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@The_Dolphin_Pub I hope that when Daft

Punk take their helmets

off, we find out they’re

actually Right Said Fred.

@MUTEMATH Props to Imagine Drag-

ons. They’ve written

great songs and deserve

all the accolades. Truth

be told, we’re all drum-

finale disciples of 311.

@KimJongNumberUn People of North Korea: I

am happy to report that

we swept the gold med-

als at the Olympics. Next

time I promise we will

have televisions.

@MrGeorgeWallace ‘Til about a year ago I

thought baguettes were

just female bags.

@JonCastagnino Spread on Pro Bowl was

Rice -1.5. That missed

FG-no TD cost some $,

but if you’re betting the

Pro Bowl you may want

to weigh ur priorities.

@LVCabChronicles I feel like Bitcoin won’t

be a real currency until I

can fold one up and slip

it in between a stripper’s

butt cheeks.

@deadmau5 Unless your name is

Edamame, having “EDM”

in your Twitter handle

pretty much already puts

you in my line of fire.

@EDSBS DID YOU KNOW: This

Super Bowl Sunday,

Americans will eat over

one hundred chicken

wings.

@MattMira This morning ESPN

asked if Tim Tebow

could lead this Broncos

team to the Super Bowl.

Next up: Could Batman

win a Gold Glove?

@tsegerblom Oh great, 10 more years

of drunk cowboys.

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Share your Tweet. Add #V7.

Out of the Haze: Miley, Snoop and a Man With Moves

By Jason Scavone

If you’re a regular follower of hacky Twitter jokes (which is to say if you’re a regular

follower of Twitter), you would’ve noticed,

roughly 0.8 seconds after the Seahawks knocked off the 49ers, a food of “What a remarkable co-incidence, teams representing two states that have legalized marijuana are now facing each other in the Super Bowl” tweets. (Except more concise, and less funny.)

Yes, it’s the most critical week for pot since the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. And not just in the lush tropics of East Rutherford, N.J., ei-ther. Even here, in Las Vegas, mari-juana is the Forrest Gump of our weekly news cycle—affable, slightly bewildered and omnipresent.

Beacher’s Madhouse, barely three weeks from its grand open-ing, has already parted ways with Angel Management Group. Miley Cyrus—who did the pot anthem “Ashtrays and Heartbreaks” with Snoop Lion, fred up a joint onstage at the MTV European Music Awards and told Rolling Stone “weed is the best drug on earth”—was reportedly smoking a joint at Beacher’s on December 27.

In a story in Radar Online, an unnamed AMG spokesperson is quoted saying that company per-sonnel tried to remove Cyrus from the property, but that Madhouse staff said she should be allowed to stay. AMG didn’t respond to our request to corroborate those statements. The Madhouse issued a blanket denial.

SNOOP PUP

Speaking of Snoop-a-loop: He’s spent his share of time on vari-ous pool, club and arena stages around town. Now Snoop Dogg could become a regular fxture in town: According to multiple reports, his son, Cordell Broad-us—a highly recruited junior wide receiver and defensive back—has transferred to Bishop Gorman High School.

In order to be eligible, though, the Broadus clan has to estab-lish residency in Las Vegas. Let’s hope “establish residency” means “Snoop gets a yearlong deal to play ‘Gin and Juice’ nightly at the Hard Rock.”

SIDELINED

Whether or not marijuana has a legitimate use in medicine is still a hot-button issue—particularly if

you’re polling Pacifc Northwest NFL coaches on the matter, for some rea-son. Though we suspect that anyone who has three herniated vertebrae would fall in the “I don’t care if it’s actual opium left over from Doc Holliday’s personal stash, just please make the hurting stop” category.

Chippendales emcee Jaymes Vaughn, who went on The Amaz-ing Race in 2012 with fellow Chip James Davis, is on the disabled list (Chippendales has that, right?) since a weightlifting accident two weeks ago left him with the afore-mentioned disc issue.

Vaughn was bench-pressing when a childhood neck injury fared up, his arms went numb and the plates crashed down. He’s undergoing physical therapy, and fully rehabbing could take anywhere from six weeks to six months. (Several doctors recom-mended immediate surgery that would involve moving his vocal cords if “three herniated discs” wasn’t nightmarish enough for you.)

Vaughn expects to be back host-ing the show just as soon as it’s not painful to stand anymore. You know what they say: The journey of a thousand lap dances begins with a single instance of being able to stand without pain.

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THE GAMBLING INDUSTRY is built on numbers. Well, it’s built on money, but money is counted using numbers. Casino operators make sense of what’s happening at their tables and slot machines by looking at the numbers. With-out them, it would be just about impossible to run a casino.

The industry is often misun-derstood, partially because many people don’t grasp the nature of casino math. Some confuse the amount of money gambled with the amount the casino keeps. Oth-ers confuse revenue (what casinos take in) with profts (what’s left over after they have paid their bills). Real numbers can clear up these misunderstandings.

For example, in 2012, players gambled about $140 billion at Nevada casinos. That sounds like a huge number, and it is. But play-ers won back more than $129 bil-lion of that money, so casinos took in less than $11 billion that year.

And that $11 billion doesn’t shoot straight to the bottom line. Casinos, like any other business, have expenses. In fscal 2013, casi-no departments on the Strip spent more than 30 percent of gaming win on comps, about 18 percent on payroll, and another 7 percent on taxes and licenses. Total ex-penses accounted for two-thirds of revenues at the departmental level, and that’s before manage-ment paid for things like utilities and debt service, let alone depre-ciation of assets.

Which is why, despite taking in more than $23 billion in total income in fscal 2013, Nevada ca-sinos posted a cumulative loss of more than $1.3 billion.

Casinos need numbers detailing things from slot hold percentage to promotional play expenditures to manage themselves; regula-tors need them to ensure that the business of gambling is conducted fairly and honestly, and the public needs them to understand this mysterious business a little better.

For years, New Jersey has pub-lished casino statistics that were nearly unrivaled in their detail. Unlike Nevada, which aggregates results by reporting areas, the Garden State broke them out by property. With more than 300 locations, doing that in Nevada

Numbers, Transparency and the Health of Gaming

A new policy in New Jersey is a step back

for the industry everywhere

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BETTING ON SUPER SUNDAYEvery year the Super Bowl brings some of the

year’s best deals for sports bettors and fans.

