Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Sports book, typically ahead of its time, is due for an update

Superbook Posts Bets For Super Bowl XLVIII

Steve Marcus

Gamblers check their notes as they wait in line to place bets on Super Bowl XLVIII at the Las Vegas Hotel Superbook, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014.

Updated Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015 | 9:57 a.m.

Notes from across the city, including one captured during a quick trip to the place Herb Caen once referred to as “El Lay”:

• Along with the theater where Elvis performed for six sold-out years, the most famous venue at Westgate Las Vegas is the hotel’s sports book. The Westgate Superbook is the go-to venue for national media seeking odds for major sporting events. ESPN uses it regularly to report Vegas’ NFL lines.

Hotel sports book director Jay Kornegay was far ahead of the game in devising “prop” bets for the Super Bowl while at Imperial Palace. Today, any casino sports book worth its parlay cards lists a series of Super Bowl props.

Kornegay also is crucial to a new initiative by resort owner David Siegel and his staff to redesign the Westgate Superbook. Hotel officials have been scouring the city’s sportsbook layouts and have been particularly impressed by the setup at Lagasse’s Stadium at Palazzo. The tiered seating is reminiscent of a sporting venue grandstand, although it’s not new to Vegas sportsbooks. Imperial Palace had a similar design.

As it is, there is a lot of wasted space above the crowd at the Superbook. That will change. Without disclosing a specific timeline, execs say they plan for a variation of the blueprint at Lagasse’s Stadium, with skyboxes facing the big screens. Everyone can see the action, which means — at least in an atmospheric sense — everyone wins.

• About 40 days remain until MGM Resorts International turns over the MGM Resorts Festival Grounds to Rock in Rio USA. The festival is scheduled for May 8-9 and May 15-16. Not surprisingly, parking and transportation top the list of priorities for planners.

The concerts, amusement park and City of Rock village, which will include themed stores and restaurants, will be staged on a 50-acre parcel west of the Strip, just south of Sahara Avenue.

“There is no parking on-site, and part of our job is to make sure we get that communication out,” MGM Resorts Vice President of Entertainment Chris Baldizan said .

Tickets go on sale Tuesday.

“We will have shuttle depots throughout the city, and we’re working with county officials, police, fire, medical, the taxi authority, the Monorail people, to make sure we’re 100 percent right in how we plan this,” Baldizan said.

Baldizan said shuttle stations would be set up on and off the Strip, with MGM Resorts Village across from Mandalay Bay and Luxor used as one of the main park-and-ride stations.

For the first time, a festival official also dialed back lofty projections for attendance. Organizers had said 80,000 fans would attend each day, about 320,000 total. Baldizan drew that number back a few thousand.

“Eighty thousand, that’s our goal, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you I know that for sure,” Baldizan said. “I think probably a more realistic number is 60,000 per day. I hope I’m wrong, because with talent like Metallica, Taylor Swift and No Doubt, it’s very feasible that we’ll hit 80,000.”

• The date for The Great Clarion Knockdown has been moving and might continue to shift, but it appears officials are closing in on an exact date and time. The latest word from Clark County spokesman Dan Kulin and property owner Lorenzo Doumani is a tentative date of Feb. 10 for implosion (our friends at Las Vegas Advisor were the first to specify that updated Feb. 10 date).

That, of course, could change. Doumani said asbestos removal was taking longer than anticipated. A series of dates has been set aside for the implosion, with the next in line Feb. 17. The likely time will be 2 a.m.

Doumani is hoping to record the destruction of the building on Convention Center Drive for a video documentary and stageevents on one side of the property as workers remove the rubble.

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