UConn Robbed, Circus Circus Bright Paint, Silver Mining & Evolution of Strip Side Shows!

Hello and welcome to the MTM Vegas Podcast. I'm Sean Coomer, your host joined as always by Mark Osterman. We have a great show for you. As a reminder, you can watch this show along with all the visuals that go with it at youtube.com forward slash miles to memories. On today's show, we have a lot to discuss, including more trouble for the Yukon basketball team in Las Vegas, Tom Brady buying into a major league sports team in the city. The evolution of strip side shows, we look back at Excalibur's Merlin show. Plus, I talk about Hard Rock's guitar hotel, light show in Florida, what it's like and what might come to Las Vegas in our version of the guitar hotel. Will it be better? Plus, we talk silver mining that's collecting tickets and vouchers from other people and cashing them in, paid parking, coming to the strat, and so much more. A lot we covered on this show, so stick around. As a reminder, you can find all of our Vegas content that's posts, podcasts and videos at MTMVagus.com. Thanks so much for listening. Let's hit it. So Mark, as if Yukon couldn't have it worse in Las Vegas after their Luxor rooms had poop vomit and more, then their stuff got stolen off one of their buses or their bus while they were playing or something. And the good news is they won their games and they're going to the final four. Yeah, you know, sometimes basketball teams or sports teams have something that galvanizes them, brings them together like a tragedy or something crazy happening. And all they had to do was go to Vegas and that just brought them together. And they're expected to win, right? They're favored to be the winners of it all, aren't they? Yeah, they've been destroying people. I think they'd be Gonzaga by like 20 or 30 points. So it's been impressive what they're doing. And it's kind of a random tournament, you know, of all four seeds are higher in the final four. So a little bit crazy kind of goes in with, you know, 2023 and how the world is. But yeah, I mean, who breaks into a team bus when they know a tournament's going on? That's nuts. Pain builds character. They got tired of Robin casinos, I guess. Let's stay on sports for a minute, Mark. And the Las Vegas aces, of course, they won the WNBA championship, the first major championship in Las Vegas history for a major league sports team. I just said that to trigger all the mean commenters out there. But I do believe that and everybody's going to go into the comments and tell me how WNBA is in a real sport and shame on you. But Tom Brady bought into the Las Vegas aces, their own by Raiders owner Mark Davis. And he bought in said he's very excited to be part of the Las Vegas aces organization. Apparently he's thinking about moving here. So we're going to have more Brady here in Las Vegas. Is he going to buy into the Raiders next? I mean, being a partner with Mark Davis is something I probably wouldn't want to do. So I'm kind of surprised at all this. But maybe, you know, in a year he'll become unretired and play for the Raiders if he moves to Vegas who knows. But I like the quote where he's like, you know, growing up my older sisters played sports. We'd go support them and I'd watch them. They're the best athletes. I'm like, the little brothers go to watch girl sports for other reasons than to support, you know, I want to do a lot of sisters dance things. National competitions. It wasn't about watching my sister dance. I know what's amazing about this though. As you clearly point out that sometimes people have ulterior motives is that he's supporting women's sports and he's putting this out. He's probably the biggest name in sports and putting his money and his name behind it. And in Las Vegas too, like I said, who knows what will happen to Raiders? But it's good for Las Vegas. It's good for the WNBA aces. And I still wonder if they're moving to Henderson. That's been the rumor for a little bit that they're going to move to the new Dollar Loan Center. Yeah, good to see this. It went all across the world with national news. I think offsite to Dollar Loan away from the strip, it probably makes sense. I'm guessing it's more locals that are going to go to that where Raiders and stuff, people coming to visit will support that. But this is more of a local team. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Maybe it's a little bit smaller venue. They get more of an atmosphere in there versus out at Mandalay Bay. So it makes a lot of sense to me. I think they'll end up moving there. Either way you cut it, the Las Vegas aces have made a splash in Las Vegas between coming here, what? A few years ago, and they were owned by MGM, then Mark Davis bought them. Now they've won the championship, Tom Brady investing. It just shows that Las Vegas is really a major league sports town now. And people want to be involved in the sports here as we talk about getting a baseball team and NBA team. LeBron has said he wants to be an owner of the NBA franchise here. So everybody wants in on Las Vegas. So it'll be interesting to see where all that goes. Now we talked a few weeks ago about the rumor that Adele was going to extend her residency. And I think Vital Vegas is the one who covered that rumor. And finally they confirmed it. So she's going to have June 16th through November 