Vegas Sphere Opening Date, Housekeeping Battle, Beating Roulette, Where Casinos Make the Most Money & Quirkiest Vegas Bathrooms!
Hello and welcome to the MTN Vegas Podcast.
I'm Sean Coomer, your host, joined as always by Mark Osterman.
We have a great show for you this week.
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.
We record two shows a week on YouTube and combine them into this podcast for your listening
enjoyment.
A week show we discussed a ton including Sphere Las Vegas, we now know when it will open,
what its in-house movie will be like, and the crazy ticket prices that will go with it.
We'll also tell you how to get in line for YouTube tickets as soon as they announce
the dates for that.
We also dive into Cosmo Rumors.
Are they going to lock the balconies?
Plus we'll tell you how they are connecting Cosmo to the rest of City Center.
We also discussed the myths behind Casino Carpet Design, the distract light of customers
with their paid parking scheme, the gambler who beat Roulette, where do casinos make
the most money, and the quirkiest bathrooms in Las Vegas.
Plus a lot more, stick around for all of that.
As a reminder, you can find all of our Vegas content that's posts, podcasts, and videos
at mtmvegas.com.
Thanks so much for listening.
Let's get it.
So Mark, did you see the pictures of the Huntridge Theatre sign lit up for the first time in 15
years?
This theatre has a really long history.
It opened way back in 1944 as a cinema, and then it became a very popular performing arts
center.
It's on the historic places list, had a famous roof collapse at one point, but it's been
closed since 2004, and will eventually reopen.
A little piece of Vegas history that maybe people don't know about.
Yeah, I'd never heard of it before, and it looks amazing.
And then you see the picture next to it of how decrepit and run down it looked.
And it's amazing somebody would take the time to put the money back into it.
Probably been cheaper, easier to just knock it down.
So I'm glad that they preserved the history, and it looks like a cool place to go for a
movie or whatever.
I'm guessing it might be an artsy type of cinema going forward.
Yeah, it looks like it's going to be a performing arts venue again.
And this place is, yeah, I remember being a kid and it just was run down into crepit,
even when it was open for shows.
Like they did a lot of punk rock stuff back there in the 90s, and I remember when the
roof collapsed.
And it seems like people have always been trying to bring it back to its heyday.
But finally it has some investors giving it love, and great to see that sign lit up.
It's beautiful architecture located on Maryland Parkway, not far from the Strip, not far from
downtown, and hopefully we'll get to see some shows there soon.
See we're bringing the small shows back.
There you go.
We've got the theater.
We talked a lot about the MSG's fear, so I don't want to discuss a lot of it.
People can go back to our previous shows to talk about all the kind of woes of the company.
But they did release a link for verified fan for Ticketmaster, so you can sign up to get
on the list to buy tickets when they announce the dates.
We still don't know any dates.
And you can also go to youtube.com and sign up for their membership program.
I think they have a free option.
And it says that those members will get access to tickets first as well.
So if you really want to see you too at the sphere, do those two things.
This feels a bit like, and I know we're going to talk about it in a second, the strat roll
out for parking.
Like, hey, we're going to have shows.
We finally are going to let you know who.
We're not going to let you know when sign up and you can maybe get tickets for a date
that you don't even know if you can go.
You should know when the opening days are by now.
I feel like maybe that's a sign that they're still running behind on construction.
We've seen mixed things said, they said it's going to open November for Formula One, then
they said the outside will be done by then.
So we really don't know.
And I think that they probably don't have that firm timeline yet, but my guess is it's
probably getting delayed a little bit more.
But get on that list.
That's the first way to find out when the dates come and to get an opportunity to buy
them.
I've had really bad luck with verified family.
I haven't been chosen for any shows.
Last week's Adele show or Adele sale I got cut out of as well.
But tickets were crazy expensive, so I didn't feel too bad.
You know people love to hate on Ticketmaster, so let's get it.
Alright, Mark, it wouldn't be empty in Vegas if we didn't talk about Casino Carpet.
And I had this on the agenda for the last couple of weeks trying to get to it, but it's
been so busy.
But casino.org wrote an article about Casino Carpet myths.
And a lot of people do have like lore around Casino Carpits, like why they make them the
way they are.
And I think Casino Carpitting has come a long way.
We're seeing a lot of new casinos with beautiful carpet.
I showed Resorts World Bimini, which I think has one of the nicest carpets.
I've seen it still tropical with the flowers and leaves and stuff, but it's very modern.
But we see all kinds of circa has one of the nicer carpets.
But a lot of people think that they do it, you know, to keep you in the casino, to make
it dark and stuff.
