January 1 2012:      "It's a very good test of our ability to see forward in a holistic way," said Bernard Meyerson, the vice president of innovation for IBM. For those of us who have watched IBM womble toward withdrawal for years, the reason is now apparent. Every December, writes Ned Potter of ABC News, IBM announces five predictions for the next five years. Then they corner their idiot savants and order them to come up with the predictions. Here are the next five from Mr. Potter's story. Prediction No.1 has people charging their cell phones by plugging them into a generator attached to a bicycle wheel. Number 2 eliminates the need for passwords and replaces them with retinal scans, voice prints and fingerprints. In the next big step, No. 3 is named "Reading Your Mind." So forget pressing buttons to make a phone call. Let the electrical impulses in your brain handle it. As for No. 4, IBM discovered that most jump online through cell phones. Wireless is faster and more useful because it's easier and cheaper to set up wireless networks than to bury cables. Now for prediction No.5, possibly the dumbest four words ever spoken. They are, "No More Junk Mail." So listen up, IBM predictors. My specialty is direct marketing and I know of no major company that ever mailed anything resembling "junk.' Instead, they consult segmented lists of those who have either bought a company product or showed a need or want for it. Surveys have proven elderly Americans choose direct mail over Email by a large margin--most because letters help fill their lives, others because they've never bought a computer. The IBM geniuses say, "Your mailbox overflows with things you could care less about and your Email is crowded with spam." Such hyperbole shows a closed mind and is a clumsy try to take away the benefits and features older people like to find in their mailbox. Companies don't mail just for the hell of it. They mail to customers and to prospects to make money. Tell you what. Next time you're struggling for predictions, hire The Amazing Kreskin.

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      December 22 2011:      One side in the new war boasted 10 aircraft carriers; The other side had seven. One side had prepared its attack for years, had even used an area of its homeland for practice because it resembled the enemy target. Every man stood ready; every fighter and bomber were in perfect condition. The other side saw no attack coming--right up until the bombs began to fall and dozens of its warships had been badly damaged or sunk. Its fighters, parked on their airfield in neat, even rows, were destroyed by enemy strafing and bombs. Thousands of Americans died on Dec. 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four months later the Navy and the Army Air Force combined to place a squadron of B-25 bombers on the deck of a US carrier. Did the twin engine aircraft, loaded with ordnance, have the speed to lift off from the deck of a carrier? No one knew for sure. But the carrier and a small force of defenders sailed for Tokyo nevertheless. Every B-25 lifted off, and all dropped their bomb loads on Tokyo. It stunned the enemy. Those who argue against American exceptionalism are wrong. Two years after Pearl Harbor, writes Prof. Ronald Spector in his review of "Pacific Crucible," a new book by Ivan Toll, the US was producing 89,000 aircraft a year, 40% more than the British and Germans combined. In 1943, the US built 29,000 tanks, almost twice as many as the Germans. In the same two years we launched 369 major warships, more than the combined total of Britain, Germany and the Soviets. And built almost 2,000 cargo ships--13 times the number lost to German U-Boats. Those who argue against American exceptionalism are wrong. Spector also points out that the US fought the first year of the war with inferior warships, planes, equipment, technology and numbers of men. Yet within a year and a half after Pearl Harbor, US carriers crushed the Japanese navy at the Battle of Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. Those who argue against American exceptionalism are wrong.

      December 7 2011:      I still remember how the Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, looked the first time I saw it--10 years after the Japanese attack. As a young Navy JO2 (Navy journalist 2nd class) I attended a call-out of the new men who had just arrived. Would anyone like to serve as a guide for visitors and VIPs who wanted to board the USS Arizona? My hand snapped up first. Two weeks later I was about to conduct my first guided tour. Although it wasn't required, I studied books and news reports of the attack. Then I wrote and memorized four pages of copy. When I seated my first group in one of the small boats that made the Arizona trip daily, I felt I could answer any question. And at first, I could. I pointed out the directions from which enemy bombers and fighters attacked, described each warplane and showed where many fell from our return fire. The questions came as I completed my script. Where were our fighters during the attack? Why didn't our radar pick up the enemy before they reached Pearl? Why were our battleships anchored so close together? I tried to answer but tears came to my eyes. Even then, 10 years after the attack, those devilish puzzles had not all been solved. The questions stopped coming as we reached the Arizona and prepared to board. If you took the same trip today, you'd dock at a lavish memorial dedicated in 1962. But in 1951 you walked up a ladder and could stroll the deck of the Arizona. Thick steel plates on the ship's deck were still fire-blackened, twisted as easily as you or I could twist ordinary bailing wire. Each plate seemed to be five inches thick--or more. A few Japanese bombs spiraled down into the battleship's funnels and caused the Arizona's own shells to explode. Trapped below deck were more than a thousand sailors--some not yet awake. A total of 1,177 were killed, and most still sleep forever below decks on the warship they loved. The visitors and VIPs I took to the Arizona that day walked the ship in a daze--unable to understand how or why it happened. As the stream of visitors continued every day, I endured it. But every trip left me more disheartened. After three months I asked to be relieved. Later, I discovered that happened to almost all of the new young guides. None of us could reconcile the deaths and sacrifices the brave men of our own ages gave on "A day that will live in infamy," as President Franklin D. Roosevelt put it to Congress on the afternoon of the slaughter. He declared war on Japan the next morning.

      December 1 2011:      It's seven feet tall, ten feet long and weighs 2,000 pounds. It's probably the ugliest piece of machinery ever built. Its laser can vaporize rocks. Its nuclear battery turns heat into electricity. Its forward turret looks like a machinegun nest. I guarantee--if you see this 6-wheeled apparition clanking in your direction, you'll yell, "Quick, Martha, bring my shotgun." But relax. There's really no need for that. The thing can travel only 660 feet per day, max. And it's ours. Goes by the name of Curiosity. Right now it's hurtling toward Mars and should touch down next August, spend a year on the planet and hurtle back to earth. Now let me back up a second. I said it would "touch down" on Mars, but I meant only if the landing takes place as planned. The thing is too heavy to coast down by parachute so they've developed some rakafrakits system to have the rocket that brought it up, bring it down. Gently, of course. Otherwise, we lose enough money in one shot to pay off the national debt. But here's the kicker. Mars hasn't been kind to earth-launched spaceships in the past. The Russians fired 12 unmanned rockets at the planet from 1960 to 1973. All four of their huge N-1 rockets exploded shortly after launch. A group of aerospace engineers were killed when another rocket exploded while being fueled. In 1969, three Mars probes exploded en route or failed to break out of earth orbit. I don't know about you, but I think the little people that live up there are sending us a message. NASA probes landed, did their work and the astronauts came home safely. So now we're sending an immense rocket up there with orders to drop a 2,000-pound vehicle on the surface so it can chug around for a year. What are we trying to do--scare the Martians to death? Okay, so I'm kidding. Everyone knows there are no Martians on Mars. But our last Astronauts found 10,000-year-old insects embedded in rocks. My wife hates insects.

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      November 22 2011:      You should have seen the snarls on the faces of Denver Post sportswriters when the Broncos took Heisman winner Tim Tebow with their first pick in the 2010 National Football League draft. Not pretty. Much of the anger came when ousted coach Josh McDaniel made Tebow his first pick. The writers wanted someone else--anyone else. But a few football experts said he'd be a winner. Sports Illustrated called him "College football's future top mobile quarterback." Former coach Jon Gruden said, "Tim Tebow is 250 pounds, and he's the strongest human being that's ever played the position. He can throw well enough at any level." When training camp finally opened following the insufferable NFL lockout, ESPN had cameras on all three Broncos quarterbacks. Kyle Orton, the QB most writers wanted, seemed nonchalant as he took part in a short passing drill. Every throw went right into the arms of a receiver. When Tebow threw, his passes sailed behind the receiver now and then, making the fellow reach backwards. Not too good when you're throwing at a target only 35 feet away. I followed ESPN's evening football summary every night--and when Tebow threw, his passes always went behind the runner. After a couple of times I realized they took his worst throw (probably from the first day of camp) and kept repeating it. I saw it five times. Even up to a few days ago the ESPN announcers could hardly conceal their own snarls when they talked about Tebow as if the poor guy had no chance. When the season started, Orton was the quarterback. He played about as nonchantly as he had in the ESPN films. When the Broncos reached one win, 4 losses, Orton took a seat. In came Tedbow. When he beat the the Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders, Kansas City Chiefs, and the New York Jets (last Thursday) he had become a fan favorite, more or less coach John Fox's favorite, and most amazing of all, some of the Post writers agreed he could really play. Now Tebow has signed with Nike, has autographed a football that Walmart sells for $657.99, has added "Tebowing" to the football vocabulary (it means "kneeling and praying") has written his memoirs ("Through My Eyes") and YouTube carries a short video named "Tim Tebow, Man of God." And he's not going away.

      November 11 2011:      The late Flory Rodd, my close friend for years, ran ten miles a day on the streets of San Francisco and the smaller nearby communities. He came home with money after every workout. The bewildered guys who ran with him threw up their arms. Flory's penetrating eyesight always picked up coins and occasional bills his mates had run right past. As the group neared the finish they ran up an alley just to hear the clink and clank of coins as Flory threw them into a can he had nailed to his backyard fence. The man was a walking storybook, and supremely intelligent. Once he was late for his job as navigator for United, and pushed his antique Model A too hard on the Bayshore freeway. When his muffler set the battered old floorboards on fire he pulled off and stopped--desperate to quell the flames. Water on the Bayshore? Forget it. So Flory shrugged and unzipped his pants. Just as he doused the last of the fire, two State Troopers pulled alongside."What the hell are you doing," one shouted. Flory smiled. "Just putting out a fire," he said. They let him go. At the airport, he just made the flight to Hawaii. But halfway there over the Pacific, the San Francisco airport called. "You may have a bomb aboard," they told the pilot, and descending would set it off. Flory rose from his chair, threw down his navigating instruments and put his hands on his hips. "I resign," he told the pilot. P.S. They made it to Hawaii with no more problems. I remembered all those stories and many more when Flory and I flew east in 1973 to run in the annual Boston Marathon. Flory had run Boston twice, but it was my first time. And when we reached the starting line with the race still 30 minutes away, runners were backed up for hundreds of yards on the narrow street in Hopkington where the race began. The people in charge waved arriving runners to the rear, and we knew if we went there we'd lose at least five minutes before we reached the start. "Come on, kid," Flory told me. As I followed we came to a home almost even with the starting line. Five elderly people sat on the front porch "May we sit down for a while?" Flory asked. Of course we could. So we sat and chatted with the people until the starter raised bis gun to start the race. Flory and I stood, said thank you to everyone, and as the gun fired we were off the porch in seconds and sprinting in the clear with the leading runners. I glanced back when the race route turned to head for Boston. More than 3,000 runners formed an endless line behind us. Flory beat me easily, but I still finished in 439th place in a little under three hours. You were one of a kind, my dear friend Flory. R.I.P.

      November 1 2011:      On Aug. 5, of this year, Colorado Rockies pitcher Juan Nicasio peered down from the mound at Coors Field, got a sign from his catcher and unleashed a 96-mile-per hour fastball. Washington's Ian Desmond hit it squarely, and his line drive glanced off the side of Nicasio's head. The Rockies pitcher fell, momentarily knocked unconscious, landed face first and broke his neck. But as Troy Renck writes in the Denver Post, Nicasio "regained consciousness as he lay on the ground...and informed the Rockies trainer of the pain in his neck, information that likely spared him paralysis." It was Nicasio's 13th and last start of the 2011 season. He swears he'll be back next year and Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd says Nicasio is already working out at the club's new pre-season headquarters in Arizona. "It's a miracle," said O'Dowd. Yes, a miracle that Nicasio deserves. But it reminds all of us who love baseball that its safety precautions move at the speed of glaciers. The California Supreme Court once ruled that baseball players in California assume the risk of being hit even if the balls were intentionally thrown. In 1920, Yankees pitcher Carl Mays hit and killed Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman, the second player to die after being struck in the head. His passing emboldened Major League Baseball to rule that umpires must replace the ball if it becomes dirty. And even though Chapman's death pointed out the need for batting helmets, the Majors instead banned the spitball and put off batting helmets until more than 30 years later. The modern day career record for players hit by pitches is held by Houston's Craig Biggio, with 285. Tony Conigliaro of the Red Sox was struck by a pitch and survived a shattered cheekbone. He never regained his batting ability. Kirby Puckett of the Minnesota Twins was struck in the cheek and had his jaw broken. He never played again. As a former sports editor, one of the saddest I've seen was Gil McDougald's line drive in 1956 that Caught Cleveland's Herb Score directly in the eye. The promising lefty tried and failed to make a comeback. The real miracle here is that no one in Major League baseball has been killed in action since 1920. (Thanks to Wikipedia and Huff Post.)

