Free Republic

The top boss of MGM resorts has admitted Las Vegas has become a rip-off and even declared 'shame on us' as he derided his own hotels' extortionate prices that have driven tourists way. MGM President and CEO Bill Hornbuckle revealed during an earnings call Wednesday that his resorts have 'price-corrected' after being rocked by a summer of public scandal. The company was met with heavy criticism after a guest at its four-star ARIA hotel revealed they were charged $26 for a single bottle of water. A Daily Mail reporter also revealed the company's flagship Bellagio Hotel was charging guests an...

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A massive virtual arcade located on the Las Vegas Strip filed for bankruptcy after just one year of operation, facing a pending eviction and millions in unpaid claims, court documents show. The Electric Playhouse in Las Vegas, a high-tech gaming and dining center inside a mall at the world renowned Caesars Palace resort, submitted the filings in federal court on Monday. The filing requested that the motions for bankruptcy be heard on an accelerated timeline so that current employees can be paid on Friday.The sprawling 10,000-square-foot Las Vegas gaming venue is equipped with a network of...

There is, however, one more thing that exists today as it did in 1950. It is a house — a house now concealed behind a television station, apartment buildings, and the six-lane Desert Inn expressway near Channel 8 Drive. It sits painted as it was in its heyday: a minty seafoam hue, seemingly selected straight from a postwar paint catalogue. One of the wealthiest and most influential people in the world used this desert house. His time at the house was short, but his influence is still at work more than 50 years after his death. We call it the...

Rest assured that Gov. JB Pritzker’s $1.4 million gambling win last year didn’t snatch away state tax revenue from any Illinois casino. The billionaire Democrat’s surprise windfall came from Las Vegas blackjack tables, Pritzker said Thursday, a day after his hot streak was revealed in 2024 income tax returns released by his political campaign. “I was incredibly lucky,” a smiling Pritzker said while being quizzed by reporters on his jackpot during an otherwise somber Loop press conference about the potential deployment of troops in Chicago. “You have to be to end up ahead, frankly, going to a casino anywhere.” Fortune...

One of President Trump’s biggest political adversaries stunned the political world after revealing that he won an unusual amount of money gambling in Las Vegas last year. As The New York Times reported, Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker released his 2024 tax returns on Wednesday as rumors circulate about him as a 2028 presidential candidate.The returns revealed that Pritzker and his wife reported $10.7 million in adjusted gross income. But the biggest shock was the fact that he won $1.4 million playing blackjack in Las Vegas in just one trip. Such an amount is surprising, especially considering Pritzker is not...

A tourist to Las Vegas is now warning others after she was charged more than $200 for using a wall socket at a popular hotel. Sharina Butler, of the Bahamas, was staying at the Paris Hotel Las Vegas when she received a bill for $224 due to her son unplugging a tray used for mini-bar snacks and drinks. The policy, which is written on a small card in the front of the tray, says there's a $56 charge for every day the tray remains unplugged. 'You've got to be kidding me,' she told the hotel employee, she recalled in a...

The Hard Rock Casino Tejon, a partnership between the Tejon Indian Tribe and Florida-based Hard Rock international, is set to swing its doors open for the first time on Nov. 13, more than a month ahead of its original expected opening date.

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Ilhan Omar tweeted out an Anti-Defamation League chart that purports to prove that right wingers perpetrate the majority of politically motivated murders in the United States. This ADL graph is very popular with left wingers. The problem is that it’s based on one of the most dishonest reports you’ll ever read. The ADL has long padded its “right-wing extremism” by including incidents of non-ideological criminality by perpetrators suspected of being white supremacists. This year, though, virtually none of the incidents listed by the ADL as having been committed by “white supremacists” or “far-right...

A 26-year-old man was arrested after he allegedly threatened a casino for displaying a memorial for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a marquee, Henderson police said. Thomas “TJ” Fedikovich was taken into custody Saturday on several charges after an alleged series of threats phoned in to employees(snip) The caller stated if Kirk’s memorial was not removed from the Sunset Station marquee then “we could destroy the sign and take it down for us,” according to the report. The casino later received a call from the same number with another threat, police said. “Can you tell your boss there to...

Five years after its $1.3 billion acquisition of Zoox, Amazon has officially entered the U.S. robotaxi race, which to date has been dominated by Alphabet’s Waymo. Zoox’s first public launch kicks off today on the Las Vegas strip. The company is offering free rides from a few select locations, with plans to expand more broadly across the city in the coming months. Riders will eventually have to pay, but Zoox said it’s waiting on regulatory approval to take that step. Amazon is jumping into a market that’s all about the future, but one where Waymo has a major head start,...