But in reality, they're really just trying to keep it clean.
And they have to cover up the dirt because so many people are walking over it.
Yeah, I think, you know, the lack of windows in most casinos is so you lose track of time.
I do believe that I don't think carpet plays much of a role in into that.
But you know, they do need to hide dirt and people's pee and all the other stuff they
have in casinos.
You know, and throw it up on the carpet.
There you go.
Have your drink.
We said it.
Yeah, you brought up the peeing, which we, you know, that peeing video, we definitely
just thought about covering it, but decided not to.
But I'm sure all of you guys out there who follow Vegas have seen that.
But another thing about carpet is that it really is for branding, right?
You walk into winning, you see that bright red carpet, you know what it is.
We even see that with horseshoe with their new carpet design, which, you know, it's not
that imaginative.
It just has horseshoes on it.
But they do use it as a way to sort of brand it, give you the feel of the casino, you know,
Tropicana always had very tropical carpet.
You go down the list.
But like I said, I think more new casinos have a more modern take that still allows
them to have it clean, but also not just like the flowery designs because it seemed like
back of the day, every casino just had flowers on their carpet or, you know, that sort of
design.
I'm glad we finally evolved from that.
Okay, where's Carpet in Vegas?
I will say Virgin Hotels always.
Yeah, that orange carpet.
Yeah, I think you win on that.
That's definitely the loudest carpet I can remember.
I don't know, but I do love bringing it up again, giving a shout out to Slots of Fun
for their old school Vegas carpet.
Let us know what your favorite carpet is and check out that article for like the myths
because it's an interesting article.
And let's talk Stratt real quick.
Another follow up to the story.
On March 27th, they told the review journal that there would still be free parking in
parts of their garage.
And of course, we knew that wasn't going to happen.
Some elites, I think, will get free parking.
So if you're a player at their casino, but yeah, they're going to charge.
Are you going?
Are you ashamed to claim that if you're an elite at the Stratt to get the free parking?
Yeah.
They are varying prices, so I will put a picture up on the screen so you guys can see exactly
what it is.
But I don't care that they're charging for parking.
I mean, it sucks, but that they lied to everybody, kept hiding this for months.
What are they doing?
What is the big draw here for parking?
Is it people going to the arts district and parking there?
I don't even know.
Is this really a problem that they need to charge?
And at that point, like maybe you get a couple of them to actually go in and grab something
to eat on their way out or maybe gamble a little bit.
So I feel like it's a wash and you're just trying to force the people that do want to
come there to gamble to maybe go elsewhere.
I mean, if the win isn't charging for parking, how can you charge?
Yeah, and speaking of when, here are the resorts on the strip that have free parking still,
the win, the Venetian, Palazzo, Encore, Treasure Island, Trump International Hotel, Circus
Circus, Tropicana, and Sahara.
So there you go.
I'd still kind of put resorts world in there too, because all you have to do is show your
players cards.
So that was an easy one to get free.
It doesn't even have to have status.
Yeah, and resorts world makes it super easy, because even if you don't have your card, you
can use the app if you have a paleo-hairs card account.
So I'm good with that.
Like I said, if it's a business decision, it is one, but just don't lie to people and
hide that it's coming.
And again, a quote to the review journal on their March 27th article says, the first
two floors will be free, which sounds insane too, because people are like, why would the
first two floors be free?
And then I don't know, but that's what they said.
I even went back and checked it this morning.
So shame on strats, not for charging, but for not being honest with their customers.
Hopefully you can charge him.
Yeah, okay.
Did you see this article in Bloomberg about beating roulette in this guy named Nico Tote
Tosa, who kind of figured out how to beat roulette systems by kind of analyzing the
wheel, looking for flaws in the way that it's spun.
And the story kind of follows him in the Ritz Club in London, where he took out like 1.3
million pounds by the time he was done back in 2004.
And it kind of talks about the evolution of roulette and how they've kind of counteracted
these measures that people used to meet to see how the wheel is going to land.
Even in like online roulette, I did like learn that people in early days were using programs
to analyze it.
And now they're using like weird lasers and different things to randomize it.
They've even redesigned roulette wheels in physical casinos to add like lips and to
make sure that they don't have any imperfections.
And now they're using like computerized systems to make sure it's completely level and even.
But apparently like back in the day, if you could find a wheel and see where the imperfections
were, the ball would almost always drop in the same spot.
It's an interesting article kind of breaks it all down, but it was possible to beat roulette.
Yeah, I found it really, really interesting.