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      October 22 2011:      All of us have them. Moments when everything goes right, moments when everything turns dreadful. When they hit, you remember every word spoken, every eyebrow raised, even the shoes, coat and necktie you wore. You can replay the good moments to perfection; they cling like burrs to your mind. What follows is one of those moments that altered my life--36 years ago. It began when a guy I'd never met strolled into my office to pitch an event I never would have allowed. I was Marketing Director for Del Webb's Sahara on the Las Vegas Strip at the time, and the guy who came in and took a seat was a Phoenix promoter named Jules Klar. Jules had an idea for a world Backgammon tournament, and as he laid it out I settled into my thoughtful mood, eyes open, mind drifting. I wanted Blackjack players, not Backgammon players, and as Jules spoke I envisioned the Sahara's 30 or so tables jammed with players. My God, I thought, it's a Blackjack tournament. The idea swarmed all over me. In an instant I knew it had never been done and it couldn't miss. I came out of my trance, told Jules a Backgammon event wasn't right for the Sahara, and never saw him again. Then I wrote the rules for the first Blackjack tournament. I kept the idea to myself and three close friends who knew gambling and were amazed. They couldn't find a damn thing wrong it. Still, I kept it to myself until 1977, when I met a Hollywood daytime TV show promoter named Ed Fishman. On a hunch, I laid out my tournament idea. Ed went crazy over the idea. We formed a company, pitched the idea to the Sahara GM, and were in business. Our first BJ tournament drew 1,200 players who paid us $250 each to enter and had to buy in at the tables with $500 every time they played in a tournament round. I quit my Sahara job, moved to Los Angeles and joined our BJ company. The second Sahara tournament drew 1,900 and the third hit 12,700. As we spread our tournaments across the US, then to Monte Carlo and Aruba, we became the hottest thing in gaming. We changed our name from World Championship of Blackjack to Players Club International. When Telly Savalas became our TV spokesman we went public. After a long winning streak the four of us who started the business left the company. Eventually, after building five casinos, we sold to Harrah's. Besides Ed and I, our other partners were David Fishman and Duke Rohlffs. I was proud to work with them.

      October 11 2011:      There are two types of headlines that advertise a product or service. One is "direct," the other "indirect." Direct headlines are almost exclusively the property of the Direct Marketing business for two reasons: DM headlines tell a story or make a promise that appeals only to those readers who want or need the product or service. Nobody else matters. An example of a direct headline is one I wrote for a client years ago: "Las Vegas casino unveils a radical slot machine; if it doesn't pay off, it gives back your bet." Do you have any trouble understanding what the ad is about? Of course not. The copy ran about 450 words and I placed it most often in the magazines of airlines serving Las Vegas. The ad ran about two years, bringing in the same steady flow of customers to play the" money back slots." Now, shall we make a quick study of indirect headlines? The agencies who believe in them are usually trying to be clever. They hope to draw in readers with humor. In one of my advertising seminars I showed an ad that was half a newspaper page high and about eight inches wide. The art director had drawn a cascade of $50 and $100 hundred dollar bills and a huge headline that read, "Throw These Guys Out of Town." Do you have any idea what that ad was trying to sell? The 25 or 30 words of copy hidden at the bottom let you know it was a $100,000 Blackjack tournament at a major Las Vegas Strip casino. Maybe you can figure it out. I never did. Take a closer glance at the ads in your favorite newspaper or magazine. With little or no practice you'll easily pick those headlines that sell, and those that are headed for the art director's show portfolio.

      October 1 2011:      Maybe you read the Wall Street Journal's recent story about "Toning Shoes" produced and advertised by Reebok. The Federal Trade Commission immediately put its "case team" on high alert and discovered the shoes didn't tone anything but your pocketbook. The Journal said Reebok will pay $25 million in customer refunds, on top of $40.9 million in advertising they placed in 2010 and earlier this year. The shoe company ferociously denies the FTC charges. After reading the story I rushed to a small black case where I keep buried treasure--and there it was, a tiny label that came with my first pair of "Tiger" running shoes. Here's how the label read, word for word: "This shoes is the fruit of the effort of all Onitsuka Co., LTD., who have been studying for the development of really valueable Sports Shoes for 20 years." I kept the label because one day I knew I'd use it in a piece about the beginning of running shoes. I threw away the Tigers in a couple of weeks. The skinny sole at the heel was less than two inches wide. You could lose your balance and fall on your dome trying to run on heels that small. What we needed in those days were thick, wide heels, twice as big as the Tigers. Maybe the Onitsuka Company didn't know a distance runner's stride hit heel first. So I bought a pair of Adidas trainers that split open along one side from my daily 10-mile runs. I took a photo and sent it to Adidas. They wrote back to say I had the wrong shoes--and sent me a new pair of marathon shoes. Gradually, with runners feeding information to the companies, shoes improved. Within a year or so all the distance running shoes had four-inch wide heels and weighed practically nothing. And those of us on the Las Vegas Track Club who helped the shoemakers got free shoes. I ran the Boston Marathon in Pumas. Best running shoes I ever wore. Finished 439th out of three thousand.

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Ears
Ears

      September 22 2011:      Gather yourselves, writers and art directors. It's war. There's one hell of a battle in progress to see which side will prevail, but if I were you I'd take the artists. The writers have no idea what's happening. Matter of fact, most of the writers I know have gone over to the other side and don't even know it. You could call the artists "Sans Serifs," sans meaning "without." The writers are "New Romans." And in the casino business it's the fourth quarter and the Sans Serifs lead 56-3 with about four minutes remaining. So listen up, writers. The twin dose of "Ears" I'm about to uncork may be our last chance. Now take a close look at the first "Ears." It's a serif type called Times New Roman, and if you have even a microscopic idea of the classics, you'll make it your default. In the first "Ears" alone I count 12 serifs. Some are knifelike points; others are subtle bulges that make you notice the thick and thin variations. The letters show class, distinction, prestige. Their serifs are influenced by ages of hand scripted lettering, and they make writing easy to read. The second "Ears" is a sample of a sans serif type named Helvetica. Each letter cries out for attention. The effect is blunt, stark, rigid, and hard to read. In Australian Colin Wheildon's 5-year study of the effect of type on reading comprehension, he frequently tested serif type against Helvetica. The results: In copy using Times New Roman, reading comprehension was 67% good, 19% fair and 14% poor. With Helvetica, comprehension was 12% good, 23% fair and 65% poor. Yet in the annual Romero Awards for outstanding casino marketing last July in Las Vegas, almost every submission I saw was in sans serif type. The ugliest type in history has surrounded us. Sans serif is even the default type on every new computer. Yet every newspaper, every book and every magazine is still printed with serif type, usually Times New Roman. P.S. Hey, writers, we're still in the ball game.

      September 11 2011:      Dave Stockton, former PGA champ and winner of a whole bunch of golf tournaments in the 60s and 70s, has a new book due out this month. He's named it "Unconscious Putting." He's probably making five times the money he made in the old days--because now he teaches putting to golf's elite. Among his students, writes the Wall Street Journal's John Paul Newport, are Phil Mickelson, Matt Kuchar, Rory McIlroy, Yani Tseng, Adam Scott and Suzann Pettersen. And if their minds go blank when they draw back the putter, maybe we all should play that way. But back to Dave. He's probably forgotten the putting lesson he gave me 36 years ago at the old Sahara Invitational tournament in Las Vegas. Now that really was unconscious putting. I'm standing there watching the pros putt when Dave comes up to me and says, "John, how about if I give you a lesson?" How could I refuse one of the best putters ever? So I grab my putter and we stake out a little space on one side of the practice green. Dave tells me to take my stance, so I drop a ball and bend over it--not a severe bend, but a bend. "Wrong," said Dave. "Stay upright." Well, I'd always putted pretty good with my bent over stance but I did what he said. My first ball went in the hole from 10 feet. The next three went in, too. "See what I mean?" Dave said. So the two of us stood there rolling in putt after putt, and I'm sold on the upright stance. Six months later I saw him on TV hit a perfect wedge to the green. Had about 10 feet to the hole. When he took his stance I didn't believe what I was seeing. He was as bent over as I used to be before he fixed me--and he missed his putt. At that year's Sahara tourney I called him on it. "You know," Dave said, "after I left here last year I couldn't sink a putt. So I tried the bent over stance and I've been doing okay with it." He shrugged. "Golf" he said. P.S. I'm still using the upright stance he gave me. Never putted better in my life. Thank you, Dave.

      September 1 2011:      Not too long ago I purchased one of those new CFL light bulbs that look like a coiled snake ready to take a chunk out of your arm. "Lasts five years," read the package, which I knew was pure Bolshoi. What did they do--turn on a bulb five years ago and found it was still burning when they checked it last week? Hey, the guy cleaning up at night could have turned it off every evening, and switched it back on when he finished up about 10:30. This new, $20 bulb appeared a few years ago, accompanied by copy that quietly informed you it was loaded with Mercury--and to be damned careful if you broke one. I broke one the first day. I climbed up my 10-foot ladder to replace one of the old 75-cent Edison bulbs and dropped the CFL trying to screw it in. Thing shattered into a thousand pieces on the decorative gravel below. Let me tell you I got out of there fast. Did I pick up the pieces? Hell, no. Who needs Mercury poisoning? So I checked with Washington. Good news. The Republicans had a House bill ready to repeal a law passed by the Feds in 2007 banning incandescent bulbs in favor of the CFL. But "Energy Secretary" Steven Chu opposed passage. I didn't even know we had an "Energy Secretary" until Chu told the press, "We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money." If you're like me, you'll read that sentence a couple more times before you realize what's happening to America. I mean, it's glorious. Us working stiffs don't have to think any more. Oh yeah, the Republican bill failed, 233-193. I'm going to shop for a hammock tomorrow.

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      August 22 2011:      The washing machine guy came to our home not long ago. He took one look at our machine--a Maytag--and smiled. "Won't be much here to fix," he said. My wife asked him how he knew such a thing. "Best ever built," he said. And !0 minutes later he went out the door waving goodbye. It reminded me of the old Maytag TV spots that starred Jesse White. Jesse didn't say much in the commercials. He just sat there in a Maytag repairman uniform and waited for calls that never came. Sometimes he'd go to sleep. We liked Jesse so much we bought a Maytag--about 18 years ago. On the front of the machine (and the dryer) it said "Maytag, Heavy Duty, 4 Speed Select, Super Capacity, Electronic Dry Control." In 1996, wrote Wall Street Journal columnist Sam Kazman, Consumer Reports tested 18 top-loader models. Thirteen were "excellent," and the other five were rated "Very good." By 2007, not one was excellent and seven out of of 21 were "poor" or "fair." And last March, Consumer Reports listed all top-loaders as "often mediocre or worse." Hey, you love efficiency? Welcome to Socialism. The Department of Energy wiped out most top-loaders because they didn't meet the department's requirements. Front loaders immediately moved in. "Because they don't fully immerse their laundry loads," writes Kazman, "they use less hot water, but they often have mold problems." Nice. Later in 1907, just one top-loader was rated "Very good." Front loaders dominated--even though they cost about twice as much as top-loaders and overall didn't clean as well as the old 1996 models. Somebody started a movement named "Send your underwear to the Undersecretary," so the Senate Energy Committee moved again last March. Kazman said, "So many tax credits were given to Whirlpool that the company will avoid paying taxes on its $619 million profit in 2010." What a country.