4th. She's added those dates. You can go to Ticketmaster verified fan. I'll try to find the link and throw it in the description so you can sign up to see if you can get tickets. You know, it's going to cost an arm and a leg. But I think the only way to come out of this somewhat unscathed is if you get tickets from Ticketmaster because the resale tickets were crazy. Even when there was softer demand in the end, the price has still stayed sky high. Yeah, it's not surprising that she's extended. Katy Perry extended and Adele's has been as successful, if not more successful. So, you know, plus she's got to probably pay back some stuff for canceling the last one. So, you know, they got to lengthen this runway a bit. It's good to see, you know, that she's doing well. If I was a performer, I mean, is there anything better than doing a show in the same place and not having to travel and still making the same kind of money? I think that, you know, the end game should be having a Vegas show that goes for a while versus having to get on a tour bus or a plane every day. Definitely the lifestyle I would prefer. Yeah, this is good news after, you know, the rocky start for her residency that last minute cancellation. You know, when she came back, she added more shows and now she's adding even more shows. So, I think this is a sign that it was successful and they finally figured it out. And this is good for both parties. So, what seemed like a really ugly thing in the beginning with her canceling last minute. Caesar's really upset. You know, she did right by them by adding more shows and now, you know, I guess they're happy to work together. And by all accounts, the show is incredible. Still, still, don't stay at their hotels though. Yeah, she's still a win. Bill is no. We don't know where she's staying. Hopefully, she I'm sure she's in a villa somewhere at the Rio tucked away in the back. Not, no, just kidding. You would think like if you're doing a residency this much, you just buy a house or make them buy you a house, something like that versus living out of the hotel. But maybe you like the being waited on and all that stuff. But I would rather have a little bit of space to myself and in a place to go to that's my own. So, I'm kind of surprised that more of these, you know, celebrities don't do that. All right, back to sports for a second, Marco. This is a sports show, but Mattress Mack is back. That's the guy who won like $75 million last year betting on the World Series. And he's back. He just made a $1.9 million bet for the Astros to win the World Series. I think he dropped 100k on some NCAA bets that he lost to any bet on Houston who lost in the last round. But he's back making those bets. We know he uses the winnings for promotions for his store. So it's good stuff. But I don't know. This guy loves to drop big money. And it seems like now he loves the attention that he's getting in the press. Yeah, we're keeping him going right here. But no, I think yeah, he made like a $100,000 bet on Houston Moneyline and somebody else like Yukon or some two favorites. And I just wanted to like point out, this is what people think is like a good bet. Like, oh, if we just do two Moneyline bets of favorites, they're probably going to win easy way to rake up some money. It doesn't work out that way. You know, we talked about in the NFL playoffs, I believe, where somebody made a big like million dollar bet to win 30 grand when the team was up by like 20 points and they came back and lost. So Moneyline are kind of a sucker bet unless you're taking the underdog that, you know, don't mess with it. Don't do these parlays Moneyline. It's just not a good idea. Unless your mattress Mac who has gazillions of dollars. But like we said, he's loved in the Houston community. We don't want the mattress Mac fanboys coming after us. We think he's a great guy. We love him. And his whole scheme with the furniture promotions, I really love it. If I was buying furniture, I'd go there and the chance to get it free. I mean, all those people that got free furniture last year, it's nuts. It's such a cool promotion. Why wouldn't you? Now, while we're on the subject of Texas, how about we talk about Texas station for a second? The building's finally gone. Somebody posted on Twitter a video. I hadn't been up there in a little bit of time. So I hadn't seen if the building was completely gone. But it is it's leveled. You can see the video right now. I'm throwing up on the screen. Fiesta is still there. Fiesta Rancho. Of course, Fiesta Henderson, we've talked about on the show and I showed you video from when I was there a few weeks ago, is completely gone. That's turning into a park. We still don't know what's going to happen to Texas station and the Fiesta Rancho land. Although I suspect probably housing, but maybe a retail development station casino says they want to sell the land for redevelopment or redevelop it themselves maybe. But the Texas station's sad to see that place go. I have so much personal history there. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger and I'm going to miss it, even though it was really, really sad in the end. They hadn't really spent any money on it for quite a while. It was pretty run down. No, but it's like when you go by these casinos and these properties and you see you see them up close, you see that it's big, massive, takes up a lot of space. But I feel like it's almost more noticeable when there's the void and you're driving and you just keep driving and driving, you see all this vacant land and it's kind of crazy. It puts it into perspective. If they did something similar with like Excalibur and you drive by that, you just see the amount of space it takes up, which is pretty crazy. Yeah, this was a big property. I mean, it had it expanded over the years, but it just stretched out in a very long way. Big parking garages on either side, 18 screen movie theater, full bowling alley, a really large convention center, and then just a casino that really stretched outside to side. So it was a big piece of land. The Fiesta sits on a smaller piece of land across the street. So there'll be less visual shock there when that gets torn down. But yeah, these are the COVID closed casinos that are going away. And I think the one in gene terribles is still sitting there. I drove by it a couple weeks ago. And so that one is still waiting to be torn down to be turned into warehouses. But these are what happens to the casinos that never reopened after COVID. Now let's move up to Northern Nevada, to Lake Tahoe, which if you haven't ever been there, state line in Lake Tahoe has four casinos. And it's beautiful because you can see the lake. It really is picturesque there. It's right on the border of California. So South Lake Tahoe, California has a lot of cool things too. And you have four casinos there, Harvies and Harras. Those are both owned by Caesars Entertainment. Then you have Valleys, which I believe used to be Caesars and a bunch of other things over the years. But Valleys bought it and I think a year or two ago renamed it to Valleys Lake Tahoe. And in 2015, Paragon Gaming bought a property up there and turned it into Hard Rock. And I really liked this property. I was there a couple years ago. But now Tillman Fertita, the guy we love to talk about, just bought it and he's turning it into Golden Nugget Lake Tahoe, it was renovated just a few years ago. So I wonder how much money they have to invest in it. But he says he's really excited to get into the Northern Nevada gaming market. Yeah, maybe this is where he's going to put the focus instead of doing that, the strip property and do something smaller there. But I'm kind of sad. Hard Rock usually has a pretty good, and I know it wasn't owned by the Seminole Tribe, but they usually have a pretty good branding, pretty cool casinos. Atlantic City is good, the one in Florida is good. So you'd hope that they buy a Caesars property. Caesars would sell something. Because I like Golden Nugget's brands too. I love their casinos. They do a good job. So it's just things that you're taking out one good one and replacing with another good one. Instead of go take over Harvey's or one of the Caesars properties, that's what we need is get rid of Caesars and FGM and bring in more of these other players. Yeah, and this is a good reminder. We talk about Hard Rock a lot and most of the Hard Rock casinos are owned by the Seminole Tribe, but there are quite a few of the regional ones that are basically franchises. And this was one of them. And it's an older property and I'm not going to say it was the nicest place in the world, but I did feel like the Hard Rock overlay made it nice enough. And as far as the four casinos go, I really enjoyed it. I don't know which one of them was my favorite. I think Harvey's probably is the most dated, but the most historic there. And then you have Harris across the street. It's a cool place and they're all right next to each other. And then you have the stunning views of the lake. You can go beyond Lake Tahoe. It's a cool place to visit. So I highly recommend going there and trying it out. And I like the Golden Nugget color scheme, the brand, everything as well. So I don't think it's going to be a huge shift from Hard Rock to them. But yeah, as Tillman Furtita making moves, he's bought a couple other casinos around the country too. Golden Nugget brand is really expanding to the regional markets all over the country. So we'll keep an eye on that, but still that plan for that Vegas strip casino, they're taking their time. It is not on hold, I guess, but they just said they're going to take their time. So we'll see if we hear anything about that. And then I wanted to talk about Strip Side Entertainment. Mark, you sent me this video that you saw on Twitter. I think Petty's for Vegas shared it of the old Merlin Dragon show at the Excalibur. This is the show that was in that little water area as you go up from the sidewalk up into the casino. And there's a few little parts that are still there that you could kind of see if you watch this old video, like the door and stuff like that, but used to have a full Merlin like animatronic and a dragon. It was a cool show. I remember watching it a lot when I was a kid. Just another one of those strip side entertainment things that's long gone now. Yeah, I never got to see this. I mean, it definitely looks 90s when you watch the video, late 80s, early 90s. But it just shows you like what Vegas was and what it is now and how that kind of was the time where families were a little bit of the focus, as well as just the experience of Vegas wanting to bring people in. And they kind of had to do these things to