You know, if you can flip where you don't need two or three numbers on a roulette wheel,
depending on how many zeros and all that, you can transfer the odds to your favor.
And, you know, when we first started gambling at 20, 21, wherever, depending on where you
went, there was those big ridges around the roulette wheel that would make the ball bounce.
But those ended up, some would get worn down and it would kind of create a pattern and
stuff and that's why you see just the lips around the numbers, which I thought was interesting.
And then also the online stuff is probably more noticeable now because, you know, if
they just have like the carpet going to a wood floor area and slightly off balance,
people with computers can figure out where that's, you know, more likely to drop and
they're hitting up these casinos early on, even before their own internal investigators
would catch on or catch it.
You know, these online casinos kind of present some opportunities for people.
A lot of the one, like in Michigan, a lot of the casinos use the same company.
They don't have their own live dealer company.
So you can play three different casinos and you'd be at the same table from all these
different casinos, which offers you some opportunity if you have, you know, match bets
and all that type of stuff, promo is going on.
So it's just, you know, a new game that people are trying to figure out how they can get
their advantage.
Back in 2004, they investigated this, they thought they were using some sort of electronic
thing.
There was some intelligent players.
Remember bomb pilots?
Yeah, exactly.
But they didn't find anything and he basically claims that he was able to study the wheel
and figure out where the ball was going to drop.
And you're not always right, but they're able to predict with good enough accuracy.
Like I said, to flip the odds in their favor and then over time you're going to win because
you're going to get it wrong once in a while, but as long as you get it right, more often
than not.
Sometimes they would go 10, 12 different spins and win in a row, which is, you know, insane
and roulette.
So definitely check out that Bloomberg article.
Really cool.
Yeah, I thought it was super interesting, you know, when they were talking about how he
would wait until the ball had been spun and then wait a couple seconds.
And they said the only way to negate this type of thing or this type of game or this
advantage is to not allow bets once the ball is spun, but they won't do that because there's
such a small amount of people that know how to do this as well as that, you know, cuts
off a whole bunch of extra bets of people walking up to the table and throwing it down.
So that was kind of funny that they could counteract this very easily, but they won't
because there's more money to be made.
Yeah, people love to throw their bets down you because you feel like you got a better
sense of the wheel, I guess, once it's already spinning.
So that's where people love to do it.
But you know, in reality, you probably don't.
And the other thing is that we've seen, you know, adding extra zeros, triple zero and
some of the triple zero.
Quadriple zero coming soon.
Coming to the strat in the parking lot.
So where do casinos have the highest margins?
Las Vegas advisor had a cool article about this interviewing a couple of former casino
executives here in Las Vegas talking about where the revenue, where the greatest profit
is driven.
And it's clear that it is the casino, although the biggest revenue comes from the hotel,
which makes a lot of sense, but profit margins are going to vary based on, you know, what
the rates they can get because they really have a fixed cost on a hotel room to clean
it, to maintain it.
And on some nights, they can charge a lot more so their profit margins may be higher.
But one interesting thing in the article was just talking about restaurants and comps
and how they inflate the prices of food at restaurants because a lot of people are using
comps in them and that makes them feel like they're getting more value.
This is something we see in our like travel side, right?
People think that they're getting insane value using points.
They didn't really get that because they weren't going to pay that value.
But it's interesting how they play these mind games.
Yeah, and it's kind of counterintuitive when you think about it because nowadays you're
just redeeming, you know, points for a penny for most places.
So you're just having to redeem more points back in the day when they would just write
out like a comp on a piece of paper and say, Hey, here you go, two free dinners or whatever.
That made more sense because you're like, I just got a $60 or dinner or whatever when
now you have to redeem more points.
So it's kind of funny in that aspect that it still makes us think we're getting more
value when we're getting less, but it's not surprising.
We've seen the prices, you know, and this also offsets them so much like a lot of their
profit is coming in the restaurants on paper.
The profits coming from these comp players where they said if they didn't have that,
they would go bankrupt, which it may be, but you'd also probably have lower prices and
be more, you know, competition compared to off strip and people would eat there more.
So I don't know if I buy that totally.
I think that was more the case in old Las Vegas.
Now we have so many different restaurants from different, you know, operators, things
like that, higher end stuff.
But like the casino coffee shop back in the day, I think clearly operated like that a
lot of the time.
And you know, you would see it in the service and the experience, you know, they weren't
really worrying about the customer as much.
So I think that was the philosophy.
So I'm sure there are still restaurants that especially like the coffee shops at some of
the hotels where we do see really high prices compared to similar food elsewhere.
