world where everything's instant and stuff. But for them to just be able to say, we offer this prop bet, but we have no idea what the odds should have been. Therefore, we don't owe you any money. That's a thing too far and I think you're right. I think this guy has a case. The article says he has an attorney. Obviously, we're not attorneys and we don't know what the legality of it all is. But at the very least, this just doesn't seem right to me. They should have come up with some odds and paid them out at least something. But yeah, like you said, maybe this will cost them more in the end. If you don't cancel it before the game, you've got to pay something. You can't just take it all back after the payout happens. So let's talk Area 15 for a second. So Universal has started construction on their new Haunt experience at Area 15. And there's no official groundbreaking yet. But you can see there's a little bit of ground construction there. An Area 15 has released a leasing brochure to kind of give us more of a look of what that Phase 2 will look like. Phase 1 is 200,000 square feet. Phase 2 will have 400,000 square feet. So it's going to basically triple the size of Area 15. And you can see the different spots on this map here. Different from 1,000 square foot of retail up to 60,000 square foot parcels. Always talking about the experience that everybody's looking for and that sort of economy around that. And Area 15 big, we know they're building one in Orlando. Universal here is the anchor, but there's a lot to fill here. And it's just reminder that that's going to be even more of a destination in just a year or two when they get this all finished. Yeah, it was kind of nervous when I saw the layout of this because my big takeaway or my big issue with Area 15, the way it's set up now is it's kind of disjointed. You know, if you go into the main building, that's cool. But then you got to go outside to go to the distillery even though you check in inside the building and walk through like a parking lot and try to find your way back there. So this looks at least, you know, at first I was like, oh, another place to have to go try to find, but this looks like they're kind of like encapsulating in one area, like an outdoor mall type of feel in all immersive where you're walking around and being able to do this stuff. So I think this will be better even though it will be kind of like if you want to do the distillery and then do this, you probably have to either drive or take a longer walk. Hopefully they have some type of shuttle if it's if it is quite a bit of distance, but I do like that it's, you know, like a big loop and you can kind of see everything and be involved and everything. So I'm excited to see what they do with it. I personally know somebody in attractions there who's you know, sort of high up and he has so much passion for this and apparently that whole team does and that's really exciting. These are people who love this type of stuff and are really excited to bring it to you and I'm excited to see what they bring there outside of Universal and the other kind of cool thing that they unveiled during construction is they were peeling back the layers on this billboard on the site and they found an opening day billboard for MGM grand from back in the day back in the early 90s. You can see it that emerald green. So a nice little throwback if you were driving on the freeway over the last month or so, you would have been able to see this. Isn't it crazy? Like 90s doesn't feel that long ago to us and MGM feels like it's been there forever and it's only just the 90s, which is just still crazy. I know we've shown video of Vegas back then and it's pretty sparse on the strip, but it's just nuts to see what's happened in like 30 years. Yeah, Luxor, Treasure Island, MGM grand all turning 30. It's insane, insane. I didn't even think about that. So let's move to the badlands. This is a golf course up in the northwest part of the valley. Specifically in Summerland in the Queens Ridge area. This is one of the most affluent areas of Las Vegas and a handful of years ago a developer bought the land. They were going to take out the golf course, build condominiums and of course all the residents said you're not going to take out our golf course. We bought these big multi-million dollar houses. There's been this battle, but apparently the developer keeps winning battles in court. I think they've won three out of four court battles and the city of Las Vegas because they've been playing games with not allowing them to develop this project while also not doing imminent domains. So they're kind of locking them up on their land usage. The city may owe 240 million dollars by the time this is all said and done. This is crazy. I didn't realize the liability for the city was so big. This has been a story in the news for quite a few years though. Yeah, can we check the receipts of all the people in office and who donated it and if they live in that community because I'm guessing that they've been funneled a lot of money to win their elections from that community. Just a speculation I guess on my part, but yeah, this is crazy. I mean, think about this has been going on seven years. Think about seven years ago how much