Exactly how good this year will be isn’t some-

thing I can tell you right now, because most of

the deals will be unveiled after this column has

been written. But I’ve been through enough Su-

per Sundays to give you a road map to follow.

If you’re looking to make a bet, one of the

more entertaining things you can do over

Super Bowl weekend is line shop. If you

have a side you like, or want to bet over or

under the total, it’s fun to run from casino to

casino checking the lines at each. If you like

the Seahawks, you’ll be looking for +2.5 or

maybe a game-time 3. If you’re a Broncos

backer, you want -2 or lower. Shopping a

few books will ensure that you get on the

right side of the line (and you can make fun

of your friends who bet the Broncs -2.5).

Another determiner of where to bet is what

you get for your action. Jerry’s Nugget is

giving away a cooler bag for a $20 bet on a

parlay card. Since these cards typically carry

edges of around 25 percent, you’re paying

about $5 for the cooler, but you also have

action during the game. Arizona Charlie’s

Decatur and Boulder are giving commemora-

tive T-shirts for a $20 bet on a parlay card or

a $50 bet straight up. The better play here is

the straight bet, where the casino edge of 4.5

percent extracts only $2.25 in vigorish (the

house edge) from the wager. These types of

offers will come out on Wednesday and be

available till game time. Again, look around.

And then there are the props—bets on who will

score first, how many sacks the Seahawks will

have, etc. You pay a little more in juice for playing

them, but the entertainment value is immense

and you can bet them for $5 or $10 apiece. LVH

has about 350 props on the board and is still

considered the Las Vegas gold standard, but this

year William Hill actually out-propped them, re-

portedly putting up more than 400.

For casino parties, South Point is a cinch

to run its annual free bash with $1 dogs and

cheap beers by the bucket. Gold Coast and

Orleans have also declared and admission at

all is free. If a casino isn’t throwing a formal

party, just head over to the sports book and

join the frenzy there.

Also, keep an eye out for strong deals at

the non-casino bars. For example, Specta-

tors at Flamingo Road and Durango Drive will

have unlimited food and drinks during the

game for $50. That may not sound amazing,

but you also get a football square that last

year was worth $35, dropping the tab, math-

ematically speaking, to a $15 bargain that tops

any casino deal I’ve seen so far.

Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the

Las Vegas Advisor and LasVegasAdvisor.com.

would be unwieldy to say the least, but in New Jersey, which never had more than a dozen casi-nos, it made sense.

The monthly revenue reports in Atlantic City included the re-sults for all table games and slot machine denominations. So if you wanted to fnd out how rou-lette performed at Borgata vs. the Trump Taj Mahal, for example, you could. The public had an un-precedented window into how the business operated. And those who study and explain the industry to the public had a magnifcent set of data to work with.

This month, however, New Jer-sey’s Division of Gaming Enforce-ment has adopted a new policy. Now it will no longer offer break-downs of games in its monthly re-sults. Instead, it will only disclose how much was won by casinos at “table and other games,” “poker” and “slot machines.”

That makes it much more diff-cult to gauge the performance of in-dividual games, not only at certain casinos but across the market. They are not aggregating the individual game data, as Nevada does; they are,

for now, eliminating it entirely.So a business that already mysti-

fes much of the public just got a little more mysterious. Why is that a bad thing? Because, as the Nevada Revised Statutes state, “the continued growth and success of gaming is dependent upon public confdence and trust.” And that trust is extended a bit more with every piece of relevant informa-tion that becomes available.

It’s more than academic. While most of the public has an inkling that gambling odds favor the house over the long haul, it’s not so easy to tell which bets are bet-ter than others by looking at the games. It’s possible, of course, to go online and look up informa-tion about the theoretical house advantage of different games. But New Jersey’s game breakdowns let players actually see how much money the casino kept at individu-al games. At one casino, the house kept about 14 cents of every dollar bet on baccarat and 42 cents of every dollar bet on Big Six (a.k.a. the Wheel of Fortune). If access to these state-verifed fgures helped one gambler bet more wisely, the disclosures are worth it.

Particularly as gambling moves online, where there is even more confusion among the public, a little bit of transparency can go a long way.

David G. Schwartz is the director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research.

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bit in the early 2000s, when ESPN.com columnist (and unabashed Vegas fan) Bill Simmons started to pen a widely read weekly column picking NFL games against the spread. That the suits at ESPN loosened the leash, however, seemed more about Simmons’ growing popularity than the sports-media Goliath adopting a relaxed stance on betting. In fact, Simmons es-sentially stood alone on the national stage until about 2008, when ESPN The Magazine editor-in-chief Chad Mill-man started writing a regular online sports-betting blog. But even then, the blog was (and still is) only available on the subscription-only ESPN Insider site.

The biggest breakthrough came a couple of years later, when ESPN Radio host—and former Las Vegas sports-caster—Colin Cowherd began talking point spreads on his syndicated drive-time morn-ing show, including reserving a segment each Friday in the fall to give out his favorite NFL plays against the number. From there, ever so slowly, others began to take a bite of the forbidden fruit.

Fast forward to 2013, and in particular Week 6 of the NFL season. The undefeated Bron-cos hosted the winless Jack-sonville Jaguars, and Las Vegas oddsmakers installed Denver as a 28-point favorite. It was the biggest spread in modern NFL history, and it’s all the national media wanted to talk about. Just ask longtime Las Vegas handicapper Scott Spreitzer. “Every radio show that I did that week outside of Nevada led off with that point spread,” says Spreitzer, who co-hosts Pregame.com’s First Preview sports-betting show weekdays on local ESPN Radio affliate KWWN 1100-AM. “Ev-ery single show. It was crazy.”

A month later, Denver and New England were showcased on NBC’s Sunday Night Football, which is routinely the highest-rated NFL game each week. The line in Vegas had the Broncos as a slight road favor-ite, which intrigued Michaels (as most point spreads do). However, instead of his usual vague approach, Michaels came right out at the top of the broadcast and mentioned that the Patriots were a home underdog for the frst time since 2005. Shockingly, NBC’s producers didn’t cut his mic.