They're probably relying heavily on comms or at least a good portion of it.
And yeah, it's interesting to see how they account for that.
The casino still is the king in Las Vegas, but it's still driving a significant amount
of the revenue and everything else.
But they've diversified a lot more because I think it used to be a much bigger part of
the chunk back in the day.
Yeah, it just shows you how intertwined gambling is to everything.
Like people are staying at the rooms and a big portion of those are comps or discounted
for players.
You know, they're dining in the restaurants and they're only dining there because they
have comps.
So it's kind of like the one thing that feeds everything else, you know, show tickets,
getting comp tickets, getting discounts or they use their points to pay for them, stuff
like that.
So I think, you know, it basically has its hands in everything, which is to be expected.
But good to see that that's still the case in Vegas.
Now Las Vegas has a history of crazy proposed projects, including the most recent one, which
was that moon resort that supposedly was going to go on the win West land, which, you
know, I don't even haven't heard anything about that.
I like the Atari, the Atari resort.
Yeah, the Atari that was supposed to get built.
COVID kind of killed that one.
If it was ever going to happen.
There's some older ones back in the day, but this one I think takes the cake because
it's not on the strip.
It's called Harlem Knights sitting on about two acres of land in the historic West side
of Las Vegas.
The historic West side basically when Las Vegas was a young city kind of West of where the
15 is now north of downtown, that's called the West side because that really was the
West side of town.
And it's an area that hasn't been as economically vibrant as some others.
A lot of businesses have gone away and they don't have a lot of investment there recently.
But this guy wants to build Harlem Knights there, a 1920s Harlem themed resort on just
two week acres of land.
He wants to build it 67 stories tall.
Now the zoning only allows for seven stories.
Says it's going to be 687 feet tall, 764 hotel rooms, 458 residential units, a 900 seat
theater.
Now, Mark, you and I looked at the aerial of this and I will show it to people.
Now, you can see it just doesn't belong in this area.
I doubt they're going to even approve this.
The planning commission has recommended denial, although the city council could overrule them
on this.
Says it's going to be $700 million investment.
But question one, does this belong in the area?
And question two, do you think anybody would go there even if they built it?
Yeah, I think that this is more pie in the sky than all net arena to be honest because
I mean, you have all these residential units and there's nothing for a resident to go
to within walking distance really from the aerial as I saw.
And we're two acres, like where are you going to put all this stuff for two acres?
Parking, are people going to drive over there?
You know, there's no walkability around it.
It just seems bizarre.
And I love that it's like the 1920s, but it looks like 1984 Tron on the outside of the
building with lights and everything.
So I don't really get it.
I do wish somebody would do something like Roaring 20s.
I think that would be cool.
Even if it's just like a show, a dinner show, you know, like watching the Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel, you know, you go into these big rooms where you're eating dinner and comedians
up.
I'd like something like that, like classy to come back, you know, with singers and everything.
I think that'd be really cool.
Like old school Vegas throwback show.
I'm not against the Harlem themed resort either.
I just don't understand the picking this property in this area.
You can see it's pretty far from downtown.
I mean, it's not, you know, five or ten minute drive.
Like you said, it's not going to have any synergy with other properties.
It's way too tall.
Like can you imagine owning the house on the next street?
You're going to have this big shadow over your property.
I mean, the stories would be tall for the area.
I feel like much less.
Yeah.
I mean, you're talking about the second tallest building if this is, it's built in Las Vegas
behind Fountain Blue, I believe, even taller than the guitar tower that's proposed slightly
taller than resorts world.
So this is an insane project.
It's not Manhattan.
So I don't know what, what he's thinking.
Why not build something more modest if you want to do something in that area and maybe
build a 15 story structure, get a little bit of a variance, but he's going for the sky.
I guess I hope he can do it.
I mean, we are always happy to see new projects, but with things like the dream shutting down
because they can't get financing, hard to believe that banks are going to back this
thing up for $700 million.
But crazier things will happen, I guess.
I'm going to put this in the know.
Me too.
So Mark, the bad boys better watch out because cops is back in town filming.
Las Vegas was one of the original cities on cops way back.
I think in late 80s, they were filming here in Las Vegas and did it throughout their run.
So yeah, what you're going to do?
Bad boys, bad boys.
I remember watching at some of the 90s.
I didn't know it was still going on.
I haven't watched it in forever, but you know, nothing's better.
Nothing tells better stories than real life.
So just amazing stuff.
And Vegas is like the perfect place for it.
All the craziness that goes down there.
And maybe, you know, the strip will be a little bit safer with the cops walking around with
cameras.