      August 11 2011:      In my first book, Casino Marketing, I opened with a chapter I named "The Care and Feeding of General Managers." Then I warned marketing directors they're only as good as yesterday's results. The sad part is they often do good background work but the wrong guys sometimes take the bows. If the floor is beating everyone, the casino manager takes the credit; if the show is a hit, the entertainment guy is a genius, and if the new prime rib dinner takes off, the food and beverage director is a hero. But if business drops off for a couple of weeks, the marketing director gets the blame. So I decided to repeat my secret rules that marketers can use to make a friend out of the boss. (1) Sometimes the GM goes completely nuts. Hey, the place will stay open. Marketers, never whine and complain. Close ranks and get on with it. (2) Never take credit for anything you do. Tell people the GM gave you room to cooperate and backed you all the way. (3) When you do a deal with your GM, don't get cute. I know a GM who approved a $50,000 TV buy. Then he found out the production costs for the spots were higher than the TV time. They had to glue him back together. (4) Never speak during his backswing. Do I have to explain this? (5) Make sure he always knows what you do for the store. Do you think a GM ever reads your job description? Forget about it. (6) If the GM asks you to do something, move it to the top of your list. Another one that needs no explanation. (7) Always ask The Big Question before you make any ad or promotion buy. The BQ is, "How does the casino make money from this?" If no one in the meeting is sure, tell the GM you're not in favor of it. (8) Find out how he drives home. Follow in secret. Then tell your outdoor company to put up at least three of your new posters on his route. Bet me you're a genius when they go up.

      August 1 2011:      Maybe you heard about the Las Vegas Sahara. It closed a couple of months ago. After 60 years the place fell down and couldn't get up. The Las Vegas newspapers gave it a sumptuous funeral that lasted a week. Most of my pals--the ones who remembered I ran the Sahara marketing department for 20 years--sent me stacks of clippings. They thought I'd be kind of sad about it, and I was. I remember the day the GM told me the joint had just been sold to the Del Webb corporation--a construction firm. But when Mr. Webb (that's what all of us called him) showed up, he let us run the gaming business. To my knowledge he never interfered. And when I learned he also owned a piece of the New York Yankees, I called it "Del Webb's Sahara" from then on. When Mr. Webb began to call me "John," I stopped writing about his small "piece" of the Yankees and made him the "Co Owner" when I mentioned him in a story or release. One evening he asked me to drive him to the airport. Hey, I was delighted. We talked baseball all the way, mostly about his favorite, Mickey Mantle. We reached the airport and talked all the way to his flight. In those days, the early 60s, passengers had to walk across the tarmac and climb into their plane. About halfway there, Mr. Webb, stopped, turned around to see if I was still there, and shouted, "John!" once or twice. I jogged out to meet him, wondering what might have gone wrong. He moved very close to my ear and in a conspiratorial tone whispered, "John, can you lend me $20?" I told him it was no problem and handed him a bill. I've always remembered that evening. It was the night I discovered Mr. Webb never carried cash. (Portions of the above taken from John Romero's new book, "Las Vegas--before the lawyers.")

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      July 22 2011:      The headline stopped me. "Golfers Bask In The Summer of Jack," it read. Of course, there's just one Jack--even if your handicap is the worst at the club. Wall Street Columnist Jason Gay thinks the collapse of Tiger Woods brought Jack's name back to life. "Today's young players," he wrote, "seem awestruck by Nicklaus." And why not? The man won 18 majors and today at 71 he's still ready to help a young pro if asked. In my years at the old Sahara Las Vegas, I directed the Sahara Invitational, a PGA pro tour stop. Jack won our tournament four times. On one final day in the mid 60s he had a one shot lead, and a friend and I left the press tent and went out to watch him finish. "What's his secret?" my friend asked." That's easy," I said. "Concentration." We reached No. 17 just in time to see Jack bomb one down the middle. " I told my friend I had to stay well back in the crowd because I didn't want him to see me and say hello. "Might break his concentration," I said. Just then I heard my name called. "Oh my God!" I thought, "He's seen me." Not only did he see me, but he waved an arm for me to join him as he strolled up the fairway. He put his arm over my shoulder as we walked and said, "John, I have a real problem. I promised some friends I'd get them a reservation tonight for the show at the Riviera. And I plain forgot to do it. Can you help me?" So here was this player, the best ever, breaking his concentration to keep a promise. "No problem, Jack," I said. "First show, tonight. Have them there at 6 p.m. Just give me their names." Then I got the hell out of there--fast. Made the reservation then rushed to No. 18 to see him finish, wondering if seeing me had broken his concentration. He birdied the final hole and won the tournament. The friend who had walked to No. 17 with me came by and gave me a strange look. "Got to be something more than concentration," he said.

      July 11 2011:      It's back for the seventh straight year. The show that honors the foot soldiers of Casino Marketing--the guys and girls who slog through the months spinning out floor promotions, direct mail, VIP events, PR gatherings, and Email and Web site money-makers. It's called The Romero Awards, after your faithful reporter. As Jimmy Durante said, "You want to get famous? Just hang around." So I took his advice. I present trophies (they're named "Romeros") and shake about 36,000 hands. Hey, I'm still in the casino marketing business myself and darn glad I don't have to compete against some of these people. I also pick some of the finest judges in the casino business, and with a record 151 entries this year we really needed them. Their faces went white when they saw box after box of submissions. Took all day and then some to finish. Meanwhile, the annual Romero Awards fit neatly inside the Casino Marketing Conference, now in its 8th year. The guy who pulls the whole thing together is Dennis Conrad, the boss of Raving Consulting, along with his supergirl staff and Charles Anderer of co-producer BNP Publications. Dennis and I read every Romero Award submission the day before the judges arrive, and we're proud of the huge marketing improvements we see in casinos large and small. Now please make a note: we've moved this year to Planet Hollywood. The Conference opens on Sunday, July 18, with the "Advanced Player Development Summit," an all-day deal with three big sessions. On July 19. we find a Keynote Speech by Ginny Shank of Pinnacle Entertainment, Victor Rocha's Lifetime Achievement Award and seven more speakers. The Romero Awards are presented during an 8:30 a.m. breakfast on the final day, July 20. Six more speeches follow. See you there.

      July 1 2011:      The Wall Street Journal is the best newspaper in America--but I seethed as I read a recent piece. The banner headline read, "Judging E-Readers by Their Book Readability." But the story wasn't about "readability" at all, and the pictures they showed of the Nook and the Kindle proved it. Both of these ugly little pads used sans serif type, making "readability" a joke. On the same day my wife received a vacation offer in a letter from a major Las Vegas casino. Again, sans serif type leaped off the page and grabbed me by the throat. It's everywhere now, even chosen by casino bosses who should know better. Sans means "without." Sans serif means "without serifs." Modern "serif" type, with its thin and heavy curves and lines, fits together so well the reader is conscious of the words and sentences, but not of each letter. But we find the opposite in sans serif type because each letter stands alone, its width the same, without contrasts. For "readability," if there is such a word, the Roman type that began in 1734 is far superior. Yet sans serif type has infested art directors worldwide. Now it dominates the ad business, the sign business, the casino business, even the Barnes & Noble "Nook" and the Amazon "Kindle." Why? Because modern art directors think sans serif faces are "cool." Readability? Comprehension? Forget that stuff. Author Vrest Orton, trying to fight back for all of us who cherish easy reading, wrote a remarkable piece on sans serif type in The National Review in 1977. Here are a few of his disagreements: "Any type that makes the message difficult to read in wrong...sans serif is cold, blunt, hard, stark, and rigid...it's a mongrel, has no history and it's only there to say, look at me...it's the most impossible type ever invented" I wish he was still around. We'd get along like old pals.

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      June 22 2011:      I wanted to write a piece on Casino Journal, so I asked my old pal Charles Anderer to answer a few questions. Charles is the Executive Editor, so he sent me about 3,500 words--single spaced. Okay, so it was a little smaller than that. The man is fecund. When I asked him what makes CJ different, he said, "Not being the official publication of any of the industry trade associations helps us stay focused on the quality of our content. I'm not criticizing our worthy competitors. It's just that from time to time we can let our editorial hair down in ways that benefit the industry." Such as? "We'll take a stand against the industry on smoking, for instance, because we think the industry needs to be more far-sighted on that issue. And we're the only independently audited publication in gaming, and we know this makes a difference to our advertisers." How about the digital front? "We offer eNewsletters from the show floor, podcasts, social media sponsorships, webinars, informational newsletters such as Games & Technology Report and Products of the Week." How come you don't take letters to the editor? "We'd run them if we got any. Or maybe not. A guy who must have been furious when Harry Reed was reelected wrote to tell me I was a member of the liberal media conspiracy, and punctuated his analysis with 'Nobody cares what Anderer thinks.' Come to think of it, I probably should have run it. It was funny." Final add: Casino Journal is home to a pair of excellent writers and old friends--Marian Green and Paul Doocey. Marian's grasp of the slots business is remarkable; Paul leads off every CJ edition with one of the smoothest, easy-to-read writing styles in the business.

      June 11 2011:      Sit down for this one. Get a grip. The Wall Street Journal says marketers spent $28.5 billion on Internet ads last year. That was up 15% from the year before. And this year the Net is expected to grow another 11%. But the lead of the Journal's story sort of gave away the futility of the ragout, rumble-bumble mess Internet advertising has become. Seeing the amazing amount of hard cash fleeing to the Internet, an clutch of high tech companies jumped in to get their share. They came armed with techniques for buying, targeting and measuring digital ads. Now specialized companies, says the Journal, are helping advertisers, "navigate the online advertising world." Forget about it. One quote deep inside the story is enough to make the big Net advertisers tap dance back to their home base and stay there to guard their cash. Writing about the La Quinta hotel chain, the Journal's Emily Steel says the company worked with a series of different online advertising firms to buy ads on a variety of digital media. As a result, the La Quinta people had a hard time judging which ads spurred hotel bookings.Then she quotes the company's VP of e-commerce: "We took it at face value that they all produced off-the-charts results," the guy said. Can you imagine what would happen to the marketing director of a big Las Vegas hotel if he mumbled something like that? Don't bother to write, pal. Just keep walking. And then there's the famous conclusion by Yankelovich Research. YR did a study of the Internet and found that consumers in every demographic group go out of their way to ignore Internet sales messages--and that 7 out of 10 Americans would pay money (pay money!) to block advertising and marketing messages. There's an army of venture capitalists out there nosing around for the one big hit that can build them a 20 million dollar home and a pleasant retirement in Florida. No wonder the Net is so screwed up.

      June 1 2011:      Your faithful reporter talks little about his past as a boxing judge, and I give those days only a few lines here as a lead-in to the finest boxer I've ever seen. As a judge for the Nevada State Athletic Commission I worked seven World championship matches, including Harold Johnson vs. Willie Pastrano in Las Vegas for the light-heavy title. All the champs I judged were skilled, well-conditioned boxers. All had proven themselves in the ring. All were determined to win every match. But none, in my opinion, had the conditioning and ferocity of Manny Pacquiao. At age 32, Manny has held the championship in eight weight classes. That's a record. He started as a flyweight (112 pounds) and worked his way up to light middleweight (154 pounds). His record is 53-3-2 with 38 knockouts. In his piece about Manny in the Wall Street Journal, Gordon Marino writes, "Unlike any fighter in history, he has packed on the pounds without surrendering his searing speed and pulverizing power." Manny's recent fight against veteran Shane Mosley was no contest from the first round on, but nothing like the beating he gave Antonio Margarito. In that match, says Marino, Manny threw1,069 punches and connected with 474 of them--the highest total ever recorded in a championship match by stats service Compubox. Want part of Manny's secret? Get a grip on something. He does 2,000 situps a day, interval training (fast running with pauses) and dashes around cones to help his footwork. In the morning he zips up long hill runs so fast only his dog can keep pace. In the afternoon, says his trainer, he spars 12 rounds followed by 14 separate exercise routines. His resting heartbeat is 42, but jumps to 205 during intense workouts. Marino quotes manager Alex Ariza as follows: "When Manny was a kid he would run five miles a day in flip flops. Try that." Uh, not today.