Then in early January, on the eve of the Auburn-Florida State national champion-

ship game, the Internet was abuzz about an Auburn fan who stood to turn a $100 bet-ting ticket into $50,000 if the Tigers prevailed. Finally, the morning after the Broncos and Seattle Seahawks advanced to Super Bowl XLVIII, no fewer than six national sports web-sites—ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports, CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports and Pro Football Talk—had front-page articles about Denver being the favorite.

“Those of us who have been in the business, it’s something we welcome and encourage and have wanted to see for a long time,” says Art Manteris, the vice president of race and sports for Station Casinos who began his sportsbook career at the Fremont Hotel in 1979. “We think it adds excite-ment to the game; we think it adds legitimacy to what we do; and we think that it publi-cizes our industry and puts it in a positive light.”

* * * * *

THE OBVIOUS QUESTION, OF course, is this: Why, after all these years, is the national media now wrapping its arms around the sports-betting community? There is no easy

answer, as the half-dozen sources I interviewed es-poused multiple theories.

Start with Jimmy Vaccaro, the legendary Las Vegas book-maker who has worked in casinos all over town for nearly four decades and now runs the South Point’s book. I ask him if this is simply a matter of national outlets being forced to ditch the morality card, lest they risk alienating a growing audience. “You’re exactly right. They were boxed into a corner. Because if they didn’t do it, the upstart [competition] would be doing it,” he says. “But the hy-pocrisy abounds here. The big-gest March Madness contest—the NCAA Tournament bracket [challenge]—is sponsored by CBS. You’re gambling!”

Manteris offers a slightly different view than his long-time colleague. He believes professional leagues—the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, etc.—have more or less been muzzling their network part-ners, and those muzzles are starting to be loosened. “The leagues control the contracts. So they have a lot to say about what can and can’t be dis-cussed by the networks [with which] they do business. The leagues have pushed in one

direction, and the networks have subtly and slowly pushed in the other direction. So if those two factions were at po-lar opposites for many years, apparently there’s some meet-ing in the middle going on now. It’s obvious that there’s pressure to fll a need.”

Professional bettor and lo-cal handicapper Steve Fezzik, the only two-time winner of the prestigious Las Vegas Hil-ton (now LVH) Supercontest, credits such guys as Cowherd, Millman and Simmons for getting the ball rolling. But he also points to the gambling culture that permeates 21st-century America, including sports betting’s twin brother: poker. “Poker has helped im-mensely,” he says. “And with casinos being all over the country now, the acceptance of gambling is huge compared with 10 or 20 years ago. People don’t look at you [strangely anymore]. I was on jury duty recently and was asked, ‘What do you do for a living?’ I said, ‘I’m a professional handicap-per and bettor.’ No one cared.”

And that leads to yet anoth-er theory: As Fezzik points out, casinos now dot the nation’s landscape like convenience stores. However, Nevada re-

mains the only state in the union that permits full-scale legal sports wagering—much to the dismay of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is pushing the federal govern-ment to let his state vote on whether or not they want to join the game. The Jersey is-sue aside, most insiders agree that it’s a matter of years, not decades, before the foodgates open. “Money is everything,” Roberts says. “And when they start putting these pie charts in front of the senators and the people who can make things happen, and [they] think about the revenues that can be made for our country, it’s hard to ignore.”

Roberts is convinced na-tional media outlets are now embracing sports betting be-cause they want to be proac-tive and position themselves to grab a slice of what would be an enormous pie. “Eventu-ally, there is going to be inter-state wagering,” he says. “And when that happens, there are so many different factions that will want to be a part of that. Not just from a booking standpoint, but to promote it, to advertise and to be sources for [information]. ESPN has slowly morphed

“Sports betting has always been legitmate. But now it’s not hidden nationally anymore. We get to kind of come out of the closet.”

Big game, big board: The South Point on Super Bowl week.

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NIGHTLIFEYour city after dark, photos from the week’s hottest parties and youth is served by a Dutch DJ/producer

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Opening ActStep into the booth with XS and Drai’s resident Kris Nilsson

By Deanna Rilling

HE’S BEEN PLAYING HOUSE MUSIC in Las Vegas since before you knew you liked it, and now does so in front of approximately 60,000 people per month. Illinois-born, Colorado-bred Kris Nilsson found his predilection for electronic music while touring as a sound engineer in Europe and a friend brought him to see Judge

Jules. From there he bought his frst set of turntables. Moving to Las Vegas for work, he ended up parlaying his spinning (with a little help from local DJ KC Ray) right into a residency. We dig deeper with DJ Nilsson before his next double-duty residency gigs at XS and Drai’s on January 31 and February 7, respectively.

NIGHTLIFE

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What’s the key to setting the scene at XS?

Opening sets are hard. You have to get the frst 10 people excited so that when the next group of people comes in, it just builds and builds. I try to keep my sets fuctuating, very bouncy. I try to bring in a lot of classic tracks because they are new to a lot of people. I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years, and those classic tracks helped build my success, so I’m emotionally tied to them. I like to bring that experience that I’ve had with them to everybody else. One of my favorite things is to take a classic track and layer a new tech-house beat on top of it.

What’s an all-time favorite in your arsenal?

If I had to pick one, it’d be Brad Carter’s [remix of Red Carpet’s] “Alright.” It’s the piano riff.

What were some of the frst records you bought when learning how to spin?

I started buying every dance record or CD I could fnd.A lot of Ministry of Sound stuff. A friend of mine was like, “Hold on a second. Don’t be listening to that Zombie Nation or ‘Sandstorm’ stuff, try this,” and he handed me Sasha’s Global Underground album, and I was like “Oh. My. God.” At frst I thought Sasha wrote everything on there, and when I learned only one of the tracks was his track and he mixes those [others] together, I was like, “Wow, I really need to learn how to do that.” That’s really when I actually learned how to put tracks together.

Where did you get your start DJing?

I ended up getting what turned into a residency at Curve [the space later oc-cupied by Privé and Gallery]. After Curve, I got a residency at Tangerine and from Tan-gerine, I actually got hired at Drai’s. After eight years I’m still at Drai’s. Because of my success at Drai’s, when Jesse [Waits] and Victor [Drai] opened up XS—where they were pushing a newer, more energetic house format—I started playing there.