You know, I think going back to those episodes in like the 80s and 90s of cops in Las Vegas
would be a great way to see, you know, that era of Las Vegas and, you know, some things
never change while so many other things have.
Yeah, like a pestering people on the walking bridges, man.
That's right.
The ones coming later this year, we're talking about it, but the pain is happening now with
the repaving.
They're repaving for the next couple of months.
And we knew that was going to happen, but now we're seeing pictures and videos of what
it's like in real life, the strip down to one lane in each direction.
And it's pretty ugly.
And it's going to look beautiful after that until those cars tear it up in a few months.
Yeah, you know, we've made jokes about them doing this and then they have to redo it.
So like, what's the point?
But I understand there's layers to it, you know, in the, in one of the taxi guys on Twitter
said 25 minutes to get from what Aria to win, which is just nuts when you think about
it.
It's such a, I feel like you can walk it almost in 25 minutes.
So to do this, to add this to already the traffic issues that Vegas has and then the
highway issues and all that stuff, it's just, I'm glad I'm not going to be there this summer.
My next trip is planned to be after a formula one.
So I'll miss all this craziness.
And I feel for everybody that's going there, like maybe you just go to your resort and
only hit places that you can walk to around it.
I don't know.
It's just tough.
Yeah.
So they will hold up.
Do they have to repave it after the race too?
Cause I had heard some rumblings that, you know, those cars really tear up the track.
So I don't know if we're, and we're going to have a race every year.
So this could be an annual thing for months.
They do that here in Michigan, but that's just cause they like always lay the wrong concrete
or something.
So they have to tear it up six months later and redo it, but they're just going to do it
like three different times in a year.
Oh man, I would be, if I was a Vegas resident, I'd be like, no more formula one.
I hope it's a one year thing.
Yeah.
At least it's going to be every year before the race.
Right?
I mean, I don't know.
We'll see.
Maybe not.
Hopefully not, but it's pretty ugly out there.
We have an update for link in that area where they took out all the table games.
Now somebody sent me a message saying that it's going to be the entrance for a nightclub.
And there is construction.
There's a construction wall there.
I haven't been able to confirm that, but we noticed that they're putting in slot machines
there now, although it's very sparse.
So maybe these are temporary or, you know, maybe they'll have just a few slots there while
they have the entrance, but something moving along there.
I doubt the table games are going to come back though.
Yeah, it does.
It looks a little weird, like a waiting room that they're just like, oh, let's throw some,
you know, some machines in there and fill up the space a bit.
It's very sporadic.
So maybe that does make sense if they would leave them there with the entry to the nightclub,
but I would think if you're building out this nightclub, you want it to be like the feature
item.
So who knows, but it just looks like a weird area.
It doesn't look good.
The table games probably look better just leaving there with nothing.
I don't know.
It's a weird.
Yeah, we'll see how it turns out, but I mean slot machines are easy enough to put in and
take out.
So, you know, this could just be temporary filler for wherever they're going to go with
this space because they are doing wider construction and in some wall.
So we'll keep an eye on that.
Speaking of construction, we got a better look at the Cosmo connection and where it's going
to connect to the Bellagio Vadara Bridge.
And it's looking pretty good.
It looks like it always should have been this way, right?
I mean, Cosmo sitting right in the middle of all these properties, it always felt like
it should have been connected in some way.
And there's some concept art on the walls too, which actually shows the Vadara Bridge,
which was uncovered being fully enclosed as well.
So you're going to have fully enclosed bridges and connections, making it feel a little bit
higher and a good improvement.
Although, you know, it's still if you want to get all the way to Aria, if you want to
make that walk, it's still uncovered between Vadara and Aria.
But you can just take the tram into Aria as well.
We need the moving walkways though.
They need to add this.
Otherwise, is it really a walking bridge if there's no moving walkways?
But no, it's good to see.
And I kind of understand why they didn't do it originally because MGM knows everybody
would leave to go to Cosmo.
And now they don't care because they own it.
So it makes sense and it should be a lot easier to get around between those properties,
even if the walk, you know, is part outdoor, part indoor.
But I like that it's covered because, you know, in the December, January, it gets a
little bit colder, rainy.
And in the summer, you don't want to be outside anymore than you have to be.
Yeah, the original bridge connecting Vadara and Vadara and the station always felt like
very industrial.
So this feels like it's more keeping everything together.
So I like that.
Now there were rumors that Cosmo is considering closing their balconies permanently.
Vital Vegas covered the rumor.
Other people said there's rumors that it's just going to be for the Formula One race.
