By the mid 1960s, Las Vegas was well on its way to establishing itself as the gaming and sports betting capital of the world. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t room for another visionary to challenge the status quo and expand the concept of those who had come before him. Of the many daring dreamers and schemers who have left their legacy in this desert oasis, here’s a look at one of the four men who really made an impact.

Part 2: The Man Who Bought Las Vegas.

Early in his life he was known as a swashbuckling aviator, a playboy who
romanced Hollywood actresses and Las Vegas showgirls, a shrewd and often ruthless businessman who parlayed an oil drilling bit into one of the world’s great fortunes, and the man who had designed a special uplift bra for the actress Jane Russell to wear in the motion picture, “The Outlaw.”

By his twilight years he had degenerated into a pathetic, paranoid,
long-haired, straggly bearded, reclusive billionaire so fearful of disease he avoided all human contact, spending most of his time alone in a darkened room, surrounded by boxes of Kleenex and covered only by a bed sheet. When the end mercifully came, April 5, 1976, at the age of 70, at 3,000 feet aboard an airplane out of Acapulco bound for Houston, his once sturdy, 6-foot, 4-inch frame carried a mere 90 pounds.

But somewhere between the genuine genius and the mystifying madness was the real Howard Hughes, the man who tried to buy Las Vegas and mold it in his image. The amazing part is that he nearly got away with it.

Hughes was a month shy of his 61^st birthday when he arrived in Las
Vegas by train from Boston and took up residency on the top floor of the Desert Inn, Nov. 27, 1966. Only six months earlier, Hughes had sold TWA, the fledgling airline he had first bought for $1 million in 1939, for $546 million. Meanwhile, his Hughes Aircraft Co., which produced weapons for the US government, was valued at $1 billion and his Hughes Tool Company would fetch an additional $150 million in 1972. There also was a Hughes helicopter division, Hughes Air-West, a television station in New York, an architectural firm, as well as substantial property holdings in California and the Bahamas.

Howard Hughes was a very rich man.

So when Moe Dalitz, the feisty owner of the Desert Inn, sought to make good on a promise from Hughes that the billionaire would vacate his hotel by Christmas, instead of moving out, Hughes bought him out. It
was the beginning of Hughes’ attempt to make Las Vegas his own private Monopoly board.

Under the umbrella of his huge conglomerate, Summa Corporation, Hughes quickly acquired the Frontier, Castaways, Landmark, Silver Slipper and Sands hotel-casinos in Las Vegas as well as Harold’s Club in Reno. Hughes also negotiated to purchase Caesars Palace, the Dunes, Stardust and Riviera in Las Vegas, Harrah’s in Reno and Lake Tahoe, and Harvey’s in Lake Tahoe. Pressure from the federal government in the form of possible anti-trust action against him probably prevented those
sales but Hughes consoled himself with 2,000 mining claims in the state, 30,000 acres of real estate, including most of the land around the airport, and another TV station.

Because of the hundreds of millions of dollars he invested in the Las
Vegas valley, money that revitalized a stagnant if not decaying industry, Hughes expected, and usually received, preferential treatment. Hence, his casinos were dutifully licensed despite the fact that Hughes refused to appear before gaming authorities, much less be photographed—something that hadn’t occurred since 1957 – fingerprinted or interviewed.

After four year, Hughes left Las Vegas, not only annoyed that he had failed to control every aspect of the city’s destiny, but melancholy and fearful that his many contributions to Las Vegas’ growth and prosperity might go unappreciated.

”So now I wind up a supposedly successful businessman who has wrecked his health and consumed the best part of his life in the process,” writes Hughes in Citizen Hughes, a biography by Michael Drosnin which
explores the eccentric billionaire through internal memos and notes in Hughes’ own hand. “I can’t help but feel I must have given something to this community.”

As I wandered through the vibrant streets of today’s Las Vegas, marveling at the gambling and sports betting wonderland it has become, I couldn’t help but think about the excitement that awaits on a เว็บไซต์พนันฟุตบอล.

Next, Part 3: The Man Who Played Las Vegas.

This article was written by Luken Karel on behalf of OffshoreInsiders.com for http://www.thegreek.com

Entertainment became linked with Las
Vegas in the 1940s when savvy city planners and casino
entrepreneurs rightly reasoned that even hard-edged gamblers would need an
occasional respite from the drudgery of table games and the challenge of sports
betting that had lured them to this desert outpost in the first place. Of the
many who came to sing, dance and tell jokes was one so
unique that he set the standard for the glitzy performances that have become
the city’s staple. He joins Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel
and Howard Hughes as the third of four men who helped make Las
Vegas the most unique city in the world.

Part 3: The Man Who Played Las Vegas.

