A view to more rooms

The demise of the New Frontier will wipe 984 rooms from Las Vegas' room inventory, the world's largest.

Once the Elad Group completes the Frontier's replacement, the result will be a net gain of more than 2,500 rooms on the site. The hotel, along with CityCenter, Echelon, Encore, Palazzo and other projects under development on the Strip will boost room inventory to about 170,000 by the end of 2010, compared to the current total of 133,000.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., doesn't have a problem with Internet gambling, she told a group of Las Vegas journalists recently.

Berkley believes she has enough bipartisan support for her proposed bill seeking a federal study of the issue. She hopes the House Judiciary Committee will take up the matter this year.

The date 07/07/07 will be lucky for Las Vegas hotel operators. Numerology-oriented tourists are locking up hotel rooms in Las Vegas for the lucky seven date in less than two months. Operators of the Web site Hotels.com report bookings for that date in Las Vegas are up, you guessed it, by 77 percent over the same day in 2006.

The Pechanga casino in Temecula, Calif., opened the state's first high-stakes gaming area, spending $14 million for a 16,000-square-foot area where the minimum table game wager is $100 million.

Pechanga is Riverside County's largest American Indian-operated casino.

While announcing the company's $704 million Margaritaville development in Biloxi, Miss., Harrah's Chief Executive Officer Gary Loveman said that Las Vegas expansion is still on his company's radar.

Harrah's owns seven Strip properties and large land holdings along Koval Lane.

"I'm not sure you'll hear about it in one fell swoop," he said. "But you'll hear about it incrementally fairly soon."

The former Bally's New Orleans property reopened in St. Mary Parish as the Amelia Belle. The boat, which is owned by Columbia Sussex Corp., has been out of operation since late 2005 ... Fiesta Rancho, reversing a trend, closed its five-table poker room May 13; it was one of the few poker venues in the valley that still permitted smoking ... The Mirage has temporarily closed the California Pizza Kitchen for remodeling. Changes are part of upgrades at the casino; the restaurant, outfitted with new flat-screen televisions, reopens Friday ... Sports bettors on the Strip have a new, temporary locale at which to drown their sorrows and tear up their parlay tickets; the sports book at Harrah's has been moved to the piano bar while a remodeling is under way; it will reopen Aug. 1.

The Inside Gaming column is compiled by Review-Journal gaming and tourism writers Howard Stutz, Benjamin Spillman and Arnold M. Knightly. Send your tips about the gaming and tourism industry to insidegaming@ reviewjournal.com.