I think that would be curious because people have probably booked those rooms expecting
them to be able to do this.
That would be so honest.
Yeah, I mean, you could probably cancel, I would imagine.
But yeah, I mean, I don't think this is going to happen.
It is a rumor.
It seems like that is the main distinguishing factor of that property.
It's been opened quite a while.
Honestly, I'm sure people have jumped from there, but we haven't heard about it.
But I hope that they keep them.
I mean, it would be a big loss for Cosmo if MGM decides to shutter them.
Yeah, I think that's kind of the main feature and why people booked those rooms.
I know you said you love that room.
Bethany at Bougie Miles has said it to like her favorite room.
Having that is something special, something you don't see elsewhere.
So if you shut that down, you're going to lose a lot.
And those rooms are expensive too.
So you're going to lose that money, that float.
You're going to be willing to pay that upcharge without being able to go outside and enjoy that.
And that's what was cool to like start off the night on an outdoor patio, your own patio.
Have a couple drinks you bought at the ABC store or CVS.
Something that Vegas has a lot of both.
But you know, to shut it down, I hope not.
That would be sad.
It would be an MGM thing to do, but it would be sad.
Not to mention the rooms don't have the views because the patios are there.
So the patio really gives you the view the balcony does.
Like there's rooms that bath tubs that kind of look out onto that.
So you would really be restricting these rooms in a big way.
It's not like shuttering some of those fake balconies that you have on some properties
or those doors that open up with like, like, valley-y.
Yeah.
So I mean, these are real balconies and I don't think it's going to happen, but I thought
it was worth at least sharing that there's these rumors, competing rumors about whether
it's going to be for the Formula One race or permanently.
But I think it would be a huge mistake.
Now, Tasting Table released a list of the 20 best Italian restaurants in the United States.
And three of them are in Las Vegas.
Now, Tasting Table is apparently this really high-end culinary magazine out of New York.
So I guess they went and they tried all these places.
But on the list is Breza, which is at Resorts World and Carbone, which is at Aria, which
is a long known.
And they said Carbone all of their locations.
So that kind of includes the Las Vegas one.
And then Esther's Kitchen, which is in the Arts District downtown, a restaurant that's
been so popular they're about to move to a bigger space.
But one of the best Italian restaurants in the country, I'm actually hoping to eat there
this weekend.
But we'll see if I can get in.
Reservations are tough.
Yeah.
I, you know, they ruined pizza though.
Did you look at that with?
They put butter, sourdough.
They put kale on pizza.
Like, come on, you can't put kale on a pizza.
You just can't.
It's not right.
We don't need it to be like a salad on a pizza.
So that was my only takeaway.
Esther's looks really cool.
The pictures I've seen.
I've only heard great things.
So it'll be interesting to see when they move to the bigger place.
If it's easier to get in there and everything.
But yeah, the one at Resorts World always is busy.
But Carbone, like if you're including all the locations, I feel like it's a little bit
cheap because you know, if you go from one to the other, certain locations are a lot better
than others.
So I don't know.
I haven't heard as great of glowing reviews about Carbone as the other ones.
I enjoyed my meal at Carbone.
And the problem with the one in New York City is you can't get in there because you have
to know a member or, you know, you have to really get juiced in there.
So I think the one in Vegas is the one that you can actually eat at.
And I have heard that it's not quite as good as the New York City main original location.
But I still thought it was pretty good.
But yeah, hopefully I can talk about Esther's Kitchen because I'm hoping to get in there
without a huge line because I couldn't get reservations for this weekend.
So we'll see.
But yeah, good to see that.
And good to see Esther's Kitchen, a more local lesser known brand getting in there, not on
the strip, you know, someplace that's in the arts district that's really helping to revitalize
downtown.
And you know, they're moving just a half a block away when they move.
So it won't be a huge issue for people who love it there.
So we were inspired this week.
Mark Meltzer shared the picture of the disco restroom at Resorts World on Twitter, which
inspired me to try to find the most interesting bathrooms in Las Vegas.
And I think that's one of them.
It's really cool.
I remember when Resorts World opened, you know, I went there at 6 a.m.
The first morning was open, filmed everything.
And so I was like there all by myself, but just going in there, not knowing what to expect.
It's right off the food court there and the food hall.
Sorry, Mark.
No, no, you got it right the first time.
And I just walked in there.
I'm like, what the heck is this place?
And I think it is one of the most interesting restrooms in Vegas.
It's just so over the top, crazy, glittering disco balls, animal prints on the walls, different
LED colors.
It changes colors even.
I really love it and we'll have a few more to talk about.