get people to come check out their casino or stand apart from the others. So it was kind of unique, the volcano, the sirens, and treasure island, stuff like that. One by one have gone away. And they've just been pinching pennies. And it's a big cost, I assume. So it's a way to get rid of it. Like if the fountains ever went away, I think people would revolt. But it's kind of like the last thing left on the strip really, and it's sad. You know, I kind of miss having those things to do that didn't cost money and got you to go check out different areas of the strip. And now it's just kind of like casino focused. Once we get you in there, we're going to keep you in there. Well, that will bring us to a new strip side show that is coming. And that's the guitar hotel at Hard Rock, the former Mirage. We know it's going to replace the volcano and start construction early next year, most likely. It just got approved last week. And we talked about that on our last show. But I'm on a cruise ship now, as you might be able to see a Virgin Voyages. And I want to talk a little bit about that on the next show, maybe the casino and stuff like that. But I got a chance to go up to Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida. And I've been there before during the day. And I've even seen the guitar tower at night from the freeway. But this was my first time getting out there to see the proper show that they do at night. And first off, I just love that casino. And I talked about it before. It's a really cool property. You could drop that on the Las Vegas strip and everybody would love it. And assuming that's what the Mirage is going to be similar to when it's done. But the guitar hotel tower, you know, it's 450-ish feet tall. So it's going to be about 200 feet taller in Las Vegas. But they do too light in sound shows and night there. And you go out to like the pool area. So you get great views of the guitar and different rock music. And I'm really impressed by how those strands of light go way up in the air. You can see them very well. And I got a lot of great footage to show you guys. So this is what you can expect coming to the Las Vegas strip. Except it'll be about 10 years newer. Meaning we probably get upgraded tech. Yeah, I made a joke on Twitter when you posted this that, you know, it's going to cost playing credit. Because those lights, and I know Luxor's light goes up in the sky. But it's like a solid light that's going and this is, you know, changing colors and going on and off and shooting up. And it really does. It goes all the way up there. Like as far as you can see, which is pretty crazy. And I, you know, I checked out the property years ago. But those before they had built the guitar tower. And I loved it back then. So I can only imagine it's better now. And the pool area you've talked about is is just insane and really cool. So I'm hoping that Vegas, you know, they do all the right things that they did there in Vegas. I think it will be a favorite property. Even though people are hating on the guitar a bit. I think it'll end up being a marquee property on the strip and one of the better ones for sure. Yeah, I posted a YouTube short that people can see of the show with sound. So you can kind of see if you want to see that. I'm obviously putting footage up right now so you can see it. But I really loved it. You're throwing it up on the screen. I'm throwing it up on the screen. So as I always do, but it's incredible. I loved the show. I thought it was really good. The way the projections were, the way the lights were felt very high-tech and modern. I mean, we know we've had light in the sound shows. I remember when I was a kid at the Tropicana, the big thing was out by the pool area, they had this laser light show in the 1980s. And this is just a new version of that, right? I mean, they projected green lasers on this thing and they had music and it went with that. So this is just a 21st century version of that. So yeah, I liked it. I can't wait to see what they do there. And you know, maybe they'll do something even greater with tying it into more ground level stuff. I don't know because here, like I said, that you watch it from way back in the pool area, in Vegas, you'll watch it from the strip. So we'll see how they kind of make it unique. I expect it to be a little bit better. But yeah, on the comments, people are really torn. A lot of people love the volcano. They say this looks terrible. I won't say that. I have mixed feelings. I'll miss the volcano, but I am ready to welcome this into the city. I think it looks incredible. And I loved it. So that's my little review of the show at the hard rock guitar hotel. Okay, quick take, hot take. What do you think will be a better spectacle? The guitar tower show or the MGM sphere when it's all done and they do a light show on the outside? The MSG sphere. I think the guitar hotel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see I was trying to be subtle and not like correct you with, you know, but everybody would have corrected me in the comments anyway. Yeah. So the MSG sphere, I think it's going to be, I don't know, I think it's going to be more iconic because you'll be able to see it maybe from more places. The guitar hotel though is going to be very tall. So I don't know. I think they're both going to be next level over anything else