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      May 22 2011:      Have you ever read a book written by Jeff Dobkin? How about a story, or a how-to piece? Out here in Colorado Mountain Time the snow gets to us, then we're dodging the 98-degree days of summer. Which means we're always about a kilometer behind. Mr. Dobkin is not only a good pal--I think he's the best writer in America. I'm holding a single 8 1/2 x 11sheet of paper. The newspapers, magazines and newsletters in which Jeff's articles and columns on direct marketing have appeared take up one side. His speaking appearances take up the other. He's also written four books on direct marketing including Direct Marketing Strategies, probably the best DM book ever launched. And something else. Jeff has a murderous wit, even in his direct marketing tomes. You'd think he'd relax, maybe take his wife and kids to Florida on vacation. Okay, he did that. But who knows how he sneaked in a book named Vital Signs? Can you imagine a book of 100 signs, ready to hang in your car, office or home. No, forget the home. A car sign reads "Keep Honking While I Reload." Another says, "Horn Broken, Watch for Finger." A third reads, "If you don't like the way I'm driving, YOU come get these handcuffs off!" For the office it's "Of course I don't look busy...I did it right the first time." Or maybe, "I am not a bitch. I've just been in a very, very bad mood...for the past 30 years." And I suppose you could hang this next one in your den: "If life were fair...Elvis would be alive, and all the impersonators would be dead." You'll love anything by Dobkin. Phone Danielle Adams Publishing at 610-642-1000 to get started.

      May 11 2011:      You've heard play-by-play announcers in baseball and football. But have you ever heard one do a tornado? Here's my friend Jack Gentry, who lives in Collierville, Tennessee, breaking into the business on a tornado-filled night in late April: "Spent Monday night in our storm room...tornado warnings and sirens going all day...two tornados touched down in our city limits this afternoon...no one injured...back in the Storm Room Tuesday night...4 inches of rain interspersed with funnel clouds passing overhead...yesterday we had 10 inches of rain with funnel clouds over and around us...I had to guard two pumps to keep the house from flooding...periodically had to wade in 6 to 8 inches of water to clear pumps of trash...lightning strikes all about us, constant and explosive...never have been in an artillery barrage, but Tuesday and Wednesday night gave us a sense of what it must be like...thunder shook our house and rattled our windows...hail pounded us, limbs snapped, rain came in blinding torrents...Deborah herded our dogs and cats with every siren...dogs quickly learned to make a beeline for the storm room...one cat was cool, calm and collected, refused to be penned up with the dogs...she hissed and spit, snarled and slapped until we let her out...our primary concern was for Ross and Jacy (their children)...Ross slept in the hallway of his school dorm...Jacy was in the path of a storm that killed several people...a killer funnel cloud came down 5 miles north of her and killed 10 people who had gathered in a convenience store for protection...God's grace, dumb luck or both, we felt extremely fortunate." (P.S. Jack, Deborah and their children survived.)

      May 1 2011:      Do Blackjack and Craps tables ever intimidate the customers? Some pit bosses I know would laugh and say, "Hell, no." But others grudgingly admit the rules of those two games often scare players away. Some of them actually know how to play the games, but don't want to make an embarrassing mistake. In the mid-80s, when the old Sahara-Tahoe was a client, I used to go there every two weeks to see my pal Larry Close, the GM. We'd eat breakfast in a little pastry shop off the casino and most of the time a former dealer named Ted Gottlieb would join us. Ted had some working models of a BJ guide he named "Win Cards." Did I think casinos could use them to teach wary customers to play, and thereby remove the intimidation factor on table games? Well, maybe, I told him--so start making the rounds. Ted promptly packed his Win Cards, hired Pam Butler to help him do the marketing, and marched into battle. It wasn't easy, and the first few sales he and Pam made might have been a case of sheer persistence. But a chance meeting in 1988 (in an elevator!) with executives of Atlantic Associates put Win Cards into cruise ship casinos. Ted's colorful little plastic cards equipped with a dial to tell players the best plays, and when to make them at 21, Craps and Roulette, were perfect for cruise ships. And when Larry adopted Win Cards for The Mill Casino in Oregon, business began to move. Excuses such as "I'm not teaching anybody anything," and "They'll hurt the win margin" finally gave way to sales. In 25 years, Ted says, ten million players in more than 185 casinos, cruise ships, riverboats and tribal casinos bought Win Cards. Major casinos include Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, Harrah's/Harvey's Tahoe, and Circus Circus in Reno and Las Vegas. In 1986, Ted sold his Win Cards to casinos for $5 each--a price that has never changed. Congratulations, Ted and Pam, on the 25th anniversary of the product that just kept winning.

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      April 22 2011:      New CEO Larry Page showed up to speak to his company's investors at the "Google earnings call" in mid-April. He led off the meeting with a brief talk that ran to 392 words, says the Wall Street Journal, and about the only point he made was his excitement. Mr. Page, said the Journal, was "really excited" three times, "very excited" once, and "very, very excited" once. Near the end, he said he was "tremendously excited." Mr. Page needs a writer, and since I own no stock in Google I can give it to him straight. "Excitement" in all its forms from noun to adjective to adverb, is a worthless word. It stamps the bearer as a feckless individual, capable of only limited speech, lacking in imagination, and with a lifelong commitment to the trivial and the sterile. The word is as unproductive as a dead snail, as unimportant as a politician's plea that he works constantly for "the people," and as piddling as a Libyan dictator. You admit to being a dunderhead when you use it in a speech or in a sales letter--which is maddeningly common in the casino business. Even "hopefully," as in "Hopefully we'll leave on the morning flight," is its better. And the classic "You know," which has yanked the English language into the sewer, has an edge on it as well. Mr. Page should not be considered as the aiming point of my rant. He has to be smart to be a Google CEO, and anyone can get nervous in front of a room full of investors he's never met. But I wasn't kidding about hiring a writer to do the heavy lifting up front. Many CEOs have them, and the teleprompter is always a backup. (Editor's note: Mr. Romero hates it when casinos use such shopworn words as "excitement" in their sales pitches. He fights it constantly, and although he's a sane man it's always better if he doesn't see or hear the words "excitement," "excited" or any of their iterations.)

      April 11 2011:      It figures. I haven't seen Ben Borowsky in 26 years and when he sends me his famous Casino Chronicle the headline reads, "After 60-year run, Sahara Casino Hotel to close its doors on May 16." That stunned me. I was there as marketing director for 20 of those 60 years, and I've recently completed a nonfiction book about the Sahara. I named the book, "The Night the Beatles played Las Vegas." So I guess Ben's ESP worked overtime to bring everything together. His Casino Chronicle began publication in Atlantic City in 1983, and it's filled with those little bits of information you can't ignore. Miss an issue and you just know a secret was exposed, or somebody went broke, or some big star picked a fight with an owner and got flattened by the first punch. If you're in gaming you have to know what goes on. And there it is, a terse five-liner somewhere in Ben's latest issue. In 28 years, Ben and wife Joan have missed just one week of publication, courtesy of Hurricane Wilma in 2005. The two of them concentrated on Atlantic City casino news in the beginning, later brought in Las Vegas and now carry fascinating copy on many of the other casinos in the US. "You know you're doing most things right," says Ben, "when executives from different casinos complain we're picking on them, or favoring their competition." Ben and Joan have put a lot of their lives into this diminutive, 4-page publication that fits into a No.10 envelope. But its punch is as powerful as the owner's right cross that felled a noted singer years ago at the Sands in Las Vegas. For more info on the Chronicle, write these people today at casinochronicle@comcast.net or call them at 561-732-0685. Warning: once you read the CC, you've got to have one every week.

      April 1 2011:      The next time you take a ride on the New York subway, look closely at the various directional signs. They're all painted in the Swiss typeface Helvetica. probably the most frightful, disorderly, and inelegant typeface ever designed. In Helvetica and the New York Subway System, author Paul Shaw writes glowingly of the same typeface used on New York City garbage trucks--which is a perfect fit. Helvetica is like an evil creature that climbed from the depths to make the boobs of America's largest city live in perpetual discombobulation. In small sizes with the type "kerned" (moved closer together) Helvetica can hardly be read at all. Years ago the NY Subway System decided to repaint its signs. The new ones were installed, says the Wall Street Journal, but the old ones, painted with Helvetica, were left up. In 1989, Helvetica finally triumphed. The most repugnant, hard-to-read typeface ever invented was designated the typeface for the entire transit system. Gradually, I assume, New York ad agencies caught on. Nothing, apparently, could beat Helvetica. Yet in a five-year study by researcher Colin Wheildon this hideous typeface lowered "Good" reading comprehension to 12% compared to the Roman typeface you're reading--which scored 67% "Good." But insanity triumphed and Helvetica won again. Now it's used by virtually all the art directors in the US. Nothing is safe from this weaselly, troublesome, grotesque and repulsive typeface. It baffled a subway system, infected NY advertising agencies, then spread across our country like a pox to become the default type on most computers. Fight against Helvetica, my friends. The world is better off without it. And I would be far happier.

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      March 22 2011:      I love a funny slot story. Slot managers who know me always have some new ones when I show up. But many of today's casino marketers become slaves of the technology that drives modern business. They've isolated themselves from the managers and from the machines that bring in most of the money. Too bad, because the better you know your slot manager. The better you know the players who make up most of your customers. So if I want to write a piece on storytelling or just talk slots in general, I'll phone legendary slot consultant Butch Witcher. And I've never forgotten the day Butch told me got into the slot business by accident. "I was a detective for the Clark County Sheriff's office," said Witcher. "My partner and I loved the work. One day we were detailed to work the slot routes operated by the top independents in the county. Guys were cheating the machines right and left with everything from drills to beer can openers. We nailed a few of them and did a pretty good job. So the route people asked my partner and me to come to work for them full time. Naw, we told them. We like the police business. Is that right, they said, because we were going to pay you a dollar for every game and pinball machine on the combined routes.We asked how much would that be (we were making $427 a month). About $1,500 a month each, they said. We told them not to move a damn inch. We rushed downtown, tossed our resignations on the Sheriff's desk, and got back in 45 minutes."

      March 11 2011:      Would a lockout be good for pro football? Are you kidding me? Of course not. I'd miss it. It's an American game played by American kids. Only in America. Or at least that's what I thought until March 3, 2011, when Nate Jackson's story in the Wall Street Journal showed me there's a frightening side to the game. Yeah, I knew it was a tough game with lots of injuries--concussions, torn ligaments, players knocked unçoncious. But I never stopped to think much past that. Nate's point is this: "A lockout would provide a unique opportunity for players to take back control of their lives." He explains that in the NFL, "A player is told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, how to talk about doing it, and exactly what will happen to him if he doesn't do it. The relentless pursuit of football perfection is all that matters." An NFL team, says Nate, gives its men food, clothing and transportation all year long. All issues are settled--legal issues, child support payments, speeding tickets, car insurance, and if a player gets a jury summons, no worries. A call is made. But this is unrealistic, Nate adds. It keeps the player in a perpetual state of adolescence and guarantees he'll be unprepared for life outside of it. An extended lockout could have a positive effect on a player's long-term health because a majority of NFL players, he says, go bankrupt or suffer financial stress within two years of retirement. Their marriage falls apart, they get arrested, depressed, addicted. His final add is, "The average NFL career lasts only 3 1/2 years." Nate Jackson certainly handed us a dramatic contrast--and he changed my mind on the game I thought was damn near perfect. After I read his story I began to think I knew him. Could that be? In a way, yes. Nate was a wide receiver and tight end for six seasons, 2003 to 2008, for a team I live and die with--the Denver Broncos.

      March 1 2011:      Major casinos, as a group, give excellent service. But last weekend my wife and I stayed at a hotel that would run them out of business if they ever cancelled casino gaming and had to make it as a hotel alone. I'm talking about the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. It's not the rooms that make the Broadmoor so outstanding. It's the way the Broadmoor treats its guests every minute of the day. The moment we drove into the entrance two smartly uniformed valets made sure we couldn't pick up anything heavier than a coat. When we tipped them you'd have thought we slipped them a hundred bucks. A bellman named Jack rushed out of the front door, introduced himself and said he'd be our man if we wanted, needed or yearned for anything. The girls at the front desk smiled right through our check-in. You're probably thinking, "So? Casinos do that." But the smiling and greetings never stopped. It was as if every employee knew who we were. We walked across a bridge to have dinner at a special restaurant and all 14 of the employees we saw enroute smiled, said hello, waved or even asked us if we were enjoying ourselves. This sort of thing never stopped. The waitresses in the restaurant smiled as they hovered over us. When Jack the bellman had our bags on his cart he asked us to wait just a few seconds. Then he went back into our room and checked to see if we'd left anything. Then came a grand sendoff by the valet parkers. Data: Broadmoor has been a five-star hotel for 50 consecutive years--an all-time record. It sits on 3,000 gorgeous acres at the foot of Cheyenne mountain with 700 rooms and suites, 44 cottages, three championship golf courses, six tennis courts, day spa, fitness center, two pools, 24 specialty retail shops and five or six more pages I don't have room for. See for yourself at www.broadmoor.com.