Although classically trained and universally recognized as one of the foremost
pianists in the world, Walter Valentino Liberace, the recipient of six gold
record albums and two Emmy Awards, became even better known as the symbol of
Las Vegas entertainment, a flamboyant, over-the-top performer who represented
the scorned image of wretched excess often associated with many of Las Vegas’
stage acts.

It is perhaps ironic that Liberace, who first performed in Las
Vegas in 1942 and whose talent on the keyboards was
without dispute, nevertheless helped pave the way for a succession of marginal
performers who offered more style than substance to their audiences. Without Liberace,
there probably never could have been a Charo, a Lola Falana, or the slew of Elvis impersonators who continue to
earn their livings in the city that brazenly refers to itself as “the
Entertainment Capital of the World.”

But marginal musicians and singers weren’t the only beneficiaries of Liberace’s
conscious, if insidious, pushing of the Las Vegas
entertainment envelope.

In a city where reality is no closer than the next bus ride home and the
unexpected now has become the anticipated, illusionists such as David
Copperfield, Siegfried & Roy, and Lance Burton owe a measure of their
success, if not their very existence, to Liberace’s underrated ability to
transcend the boundaries of traditional entertainment.

And it’s something less than a stretch to suggest that the audience’s
acceptance of Liberace’s effeminate manner cleared the path for the
acquiescence of such long-running gender-bender acts as Boylesque
and La Cage.

Through it all – the ostentatious sequined gowns, the ever-present candelabra,
the gaudy gems, the spectacular pianos, the shtick that overwhelmed the music –
Liberace understood what he was doing.

”I’m the first to admit my stage costumes have become a very expensive joke but
I have fun with them and the audience shares that fun with me,” he said.

But Liberace, who died in 1987 at age 67, had a serious side, too. In 1976 he
created the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts which,
over the years, has funded over $5 million in scholarships to 2,200 students at
110 colleges and universities across the nation.

In 1979, Liberace also built the Liberace
Museum, a fantasyland for adults
comprised of a trio of buildings located in southeast Las
Vegas. Walking through the non-profit museum, one can
easily imagine how Alice felt when
she first peered through the looking glass. The museum, which is stocked with
mementos and items from Liberace’s professional and personal life (though it’s
not easy to tell the two apart) has little relevance to most people’s reality. In
other words, it fits perfectly in Las Vegas.

Liberace wasn’t a visionary in the mold of Siegel or Hughes but he was as much
an innovator, bringing a new, bolder type of entertainment to Las
Vegas that transformed the industry and attracted
people, many of who didn’t fit the prototype of the average gambler, to the
city. After one of his shows, these same folks would hit the slots and table
games and engage in sports betting, an unexpected but welcomed part of the
legacy that is Liberace’s enduring influence on Las Vegas.

This article was written on behalf of OffshoreInsiders.com
by Luken Karel for http://www.thegreek.com.

Las Vegas
always has been a city built on hopes and aspirations but only a handful of
true visionaries have had a unique and lasting impact of the growth and
direction of this desert outpost. Of the four pillars of Las
Vegas innovation, Benjamin “Bugsy”
Siegel, Howard Hughes and Liberace are gone but one architect remains, a man
who continues to reinvent this unique city to this day.

Part 4: The Man Who Reinvigorated Las Vegas.

Steve Wynn was still a couple of years shy of becoming a teenager in 1952 when
he stood on a dusty patch of desert highway called the Strip and listened
intently as his father, a Maryland bingo parlor operator, told him of his dream
of expanding his business there. Michael Wynn died in 1963 but his dream – and
then some – never left the mind of his innovative son. It would take 26 years
but Steve Wynn would realize his father’s dream.

Typically, Wynn’s first steps into gaming weren’t timid ones. In the early
1970s, using money he’d earned in the family business, Wynn purchased a parcel
of real estate adjacent to Caesars Palace
from Howard Hughes. The next year he sold the land to Caesars for a profit of
$760,000. He used the money to accumulate stock in the downtown Golden Nugget
and, by 1973, at the age of 31, was the youngest casino chairman in the history
of Las Vegas.

Wynn next turned his attention to Atlantic City,
paying $8.5 million for the Strand Hotel. He promptly demolished the Strand
and built another Golden Nugget which, in 1987, he then sold to Bally’s for a
record $440 million.

Flushed with optimism and with his father’s dream still kicking around in his
head, Wynn then returned to Las Vegas,
a city which, despite its gaming persona, still was in search of an identity.
Wynn defined it.

He did it by building The Mirage, a $630 million all-inclusive complex that he
promised “would have mystique, like a lady half-dressed.” It did.

The birth of The Mirage in 1989 redefined Las Vegas as the
ultimate tourist destination, the home of wondrous new sights and experiences,
where casino gambling and sports betting were the main but not the only
attractions. A tropic paradise of waterfalls and foliage, luxury
accommodations, gourmet restaurants, a rain forest, an exploding volcano, a
swanky shopping mall, rare white tigers, an aquarium with bottle-nosed
dolphins, and the city’s most spectacular – and expensive – show, Siegfried
& Roy, there never had been anything quite like
it. In fact, Wynn was forced to add a new term to the gaming lexicon just to
describe The Mirage. He called it a “megaresort.”