we have. Because like you mentioned, the Blajio fountains, they're great in their iconic, but you have to be right there where both the sphere and the guitar hotel, you're going to be able to see from multiple areas of the city, even from like where my house is, I can see the screen on the side of resorts world, which, you know, that's not really impressive because it's just showing stuff. But when you kind of turn that into a light show on a guitar tower that's 600 feet tall, I think you'll be able to see it from all over the valley. And the sphere is sort of similar. You can see it from everywhere. So I guess I'll reserve judgment on that. I think they're both going to be incredible. Although I'd give the guitar hotel a little bit of props because it's on the strip. And I don't know, maybe that makes it win. I know a lot of, you know, flying into Vegas at night is going to be extra awesome whenever that's going on. If you time it right, where they're both going off at the same time, it's going to be amazing pictures. And I'm sure people get like cool helicopter photos and drone footage. I'm excited for that really, when it all goes in, you know, because we always see cool aerial views of Vegas. And I think this is going to make it even better. Yeah, all that stock footage of a Vegas aerials is quickly becoming obsolete as they build all this new stuff. And as you point out, great to fly into Vegas to see all this as long as the plane does the pilot doesn't get distracted by the strands of light going up in the air. And we're just joking because that's not in the flight path. So don't, you know, roast us in the comments. Okay, we know that planes aren't flying through that light, but it's fun to talk about. So Mark, did you see that crazy video of the truck that blew out their tire? It was on fire and they decided to just keep going even ran a red light all the way up the strip. And then the course of truck caught fire. This is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. Although I am impressed with how far they got before they had a stop. Yeah, I don't know what, you know, metal on a pavement doesn't usually work out so well. You're gonna do sparks and you got all the stuff that will ignite in a car. So I don't know what the plan was there or what what he was doing. I don't know if he was like running away. Like I'm hoping that he robbed a casino and he was trying to get away. Hopefully he got arrested for that. I don't know why. Yeah, it's just the only thing I've seen that's like as crazy as a guy that tried to drag race once in a viper, which are really hard to handle, I guess, driving and he gunned it and then immediately hit a sign and blew up. So this is at that level. So Mark, we did a video a few weeks ago talking about circus circus being under the knife and that they were going to start painting it and they're in the middle of some renovations. I think it was like $30 million. So don't expect miracles to happen. Although we're finally seeing that big top out in front of circus circus get painted a hot pink color. I love it. It looks vibrant. I'm so excited. I can't believe it took them this long to do that because it looks so terrible before. Yeah, I'm shocked that they let it go as long as they did and as far as it went down, it just looks like trash and garbage. And that's the first thing people really see to draw them in. It's money well spent and I would imagine it was a small portion of that $30 million budget to repaint it and you see how much better it looks when it's halfway done. So I don't know what they were doing for all these years. It should have been something that was upcap. And we're seeing it with the Paris thing out front too where it's not painted well and it's starting to show its age. So hopefully Caesars gets on that. But yeah, they took way too long to get this done, but it looks awesome. Yeah, I feel like circus circus took disrepair to another level, especially with like the plywood roof on that. And you can see in the picture, the left versus the right and exactly what it looked like before. And excited for this. I hope the main towers get a nice coat of paint and we get some of that pink. I know people on Twitter were debating whether that pink is too bright. I like it. I think it's going to stand out. I don't remember if it was that pink before. I think it was that color of pink before, but maybe this is a brighter one. But do you think it should be a little darker or do you like this color? It doesn't even really look pink to me. It looks almost radish, but I'm terrible with colors. So I like it. I think it stands out. I'm good with it. I don't remember what it looked like. It always just looked like garbage to me. So you know, the times I've seen circus circus. So this is just an improvement. I don't care. They're going to paint it at blue. Who cares? It looks great. Exactly. Anything would be an improvement. A blue circus circus. Why not? Some people said it looked like the T-Mobile magenta. I could kind of see that. Either way, it's a big improvement on the north end of the strip. So let's talk residencies for a second. We talked to Dell on the last show. Kelly Clarkson announced a new residency with 10 shows at Planet Hollywood between July 28th and August 19th, an intimate evening with Kelly Clarkson. So the residency train continues. Oh, Kelly