How have audiences changed since you got started in the scene?

The house fans are always die-hard fans. There wasn’t a lot of that; it was kind of the unknown thing. Of course being at Drai’s was amazing

because it was one of the only places—I supposed before that Utopia was very big, but that whole scene slowed down a bit. People used to come into Drai’s and be like, “Thank God there’s a place that plays real house music.” Over the years it’s built its popularity.

Have you gotten any feedback from some of the headliners that you’ve played with?

I opened for Wolfgang Gartner a few weeks ago, and

he told me, “I was so excited to hear tech-house music before my set because I’ve had hip-hop played before me, and it was so nice to have an actual structured night that worked really well.”

Do you work on productions at all?

I produce a little bit. I’m hesitant and everybody says, “You need to produce more.” But I’ve always been a DJ, and to me, DJing was it. I never really needed to produce

because, for example, if you go to Beatport every week there are 2,000 new house tracks. Every week there are 2,000 new tech-house tracks. That’s 16,000 tracks a month. I’d rather spend my time looking for music than have some OK tracks and one really good track. The reason I do produce some is because tracks are like tools: You need tracks at different points in the night to make it happen, and the tracks that I’ll produce would

be something that I feel is missing during my set.

What would be your ultimate career goal?

I want the recognition like Carl Cox gets. He’s very tech-nical; he’s very full of energy and loves what he does. Who do I look up to? Out of every-body, he would be the one.

What DJing gig posed a pyrotechnic challenge

for Nilsson? Find out at VegasSeven.com/Kris-Nilsson.

"EVERYBODY SAYS, ‘YOU NEED TO PRODUCE MORE.’ BUT I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A DJ, AND TO ME, DJING WAS IT." – Kris Nilsson

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NIGHTLIFE

to produce—some hip-hop and different genres.

Your remix of Christina Aguilera’s “Your Body” in 2012 ended up on the deluxe edition of her album. Do you consider that to be your breakout?

My breakout was defnitely “Animals.”

When did you realize “Animals” was taking off?

When I saw all the hype that it was getting on the Internet after we only posted the name of the track [without a byline]. The teaser got 200,000 views in two to three days. I thought, “Holy shit, this could become big!”

Why didn’t you initially put your name on the track?

When we put it out on Billboard and announced that I was the one who made it and that it sold a million copies, everyone thought it was by Hardwell or Tiësto. I didn’t put my name on it because I was a new artist and some people think that everything coming out by someone new is shit. I wanted people to listen to the track and decide and not just say it was shit until they at least listened to it. [When it was] announced that it was my track, I think a lot of people were like, “Ahh, fuck.”

You’re the youngest person ever to reach No. 1 on Beatport. Is there added pressure in achieving success so young?

Of course! There was a lot of pressure after “Animals” because I thought people would not like the next track as much, and I didn’t have other tracks ready to release then. After my buddy Jay Hardway and I released “Wizards,” which was well received, and knowing that I now have fve to seven other songs coming out, there was less pressure.

Are you still in school?I’m in my last year, and

attend a special producers and musicians academy.

[The academy is] really supportive, and I do a lot of homework on the road. I just give them my tour and fight information, and they say go, but just fnish the homework by this date.

What do you have in the works?

Tiësto and I are looking for some free days to work on a track together. I also have several collaborations coming out. The frst is a new edit I did of “Crackin” by Bassjackers. In February I’ll release “Helicopter” with Firebeatz, then a collab with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike will come out during Miami Music Week. I also have something with Julian Jordan and Dillon Francis in the works, as well as a solo track.

Hakkasan is your frst Las Vegas show. Would you ever consider having a residency here?

I’m really looking forward to playing in Vegas and at Hakkasan. I’ve heard Tiësto and others share some really good stories. We’ll start with one date and then explore options for a residency in Vegas.

Are you excited about playing at Ultra and Coachella?

I’m excited about everything! I will also be playing at Firefy and some other major U.S. festivals for the frst time. I actually only received my U.S. working permit three months ago, and my frst U.S. tour is nearly sold out! I am really happy to be playing in America.

I hear you just signed with Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun.

Yes, Scooter is working in the background, and nobody really knows he is working on me. He was the one who actually made the We Are Animals Tour possible and is helping set up some really interesting collaborations. He is managing me in the U.S., and together with my European management, I really have a great team.

The Schoolboy DJTeen production prodigy Martin Garrix makes his move on Las Vegas

By David Morris

What did MTV have to say about Martin Garrix? Find out at VegasSeven.com/Martin-Garrix.

WE CAUGHT UP WITH MARTIJN GARRITSEN—who is best known for his 2013 hit “Animals” and goes by the moniker Martin Garrix—while the 17-year-old Dutch DJ was ducking Parisian paparazzi. Clearly his star has risen in the European EDM world, but this young producer is now getting a fair bit of buzz in the U.S. Recently, the producer discussed everything from his impending debut at Hakkasan on Super Bowl Sunday to his signing with Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun.

Is it true that hearing Tiësto play the Athens Olympics in 2004 inspired you to be a DJ?

Yes. I became really interested in learning about electronic music and bought some equipment. I also installed a program on my computer to start experimenting with different sounds. Music has always been a hobby of mine, and it’s really still a hobby despite the fact that I am doing it professionally. I played guitar for seven years before deciding that I wanted to produce EDM. I also don’t just produce EDM, I produce what I like

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HAKKASANMGM Grand

[ UPCOMING ]

Jan. 31 Tiësto and Danny Avila spin

Feb. 1 Calvin Harris and Fergie DJ spin

Feb. 2 Martin Garrix and Jay Hardway spin

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LAVOThe Venetian

[ UPCOMING ]

Feb. 1 Rep Your Team

Feb. 15 Rep Your Country

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a pair of extravagant multicourse tasting menus, and even the à la carte menu offered more exotic choices such as jellyfsh, squab, gobi, abalone and geoduck. When I dined there recently, it was ex-clusively à la carte, although I was told tasting menus will be added in February. For appetizers, you’ll fnd spring rolls, shrimp toast and spare ribs, while the soups include wonton, hot-and-sour and egg drop. And the entrées section has familiar choices, including Gen-eral Tso’s chicken, sweet-and-sour pork and wok-tossed scallops.