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      February 22 2011:      I strolled out of Atlantic City's Resorts International in the winter of 1985, and never went back--until early this month. About a 24-year absence, give or take. I don't know what I expected when I walked into the "New" Resorts, but it was such a handsome place I thought I'd stumbled into the wrong joint. Everything looked new, the employees smiled and said hello, and they roomed me in a beauty of a tower that cost the previous owners $330 million or so to build. I wouldn't say the casino looked jammed, but it will be because Resorts belongs to Dennis Gomes now. They say he bought it for $30 million, which is impossible. Dennis told me the real figure was closer to, uh, $30 million. When Dennis takes over a casino the employees know good times are here again. Then the players know it. And sure enough, it all happens--even if Dennis has to bring in a bunch of smart aleck chickens to play Tic-Tac-Toe with the guests. I'm not making that up. It happened when he ran one of the other big AC casinos. The guy always restores the one element that casinos brag about but don't provide. That element is fun. So if it's not chickens at the "New" Resorts, look for poker-playing groundhogs or a line of dancing ducks. Memories of my work at the original Resorts swarmed back. At the final of a Craps tournament I put the contestants in tuxedos and told the casino I'd play the National Anthem at the start, just like they do in football. Heart attack, anyone? "Every player will stand, quit betting and put his hand over his heart," the casino manager said. I played it anyway. Not one player stood; not one player even looked up; not one player quit betting. Afterwards, we all laughed like hell--which is why Dennis Gomes is my guy and always will be. As we speak, the man is about to turn the "New" Resorts into the Roaring 20s. You like fun? he owns it.

      February 11 2011:      Before I launch at the commercials that surrounded the football game on Feb. 6, your faithful reporter (ahem) is pleased to remind you he correctly predicted the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games, and the Super Bowl. My score in the latter was Packers 24, Steelers 21, tantalizingly close to the actual outcome (just thought I'd throw that in). Most of the TV commercials could be defined as catastrophic fiascos of misadventure. But Christina Aguilera did make me chuckle as she warped a line of the national anthem, and I smiled at the kid in the Darth Vader ensemble. Herewith, five of the others. If you guess the sponsor correctly you're watching way too much TV. (1) A man is posed in several silly situations including one where an attendant rips a foot-long swath of hair from his chest (2) an alien spacecraft sucks up a car (3) A man finds himself in line with hundreds of white-clad persons, then falls in love when the cutest girl of the bunch takes off her earphones (4) Roseanne Barr gets flattened by a swinging log (5) Steelers players in some old clips knock the hell out of their opponents. Had enough? Me, too. Answers are at the bottom of the story. Maybe you get the idea I don't like funny ads. Wrong. I laugh at the good ones like everyone else. But if slapstick ads moved product, everyone would use them. This year's game proved even if you pay $3 million for 30 seconds on the Super Bowl, the going rate, your funny ad may tickle--but don't look for sales to soar. Sponsors of the five ghastly ads I gave you were, in order, LivingSocial.com, Kia Optima, Motorola XOM, Snickers, Castrol Edge. Ugh.

      February 1 2011:      Following my (ahem) correct calling of the NFC and AFC title games, we shift next to the Super Bowl, where on Feb. 6 in Dallas, the Green Bays will pack in the Steelers. But I gave you that prediction last week. This week you get the final score: Packers 24, Steelers 21. Okay, shall we get to the true importance of this game? It's the TV commercials. Viewers go wild for them. As you drive to work the next morning you can tune into any radio station on the dial and hear the hosts giggle and hoot over some of the worst TV ads ever produced. The hosts love to display their advertising expertise and always have a "funniest" commercial chosen, along with three or four more "funny" commercials as backups. Meanwhile, in front of every big screen in America, people make the same decisions, laugh at the same jokes and pick the same ads. The word for this entire demonic process is "dreadful." So this year, as I've done since 2000, my "after-the-game" comments of Feb. 11, will once again (in story form) describe the TV ads that radio hosts and the American people insist are "the funniest." You may remember the ad after I describe it, but you won't remember a single sponsor. And the sponsors, in some cases, have paid up to $3 million for a single ad. Funny ads have always ranked high on recall. They seldom have the content to actually sell anything.

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      January 22 2011:      Plan on betting the Super Bowl? Would you feel better if I gave you the winner right now? Okay, so it's kind of brash for me to think I can pick the champ this far in advance, but I've been taught by experts. The first guy I met in Las Vegas when I came to work there as sports editor of the Review-Journal was Jackie Gaughan. He ran a bookie joint almost right across the street from us. The guy could have made a super living just betting football. Anyway, Jackie showed me there's an art to picking big games--and the biggest is--well, you know. So let's look first at the NFC championship game on Sunday in Chicago. The Jay Cutler Bears are favored to win and move on to the Super Bowl. I'll take the Aaron Rodgers Green Bays. Some of the toughest old NFL pros around say Rodgers is the best QB in the business. I think so, too. In the AFC, the Mark Sanchez Jets take on the favored Ben Rothliswhatshisname Steelers. Sanchez is good but not quite there. Steelers win. In the big one on Feb. 6, Green Bay beats the Steelers as Rodgers throws 27 touchdown passes. Okay, not that many, but you get the idea. Now maybe you're fairly new to the gambling business and you're asking yourself who is this guy Jackie Gaughan. Well, the man the should be up near the top of the list of people who made downtown Las Vegas a winner. True.

      January 11 2011:      At the start of every year, the Wall Street Journal collects a lot of prominent admen, mostly from New York, and asks for their impression of advertising in the coming year. The admen then throw out the most mundane responses possible, because few, if any, have much to do with the creative side. One of the New York chief executives answered a question with this: "Last year showed us that Mobile ads can be sexy. This year they'll show us they have the brains to match." You have to understand that everyone in advertising is crazy about mobile ads. And it's true that some marketers are sending more money in that direction. But personally, I think mobile will slowly fade as marketers and "gadget makers" increasingly add Facebook to their products. Facebook has a story in some newspaper's marketing section damn near every day. Already, says the Journal, more than two million websites and hundreds of devices have integrated with Facebook. Sony's new camcorders and the Bloggie camera give you the ability to upload photos and video directly to Facebook. Microsoft's new Kinect motion-gaming accessory lets players post photos of themselves on Facebook. And if you own one of the Barnes & Noble Nook color readers, you can loan books to your Facebook friends. Facebook, currently private, says it will soon sell some of its own stock. The company already is valued at more than $50 billion. What do you think of Mobile advertising now?

      January 1 2011:      Until John Banzhaf formed ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) in 1967, smokers had the right to light up anyplace, anytime. Nonsmokers had the right to leave, but it's not easy when the plane is at 35,000 feet. As ASH grew, it trained its gunsights first on cigarette commercials, then on airliners, then on busses and public places. When they fell, ASH then won lower insurance premiums for nonsmokers. If you checked their Web site today you'd find their newest targets are cars where children are present, and casinos. In my state, Colorado, smoking was banned in casinos a year ago. Owners and bosses predicted woeful drops in revenue, but after an early downturn, most players returned. In Las Vegas, meanwhile, a battle is underway pitting Steve Wynn and his Wynn Las Vegas property on the Strip against Kanie Kastroll, who claims the casino doesn't protect its employees from second hand tobacco smoke. Kastroll seeks class-action status, and last October he moved closer when a federal judge denied Wynn's motion to dismiss. Reporter Steve Green wrote a powerful, non-partisan piece on it for the Las Vegas Sun. In it, he pointed out the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, which specifically allows smoking in casinos. Then he revealed one of the casino's odd rules--if a player "purposefully directs smoke toward a dealer," the dealer can send for a "casino service team" that will ask the player to redirect his smoke. I called Wynn's attorneys in Las Vegas to see if the case had been settled. "Still pending," was the answer.

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      December 22 2010:      Steve Norton has been in the gaming business longer than I have. That, in itself, shows a determined longevity in a business that fells even the hardiest. The guy took his BS in Business and dove right into gaming after graduating from college. He worked for Huntington Hartford and eventually became VP/Treasurer/Controller of Paradise Island. And in the mid-70s, when New Jersey was diddling with casino gaming, he helped the legislature and the Attorney General form the Casino Control Act. Can you believe the guy eased language into the Act that prohibited advertising or promoting payback percentages? It allowed Resorts International in the early years to hold 13% on slot coin in. After Resorts hired him as a marketer, the stock went from $3 to more than $300. I met Steve at Resorts in 1985, when my partners and I were hired to help the casino's marketing efforts. I don't know how much we did for Resorts, but we had fun there--especially after the night we had the Star Spangled Banner played for the first time in a casino. If Steve was still around, I know he enjoyed that one. He bounced from casino to casino after that (including Argosy for more than five years) and finally wound up as investor/director for his own company, Norton Management. These days he writes blogs on gaming, fires off gaming stories to a 1,000-name email file and 25 sub-groups, and forwards news releases on gaming, music, dance, humor and health issues and any other damn thing that comes to mind.. I mean, the guy is living. Want to get on Steve's list? Just address steve@nortonmanagement.com. I guarantee you'll admire the guy.

      December 11 2010:      I took a quick look at an Associated Press headline a couple of days ago. It read, "Case grows for life on other worlds--but no one knows for sure." So I laughed and went about my business. The last part of the headline accurately portrayed the views of most scientists. So what did I find so amusing? Maybe it was the huge, silent, boomerang-shaped aircraft my wife and I saw directly overhead one night in the 1980s. Or the night in Las Vegas when eight brilliant lights in a loose formation about a half mile wide swept out of the east, flashed past and disappeared in the west at a speed I calculated at more than 6,000 miles per hour. Or one of the other occasions when I saw strange bullet-shaped objects or discs in the sky. As a UFO investigator in the 70s I interviewed a number of men and women who had sightings even more spectacular than mine. And if you watched the "UFO Hunters" series on the History Channel earlier this year, I was the lead investigator in the Johnny Sands case that occurred one dark night on Blue Diamond Road just outside Las Vegas. Johnny first saw a strange craft overhead, then came face to face with two creatures from...out there. The part of the AP headline that read, "But no one knows for sure," reflected the scientific community's intransigence. And that's why I laughed. No one knows for sure while they've been visiting earth for centuries? No one knows for sure when the few scientists who believe in visitations from other worlds confirm their own sightings? In a court of law a man can send another man to jail if he swears he saw him commit a crime. But if a man swears he saw a UFO, the next question often is,"Do you drink, air?"

      December 1 2010:      Jane Leavy's new book, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood, has sold 100,000 copies in little more than a month. The Wall Street Journal says it's now about to become an "enhanced e-book with eight videos showing the Yankee Hall-of-Famer's swing as both a right-handed and left-handed batter." Fine for the book business, but I don't need digital to remind me of his swing. It's embedded in my mind. Mickey and Del Webb were pals, and The Mick always played in the pro-am portion of Mr. Webb's Sahara Invitational golf tournament in the 60s and 70s in Las Vegas. Here's something I wrote about the Yankee slugger recently:

"Mickey wasn't a super golfer. But when he took his stance on the tee, no one in the gallery breathed. The man could drive it as far as any pro in the game. You could have shot film and seen every man in the gallery shaking his head in disbelief after Mickey crushed one.

"The last shot I saw him hit looked like most of the others I'd seen. First you saw those huge forearm muscles tense--and when Mickey's forearms tensed, even mean guys stepped back. He always shifted his feet and tried to relax but he still looked like a guy on a mission to pulverize every golf ball in America.

"When he finally launched his driver he struck it so perfectly the "crack" made the men around him instinctively flinch. Some even ducked for cover. The ball rose to about 25 feet and stayed there for maybe 75 yards. Then it darted upward like an F-16 just as the wheels cleared. At the top of its trajectory it must have been 90 feet high. It touched down more than 350 yards from the tee box.

"Of course, it landed in the wrong fairway. It usually did. So The Mick had to shoot over a tree and he scuffed the shot and wound up with a seven. But no one ever expected Mickey to be a terrific golfer. The gallery was with him no matter what he shot. We were all proud to walk with an American legend and a baseball immortal. Mickey Mantle, 1931-1995, RIP."