Clarkson. And Casino.org, they released this list of the top grossing residencies in Las Vegas history. And a Dell only comes in at number four. And who do you think came in at number one? Well, I've seen the list. So I know the answer, but my original thought was Celine. And she's not even on the list because it's based on per-show gross versus total gross. So I was like, oh, it's got to be Celine Dion. But it was not. Yeah, and these numbers aren't adjusted for inflation either. But Lady Gaga coming in at number one from Park MGM, $78 million box office gross per residency, one and a half million per show. And Bruno Mars number two at 1.3 million. So both of those are Park MGM residencies at the New Park Theatre. I guess that's reinforcement that building that theater as part of the renovation was a great idea. And J.Lo coming in at number three, she worked really hard. J.Lo, 101.9 million. Yeah, I was surprised to see her up there. Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, less surprising because they did it while they're in their prime. And usually, you know, you go to Vegas a little bit like a decade after your prime and both of them are still cranking out hits. So I think that makes a lot of sense that they're up there, you know, versus a Celine Dion who did it at the end of her career after Titanic blew her up. Yeah, big business. Kelly Clarkson throwing her diva hat in the ring and welcome to Las Vegas. Kelly Clarkson looking forward to that. Did you hear about this big casino heist in Colorado where this cashier decided to just start loading bricks of $50,000 into a box, eventually taped it up, walked out of the casino, took it, but then came back, grabbed even more cash, walked out, took it. I think it was like $550,000 altogether. How the heck did this happen? What was security doing? Yeah, we make fun of, you know, Vegas robbers for 30 grand and nobody doing anything. But when you're going in and out a couple of times carrying boxes from the cashier cage, that's pretty, pretty messed up. And it's funny that, you know, she says I was doing this because I got a call from what I thought was a manager and they told me I needed to do this at UPS, you know, we were going to be in violation if we didn't get the money out or something. So she's dropping it off outside of a hospital at like four in the morning, which you're like, okay, that has to be a lie. But we see all these people that get scammed on the phone by people saying they're IRS, semi-home depot gift cards, or target gift cards. And we're like, how can you think that? But there's something weird that triggers in your brain when you get in panic and you don't make good decisions. So maybe that really did happen that way. It's still just bizarre. Yeah, when I worked at MGM grand, the count room and the cage were completely like separate and they had security at the door. I really don't know how that happens. I mean, they are under more scrutiny. So just anything coming in and out of there is supposed to be watched and just being able to carry it out of the cage and especially loading it into a box and then taping the box up. You would think that somebody was watching that, but apparently not. And you know, this is a smaller casino. So that's, I guess, maybe makes more sense, although they probably should review their security procedures. I doubt this would happen at a big Vegas casino because they are watching and generally they do have security right there. But yeah, it's a crazy story. And you're always going to get caught though. That's the thing is how are you going to get away with it? They're going to know the money's gone. They're going to see who took it. Cameras everywhere. So it's not like it's a crime you could really get away with. No, I mean, we could do the long play here where you just work at a casino cage and then you do it one night, but you got to be like close to the border and just get out of town and never come back. But it's funny that she once she figured out that she called and said, hey, they weren't answering the phone anymore. I think she realized what had happened. She went back and said, I think I'm going to get arrested. So it's kind of crazy that she even went back to the casino, still thinks she didn't do anything wrong. It's such a bizarre story. Yeah, absolutely. Strat is being, I don't like this story, Mark, because Strat is adding paid parking. And we've known that they installed the gates a couple months ago. Now signs are going up, but the prices are hidden. And they won't even confirm to the review journal or anybody that they're actually going to charge. They're saying that some levels will be paid and others won't, although the gates are on the bottom. And just come out and say you're going to charge for parking. Just come out and say the price, stop trying to hide this, stop playing games. Yes, Strat, I don't know. But they are, it looks like moving towards the paid parking with the signs coming up, although we don't know how much it's going to cost. And the price will be different weekdays versus weekends. Yeah, why add in the parking, the drawbridge, what do they call the drop? What are the drop down things called gates? Yeah, why why add the parking gates if you're not prepared to handle the backlash or the questions? If you don't have that readily available