But what is your most interesting one that you've seen?
Skyfall.
Yeah, that bathroom is just kind of crazy, like especially if you're sitting down to go to
the bathroom and it's just like glass and windows and you're staring out while you're
doing your business.
You know, my wife went in there and she came out and she's like, that was really weird.
Like, I felt sitting there, everything.
I would go into the bathroom.
She's like, it felt uncomfortable at cool at the same time.
So I really do like that one.
It's something unique and something that's still kind of private, even though it feels
like it's not.
Yeah, that's a really cool restroom and certainly belongs on this list.
But of course, the top of the list is the bathroom at Main Street Station where you can
pee on the Berlin wall.
I happened to be with Mark the first time he got to experience this Vegas unique thing
and he just absolutely loved it despite the fact that he's crashing it right now.
No, it's, I mean, it's the best place for $3 beers to go and you're getting them.
I don't think they're $3 anymore.
They've just, I think they're like five bucks now and I remember the day, just less than
10 years ago, they were like $1.50.
But yeah, you can go in there.
The Berlin wall is there.
It's very unique.
Now it's in the men's restroom.
It's kind of the right of the buffet.
And if you are a woman and want to go in there and try it, you can often ask an attendant
or somebody working there, they'll clear the bathroom for you.
I guess it really depends on how busy it is.
But I know that my wife has been able to see it because of that.
So they'll help you out trying to get in there and making sure that, you know, nobody
comes in while you're looking really quick.
So it should be hopefully accessible to everybody, although I don't know why they didn't just
put part of it in one bathroom and part of it in the other.
That would have, that's a little massage of you there, I suppose.
Hey, it makes for funny Instagram photos, I guess, if you can get in there and take a
picture.
Yeah.
So some other ones, Scotch 80 Prime at the Palms has this like pink, looks like very
French over the top stall.
And it's just the stall within the bathroom.
So you got to find the secret stall.
And I didn't know about that.
And I looked at, I was looking up, you know, trying to find other bathrooms.
And there was a Vegas Eater article from 2019.
And that's where I saw this.
And there was other, this other cool one paid in full.
Now this restaurant closed unfortunately a couple years ago, but it had a disco ball
and like a pink unicorn and all this other stuff.
Maybe the disco ball is what inspired Resorts World.
I don't know.
That one's creepy man.
I thought that looked really, really creepy.
And it looked like Resorts World, but a lot less.
Yeah.
I can say the inspiration, but I'm sure there's others.
So I would love for people to let us know in the comments.
I have one.
Okay.
I was at an establishment, you know, those type of establishments.
And I don't remember exactly when it was the end of the night.
And you go in and it's a unisex bathroom and all the doors are like glass.
So you can see into every stall and you're like, what is this?
Like, okay, there's women walking through men.
And then when you hit the lock on the door, it frosts the glass.
So I thought that was kind of cool.
Yeah, that does sound kind of cool.
So yeah, let us know what you guys succeed.
I can't remember where it was.
It was one of the clons.
I'm sure somebody knows maybe they'll let us know.
So there's a big battle in the state legislature or not really a big battle.
So back during the pandemic, they passed SB 4, which essentially required the hotels
to do daily housekeeping to prevent COVID or to clean services, disinfect them.
And now there's a bill SB 441 that's designed to repeal that.
And basically everybody's on board with repealing this, all the hotels, all the casinos, even
the health district here, because it's putting such a tax on them to basically enforce this.
And on the other side is the culinary union who wants to protect their workers and says
that this needs to be codified into law.
So on one hand, we do know that the hotels casinos, they're going to cut back on daily
housekeeping if they don't have a requirement.
But on the other hand, there was never a requirement before COVID.
So why would this stick around?
It doesn't make a lot of sense.
And they also say that a lot of customers don't necessarily want full daily housekeeping,
plus they're really still struggling to find housekeepers.
I mean, is this even enforced?
Really?
We've talked about how dirty the rooms are in Vegas.
And I can't remember the last time they came in my room while I was there, you know, during
COVID, before COVID.
So I don't even know that this is a thing.
Like it's a law, but I don't think anybody's following it very well.
Maybe they walk in and do some spritz and walk out.
I don't know.
It doesn't seem like they're going in there and cleaning any, you know, harder than they
were before or any more often.
So I don't think it should be, you know, a law because they're not following anyone.
What's the point?
It's like those weird laws you hear about, like in Minnesota that you can't drive a yellow
car through the city or something that they're still in the books, but they don't enforce
them.
Yeah, we need to get rid of this just because it wasn't something before.
