The Golden Nugget sits smack dab in the middle of
Downtown Las Vegas. It has been around nearly as long as Freemont Street itself. The
famous casino-hotel landmark has gone through several upgrades over the years, yet it has
always retained a well-deserved reputation as the swankiest hotel in the downtown area.
Although still a centerpiece for high limit action, the
Golden Nugget's heyday was back during in the "greed is good" 1980s, when casino
mogul Steve Wynn made it his first major purchase. Owner Wynn started at the Golden Nugget
and gradually built a gambling empire that would later include The Mirage and Bellagio.
Wynn's powerful PR machine used to tout the fact that the Golden Nugget and the Mirage
offered identical hotel rooms and services -- a strong selling point to encourage high
rollers to stay at a downtown casino, when the idea must have seemed unthinkable.
When Wynn sold out to the MGM serpents in 2000, the
Golden Nugget's prosperity continued uninterrupted. It remained the most profitable casino
in Downtown Las Vegas and is so to this day. While the other Freemont Street casinos
attract mostly middle-class gamblers and starry-eyed slot-playing tourists, the Golden
Nugget appeals to a wealthier-clientele base which is obvious from the moment one enters
the resort.
In July 2003, the Golden Nugget was sold off again --
this time to a couple of Internet millionaires from what I like to call "the Mark
Cuban school of management." This marks the duo's first foray into the casino
business. It will be interesting to watch what this younger, less predictable, dynamic duo
of owners does with this legendary casino property. Now, to the sportsbook review.
THE SPORTSBOOK: Let's get right to the point: This
may very well be the worst-managed sportsbook in Las Vegas. Considering the fact that
customer expectations are usually higher in upscale properties like the Golden Nugget, the
sportsbook falls disappointingly short. The bottom line is -- whoever runs this joint
doesn't know a goddamned thing about sports gambling nor does management understand what
the sports gambler is seeking when he places a bet and watches a game.
The first problem is the poor layout of the room. The
racebook has four rows of tables all jammed together. It's no wonder that this casino
hardly generates any horse racing interest at all, since it would take a neck brace to
watch the television monitors, hanging hopeless high up overhead. You might as well be at
an air show or out stargazing. After 6 pm, it's almost impossible to find anyone in the
room betting on horses (I've walked through this area many times and rarely see any horse
players). Yet, the horse track simulcasts continue being pumped into the room, while the
sports gamblers have limited screens and services. Again, common sense would dictate when
there are 85 people watching sports and three blind retirees with walkers betting horses,
the television situation might reflect the popularity of the sporting events.
The sportsbook sits just off to the side, with another
bank of televisions in the rear -- back behind the counter-- many of which are way too
small to see from the middle of the sportsbook. My most recent visit confirmed the fact
that I could not see the scores of games -- posted in the upper left-hand corner of the
screens, which was obviously a major annoyance to anyone calculating the spread. To the
casino's credit, there are lounge-style seats scattered throughout the area with small
cocktail tables, but these comforts are not put here for sports gamblers -- as we shall
see in just a moment. More on that point to come.
Worst of all, the staff here acts like they couldn't
care less about the games or the scores. These aren't sports fans, they are mindless
drones who ought to be breathing exhaust fumes snapping quarters in a tollbooth or
flipping cheeseburgers for a living. On a recent Saturday night visit, whilst seven NFL
games were being played on the East Coast, there were no less than three (very lazy)
tellers on duty. I watched in stunned disbelief as the three stooges sat on their asses
minute after minute, hour after hour, only rarely updating the scores of the games (by
quarter). In one instance, one key NFL game already had a final score roll over the ticker
as the tote board displayed a halftime score. That tells me the score of the game wasn't
updated for nearly an hour and a half -- which is not unusual in this cocktail
lounge/sportsbook. Contrast this with the Horseshoe or the Las Vegas Club, where sports
scores are not only updated by the quarter or inning, but ANY score is written in up in
the box so gamblers can be updated every single minute as to the current score of the
game.
The Golden Nugget offers a sports ticker, which is also
woefully inadequate. Half of seats in the room cannot see the entire stream of news, since
the ticker is partially tucked behind a giant extension of the stage (yes, there's a stage
inside the sportsbook -- like I said, we'll get to this in a moment). On more than a few
occasions, I was trying to follow the score of a game and would see only part of the
ticker before it went blank. Again -- this sportsbook is a horrible place to get updated
news or information on a game. It's more like the lounge in the Holiday Inn in Des Moines.
At least there you can probably get a clear view of a TV and a decent drink.
Now, let's get to that stage. The jackasses who run the
Golden Nugget thought it would be a good idea to transform the sportsbook into a lounge --
complete with a bad lounge act every night. If the Dodgers or Giants are playing a late
game on the West Coast and you have some serious bread riding on the game, you're screwed.
You have a better chance of following your action with an AM radio stuck to your ear than
inside the Golden Nugget. For some depraved reason, management at the Golden Nugget hired
an embarrassingly awful musical act, with a group of Motown-style singers prancing around
on the stage like it's an outdated episode of Soul Train. When the lounge act starts, the
games on the TVs go dark. And this place calls itself a sportsbook?
What's most staggering is that this lounge act is so
bloody horrendous -- a trio of stick-thin Asian broods one night, and some Afro-centric
act the next -- that it just doesn't make any sense at all. If the Golden Nugget sportbook
converted into a piano bar or a jazz trio late at night, I could almost forgive the mortal
sin of ceasing live game coverage. But hearing hours and hours of cover tunes from Diana
Ross and the Supremes when I'd rather be watching the Dodgers and Giants is enough to
drive a man over the edge. If I hear the song, "I Will Survive" one more time in
this place, I might not survive. Maybe that type of music has its place (a street festival
in Compton), just not inside a sportsbook.
In terms of amenities, there are none. No promotional
activities, no handicapping contests, absolutely nothing to service the sports gambler.
Hell, you can't even get a bottle of water in this joint without a comp ticket. Hey Golden
Nugget -- just rip out the race and sportsbook and leave the lounge act in place. But
don't falsely advertise and have the audacity to call yourself a "sportsbook."
ATMOSPHERE: D
COMFORT: C
TV SCREENS: D
STAFF: F
COMMITTED TO SPORTS GAMBLING: F
OVERALL: D -