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      November 22 2010:      So you think you know a lot about professional football. Okay, wisenheimer, who was Elbert Woods? Blew it, didn't you? Have no idea, do you? In 1989, he was the best running back the Bengals could put on the field. But that wasn't enough, so he invented a dance and inflicted it on the fans after each touchdown. Maybe now you remember the Ickey Shuffle. Following a TD, Elbert would break into a series of clumsy shuffles, leap backwards, spike the ball and twirl his finger a few times. Worst dancer I've ever seen. But now there's another post-touchdown dance catching on. A hip hop group called Cali Swag District already has a hit song named "Teach Me How to Dougie." Doing the Dougie is far better than the "Ickey Shuffle," believe me. So get used to watching it, and not just on the football field. Wizards basketball star John Wall did it during a warmup and he's now a big hit on YouTube; the Oregon University duck mascot did it on a prime time TV broadcast; the president of Texas A&M University did it wearing a sports coat; Jets receiver Braylon Edwards drew a penalty for doing it after a TD. The Wall Street Journal let me down when they tried to describe the dance, but here's what I think they meant: first you Shimmy Like Your sister Kate (that's an old New Orleans jazz hit). Next you run your hands through your hair four or five times, then back to the shimmy again. So what did you want--the Dougie step by step? Start practicing.

      November 11 2010:      I just read a professional piece of writing by the Casino Journal's Paul Doocey, one of the best. You know a piece like Paul's is good when you can rip through it in minutes and still remember all the high points. And "The Last Resort" in November's Journal was pretty close to perfect. Paul had filled it with comments from a platoon of experts on the opening next month of the Las Vegas Cosmopolitan--a $3.9 billion, twin tower with 2,998 rooms and condos and a 74,000 square-foot casino. Some predicted "growing pains" until the economy recovers. Others opined on room rates, the "brand," how long it will take to make a profit, the design, the meeting space, the spa, the 14 restaurants and the property's arrangement with Marriott to drive hotel visitation. The Comso apparently has covered damn near everything needed for a successful operation. But I wondered--does all that hardware guarantee repeat business? Do customers come back again and again because they love the luxury and the location? I've been in the business for more than 40 years and I know luxury helps. But the key is friendship. I still remember bosses from my Sahara days who turned customer relationships into annuities. Some customers told me they kept coming back because the boss they met on their first visit treated them like royalty. And he was still the man, the rock, their real connection to the Sahara, ten years later. Making a lifelong friend out of a customer still beats a new swimming pool

      November 1 2010:      This is one terrific NFL season. Any team can win any week.The 2009 rookie running backs are slicker than The Amazing Kreskin. The burly defenders are tougher than the AFLAC duck. It's a year when the longest of the longshots could win the Super Bowl. Wow! Can't you just imagine the 2011 season? Hold up there, Jack. The league and the players union are as far apart as the moon and New York City. If they don't agree to a contract by the start of summer, the NFL will lose $125M from now through March 1, says the Wall Street Journal. Plus another $400M in March, when season ticket holders usually renew. Plus another $500M from April through August because the pre-season games will vanish. Plus each team will lose $8M for every missed home game. The Journal called it "a sobering financial forecast." I'll say. The league wants to reduce player salaries by 18%.The union opposes all salary cuts. If the NFL throws a lockout at the players, you can expect the players to decertify the union. Then the players can line up against the league in court under antitrust laws, not labor laws. Oh, oh. Looks bad for the NFL. And bad for the players. Hot damn! I told you the 2011 season would be a winner.

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      October 22 2010:      When I sit down to read today's newspapers I'm always jolted by the acidity of the writing. Displeasure, resentment and hate have become the norm. Never mind the good and desirable in society. Go for the jugular. Does bad news outsell good news? Damn right it does. You don't find it as much in the routine stories; for genuine anger in print, turn to a columnist, a reporter on assignment or an OpEd. On Oct. 2, for example, the headline on a New York Times online story read, "Las Vegas suffering like never before." And when you read on, the writer tries to prove it. "Gambling revenues have hit the skids...the construction industry collapses...the nation's gambling capital is staggering...deepest economic rut since the l940s... many cities across the country are beginning to see the end of the recession--but not this one." Exactly ten days later the State Gaming Control Board's report got a headline that shouted, "Banner month for Strip revenues." What? A town in the "deepest economic rut since the l940s" had a 21% year over year increase in August? And won $544.3 million in the same month? With a slot win of $245.9 million, the largest in three years? And an 11.5% increase in win statewide? Hey, the New York Times guy could have interviewed someone on the Gaming Board, or sought comment from some of the 41 Strip casinos, Instead, he quoted a UNLV gaming research prof who said, "It's been in bad shape before--but not this bad." I don't fault the prof. He simply didn't know when the Times comes to Las Vegas, its never looking to praise us.

      October 11 2010:      If you call yourself a direct marketer you should know the meaning of "negative option." It's used consistently on the Internet by major Web sites who sell everything from magazines to vitamins. Some direct marketers detest it. Others (those who make a living from it) love and cherish it. Personally, I've never used it and never will. It's just not the way I like to sell, but it's cleaner now than it used to be. Before the Internet burst upon us, the negative option pitching a magazine or newsletter revealed itself only if you read every word of fine print before you ordered. Most didn't. They simply subscribed, paid for a year in advance via credit card, and forgot about it. But the option gave a publisher the right to automatically renew your subscription at the end of a year unless you wrote to cancel it. Today it works pretty much the same way. But publishers lure you in with, say, three free issues up front, and and then bill you for a year. But most do say you can cancel at any time. How do I know it works so well these days? Because all the big sellers on the Net keep doing it. Even the catalogs use it now, sometimes passing it off as a "special gift." But many of the operators who give you the pitch won't know what you're talking about if you ask if the deal is a "negative option."

      October 1 2010:      It' s embarrassing. The clear and simple fact is, few casinos these days know what a "benefit" is. If they did they'd use it to present their best players with persuasive selling arguments that drive up response to direct mail and ads. Instead of benefits, casino mail is jammed with "features." There's a huge difference in the two terms. Features announce the product or the prize. Benefits sell them. I've seen casinos announce a $100,000 grand prize (a feature) and assume customers and prospects will take it from there and respond. Of course, many do. But I'd list a dozen things a customer could do or buy with $100,000 in his bank account. I'd give him glorious reasons to come to the casino and make an entry every night. No one does that. In some of my seminars I've asked the audience if "A separate VIP line for houseguests only at the coffee shop," was a feature or a benefit. Most think it's a benefit. Wrong. The benefit is, "You go right to your table, with no waiting, while everyone else stands in line." Still, casinos often brag about their slots in generalities rather than put the dreams in a customer's mind to make him respond. I've been writing about this for decades. I've made converts, too, but when the new marketing director checks in I usually have to start all over again.

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      September 22 2010:      Presenting the funniest stuff I've read in the last month about the high tech revolution. Of course, you may have seen much funnier, but what the hell. (1) At Microsoft, writes Nick Wingfield in the Wall Street Journal, the employees are passionate users of Apple's iPhone--but they dare not haul it out in front of the boss, Steve Ballmer. When that happened at an employees rally, Mr. Ballmer grabbed the evil device and pretended to stomp on it in front of thousands of his people. (2) Kevin Horrigan, writing in the St.Louis Post Dispatch, quotes Dr. Richard Menken as follows: "From the moment they wake up in the morning to the moment they lose consciousness at night, Americans are in near-constant contact with bright, pulsating rectangles (read, computer screens)." Horrigan's conclusion: "Evolution has given us a brain that can literally change its mind..already social scientists have identified a symptom they call FOMO--Fear of Missing Out." (3) Now, when a big majority of Internet users would pay money (pay money!) to eliminate the ads that appear on their screens, AOL has announced it will offer larger, fancier ad formats. The ads, says Emily Steel in the Wall Street Journal, "are roughly four times as large as the ads that appear on the border of AOL Web pages." Oh, no!

      September 11 2010:      : In my last posting I wrote about the menace that free Social Media games such as "Farmville" and "Car Town" may present to the casino industry. Every year hundreds of thousands of young people people turn 21, I reasoned, and those are our people. Usually there's no problem. They march in to display their talents on our machines. And "Farmville" and "Car Town" by themselves don't present an imminent threat. But never underestimate the power of Social Media if they offer free games and rewards for playing them. Now comes a new threat from Fantasy Football. More than 20 million a year take part, says the AP, and the growth rate is estimated in double digits. Restaurants are pushing it hard by offering free appetizers, draft kits, meal discounts, gift cards and celebrities as judges. Dave & Buster's offers a free room, for gosh sake, plus 10% off food. Buffalo Wild Wings hands out $`100 in gift cards, and Hooters forks over "season tickets" totaling $500. If you hold your "draft party" at one of these places they lock you up for five months. Of course, I know some casinos offer super "draft parties" and hand out plenty of perks--and maybe they're not worried at all about losing customers to Taco Bell (a little joke, there). But Fantasy Football reminds me of the old "Calcutta Auction" parties where an individual (or syndicate) had to pay up to $25,000 to buy a champion golfer. When Calcuttas started to raise more than $100,000 in one night of "buying golfers," the PGA killed them.

      September 1 2010:      As I rose in the casino business we were all confident a new generation of players would always be there to sustain us. And to a certain extent, that's still the view. But I'm not so sure the "new generations" of this century will behave like the ones that came before them. A headline last month in the Wall Street Journal stopped me. It read, "Brands Friending Social Gaming Amid New Web Craze." It wasn't the kind of "social gaming" I expected--and I wonder what it means for casinos in the coming years. This new wave of "gaming" is headed by the Honda Motors "Car Town" site and a new McDonald's game named "Farmville," both on Facebook." Honda says games such as "Car Town" give them a better way to pitch products on social networks. The game is based on car collecting with players using credits to buy "virtual cars" and customize their own garage. "Farmville" from McDonald's is similar, and last March Microsoft gave away free "Farm Cash" to "Farmville" gamers to get a piece of the action (you got the "Farm Cash" if you joined Microsoft's Bing search engine). In June, says the Journal, "Farmville" had 9.4 million unique visitors who spent, on average, 36 minutes playing the game. "Car Town" says it had 500,000 users in its first week of operation. Now, Nielsen Company says this kind of social gaming has just passed email as the second most popular activity online. Companies such as Disney, General Mills and General Electric have been "experimenting" by placing their advertising on social gaming sites--a practice that's expected to grow 20% this year. How to you feel about the next generation of young slot players now? Will they be in your joint betting their money or at "Farmville" playing a game that's free? Ad agencies are smiling--and why not? "The Internet," wrote a columnist last month, "is rewiring our brains." (WSJ piece was by Suzanne Vranica.)

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      August 22 2010:      I was a sports editor (the Las Vegas Review-Journal) in my wild and crazy (read, young) days and I still appreciate good sportswriting. The best in the business is Allen Barra. What? You've never heard of him? If that's true, don't admit it. He writes for the best newspaper in the business, the Wall Street Journal. I saved his truly brilliant column on Yankee owner George Steinbrenner's death in July. His notes included the following: Bill Veeck, former White Sox owner, told him, "I like George. He breaks all the unwritten rules." He quoted syndicated columnist George Will quoting John Maynard Keynes thus, "George Steinbrenner is a boor and a buccaneer overflowing with the animal spirits that fuel capitalism in its rawer forms." He quoted Marvin Miller, founder of the Major League Baseball Players Association, with this one. "Baseball owners pay lip service to competition and free enterprise, then shudder when they see it in action. Not George." And Allen wrote this one himself: "In a fit of impatience, Steinbrenner fired Yogi Berra as Yankee manager just 16 games into the l985 season. For the next 14 years Mr. Berra, the most popular man in baseball, refused to have anything to do with the Yankees. Steinbrenner made the first move toward reconciliation when he visited the Berra Museum. Mr. Berra met him at the door and said,'You're !5 minutes late.' Steinbrenner, tearing up, replied, 'Yogi, I'm afraid I'm 14 years late.' You are the best, Mr, Barra.