Las Vegas tourism continues to decline as fresh numbers reveal that fewer visitors are traveling to Sin City. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) recently released its numbers for July visitors, noting a 12% drop from last year. There were 3,089,300 visitors this July compared to over 3.5 million last year, while occupancy on the Strip dropped 7% from 86.5% last year. The tourism decline has been attributed to a combination of factors, including the impact of tariffs, the seasonal summer slowdown, and a surge in online gaming. Most recently, the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino announced it...

Oracle Corp. is pulling the plug on its annual San Francisco technology convention, relocating the event to Las Vegas in a major blow to the city's hospitality industry. The Redwood Shores company has signed a three-year agreement to bring its OpenWorld convention to the Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, citing rising hotel rates throughout the Bay Area as well as poor street conditions in San Francisco. An Oracle spokesperson confirmed the deal, first reported by CNBC.

In Salt Lake City, Utah, on February 12, 2007, wearing a tan trench coat, Sulejman Taloviæ , age 19,went on a shooting rampage killing five civilians and wounding several others at Trolley Square, a Salt Lake City shopping mall, before being fatally shot by police. The killings by Talovic, a Bosnian Muslim, was immediately labeled NOT a terrorist act. Both the authorities and the media took pains NOT to identify him as a Muslim. In 2002, Muslim convert John Allen Muhammad, one of the Washington, DC snipers, killed 10 innocent Americans and wounded three more critically. Authorities claimed no connection...

Las Vegas hotels are rolling out big incentives — including free nights and thousands of dollars in casino credits — to lure visitors back to the city. Sin City saw an 11.3 percent drop in visitors in June compared with the same month last year, an astonishing fall that means almost 400,000 people stayed away. That decline translates to less spending in restaurants, shops, shows and at hotels, where occupancy fell nearly 10 percent, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Kim received an alert on her phone that someone was at her front door. To her surprise, it was a SWAT team with their armored vehicle, about to break down her front door and ransack her home. Eventually, detectives with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department realized they had arrived at least 5 years too late to find their suspect. Leaving behind over 20 grand worth of damage to Kim's home, they offered no explanation, no apology, and refused to pay for the damage they caused.

Las Vegas residents were left outraged as congregants at an Ethiopian orthodox church continue to illegally park their vehicles on lawns and driveways. Neighbors of the Hamere Noah Kidane Mihret and Saint Michael Ethiopian Church told KLAS they have repeatedly reached out to Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft and used the Fixit app as they were instructed, but nothing has changed in years. 'We document that and we provide that proof and we have found that there's no follow up,' said Daria Wu, who gathered her fellow neighbors to discuss the issues they have faced during the services at the...

A mom-and-pop casino in Las Vegas is set to close in the fall, after Sin City's rip-off prices sent tourism into freefall. Poker Palace, a casino in North Las Vegas situated on the Las Vegas Boulevard, notified its 126 employees on July 29 that layoffs were set for September 30, with a final closing date of October 1, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification. WARN notices are required by federal law to inform employees of closings and mass layoffs at least 60 days in advance. The casino was sold, impacting all of the employees' jobs, but it's unclear...

A Las Vegas teen who shot and killed his own father during a fight over electronics evaded prison time when a judge only sentenced him to probation Thursday, according to a report. Lincoln Peterson pleaded for mercy and claimed “none of this was ever my intention” as family members also showed support for the 16-year-old boy four months after he pleaded to voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of his dad, Jeremy Peterson. District Judge Tierra Jones ordered probation for Peterson — bucking prosecutors’ request that the convicted killer spend at least six years behind bars, according to the Las...

The insects are not only a nuisance, but they also pose a major threat of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and West Nile virus.LAS VEGAS — If at one time it was thought mosquitoes couldn’t survive in desert climates, this city is a case study in how wrong that is.Mosquitoes typically prefer more tropical, humid conditions, but these biting machines have exploded in number throughout the Las Vegas Valley in recent years because of a host of changes. A mix of urban development, climate change, insecticide resistance and genetic adaptations are creating a more hospitable environment for the insects...

Alexandrovich worked in cyber-threat intelligence and active defense; took part in shaping Israel’s cyber policy and in international forums; and advised various government bodies. In a large-scale operation targeting suspects in the online sexual exploitation of minors, eight people were arrested, including Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, 38, an employee of the Israel National Cyber Directorate, Las Vegas police said Friday. All detainees are charged with attempting to entice minors online to commit sexual acts. The directorate confirmed the arrest and said the employee has gone on leave until the findings are clarified. A senior official at the Cyber Directorate in the...