But have no fear, adventurous eaters. Those exotic dishes and other Chinese delicacies are listed on a separate menu. While it’s only presented to certain customers (presumably Chinese high-roll-ers), it’s available to everyone, so don’t be afraid to ask for it. In the meantime, don’t underestimate that exquisitely executed shrimp toast, the beautifully subtle honey-glazed ribs, hand-tossed noodles or sea bass in “three-cup sauce.” This defnitely isn’t Panda Express.

While Wing Lei has had a fairly serious facelift, Bartolotta has simply been touched up a bit. The sweeping staircase that has always served as the centerpiece of the main dining room is still stun-ning, and they thankfully haven’t touched the outdoor cabanas on the refecting pool. The walls have been brightened up, and a new stone foor has been added. But the most noticeable change is a chandelier of gold-leaf fsh hanging in the main atrium. The restaurant is as beautiful as I remember it being on my frst visit—but not terribly different.

The food has changed even less. Chef Paul Bartolotta still prides himself on having the fnest sea-food shipped to him directly from the Mediterranean. Your server still approaches your table with a display case of that day’s catch. And the chef still relies on simple prepa-rations that stay true to the fsh.

Bartolotta insists the best way to

enjoy his cooking is to try one of his tasting menus, and I agree, as-suming you have $150-$180 a head to spend. Whole fsh, priced by the gram, can also leave you with a hefty tab. But my wife and I recently shared a salad and two pasta ap-petizers at the bar, and were pretty well satisfed for just under $100.

If you go that route, be sure to try the scorpion fsh risotto ac-cented with sweet eggplant and basil. Also, while it isn’t a seafood dish, the ricotta ravioli with Marsala wine glaze is perfectly executed. And the salty capers and olives in the red mullet salad really make that dish pop. But unless you’re already a sea urchin fan, avoid the uni and scallop risotto, which might be a bit briny for the uninitiated.

More than eight years after opening, Wing Lei and Bartolotta are still very good restaurants. Hopefully their renovations will help people rediscover them.

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[ A SMALL BITE ]

SUPER BOWL DINING

Prepare yourself for the biggest game of the year by filling your belly with these super specials.

Whether you feel like a halfback or fullback, SHe by Morton’s has a cut of meat for you. “He” cuts range from

8-22 ounces, while “We” cuts go up to 40 ounces. (In the Shops at Crystals, SHe-LV.com.) • Stop by Fix for

your fair catch of an all-you-can-eat menu that includes lobster tacos and finger-licking Fix wings. (In Bellagio,

FixLasVegas.com.) • Pick Rhumbar to party on a heated patio, and kick back with snacks such as nachos, hot links

and hot dogs. (In The Mirage, RhumbarLV.com.) • Take your tailgate into overtime at Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza.

Sammy’s two taverns will offer extended happy hours while all of the Valley locations will take 20 percent off of

take-out orders. (Multiple locations, SammysPizza.com.) • La Cave offers butler-style service, so no matter how

many men are on the field, your meal will have forward progress. (In Wynn, LaCaveLV.com.) For more events, visit

VegasSeven.com/SuperBowlDining. – Camille Cannon

BELLAGIO COOKING SCHOOL, UNI SEASON AND THE YEAR OF THE HORSEYou made a resolution to learn a new skill this

year. Since it’s still a little chilly for underwater

basket weaving, now would be as good a time

as any to learn a few tricks of the food trade

with An Executive Chef’s Culinary Classroom

(in Bellagio, $125 per person, 866-406-7117,

Bellagio.com). Executive chef Edmund Wong

leads the educational series, held once a month

in the hotel’s state-of-the-art cooking demo

space, Tuscany Kitchen. At these interactive,

two-hour sessions you’ll learn to cook your

way through three courses, usually covering

whatever food holiday coincides with the

season. The February 13 class, therefore, is

dedicated to Valentine’s Day with I Heart Food,

demonstrating that the way to the heart really

is through the stomach. Then get sprung with

spring flavors on April 3, or become a grill

master in time for Memorial Day on May 28.

And slow-and-low aficionados will want to don

their aprons for the three-course Father’s Day

barbecue menu on June 12.

Once you’ve prepared your masterpiece, you

get to enjoy the fruits of your labor, complete

with wine pairings.

Speaking of eating in the season, it is cur-

rently prime time for uni. Once you get past the

spiny exterior, the jiggle-y orange delicacy (the

gonads of the animal, to get graphic) of sea ur-

chins is at once creamy, sweet and briny. Defi-

nitely an acquired taste, many are put off by the

texture and funkiness, but right now they’re as

good as they get. For a taste of uni at their best,

I’m a fan of the uni and crab served over fresh,

chewy, hollow percatelli pasta at Rose.Rabbit.

Lie. (in the Cosmopolitan, 877-667-0585). Or

to go simple, there’s the plain uni nigiri, tucked

into a wrap of nori and on properly made sushi

rice at Nobu (in Caesars Palace and Hard Rock

Hotel, NobuRestaurants.com).

’Tis also the season to say “Gung hay fat choy”

as the new Lunar New Year begins January 31.

We welcome the Year of the Horse with auspi-

cious dishes that invite prosperity, longevity

and happiness, so that means lots of dumplings,

fish and noodles. China Poblano (in the Cos-

mopolitan, 698-7900) rolls out an entire menu

for the festivities, which includes Wealthy Pork

Noodle—made with a hand-pulled infinity noodle

and served with braised pork belly—and the fun

Leaping Over the Dragon’s Gate, a whole fried

snapper sauced with scallions and ginger. Poppy

Den Asian Bistro (in Tivoli Village, 802-2480)

features a prix-fixe menu on January 31 with Pe-

king duck with scallion pancakes and hoisin, and

steamed fish with black mushrooms and ginger.

With food like this to celebrate future success,

there’s no need for the long face.

Grace Bascos eats, sleeps, raves and repeats.

Read more from Grace at VegasSeven.com/

DishingWithGrace, as well as on her dining-and-

music blog, FoodPlusTechno.com.

WING LEI

In Wynn. 770-3463. Open nightly for dinner 5:30-10 p.m. Dinner for two $150-$250.

