Friday night saw the much-heralded launch of the new sportsbook at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, just in time for the Kentucky Derby and the Mayweather/Cotto tilt down the road at the MGM Grand. The Cantor Gaming-operated joint took 10 weeks to refurbish, part of a $100m spruce-up underway at the Palms. Chief among the new venue’s features is the 1,290-square-foot LED screen, which is capable of showing one giant image or 33 different sporting events and 12 separate horse races simultaneously. There are also marble floors, hand-stitched leather walls and lots of comfy leather chairs (all in that fabulous shade of Cantor/whorehouse red) in which to park one’s butt while watching said screen.
The Las Vegas Sun claims Palms president Joe Magliarditi made a wager with Cantor CEO Lee Amaitis that the joint wouldn’t be open in time for the Derby, a bet Magliarditi doubled down on this past week. With Cantor having beaten the odds, Magliarditi now owes Amaitis two dinners. (Dinner wagers? Somewhere, Frank, Dean and Sammy are turning in their graves at the spectacular lameness of today’s Vegas luminaries.)
The new 10k-square-foot sportsbook is notable for the inclusion of two poker rooms: a seven-table space for the rank-and-file, and a smaller glass-enclosed room for high-rollers. This is the first of Cantor’s six Vegas sportsbooks to feature a poker option, but Amaitis told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that it probably won’t be the last. Amaitis said there was “a direct correlation between people who play poker and people who play sports” and described the Palms’ poker operations as a “laboratory” for Cantor research.
There’s another laboratory that’s just started conducting experiments in Vegas, and frankly, we find this one a lot more useful. Hangover Heaven is a full-size windowless bus that rolls through Sin City’s streets, administering aid to red-eyed, swollen-livered carousers who mixed too much grain and grape the night before. For $130, Hangover Heaven’s trained medical professionals will administer an IV drip consisting of “vitamins, amino acids and prescription medications.” The company claims this reduces “recovery time” from hours to minutes and “all interactions with Hangover Heaven staff are confidential and discreet.” Be sure to check out HangoverHeaven.com to read personal testimonials and pick up one of their swell T-shirts, which contain such phrases as “I feel like Jesus on Easter morning” and “Now if I could just find Herpes Heaven.”