      August 11 2010:      What are your best players saying and doing during this recession? Of course, we'd all like to know that. So the Master of the Market, that rogue Glenn Goulet, came up with the answers during the 7th annual Casino Marketing Conference in July at Paris Las Vegas. Four in 10 players have cut their gaming budgets because of the economy, Goulet said. Consumers are swamped with deals and offers. Top tier players say they're "Not winning." Some are going to the competition because it's close, luckier and gives better deals. But 32% say they just don't have the money. Among the factors that motivate players are comp room offers, 35%; direct mail cash and free play offers, 33%; loose machines, 30%. Top tier players value cash back comps; low tier players want rooms; mid tier players pose the biggest marketing challenge; interest in any one casino brand is decreasing. What's needed most? More direct mail, says Goulet. Players age 55 or older prefer mail as their primary source of casino information, and few are aware, recall or are influenced by traditional advertising. They respond to direct mail at a far greater rate than to email or Social Media. Also, those who are retired or just about to be have turned frugal. After the 2009 crash, many are concerned they'll outlive their investments.Were you hoping for something better? Not a chance--yet.

      August 1 2010:      What's America going to owe the world by 2020? Hell, nobody really knows. Not even Congress. I've heard as high as 17 trillion and as taxpayers, we're stuck with the tab. But now an estimate by something named the House Joint Tax Committee figures we can squeeze $42 billion out of online gaming as soon as we go through the formalities--like legalize them in the US and start taxing. Then lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee voted 41-22 last week to throw out the current law that bans online gaming. So it looks like a go. Okay, I know $42 billion approximates the size of a flea against what we'll owe, but it's a start. What we really need are new areas we can tax. For example, the President and members of Congress fly around in Air Force One as if it was their own personal airline and never pay a dime for any of their trips. I say tax them. And here's another. Maybe you've heard about the Pentagon being unable to find out what happened to several billion in cash. Tax the generals and admirals who run the place. Bet me they'll find the missing money by Friday. And what about the guys who win the world championship of poker? Tell them to send in every cent and let the government decide what they keep. Now suppose you win $90 million in the lottery. Will you settle for $4 million? Of course. You've had a free ride for too long. Do you have any more ideas? Send them to me at once. This is serious.

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      July 22 2010:      Years ago, driving back and forth from Las Vegas to Reno, I could always count on a forest of outdoor boards to spring up as I neared the next town. The message that predominated was "Loose Slots." I used to shake my head. Even if the slots really were "loose," only an amateur would advertise such a thing. "Loose" is just a claim--and a weak one at that. A "loose" machine can wipe you out just as fast as a "tight" machine. And if a player believes your "loose" claim and loses, he won't be back. What's more, he'll knock your store to everyone. But now comes an owner who actually did "loosen" his machines and vowed never to advertise it. I wasn't surprised when I read about South Point's Michael Gaughan in the Las Vegas Sun. In my first week as Review-Journal sports editor in the 50s, my first feature story was about his father, Jackie. I called him "The college-bred bookmaker from Creighton." Pretty soon Jackie owned downtown Las Vegas. In the Sun story, Liz Benstron writes,"Michael figured most players are superstitious and suspicious of any changes, so they wouldn't believe the casino's claims anyway." And that closes the case. I should stop by South Point one of these days and talk to Michael. I still remember a few stories Jackie told me and maybe he'd like to hear them.

      July 11 2010:      If you read the Las Vegas newspapers online, maybe you saw Liz Benston's story about the Aria Hotel and Casino in the Sun last month. The Aria, in City Center, opened last December, and the bad reviews showed up early. Benston, playing it straight (as she should have) wrote that glitches aren't unusual in the first weeks after a major hotel opens. But one review called it "A train wreck," and another said it was "A disaster of a place." And that was kind compared to the comments that followed on Tripadvisor.com, a Web site that Benston says has become required reading for hotel managers and apparently travelers as well. They included "Delays of an hour to get into a room, door keys and room phones that didn't work, a dark casino, overpriced food, clueless staff, and abysmal Housekeeping." But after working for 20 years at Del Webb's Sahara in the 60s and 70s, I know lousy advertising can often magnify such outrage. An Aria pre-opening TV spot, Benston writes, featured a piano solo, streetscape views and close-ups of wide-eyed visitors and said, "Words will fail you." I always wonder why some advertisers go for flapdoodle instead of benefits, and prefer to tease rather than being simple and direct. I've seen the Aria. It's beautiful, it's fun, and it didn't deserve the beating it took--or the advertising.

      July 1 2010:      More on the new book by Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. The book, says St.Louis Post Dispatch columnist Kevin Horrigan, is 276 pages long. He wonders if its length alone means it won't be read by people who need to read it. In The Shallows, Carr quotes developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf at Tufts University with this honey: "We are not only what we read, we are how we read...our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distractions, remains largely discouraged." Well, that's it for all you Tweeters and FaceBookers. Your rich mental connections are going to hell, along with your neural pathways. Carr's research shows that over time, we may even rewire our brains, losing the cells that support calm and linear thought. Losing calm? Name one casino marketing director who has an ounce of calm. Losing linear thought? Hey, take up golf and let the GM do all the thinking. And forget all those rumors about Net worshippers who show more and more signs of anxiety. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to stop writing this silly stuff, do a quick brain rewire job and and rush back to my fan base.

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      June 22 2010:      The annual Casino Marketing Conference rolls around for the seventh year, July 19-21, at Paris Las Vegas--just in time for you to learn something new to hustle through a summer that sees consumer spending tailing off. That ghastly forecast may or may not include the gaming business, so it behooves you to get current--and this show is about as contemporary as you can get. I'm talking Phil Satre, IGT chairman of the board, speaking on the state of the gaming industry; Angel Suarez, brand manager of ESPN. telling you how to make the most of your next "Big Idea," and panels and talks on Social Media, building brand affinity, budgeting casino advertising and the marketing plan that turned around Detroit's Greektown Casino. You'll hear twelve important speeches and panels, and you'll be there when Virginia McDowell, president and COO of Isle if Capri Casinos, gets the Conference's seventh annual Lifetime Achievement Award. On July 21, here come the Romero Awards that recognize excellence in seven key areas of casino marketing. Your faithful reporter will be on hand to exchange pleasantries with the audience, introduce the judges and help emcee Al Bernstein hand out the hardware. To put the cap on casino promotions, Dennis Conrad concludes the show with the best (and worst) efforts efforts of the past year. You' be crazy to miss all this instant knowledge. Sponsors Raving Consulting and BNP Media invite you to call Raving at 1-775-329-7864 and buy your way into this deal.

      June 11 2010:      "Is the Internet turning us, and especially our kids, into fast-twitch airheads incapable of profound cogitation?" asks science journalist John Horgan. John had just finished The Shallows, a new book by Nicholas Carr, and although he admits the net has "transformed my professional and personal life in many ways," he agrees with Carr. And if Carr is right, we're raising a generation of know-nothing dopes. To back up his opinion, Carr says, "When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking and superficial learning....a technology of forgetfulness." He believes the average Web page entices us and sends us to other pages while the user is under bombardment from email, RSS, Twitter, Facebook and others. Well, that happens, but more and more of my online friends are cutting away the many in favor of the few. Some began by joining almost every Social Network. Now they're down to one or two--and use those much less frequently. Carr admits he was one of the frantic ones, so to write The Shallows he moved to a mountain town in Colorado that had no cellphone and broadband Internet service. But really, he didn't give up that much. Your faithful reporter, who just completed his third book, has all the apps and gets a ton of email--but spends most of his day writing. And if I have 20 minutes left in the late afternoon, I'll scan a few sites and answer mail. I love and use the Internet, but I won't allow its teeth into me. (Thank you John Horgan for your excellent review in the Wall Street Journal.)

      June 1 2010:      The techies in California's Silicon Valley used to call themselves "evangelists." When that bored them they turned to "guru." Now, says the Wall Street Journal, "Guru is so Web 1.0." The hottest new title is "ninja." If you're looking for a job in Silicon Valley it might be best to apply "the sly skills of feudal Japanese warriors," a consulting expert told the Journal. "Ninja" is now so hip that one company changed its name to "Job Search Ninja." The craze has spread as far as Salt Lake City, where you can hire "ninjas" for $10 an hour to do everything from hauling junk to personal security. A New York company that makes and sells men's clothing online now calls its customer service reps "ninjas," adds the Journal. Even Amazon.com Inc., hosts a contest at job fairs in which the winners get a foam statue of a real ninja. By now you know where this is leading. I always thought "Casino Marketing Director," for example, was a bit staid. What about making it "Casino Marketing Ninja." And instead of General Manager," why not "Head Ninja?" And certainly, "Advertising Director" is so Web 1.0 they should change it at once. P.S. They're baffled by all this in Japan. Over there, "ninjas" appear mostly in TV dramas and cartoons. Just shows how far ahead of them we are.

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      May 22 2010:      Aaron Goldman stood well past six feet, with just the ghost of a frown that gave him a look of perpetual contemplation. We became close friends immediately, bound together by the brotherhood of long distance runners and our desires to one day complete a marathon. It seemed years away when we both began to run with the Las Vegas Track Club. Five miles left us laboring. We trained together as the months piled up and soon we could run up to fifteen miles and feel strong at the finish. Then to twenty miles. Aaron held a Ph.D in statistics, taught at UNLV and worked part time at Los Alamos on special government projects he always passed off as "math problems." Once he worked for weeks on the most efficient way to fill a box so that every bit of the space was occupied. At least, that's the way he described it. We raced every weekend with the Track Club and gradually became two of its best. One week he'd beat me, the next I'd beat him, but overall he was the superior runner. We both became successful marathoners who ran well under three hours, but while my love for running ebbed, his expanded. He ran 100-milers, then ran 151 miles in 48 hours at the age of 70. Then 200 miles in 72 hours at age 73. We lived far apart by this time but always kept in touch. We saw Aaron and his wife, Peggy, late last year. They had begun regular trips to Denver so doctors could treat his bile duct cancer, for which there is still no cure. We laughed and joked about the Las Vegas races we ran together. One day Aaron ran off the course, became lost, and didn't appear until the entire field had finished. He ran to the finish line where most of us had waited and stood clapping to urge him on. He stopped a foot short and turned away. "I don't deserve to finish," he told us. No one could laugh at someone so dedicated, so honest, so humble, so kind and gentle to everyone. Such men inspire us. His cancer worsened in February, his weight dropped and running became impossible. Aaron Sampson Goldman, 78, died on April 26, 2010. I never knew your middle name, my good friend, but it certainly fits. R.I.P.

      May 11 2010:      So US antitrust "enforcers" are showing interest in recent charges by competitors against Apple. What's new about that? The government always has a problem with private companies that make tons of money. The Wall Street Journal says the FTC and the Justice Department are "holding discussions,' and no one dares make a comment. Here's the problem: according to the Journal, "Apple has revised the rules to forbid developers from using software tools other than Apple's tools to build their programs." What the hell? If your company was on top you'd do the same thing. "Concerns have mounted," says the Journal, as Apple has become a dominant smartphone maker. Only if you're a competitor should you have problems with a company that has sold 85 million iPhones and iPod Touches, plus one million iPads right out of the chute. No wonder Apple's business model has stayed closed. Why shouldn't they deal with owners only? The plain fact is--Apple makes too much money. If Justice and the FTC can squeeze several million from the company it could operate the government for a full 15 minutes. No. Make that five minutes.

      May 1 2010:      So you're going to play a little Blackjack tonight at the local casino. Naturally, you want to be alert--even aroused. No problem. Just yawn a lot. Don't try to stop yourself by holding your mouth shut, just flare those nostrils and unhinge that jaw. Yawn, baby, yawn. The newest scientific evidence shows it cools your brain. And if there's anytime you really need a cool brain, it's at Blackjack Now you can have it thanks to Jessica Yadegaran's recent story in the Contra Casa Times. Here's what Jessica discovered: our brains are like computers. They operate more efficiently when cool. Yawning has nothing to do with boredom or rudeness. You yawn because your brain is too warm. You yawn at bedtime because that's when the body temperature is highest. Yawning begins in the womb, says one scientist, and only humans, chimps and baboons are contagious. Okay cool brain, now you'll kill 'em at the tables.

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      April 22 2010:      Did you hear about the new way to forecast economic trends? The "experts," whoever they are, simply traipse out to a busy subway station, or check the ticket sales for a play, or take a close look at sales of Diesel fuel. Then they give you an immediate figure on sales-tax revenue. The Wall Street Journal named it, "Reading High-Tech Tea Leaves," and admitted the method Is "unconventional" and "oddball." The upside appears to be all the time it saves. Thus, says the Journal, subway passenger traffic (San Francisco) can be used to forecast sales tax revenue; Broadway ticket sales (New York) can forecast tourist revenue, and Diesel fuel sales (California) can forecast industrial production. Just imagine how your casino can reduce expenses now. Do you want to know how the month will end? Count how many customers head for the games and slots when the show breaks. If the star is an-off color comic add 18%. Or check the bikinis at the pool. A nice crop induces your players to hang around instead of rushing to a nearby competitor, which means an upswing in slots. See how easy it is? Now you can rush into the GM's office and relay the good news by the 15th of every month. Maybe.