BARTOLOTTA RISTORANTE DI MARE

In Wynn. 770-3305. Open nightly for dinner 5:30-10 p.m. Dinner for two $100-$400.

AL’S MENU PICKS

Wing Lei: Peking duck salad ($15), honey-glazed barbecue spare ribs, Three Cup sea bass ($36) and (when it returns) Imperial Peking duck tasting ($88).

Bartolotta: langoustines ($30-$45 each), red mullet salad ($24), ricotta ravioli ($17), rigatoni with scorpion fsh ($20) and whole fsh ($15 per 100 grams).

Take your pick from the Bartolotta fish cart.

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RITUALS AND MEMENTOS comfort us. Some—if only for a second or two—transport us.

Each morning, I roll over toward my nightstand and pick up a small, grainy-gray rock alongside the clock-ra-dio. Cradling it in my palm, I brush my thumb lightly along its rough, sloping edge. Each night, I do likewise.

Each time, I smile slightly. Each smile is a mental snap-shot, of the big boulder from which the stone was scooped, at a New York park overlook-ing Long Island Sound. There, for decades, I would go to gaze at the waters rippling by, lis-ten to the cries of seagulls, feel problems and pain dissipating into the mist.

Utter peace at the center of my soul.

Should that gritty little slab on my nightstand ever go missing, so will an irreplace-able piece of me. It is my talis-man, my … precious object.

Around these gallery walls, two dozen other people reveal theirs, inspired by a photogra-pher’s curiosity.

* * * * *

“I was moving and getting rid of tons of stuff, and I asked

myself, What was the posses-sion that was most valuable to me? I realized there wasn’t one, but it got me thinking about objects representing more than just what they are,” says Cleveland photographer Charles Mintz, whose exhibit, Precious Objects, is spread be-tween two city-run galler-ies—at the Las Vegas City Hall Chamber and the Charleston Heights Arts Center—each featuring different portraits. (The full complement of 170 photos are compiled in a book of the same title, available at Barnes & Noble at 2191 N. Rainbow Blvd.)

Simple but elegant, Precious Objects collects 24 of Mintz’s portraits of everyday people holding objects of special sig-nifcance that, if lost, they could not replace, accompanied by their own handwritten expla-nations of the items’ meaning.

There is Roxane Lawrence, holding the tiny yellow dress she wore when she was picked up by her new adoptive par-ents when she was 3 months old in 1964. “My mother al-ways told me that other babies come into the world naked, but I came in a little yellow dress,” she writes.

There is Robbii, pictured holding a container with his late father’s false teeth. “My father was never very talk-ative,” he writes. “Now I keep his teeth and talk to him every morning. He still doesn’t say much, but I am hopeful.”

There is Betty, who holds a standup microphone used by her late father, a New York musician on the wedding/birthday/bar mitzvah circuit. “The microphone delivered his musical talent and great sense of humor,” she writes.

As his subjects multiplied from acquaintances to volun-teers to people who answered his Craigslist posting, Mintz found the stories compelling, one standout being from an ex-inmate named Trevis. “He showed his inmate card from prison, and his library card, be-cause he wanted to show peo-ple how far he’d come from the days when he was in trouble—it’s amazing,” says Mintz, who wanted to take an unadorned approach to the portraits, in-stead of one that smacked of artistic interpretation.

“There are ways that pho-tographers make portraits to refect not just the person, but the photographer’s opinion

Objects of RefectionEveryday items that evoke cherished memories

are celebrated in Precious Objects

By Steve Bornfeld

of the person. I wanted to let people be themselves in terms of how they dressed or stood and what they brought and their expression.”

Many of those expressions are smiles, both slight and wide, but all refective of meaningful memories. Pho-tographed holding a piece of paper, a woman named Loli Kantor writes: “This is my mother’s handwritten let-ter, dated April 21, 1946. My mother, Lola Kantor, died in childbirth with me. This is the only handwritten piece by my mother that I own.”

Displaying a tiny dime, John W. explains in his note that he was a toddler at a summer party with his family when his ill grandfather was taken away on a stretcher. “He made the ambulance driver stop by me as he was taken away,” he writes. “With diffculty, he reached into his pocket and gave me a dime, saying he was Santa Claus. He died that day.”

Summing up his exhibit, Mintz says: “I realized this was a way to make a value statement.”

A dime, a prison ID, a little yellow dress, a set of false teeth. And other touching stories and photos about wedding rings, wing-tipped shoes, letters with bittersweet echoes of the past and a stuffed animal named Trixie. And, unphotographed, a gray rock on a nightstand.

Precious objects, all.

PRECIOUS OBJECTS

7 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon-Thu through April 10 at City Hall Chamber Gallery, 495 S. Main St.; and 12:30-9 p.m. Wed-Fri and 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday through April 23 at the Charleston Heights Arts Center Gallery, 800 S. Brush St., free at both galleries, 229-1012, ArtsLasVegas.org.

Loli Kantor and her precious object:

a handwritten letter by her late mother.

City Hall Chamber Gallery.

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IF YOU WANT TO SEE A kooky, fun variety show, with a clearly demarcated begin-ning, middle and end, go see Absinthe at Caesars Palace. From a straight performance perspective, it’s still Spiegelworld’s best. But if you want to enter the world of Absinthe, to fall down the rabbit hole into another dimension and wander around its many rooms, then Absinthe’s younger sister, Vegas Nocturne at Rose. Rabbit. Lie. in the Cosmopolitan, is for you.

The logo for this “grand social experiment” is an old-fashioned skele-ton key with a twisted shaft. What this key could represent: peeping through a keyhole to view delicious naugh-ties; eventual entry into that haven of delicious naughties; the steampunk-fapper-Follies girl aesthetic that’s all the rage among hip bars; a confusing, mysterious world of surprising and unexpected delights.

True to its advertising, this combi-nation supper club/speakeasy/variety show/nightclub is all of the above.

Fair warning: My experience will not be indicative of your own. My itinerary included 8:15 p.m. din-ner reservations followed by the 10 p.m. and midnight cantos of Vegas Nocturne, a wacky, sexy variety show. There is also an 8 p.m. canto, which I missed. Each is different and can be experienced à la carte.

