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The Numbers Guy
Johnny Avello, The Wynn’s executive director of race and sports book operations
Johnny Avello has been called the “Wizard of Odds,” posting lines on everything from sporting events to the Academy Awards to American Idol.
But the 57-year-old’s career in Las Vegas started in 1979 under far less prestigious circumstances. The Poughkeepsie, N.Y., native had planned to move to Atlantic City after graduating from the New York School of Gambling, but the city that inspired the board game Monopoly wanted dealers from gaming schools in New Jersey. That led Avello to move here and take a job as a dealer at the Hilton, where he also started writing betting tickets part time in the sports book as a clerk in 1985. That led to jobs at the Sands and Bally’s, where he became sports book director in 1995.
Read More »Seven Days
The highlights of this week in your city.
Sat. 4
We don’t usually see many badgers in the Valley—this is cougar country—but that will change today as the UNLV Rebel football team takes on the Big Ten’s Wisconsin Badgers at 8 p.m. at Sam Boyd Stadium. This is Bobby Hauck’s first stint at a Division I program, but the winningest coach in Montana history brings much-needed buzz to the program after a disappointing 5-7 record last season. Be sure to support your Rebels as they try to kick off the season with a win. Check unlvtickets.com for more information.
Read More »A Modest Proposal
UNLV needs money. We know who’s got it
Higher education in Nevada is dying. It’s a slow and excruciating demise, an ancient Chinese torture, death by a thousand cuts. The losses so far: eight departments and programs, 100 full-time faculty, at least 300 staff positions, plus 30 more layoffs in the pipeline. Classified employee salaries have been cut by 6 percent; nontenured faculty salaries by 5 percent. Tenured faculty are slated for similar reductions. And make no mistake: Students are suffering, the undergraduates hard-pressed to get into required courses, graduate students burning out by teaching two-course loads and trying to finish their degrees while barely subsisting.
Read More »Minor Party Angle’s Major Influence
A look at what the candidate for U.S. Senate stood for before she was a Republican
The Independent American Party of Nevada, for which Sharron Angle once campaigned, believes that Jesus Christ is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.
Read More »Another Tangle for Paris
Now we see the power of the Shaggy defense in action.
Paris Hilton will cling to “It wasn’t me” as her excuse after getting popped for possession of cocaine the night of Aug. 27. Hey, it worked for her weed bust in South Africa earlier this summer. Stick to what you know.
Read More »Rally Round Nadal, Boys
Why has the world’s top-ranked tennis player never won a U.S. Open?
At last year’s U.S. Open, we saw a glimpse of the future: Roger Federer finally losing his grip on the tournament he’s owned for the past seven years (crumbling to the languid, loose-limbed 20-year-old Argentine, Juan Martin del Potro). It wasn’t easy to watch. King Roger, now 29, has been New York’s adopted son. We’ve been happy to claim him—with Anna Wintour by his side, his two-week residence at the Carlyle, his trips to Oscar de la Renta shows and that shiny, sleek Swiss hair—as our own. This is a man who can sell a luxury watch!
Read More »Selling luxury in the Great Recession
The laws of supply and demand aren’t sentimental, particularly when it comes to hotel rooms. No matter what kind of rate a suite might have gotten in the past, when there are more beds than bodies to fill them, the room rate will go down. But when running a luxury property, there are concerns beyond just filling rooms tonight: Long-term position of the hotel’s “brand” can make price-cutting a double-edged sword.
Read More »Building Boomlet
Habitat for Humanity finds opportunity in economic downturn
If there is a silver lining to Southern Nevada’s real estate collapse, Habitat for Humanity Las Vegas has found it. The nonprofit, which works with volunteers to build and sell affordable housing, hopes to build 45 homes over the next three years. That’s more than double what it’s built in the last three years.
Read More »Odd City Out
Housing improves elsewhere, but not in Las Vegas
It’s not news that housing prices are down in Las Vegas. But adding insult to injury are new reports showing that while other cities are inching toward recovery, we’re not.
Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indices of 20 U.S. cities was published July 27, and it showed small home-value increases in 19 of the 20 cities sampled for May compared to April, and also compared with May 2009.
Read More »What’s Great About Salt Lake
From light-rail to a pretty cool square, the city has some heavenly urban offerings
The urban bona fides of Salt Lake City may seem hard to find, hidden under the gorgeous Wasatch Range, which hugs the eastern rim of the city. But what makes Salt Lake such a nice diversion from Las Vegas is that, slowly but surely, the city’s central districts are being successfully stitched together into a walkable, livable urban environment.
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