      April 11 2010:      Let's say you're a large casino in Las Vegas. You have a big budget, but you've decided to see how much money you can save and how much business you can generate from the Social Media. You join one of the largest, troll for casino-goers (or for those who'd like to be one) and make some nice progress. From here on, you can't be too careful about your content. Herewith, a lesson on the unlikely from Swiss candymaker Nestle. The company was surprised three weeks ago, says the Wall Street Journal, as "digitally savvy" environmental activists launched a three-pronged attack again Nestle's use of palm-oil in KitKat candy bars and other products. The protestors posted a negative video on YouTube, swamped Nestle's Facebook page and hit Twitter with claims Nestle is helping to destroy Indonesia's rain forests and potentially contributing to global warming. This is happening, protestors say, because Nestle purchases palm-oil from an Indonesian company that, according to Greenpeace, is clearing rain forests. Within days, 95,000 protestors swarmed over Nestle's Facebook page. P.S. Nestle says the firm in question supplied just 1.25% of Nestle's palm oil last year. Is anyone listening?

      April 1 2010:      Closing in on retirement, are you? Looking forward to sleeping in, playing a little golf, occupying yourself in a desultory but pleasant manner as the dictionary defines "puttering?" Better sit down for this one. A new survey concludes you'll need two, maybe even three million bucks to live happily ever after. A bit more than you expected, right? When Scottrade polled 226 investment advisers recently, 71 percent said $1 million is no longer enough for the average American family. The main reasons according to Scottrade: longer life spans, the threat of inflation and the uncertain future of Social Security benefits. Maybe they didn't want to hurt the government's feelings, but my guess is that an umpteen trillion dollar debt within 10 years and all sorts of ugly taxes figured in their conclusions somewhere. In Joe Mont's story for thestreet.com he says seniors (65 or older) may be the only generation that can scrape by on a lousy one million. A retirement specialist who took part in the survey says, "I've never been a big fan of earning less in retirement than you're making now." So seniors, forget the sleeping in and the golf. From here in in, your only chance is video poker.

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      March 22 2010:      Five major publishers will spend $90 million in advertising this year to convince readers and advertisers ´The Internet is fleeting. Magazines are immersive.¡ That?s the headline on the ad you?ll find in May inside Time, ESPN the Magazine, Vanity Fair. and others. The new determination arose after a two-year period in which magazine ad revenue took a hike. Now the big five publishers say ads are drifting back again. I hope they?re correct because magazines are usually filled with writing much more diverse and interesting than the stuff found in newspapers. But before they commit the $90 million maybe they should ask why advertisers pulled back in the first place. Since I?ve been in direct marketing for decades and love the ad business, I?m going to take a guess that will be derided by every ad agency that sees it. Magazine advertising went south because the advertisers got no measurable results. They ran their ads and nothing happened. Simple as that. Would you keep throwing your ad money down a hole or would you rather spend it where he results come across your desk every day? Here?s the overview: the creative people in many ad agencies can make handsome, colorful ads--but they don?t know how to sell. See my ´Tip of the Week¡ piece on your right and I?ll tell you why.

      March 11 2010:      Just imagine you're going to be away fishing for two or three days and you write some of your friends on Twitter to let them know where they can reach you. A "location-sharing service" named Foursquare picks up Twitter posts daily (yours among them) and posts them. Then a second company posts them again in a chronological list under the heading of "Recent Empty Homes." The name of this second company is "Please Rob Me." Are you beginning to see the picture? The AP story that unearthed this impossible little nonsense also revealed people are now "comfortable" sharing personal details on social sites such as Facebook. And now those same people are rushing to "location based" Web services such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt--none of which I've ever heard of. Well, you're reasoning, it shouldn't be hard to get "Please Rob Me" off the screen. Wrong. It's based in Holland and run by a guy named Boy Van Amstel, who says he's actually trying to point out that people are sharing too much information online without realizing it. And he says his site doesn't show empty homes or addresses. I don't care what his site shows. I don't like it.

      March 1 2010:      They're still scrambling around on the Web, trying to find out what type of advertising consumers want. Most don't want any. But those who do no longer will be held captive by the "pre-roll" ads they're required to watch before viewing online video clips. A new format named "Ad Selector" lets them choose the video clip they want to see. Sounds like a new form of torture to me, but the Wall Street Journal says consumers are more likely to watch and recall an ad they choose rather than having ads forced on them. Video ads, says the Journal, are among the fastest-growing parts of online advertising even though they're still a small part of the overall ad spending. Here's how "Ad Selector" hopes to drag in new media companies. Ads from three different brands appear and if a Web user likes one of them he clicks on it and watches. If the user doesn't click on one of them, says the Journal, the host company's ad server chooses one for him. "Ad Selector," says the Journal, trounced "pre-roll" by 2-1 in a two-month test. Media companies, however, still want to get a better measure of an ad's effectiveness. Same old story. The smart guys want proof their ads are selling something. So far, the all-powerful Web still relies on "recall scores," that don't prove a damn thing.

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      February 22 2010:      Your faithful reporter was an underage clarinetist and jazz freak in the late 40s, sneaking into joints at the beach in California to see the last of the greats. And to prove my credentials I ask a simple question. Can you hum the blues riff in Artie Shaw's "Summit Ridge Drive?" Author Tom Nolan calls the number "a masterpiece of small-combo jazz." If you've heard it you've never forgotten it. And now Nolan's new book on Shaw links this marvelous little piece to the start of the rock 'n' roll revolution. Here's how Nolan tells it: Shaw and Benny Goodman were the clarinet stars of the era, and both had pulled together small combos from their big bands. Shaw's "Gramercy 5" included drummer Nick Fatool, trumpeter Billy Butterfield and pianist Johnny Guarnieri. The night before they recorded their first set of records, Shaw asked Guarnieri if he could play the harpsichord. He couldn't, but after practicing into the night and the next morning, he learned it. When the combo recorded "Summit Ridge Drive," written by Shaw, Nolan says the winning combination of clarinet, trumpet and harpsichord proved to be a classic that sold millions. And here's Nolan quoting legendary Memphis record producer Sam Phillips, whose sessions with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash helped launch rock: "The best music gives us a unique and timeless solace. Listen to 'Summit Ridge Drive' by Artie Shaw." P.S. Nolan's book is "Three Chords for Beauty's Sake: The Life of Artie Shaw." I'd buy it.

      February 11 2010:      Lots of funny commercials in the Super Bowl. But funny advertising is like froth on the head of tap beer. You like it, then it's gone and forgotten. David Ogilvy, the best ad man who ever lived, called such commercials "A curse on the ad business." More like a curse on sponsors who pay two tabs--one to the ad agency, one to the network. The Super Bowl invariably produces the worst advertising of the year--if you prefer your ads to actually sell something stronger than froth. Okay then--on with the annual guessing game. If you remember even one of the sponsors of these throwaways, you win: (1) Two kids fly around on broomsticks, laughing and shouting. A flying monster appears and things get a bit dicey--but they elude him and fly on happily (2) Giant metal claws snatch any human within range. Monsters lurk in the background. One guy rides a claw, waves his arms and cheers (3) A couple (the man played by Chevvy Chase) makes hotel reservations, goes on vacation and has a terrible time. The parking lot attendant kicks their car and they're charged for "complimentary water" when they check out (4) Two guys in a pickup speed across an ocean pier with a live whale in the truck bed. The driver slams on the brakes and the pickup spins, ejecting the whale, who lands in the water and swims away. (5) The Bonus Commercial (you might get this one). NFL players in game uniforms sing a dumb song and embarrass themselves trying to dance. Coach Mike Ditka shouts a few words in a bit part. (Sponsor names lurk below.)

(1) Universal Orlando Resort (2) Vizio Internet Apps (3) HomeAway.com (4) Bridgestone (5) Boost Mobile

      February 1 2010:      The Romero "Guess the Sponsor" contest is now in its 10th year. If you're in charge of advertising at any casino on earth (or even if you just grind out ads for another type of business) here's the deal. First, watch the Super Bowl's allegedly miraculous but mostly hopeless commercials. Then check this space on Feb. 11, and play "Guess the Sponsor." I write four or five descriptions of Super Bowl commercials, you read them, then try to remember who sponsored them. Sounds easy, right? You'll be lucky to get even one. This really is a contest for ad directors and creatives who think they know how to sell. But if their ad sponsors can't be recalled a day or so later, what good were the ads? Sounds absurd, but most viewers laugh when they see the invariably nonsensical spots but forget the sponsors in mere seconds. This is not the sort of advertising that sells anything, but sponsors seem to love it because it's funny. The ad agencies, of course, love it because they get commissions on spots that cost from 2.5 to 2.8 million for 30 seconds--and can't be tracked for effectiveness. Love--it's wonderful. P.S. Take the test on Feb. 11.

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      January 22 2010:      (Continued from Jan. 11) Fact was, casino direct mail succeeded mostly because of the quality of our lists. If you send the right offer to the right list you can misspell every other word and get results. So casinos assumed a format based on "originality" was fine. But imagine the uptick in response if you had not only the right offer and right list, but the high touch, personal approach as well. But I seldom see it in today's casino mail. The writers don't understand the more adjectives they use the more they weaken their argument. And many have never learned the difference between features and benefits and how to exploit the difference. Too bad. A growing expression of high tech over high touch is Email. In online magazines the writers chortle when postage costs go up or direct mail takes a phony hit from environmental activists. They predict the imminent demise of mail and a massive switch to Email. That happens--but not if you're trying to sell a product, a service or a package deal in Las Vegas. If you take a close look at our industry, what kind of advertising has been salvation for the casinos that know how to use it?. Not general advertising, not Email, not viral, not mobile and not the social networks . Direct mail still does the job.

      January 11 2010:      (Continued from Jan. 11) What I didn't realize in those early days of direct mail was that the casino business would embrace high tech but not "high touch," as John Naisbitt called it in Megatrends. As mail became the most productive casino advertising medium, technology overpowered salesmanship; graphics overpowered words. The enemy turned out to be originality. In general advertising, originality is everything. The more goofy and confusing ideas you have, the more you get paid. In direct marketing we step back and draw our swords when clients ask us to get original. The word is anathema. As David Ogilvy stated so bluntly, "originality" to direct marketers means untested and untried. Let me elaborate. It means playing hunches; it means guessing; it means the cool beats the proven; it means the dazzling trounces the comprehensive; it means the indirect trumps the direct. With so many direct mail tactics proven to work by thousands of consumer mailings, why experiment? But no. We turned out tons of good-looking but irrelevant mail. Instead of talking about the customer (high touch) it talked about the casino. Instead of playing to direct mail's strength we played to its weakness. (To be concluded in my posting of Jan. 22).

      January 1 2010:      One day in the late 60's a guy named Charlie Tarr opened a Las Vegas lettershop. "Addressing & Mailing, Inc.," I think he named it. I still remember Charlie dashing into my office at the Sahara Las Vegas and telling me he could actually give me selected zip codes. For a guy laboring 40 years ago in the uncertain beginnings of casino direct mail, it was heady stuff. The options! The possibilities! The sheer power! The precise targeting! Okay, so I overdid that a little. But from that day forward I relegated traditional advertising to a secondary position behind direct marketing. I knew I had a winner. I loved direct marketing in general (and direct mail in particular) because it was so scientific, so clinical. There was no mystique about it, no gut emotion that made advertisers part with their money on faith alone. It either delivered or you knew the reason why. For a whole industry like ours sustained by a slight mathematical advantage, it was perfect. I laughed my head off the first time I ever heard the old quote, "I know half my advertising is wasted. I just don't know which half." With direct response advertising you knew what every penny did for you. How embarrassing, I thought, for a general advertiser to be so blatantly uninformed that he brags about his ignorance. What rational casino advertiser would put up with that? Hey, the players are supposed to guess--not the casino. (To be continued in my posting of Jan. 11).

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