While I dined under the piercingly ethereal sounds of a costumed glass armonica player, my friends—on itineraries of their own—fitted past my table en route to this room or that, pausing only long enough to tell fabulous stories of the things they’d seen. One friend had stumbled upon a room where she watched a jump-suited man in a bathtub play with his balls … or that’s how she told the story. The balls were, of course, glass—the kind that David Bowie manipulates in Labyrinth. Another friend had chanced upon a croissant auction. When he won, he ate the pastry while a gaggle of performers invited his girlfriend into a curtained closet where they gave her a lap dance. Another friend happened to chat up Vegas Nocturne’s host, Alfon-so, who later remembered my friend and called him onstage, by name.

These types of experiences seem designed to pass immediately through hearsay and directly into legend. They will be repeated by tourists when they go home, growing and twisting in the retelling like that skeleton key. But tourists may have a hard time expand-ing upon an already expansive reality.

I sampled no secret rooms, which leaves me yearning to go back and try my luck at another round. Instead, I ate dinner politely and played peeka-boo with the performances in the neighboring room. They were par-tially visible through semi-transpar-ent screens that sometimes receded to reveal more, like an old-timey stripper who knows that concealing can be more compelling than reveal-ing. I ogled the shadow of a burlesque singer on the other side, which stretched across the screens, creating a clear yet wholly distorted view, like panels on a ’50s-era comic book.

After dinner came an intoxicating experience with bottled cocktails, fol-lowed by Vegas Nocturne. There’s little concealing there. The variety act is most defnitely R-rated, and it has the same hipstery disco-shabby aesthetic known to fans of Absinthe.

Vegas Nocturne, with its eclectic tal-ent—beatboxers, tap dancers, Chinese jugglers, post-modern dragon clowns and zany hosts—could maybe use a little more time to coalesce, but it’s already fun. Hell, the midnight canto seduced me into staying on and dancing into the night after the show morphed into a club led by a dreadlocked DJ. That’s be-cause at Rose. Rabbit. Lie., atmosphere is king (or if you’re not into monar-chies, it’s the funky millionaire of mysterious means and comic backstory à la the show’s host, Alfonso). Vegas Nocturne is one element that builds into the experience of Rose. Rabbit. Lie., not the other way around. And it works. Put this one on your key chain.

KEYHOLE VIEWRose. Rabbit. Lie.’s Vegas Nocturne ofers

immersive delights and peekaboo theater

By Cindi Moon Reed

Hrit (Laurie Hagen) makes the music room sing.

A&E

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MOVIES

SHORT REVIEWS

CHARLES DICKENS WROTE OFTEN about people required by cir-cumstance to skitter through double lives, none with more dastardly, compartmentalized determination than the secre-tive choirmaster at the center of his fnal, unfnished work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

As his biographers have made clear, Dickens knew a thing or two about the de-mands of a two-sided exis-tence. Claire Tomalin’s excel-lent study of Dickens and his love affair with actress Nelly Ternan, outside the bounds of Dickens’ famously bustling home life (at least until it caused the end of his mar-riage), has now been adapted into an absorbing flm, The Invisible Woman.

Even if you don’t entirely buy this version of events, director Ralph Fiennes has given us a speculation that works as dra-ma. It’s an elegant bit of goods.

At one point, Fiennes, who also plays Dickens, captures a few seconds of Felicity Jones as Nelly on a provincial Eng-

lish stage in a production of Sheridan’s School for Scandal. The irony goes unstressed: This young woman, raised in a family of actresses on what was commonly considered to be “the wicked stage,” was about to enter a school for scandal herself.

Dickens was 45 in 1857 when he met the 18-year-old Ternan, a junior member of his company of players, featured in a staging of The Frozen Deep. Screenwriter Abi Morgan hands Fiennes a won-derful entrance: As Dickens, he ushers the newcomers into his theater, introducing vari-ous members of his copious family. (Tom Hollander plays Dickens’ bohemian theatrical partner Wilkie Collins.) A seed is planted. Nelly’s mother, herself an actress, played with world-weary grace by Kristin Scott Thomas, senses some-thing in the air between the most famous man in Britain and her young, not terribly talented daughter.

The Invisible Woman takes it

from there, though the way the story’s structured, we be-gin years in the future, in Mar-gate in the 1880s, well after Dickens’ death and once Ter-nan has become a proper wife to a school headmaster (played by Tom Burke). She is re-hearsing a play co-written by Dickens and Collins. She has diffculty keeping her mind off the past: The play casts her back into her old, hidden life, when she was a mistress and whispered-about “home-wrecker,” bringing the revered author of Oliver Twist to the brink of ruinous scandal.

The Invisible Woman casts

no moral aspersions in any direction, and in Tomalin’s biography, a picture emerges of an infernally complex re-lationship in an era when the woman could not win. The Dickens-Ternan relationship, onscreen, is one of discreet mutual seduction, though I wonder if Fiennes realizes the degree to which Dickens comes off as a helpless little muffn, nudged into bed by invisible cosmic forces of love.

The flm works mainly be-cause of its actors and because Fiennes gives us a spirited, loving tribute to theatrics. It’s also honestly sympathetic to

women who existed as best they could inside the theatri-cal life. Was Nelly in essence pimped out by her fnan-cially concerned mother to Dickens? Possibly. Did Nelly become pregnant by Dickens? Tomalin’s book, and especially the flm, assert the probability as fact. Fiennes makes a strong case for this script’s idea of Dickens and Ternan. And as Nelly, Jones cleverly suggests in the bookend scenes the sadder-but-wiser woman Dickens himself never knew.

The Invisible Woman (R) ★★★✩✩

GREAT FLIRTATIONSCharles Dickens’ invisible mistress

is given her due

By Michael Phillips Tribune Media Services

By Tribune Media Services

Gimme Shelter (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩It’s hard not to be affected by a story about

a pregnant, homeless teenager such as

the one at the heart of Gimme Shelter,

which stars High School Musical’s Vanessa

Hudgens. But some movies, full of good

intentions and clichés undermining those

intentions, make it very hard indeed. In this

one, writer-director Ron Krauss deals a

mixture of truth; characters based on actual

people, composites and creative fabrica-

tions. But Gimme Shelter suffers from an

acute case of the fakes. The speeches

sound like speeches, and not good ones.