And you know, I understand the culinary unions position, but even when this, when the health
district comes out and says it's not needed, I don't know, like what defense you really
have there.
Did you see the presidents of the culinary unions name or the secretary treasurer?
His name is Ted Papa George, which is so close to like Papa George.
Yeah, I just, I got a little bit of a kick out of that.
I don't know, but because we're children, you know, here essentially.
All right.
And finally, the spear, we now know when it's going to open and it's no longer the MSG
sphere.
It's falling at that mark.
It's not the answer.
It's fear or less fear.
I guess it's actually just fear Las Vegas, but they finally announced when their in-house
show is going to start and it's called postcard from earth and tickets are on sale now.
October 6th will be the first showing.
Tickets are ranging from $49 to $199 and are on sale on Ticketmaster.
Now $49 is going to get you towards the back, $199 front row seats.
This is essentially a movie, so you're paying $200 to see a one hour movie.
Now they do say that it's their 22nd century technology.
There's 16K by 16K screens.
What does that mean?
All, you know, immersive sound, everything.
I think basically that this is unlike anything else in the world, but it's going to be a
lot to fill those seats at those prices.
Hold on.
I thought like there were screens everywhere and that was the point of this thing.
So if you're in the back, what's the difference?
Like you're supposed to have screens all over you.
So I don't see why anybody would pay a print.
You get sprayed with the 4D activity better, you get more smells.
And then they're like, your chair will vibrate when thunder rolls through.
I'm like, hasn't that been a thing for a while?
What is new here?
Yeah, that's been on like 4D rides that the Adventure Dome has.
Punch Bob of the rides for a while.
But yeah, I mean, I do think this is going to be incredible.
The level of sound that they're talking about and the screens are great.
I think because the further forward you are, the further down you'll be, I think you'll
be more immersed and you'll have more screens over you and you'll kind of be more in the
middle of the action.
Whereas if you're further back, you're going to be higher up and probably a little bit
better have like massage things in those chairs or something.
They're too hard-boxed.
Yeah.
Now I was looking at like the middle sections there about, you know, $79, $99 depending on
the showing.
So I was almost going to buy a ticket for the first weekend.
I probably will so I can talk about it.
Yes.
But it was admittedly painful for me to kind of contemplate giving up a hundred bucks because
I don't want to sit in the very back.
So giving up a hundred bucks to sit in the middle.
So I don't know.
I probably will do it.
But I mean, they have a 20,000 seats.
They're not going to fill all those.
They can't.
Yeah.
And this is going to be like an ongoing, you know, daily, whatever, often thing.
So it's not like it's a, oh, you only have three days to book this, you know, so the
prices seem crazy to me.
I know they got to make their money back somehow.
But maybe they'll do like this will be the new movie theater.
They'll bring in all the new movies.
So you can watch it in there instead of the, uh, the iMacs or whatever.
It's going to be the sphere, uh, movie theater.
I don't know.
This just seems strange, but I mean, it could be really cool if they take advantage of it
and they have enough people that are willing to create new stuff.
Yeah.
James Dolan said the sphere provides a new medium for directors, artists and brands to
create experiences that cannot be seen or told anywhere else.
And sphere experiences are just one of the ways we will use the venues technologies to
engage the senses and transport audiences to places both real and imagined.
So I mean, this is a kind of a thing that it seems like they may want to partner with
brands to create unique experiences or temporary experiences.
So I could see a lot of this, but again, you know, it's hard to imagine paying a hundred,
two hundred dollars to watch a movie, but maybe it's going to be that good.
So an hour is a movie too.
Not even two hours.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's crazy to see the ticket mask because it's on the tickets are on sale on ticket master.
So you can see the how many seats there are.
And there's just so many seats.
And you know, so also, you know, if you buy a cheap seat or they're going to like keep
you from moving up because you know, you know, these are not going to be full, especially
if you do a central effect.
We can just, we can see it fill.
That's how we get the free tickets.
Yeah.
There you go.
We got to get on the house seats.
Maybe they'll do seat fillers there, but I guess the big news is October 6th.
That is the opening of the sphere.
So we know it's going to open.
They're selling tickets.
We still don't know the U2 show dates, but this is good news, I guess.
I have to imagine this is going to play into like what we talked about last episode about
the synergy of casinos and how the restaurants, you know, are profitable because of comps and
stuff.
I'm, they're going to throw these tickets at people, I would think and work with a casino
and partner in some way that they give the casino something this guy would have to imagine
they would do some type of tie in with one of these programs to fill those seats.
We shall see.
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.
Bye.