I have a cover story due tomorrow for Las Vegas Weekly (where I am on staff) and so am trying to stay focused. But here are a number of interesting Vegas stories worth your time:

Sign of the times: Steve Friess looks at the Luxor's apparent decision to offer for sale its pyramid face as a gigantic billboard for the right price.

John Katsilometes gets to the truth about a press release claiming that Paul McCartney's  upcoming concert at the new Joint at the Hard Rock sold out in 7 seconds, and the truth is that it did not.

Speaking of numbers, I recently tried to get a Mirage representative to explain how Terry Fator's five-year contract was worth $100 million, which is the number that is being widely reported. I was told that Mirage was aware that number was out there in papers including Las Vegas Weekly. But Mirage public relations claims the number did not originate with them, and the person I spoke to from Mirage had no interest in making that $100 million claim to me.

Also, Las Vegas Sun has an interesting and speculative look at how the Steve Wynn and Elaine Wynn divorce could impact Wynn Resorts.

Finally, there is also a look at the financial problems plaguing Harrah's, which has billions in debts, that the Review-Journal offers with these two mind-blowing sequential paragraphs:

    "Harrah's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gary Loveman received $39.6 million in compensation ... last year, according to the filing. The 48-year-old executive's compensation was up 157% from  ... 2007.
    "Analysts project that Harrah's will continue to see declines in revenue and cash flow as the company becomes increasingly leveraged and at risk of default."

So, what has the Harrah's chief been busy doing if not increasing revenue and cash flow? The article goes on to report that Harrah's has laid off about 7,000 people.

Photo by Sarah Gerke

If the goal of being a successful investor is to sell high and buy low, then Phil Ruffin looks like he is about to be the biggest winner in the current Vegas economic mess.

Ruffin sold the New Frontier and the land with it for $1.24 billion to the ELAD group at the high water mark of the Strip real estate boom/bubble in July 2007. By the end of that year, the old casino was gone: except for the sign. The new owners planned to  build a massive $5-billion version of the famed Plaza Hotel in New York to replace the imploded New Frontier. Then, big surprise, financing dried up and the project was put on hold.

In fact, along with the metallic shell once meant to be Echelon, where the Stardust once bloomed, the New Frontier sign on an empty lot is one of those ugly reminders of how hard times came to Vegas and how quickly they hit. Both the sign and the empty metal shell were eyesores to Steve Wynn. Wynn opens his much anticipated Encore property a week from today. The look of recession in the neighborhood did not please Wynn, who has reportedly spent $2.3 billion creating his new resort. Wynn is  famously fussy about details; he had the sign at the New Frontier removed by helping pay to get rid of it. According to an interview with an ELAD executive in the Las Vegas Sun:

The sign was taken by the request of Steve Wynn and we were happy to accommodate. The sign is being taken down by his design and development group -- we just gave them permission to come on the property.

Wynn, according to Norm Clarke in his Review-Journal column, was also willing to help pay to make the twisted metal of the suspended Echelon construction site less of an eyesore. But there is no word how owners Boyd Gaming replied to the offer.

Meanwhile, Kansan billionaire Ruffin may be surprising everyone by coming back to Vegas by taking some of the $1.24 billion he got for the New Frontier to purchase the much hotter Treasure Island from MGM-Mirage, a company that can use money around now as it finishes its six-tower, many-billions-of-dollars City Center project. According to today's Review-Journal, there is to be an announcement today that Ruffin will be acquiring the resort for $775 million ($500 million cash and $275 million in secured notes), a relative bargain even in this market, for the nearly 3,000-room resort built in 1993.

Before selling the New Frontier, Ruffin had been planning to replace the aging property with a resort themed around jazz called Montreux -- even hoping to bring the famed Montreux Jazz Festival for the opening and perhaps run an annual parallel festival. At the time, Ruffin said: "We don't really have a Strip casino that advertises good jazz music." And we still don't. I can't wait to see how the Sirens of TI look dancing to Hank Mobley. 

Anyway, by investing so much money in the Strip, Ruffin has shown that an experienced operator such as himself still believes in the Vegas market in a big way. So, Phil Ruffin, in addition to buying a casino, will be giving Vegas a much needed vote of cash confidence.

Photo credit: Sarah Gerke

Penthouse CEO Marc Bell made a big splash (the news reports made it around the world -- even as far as India) with his claim to a local journalist that his company was actively looking to buy a casino in Vegas. In fact, many of those magazines once found only behind the counter at 7-Eleven have come to life in Vegas.

Playboy has an exclusive club and gambling salon at Palms (pictured). Penthouse already has its name licensed on a topless bar near the Strip. Hustler is building a topless bar near the Strip; and, as previously reported on the Buffet, Hustler has also been actively shopping for a casino here since at least as far back as April. So, why has Penthouse managed to create such a stir with its interest in buying a casino?

The grammatically and metaphorically challenged Bell told Review-Journal's Norm Clarke that Penthouse offered an innovative and original approach: "It's about rethinking the way of how people think of casinos in Las Vegas, coming in with a new paradigm. Everyone tries doing cookie cutters, doing the same thing over and over again, and we believe it's time to create a new widget." But then a moment later, asked about having strippers working in his hotel/casino, Bell claimed not originality but old school Vegas was the plan: "I would have to imagine at some point we would be able to, as entertainment gets more risqué on the Strip, as Vegas gets more back to its roots."  Bell goes further in an Associated Press story: "Bell said he envisions girls from the magazine as casino dealers." 

This is also an old idea dating back to Dean Martin. But in recent years the Palms' Playboy Club once used Jenny McCarthy as a celebrity dealer. She had to take a class and get certified. The process was not easy, and there has not been a repeat performance by her or other Playboy Playmates.

One thing for sure is that Bell's words are free but casinos in Vegas are not.  Bell offers no clue as to how he will pay for the casino or which casino he is considering buying. In fact, what is striking is how little Bell seems to know about the facts on the ground: rules, regulations and costs involved in getting and operating a resort in Nevada with an unrestricted gaming license. I have put in a request to interview Bell with his office in Florida. But right now I would not hold my breath for this project to materialize.

Photo: Sarah Gerke

I have been hearing for months about problems at the Tropicana.

The property was finally purchased in January by Columbia Sussex after a brutal bidding war. At the time there was talk by the new owners of putting  $2 billion into a makeover of the property. If so, they seem to be taking their time. When I was there Tuesday I saw none of the telltale signs of renovation within my walks of the resort. Of course, they could be renovating the rooms.