Ride Along (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩This is the ol’ odd-couple cops routine,

rigged up to support the pairing of Ice

Cube, in the role of a snarling Atlanta police

detective on the trail of a mysterious arms

dealer, and Kevin Hart, as the detective’s

prospective brother-in-law, a high school

security guard with aspirations to join the

force. Hart’s Ben Barber must prove his

worthiness to his future in-law and show he

has what it takes to be a good cop. The rest

of the movie is sexual molestation jokes,

misjudged brutality and a general glorifica-

tion of assault weapons. No surprises.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

Chris Pine plays the CIA analyst portrayed in

previous films by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford

and Ben Affleck, and Pine’s Ryan is ransack-

ing the terrorist’s files digitally elsewhere

while putting the fiancée at risk. Jack Ryan:

Shadow Recruit has plenty of action, almost all

of it staged and edited in the manner of a Paul

Greengrass Bourne movie (handheld frenzy,

without the Greengrass spatial clarity). This is

a Jack Ryan prequel, introducing our hero as

an American grad student, driven to serve as

a Marine after 9/11 changes modern history.

The Nut Job (PG) ★✩✩✩✩Director and co-writer Peter Lepeniotis’ movie

comes from Surly Squirrel, an animated short

the filmmaker made nearly a decade ago. In that

film the titular rodent was an unrepentant punk.

Big problem straight off: tone. The violence isn’t

slapsticky; it’s just violent. Another problem:

Since Surly—even the new, redeemable

model—spends so much time being a flaming

jerk, The Nut Job fights its protagonist’s own

charmlessness. Turning a dislikable character

a little less dislikable by the end credits sets

an awfully low bar for this sort of thing. Kids

deserve better. Even squirrels deserve better.

Felicity Jones plays Dickens’ secret dame.

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What’s your best advice for betting the Super Bowl?

First thing: Take it as entertainment. In other words, you shouldn’t bet the Super Bowl thinking you’re going to pay bills [with your winnings]. Just have some fun with it, look at all the different proposition bets, and to make the game a little more interesting, try to fnd some [props] that might be decided in the second half. … With $5 minimum [bets], you could really have a lot of fun. I think sports gambling is one of the best sources of entertainment you can have. You can bet $10 on a game and enjoy it for three hours—or in the case of the Super Bowl, four hours.

Since your days at the Imperial Palace back in the 1990s, you’ve been known

as the King of the Props. Why did you decide to expand your Super Bowl prop-bet offerings?

In the early 1990s, all the Super Bowls were blowouts, and we noticed that everybody was bored by the third or fourth quarter and actually leaving. Then in [January] 1995, the 49ers played the Chargers, and there was an 18½-point spread—there was no doubt who was going to win. So we decided to come up with props that would keep everybody in their seats and wouldn’t be decided until the third or fourth quarter, or maybe until the game ended. So we put up more than 100 props for that game, and it really took off. People loved them.

When I got in the business, I think there were 20 proposi-tions, maybe. This year, we’ve

got more than 350, which is our most ever. … I even have a couple of guys who come in here pretty much every year and bet every proposition—ev-ery single one.

You’ve been behind the sportsbook counter since 1987. What’s your fondest Super Bowl memory during that time?

Well, being a Broncos fan, the most memorable was when they beat the Packers [in Super Bowl XXXII]. But the next year, when the Broncos beat the Falcons in the Super Bowl, I was accused by a guest of calling [then-Denver coach] Mike Shanahan on the sideline to put in [backup quarterback] Bubby Brister, because we had a prop up—Will Bubby Brister have a rushing

attempt?—and our thinking was that the Broncos were an 8½-point favorite; if they’re ahead and have the ball late, they’re going to take out John Elway so he could get his well-deserved ovation, and Bubby Brister would go in and kneel down. And a kneel-down is a rushing attempt—which we stipulated, because I didn’t want to fool anybody! Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. But the problem was they didn’t show it on TV; they were showing Elway on the sidelines, and they never showed the kneel-downs!

This guy comes in and says, “I know you’re from Denver! You called [Shanahan] to put in Bubby Brister because you guys needed a kneel-down.” And I was like, “Really, dude? Do you really think I have a hotline?—‘Hey Mike, put Bubby in!’”

What’s your favorite prop this year?

I wish we could put up some of the things the offshore books are able to do, like “How many times will [Bron-cos quarterback] Peyton Man-ning say Omaha?” but due to Nevada gaming regulations, we can’t; we’re restricted to the feld of play.

One that’s new this year is the total yardage of all touchdowns combined,which is 74½. For us, that’s creative, because it’s something that’s actually within the game. I mean, we can have crossover-sports [props] all day; I can put up props matching LeBron James against something in the Super Bowl—we can fll three panels with stuff like that. So this was more creative.

If you were to lay your own money on that prop, which way would you go?

I believe it’s going to be a low-scoring game. It’s going to be a very physical, hard-fought—I’m not going to say boring game, but it’s going to be a very intense defensive battle. So if I was to wager on this particular prop, I’d prob-ably wager “under.”

You’re a lifelong Broncos fan, but it’s very possible you might need the Se-ahawks to prevail in order for the LVH to proft. How do you internalize that?

Well, this will be the sixth Super Bowl that the Broncos have been in since I’ve been in the business, and out of the previous fve, [the book] needed the Broncos four times. So that made it very easy! [Laughs.] The one year that we didn’t need the Bron-cos was when they played the Redskins [Super Bowl XXII in 1988], but I can tell you that I was rooting for the Broncos in that one. And this year it’s going to be a very similar situ-ation, because it looks like [the sportsbook is] going to need the Seahawks.

It’s a little frustrating, because you’re always rooting for the book, but you always want to be that fan. I’m sure the book’s going to be fne and we’re going to do well on a lot of other things, so I’m still going to be rooting for the Broncos.

You OK with your boss knowing that?

He doesn’t read your maga-zine. [Laughs.]

Jay KornegayThe boss of the LVH Superbook on how to bet the Super Bowl, Bubby Brister’s

moneymaking moment and why he’ll probably be rooting against the house on Sunday

By Matt Jacob