cheaper building materials were, how much cheaper labor was compared to now. You're talking like 50, 60 percent increase in some areas, 100 percent on some building materials compared to that time and then you know, they would have been built through and probably right around the time a pandemic hit and we saw how the housing market just went bananas at that point and prices skyrocketed. They're out like way more than just the land and how much they've had to sit on and pay for all this over the last seven years. They're out of ton of money and I don't think the city can ever really make them whole. So this is kind of bad and we were talking about this before the show of how this has happened before people try to fight to keep golf courses, golf courses for their home property, which I've never heard of anywhere else and maybe you should have gone to the golf course and spent a lot of money and they would have kept it open. I don't know. I mean, Las Vegas has too many golf courses. We obviously have a water shortage. So we have all these restrictions. So there's a lot of pressure on the golf course industry and we've had a few golf courses almost go away. A couple did go away. Legacy was a big one not far from my house here that closed and then they got fought on and they reopened the golf course and it's open now and I understand if you buy a house on a golf course that you expect that to happen, but through this court case, it seems that you're not guaranteed to keep the golf course. So Bala, Italian soul, that's the new Italian restaurant at Sahara. It's near Chicky and Peats. It's that new area where they developed along the strip front edge and the reviews are pretty good. I haven't been over there, but Las Vegas Phil had a video from them showing off their steaks and on Tuesdays, locals get 50% off and so do industry professionals. The steak looks really good. You can get a ribeye for about 39 bucks, 50% off. I told Jasmine we got to head over there. It looks really good, although not 50% off everything. Yeah, I mean, I looked at the menu before the show and the prices weren't terrible, especially for Vegas. You could end up getting a steak for $35, I think, and that's basically a price that you'll pay cheaper than you'll pay in most major cities. And it looks amazing, you know, that video is really cool of what they do to it and everything. And then I even saw the tasting menu looks like one of the better deals in Vegas, like a three-course meal for 60 bucks. It's kind of hard to beat. Yeah, I looked at that and I thought I had the same thought that's way cheap for the strip. So this place definitely should be on people's radars. The reviews are good, people seem to be enjoying the food as well. Don't sleep on Sahara. It's really nice. The whole casinos been renovated in the last few years. Beautiful property. And they've done a great job considering the age. Well, I guess the casino really isn't that old. It's a new building, but, you know, you know what I'm saying. The old Sahara looking good. Now what's not looking good is Lexi. That's that new marijuana-friendly hotel, formerly the artisan that opened up a, what, a month or two ago, we talked about it on the show. They're supposed to be marijuana-friendly, but they don't have a license for like consumption lounges. So, you know, there's a little bit of a great area there, but that's the least of their problems. Apparently they fired everybody. According to this TikTok, they decided to just fire all the staffs that they weren't doing a good job and hire an outside management company. So trouble and paradise, it seems. Yeah, you know what that means if everybody's doing a bad job is that whoever's owning it or running it is terrible. So, you know, you can't fire everyone and say there's not one good employee on your staff. If that's the case, you're just an awful owner slash manager. It doesn't seem like a very joyous place to work, so I hope partaking enough. Yeah, where's the happiness? Really? Come on, this is supposed to be the happiest hotel in Las Vegas. Yeah. So, speaking of happy hotels or unhappy hotels, I want to ask everybody out there, including you, Mark. So, across dozens and dozens and dozens of MGM resort stays, I have received a survey after every single one of them, except for the three where I complained. So, that my first Belagio stay many years ago where I had hairs all over the bed, a recent Arya stay, and then there was another stay, and I forget which one it was, but didn't receive the survey. The survey never came. So, my theory is that the managers go in there and disable the survey when you complain. Every other staff ever had, which is the vast majority of them, you know, 95% of them survey comes right away. So, I want to know if you complain and have a problem in an MGM hotel, do they disable the survey so that the higher ups don't get wind of your problem? That's my conspiracy theory for the day. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me, especially if they have some type of bonus reliant on these surveys, which I'm assuming most hotels do, that's why they send them out. So, you need like a 90% satisfaction or whatever a B to get your higher end bonus. I would imagine that they would do that for sure. So, it doesn't surprise me, especially with MGM, nothing, I don't put anything past them. So, I'll be curious to see what other people have to say. I don't think I've ever had a stay where I made a formal complaint, and I never pay attention to when I get the surveys, but I'm sure there's people out there that have tracked it. Yeah, none of those stays to be fair. We're like crazy. Like the hair, they switched rooms. I wrote about that years ago. That was all resolved. Aria, I stayed in the room, was just filthy. They moved me to another room, and you know, there was no compensation, or these weren't like huge issues, where I'm getting free rooms or anything like that, but they were issues where I talked to the front desk. So, it's sort of interesting where yeah, this would skew their stats down, right? If you could get all the angry customers to never get the survey, I imagine things would be a little bit better. So, I'm interested to hear what people have to say. It's just something I've noticed over the years. And finally, let's finish with this, Fountain Blue Entertainment. We said that the theater looked like it may not open by December based on that leak that we saw a few weeks ago, but apparently it will, or at least according to our good friend Johnny Katz over at the review journal. Yes, he's let us wrong a few times, but I don't think he is here. I'm just going to keep saying that every time I talk about that. But yeah, I think if it's in review journal, Fountain Blue has leaked this, but Post Malone, he's going to be performing there on New Year's Eve. And Justin Timberlake will be performing sometime in December, or at least rumored according to Johnny Katz. So, they are going to get the theater open in time for December. If they're saying Justin Timberlake mid-December, that's kind of a hint as to when they could open. And I think clearly by these names, especially Post Malone, they're going for an interesting crowd, maybe different than their competitors right in that immediate area. Yeah, we're making jokes in the last couple episodes in the comments about the sphere and going for a crowd because they don't want them to trash the the sphere and keep it nice and clean and stuff. It goes with their vibe, you know, the Miami vice type feel, you know, younger, hip, or that type of thing. So I think Post Malone's a big get getting Justin Timberlake in there is kind of a big get. Like I think people will travel for that because you can't really see him anywhere else. So I think those are two good names to kick it off with for sure. You know, hopefully that means they're opening before I get there in December. Yes. Speaking of MGM Grand opening and fountain blue, I remember back when MGM Grand opened that New Year's Eve was Barbra Streisand. She was the big sort of thing. So Las Vegas has changed a little bit in the last 30 years where you go from Barbra Streisand, the Post Malone, as your big New Year's Eve act for this brand new casino. But I think you're absolutely right. It goes with the brand, you know, he has a lot of fans. He's very popular. I know people like to make fun of his tattoos, but he's his own self. And I think it's cool that they're bringing sort of a different vibe down to that area. I do think that they'll have to kind of round it out a little bit more, but Justin Timberlake does that. I mean, he really appeals to so many different demographics of people. I think people will be knocking down the doors to see him here, especially if it's like a one-night thing. Yeah, I think he'd actually be a good fit for the sphere too, to be honest. You know, it's that our age demographic and older that are kind of grew up with him and everything. And he brings in a good mix of people and more mellow versus, you know, other things that are modern pop and all that stuff. No throwing of microphones. I don't think he's ever done. So you don't have to worry about that. Did you see the story about Adam Levine and how he's supposed to have like a VIP concert and he walked in and they packed a place with a whole bunch of random people. So he got mad and left. Yeah, he's apparently a big diva according to what I've heard and seen. So yeah, not a surprise there, which is funny because didn't they do that whole music video a few years ago where they crashed people's weddings and just were all around normal people. But basically, you said, this was supposed to be only VIPs. You let normal people in here. I'm out. He doesn't like it. I mean, I could somewhat if you're if you're traveling, you're expecting this intimate, you know, experience like a coup stick type of show and all of a sudden, it's like packed wall to wall people and you're like, Hey, this is not what I'm set up to do or reform for. I could understand that a bit. But if he has a pass to being a diva, then it doesn't surprise me. Thank you for listening to the MTM Vegas podcast. Don't forget to check us out on YouTube where we released the show twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. YouTube.com forward slash miles to memories and all of our biggest content can be found at MTM Vegas.com. That's post podcast videos. See you there. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time.