for the cost, it's just, it's crazy. And you know, we all, all the jokes are, who's even going there? Are they even filling up the parking lot? Why are we charging for parking? That could be one thing that, you know, set you apart from the other casino, especially, I feel like Strat's a mix of local slash tourists. So, you know, you're going to tick off all the locals. Hopefully they do something similar to resorts world where if you have a player's card or something, you swipe that and get it free. Maybe that's what they're waiting to get set up. I don't know. That's my hope, at least. If they're just a flat charge, it's going to be crazy. And I don't know why, what they're thinking, who's going to go there? Who's going to be willing to pay for it? More importantly, they should get their press team, their communications team on this because this has just been bad coverage and it's been stretching on because they keep like revealing this in little sections so people keep covering it and they just keep getting more bad will. They should have just announced it all at once and that's it. But I don't know. They're playing some games, but hopefully they did say to the review journal, the first two floors will remain free. So, but they also won't confirm anything else. So we'll see. I think that they really messed this up. How do you have the first two floors free when you have to go through the gate to get to the first two floors? Like, how do they charge you after you par? It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. And again, they have paid parking now. They have certain spots. And I should say the first two floors are paid. I don't know. They do have premium parking right now where certain spots cost and you stand at QR code. And I'm thinking that's what they're kind of talking about and then they'll get ready to announce it when they get ready to announce it. Yeah. Bad look for Strat and not good, but you're be prepared to pay for the, I don't know, park somewhere else. Go park at Sahara, go park at, I don't know, the arts district or the I hop down the street or something. But don't pay the park at the Strat. If they want your business, they can give it to you for free. That's my opinion. Sean's trying to get the tow trucks working at the IHOP when they start calling out people. All right. Good boy. Don't park at those places. But did you see the rescue? The fire department has to every once in a while practice rescuing people from crazy places. And so we see these drills. A lot of people don't know, but there's an area of the biggest valley. I think it's still it's around Decatur and Tropicana. I think they still have it there where they have this staircase set up and that's where they practice like rescuing people from hotels and other things and putting out fires and buildings. But also there's things like the high roller where people could get stuck and they may have to evacuate them. So they have to practice that. So a couple of days ago, they went up there, they rescued people, they did all of the drills. We'll show you the video of it. It looks pretty dramatic and kind of a fun time to watch that happen. Although we hope that it never happens for real because that would be pretty scary, I think. Yeah, I don't think I want to go out on that stuff. If I'm like, hey, just get it fixed and I'll sit up here and we'll wait. We'll wait it out a bit. But no, the fire people, man, they're crazy. The stuff that they have to go through to do, especially like forest fire rescues and stuff like that and the people that fight the blazes out there and these high wire rescues, top of buildings and top of the high roller and stuff. I mean, kudos to them. I could never do it and I wouldn't want to be up there stuck either. I'd be freaked out the whole time. So it's pretty amazing. It would be really cool to watch live. So hopefully some people watching this got to see it and experience that. I think it'd be pretty amazing. And of course, the history of fires in Las Vegas, the MGM Grand, which was valleys, which is now horseshoe, one of the biggest fires in history. And that sort of changed the whole game when it came to laws and big towers. And then they trained so hard. And we've seen in the last few years fires at Cosmo, that big fire on the top of Monte Carlo, these guys are the best in the business of doing this stuff. And they kind of take that same dedication to this and refining their procedures and their policies, see what works and doesn't and good for them. And it's also fun to watch. So it's a good time all around. Now, what's not a good time all around Mark is silver mining. And this TikTok blew up. And it kind of like took the world by storm and very controversial. Some people don't think it's wrong. Some people do think it's great for somebody who does it. Silver mining kind of started back in the day. Remember the coin slots? And I knew people who did this, they would literally walk through casinos and kind of run their hand through the hoppers and pick up coins. And you know, generally people leave behind coins and you know, you could make a few bucks and homeless people did it. Some people just down on their luck. Some people just did it as a hobby. And now in the days of tickets, it's kind of similar people kind of grabbing tickets. And this lady, you know, said 30 minutes at a casino, she made $7. And everybody went crazy for it. I believe it's illegal in Nevada. Tony is a job. Yeah, exactly. But you know, I had somebody steal money off of a machine on a cruise ship not too long ago. And I'll say steal it was left on the machine, whatever, we don't need to debate that. But you know, it's not really right to do that. If somebody leaves a ticket for 16 cents sitting near an ATM machine, maybe that's different. But going in and taking money, I don't know, I don't think it's a good thing. But you know, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. I think it's technically illegal in Nevada. The money belongs to the people who have the ticket. And then eventually it would go back to the casino in the state for the general fund. But don't do this. This is terrible. I don't know what it is. There it is. That's why it's a law because they want that money to the government and to the casinos. And that's, you know, I've written about this in the past. And this is what really annoys me with these, you know, you can't get a cash out with change at some of the machines. You have to go to the to the teller to do it. And I think they set that up because they want people to leave these stranded, you know, dimes and nickels and quarters. So it ends up back in their pocket, a chunk in their pocket, a chunk in the government's pocket. So I mean, what you went through is different to me. If you see a machine that has several hundred dollars, you know, that's a mistake. You see a machine that has less than a dollar. I think people leave that on purpose for the next person. I've done it. If I can't do another spin, I'll just leave the money in there. I'm not going to cash out a 35 cent ticket. So I don't have a problem with somebody going around and grabbing those and adding them up and going to the cage because they're doing something somebody else wasn't willing to do. I'm okay with it. I don't know, you know, if it's against the law, whatever. But I'm more upset that this is even a thing, that they set this up so that people don't redeem for the change. They called it a COVID thing. You know, they still do it. And it's just a way that they recoup some of that money back and the government gets it to. So I think that's why it's a law, to be honest. Yeah, I mean, I think the law about the FEP really dates back to when we had coin slots and people would do that. And just so you know, if you're caught doing this, you will get 86 from a casino. If you grab one or two tickets, fine. But if you're spending 30 minutes, walking around, chances are, you know, security will eventually find you and they will kick you out. And I don't think it's wrong for them to do that because to your point, if you find 30 cents on a machine or you find a ticket here or there, I don't think it's a huge issue or huge moral issue. But if you're scanning the casino, checking people out, it's just very sort of cagey. And I've seen this practice in person and I just don't think it's good. And I also don't think it's a good way to spend your time, 30 minutes for $7. I think, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think it all depends on how gank gung ho you go. If you're doing this, like, for extended periods of time, I think that you're going to run into trouble. But I think if you go to a machine that you want to play anyway and there's money in there, just use it. Like, if it's less than a dollar, I don't think you're going to have any problems. So I guess that's where it is. Like, if you're searching for it nonstop, it's a thing. If you just see a stack of these bills laying around on top of ATMs or top of the cash out machines and you want to spend your time caching those in, then I think it's fair game. So it's all about motive, really. But I don't know. I wouldn't blow up about it. And just last thing, if you do leave money in a machine and it gets cashed out, and I'm assuming, you know, not pennies, right, they do keep it for 90 days. So they will look back and you can claim it if they can, you can prove that it was yours. And that's good. And then, like we said, 75% goes to the state after that, 25% goes to the casino for administrative costs. So that's whether it's a one penny voucher or something much bigger than that. That's how it's handled in Nevada. And like I said, theft is what it is. I've never heard of anybody getting arrested for this. So I'm not trying to say that, you know, you're going to go to jail. But I think the worst thing that was going to happen is you're going to get 86 from a casino and, you know, then probably just go to the next one and start all over again. I'm curious if anybody in the comments can or knows this, like, what is that slush fund each year? Would you have to guess it's, you know, tens to hundreds of millions dollars left behind? And, you know, that goes back to the state of the casino. I don't know. I'm sure it's out there somewhere. If you know, if you know this from your job or if you've just been curious and looked into it, let us know in the comments. I'd love to see that type of report. Thank you for listening to this episode of the MTM Vegas podcast. Don't forget to check us out on YouTube, youtube.com forward slash miles to memories and MTM Vegas.com for all of our Vegas content. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time.