Suddenly, the Strip, which had not seen significant growth in several years,
was awash in megaresort projects. In the eight years
immediately after Wynn first unveiled his plans to build The Mirage, other
would-be entrepreneurs played follow-the-leader, adding 30,000 rooms and $3
billion worth of investments to the Strip.

The success of The Mirage spawned the Excalibur, the castle-configured casino
with 4,000 rooms. Then came Luxor, a pyramid-shaped property
next door to the Excalibur. Hardly content to watch others build, in October of
1993, Wynn added another property of his own, Treasure Island,
a pirate-themed facility adjacent to The Mirage. Two months later the city
welcomed the MGM Grand, with 5,005 rooms, the largest hotel, er, megaresort, in the world.

Wynn would later build Bellagio, on the site of the
old Dunes Hotel on the corner of Flamingo Road
and Las Vegas Boulevard
and, most recently, Wynn Las Vegas, his high-end signature property that now
stands on land where the Desert Inn once stood.

”Nevada’s advantage is… that we
have the creative genius of people like Steve,” said former Governor Bob
Miller.

Wynn, the architect of the modern Las Vegas gaming and sports betting
expansion, just smiled at the remark, comfortable with the presence (and
accolades) of elected officials. In fact, Wynn has golfed with many politicians,
including Arizona Senator Sen. John McCain, the presumptive 2008 presidential
nominee of the Republican Party.

So how did it feel to rub elbows with the power elite?

McCain never said.

The Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament in 2008 is like Adrienne
Barbeau: quite top heavy. The Wisconsin Badgers,
Purdue Boilermakers, Indiana Hoosiers, and Michigan State Spartans are all
nationally ranked and likely going the Big Dance.

For sports handicappers who believe in betting the
motivational factor, the Ohio State Buckeyes are one of the “last four in”
according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology.

The sportsbooks say that Purdue is the slight favorite to win
it all at 7/4, with Wisconsin
nearly neck and neck at 7/4. Michigan
State is only 7/2. If anyone has
had almost as much success in March Madness as GodsTips,
anchor of OffshoreInsiders.com, it is Tom Izzo, head coach of
the Spartans.

Despite all the distractions of the Kelvin Sampson firing,
the Indiana
Hoosiers are just 5/1 to earn the automatic bid. Purdue and Indiana have
the shorter odds as the tournament is being hosted at Conseco
Fieldhouse, home of the Indiana Pacers.

The Minnesota Golden Gophers will have to play their way
in to the 2008
Men’s College Basketball Tournament, but they are 14/1 odds to win it
all—the conference title that is.

Once highly regarded Illinois
is 20/1, the Iowa Hawkeyes at 22/1. Surprisingly ahead of both is perennial
doormat Penn State
at just 18/1. At 25/1 Michigan
is given little chance and Northwestern at 100/1 no chance. Odds are courtesy
of NewBodog.

Considering the Wildcats went 1-17 in conference play, perhaps the
bookmakers are being too generous.

The author, Joe Duffy, is former General Manager of the
Freescoreboard scorephone network and CEO of OffshoreInsiders.com,
the premier hub of world-class handicappers.

Although they are considered in a rebuilding year, Xavier
is the favorite to win the 2008 Atlantic 10
Tournament. The Musketeers are posted at even money at NewBodog. “It’s
not a good year for the A-10,”
says Cy McCormick of MasterLockLine.com.
He points to the fact that Temple was second in the conference at 11-5, but has only 18 wins
overall.

The sportsbooks say the Massachusetts Minutemen are
5/2 and the aforesaid Temple Owls
are 3/1. The erratic Saint Joseph’s
Hawks and the Richmond Spiders are next at 5/1. At one time, Temple,
LaSalle and St. Joe’s were at an advantage because the tournament was usually
at the historic Palestra in Philadelphia,
home city of those three colleges.

Though Atlantic City
is still a regional advantage for the Philadelphia
based teams, it does not give the edge they once had when the game was played
at the University of Pennsylvania
and Philadelphia Big 5 home.

Charlotte and La
Salle are next at 10/1; the slow down Bilikens of Saint Louis and
the Rhode Island Rams follow at 15/1.

The Duquesne Dukes at 20/1 and the Fordham Rams at 35/1
are given little chance. “With 11 of the 13 teams within six games of each
other in the conference standings, we look for some moneyline dogs to come
barking,” says forensic handicapping founder Stevie Vincent of BetOnSports360.com

It’s time for GodsTips famed Million Dollar March. We burn
the midnight oil, brew the coffee and
again will win more than any other sports service on earth. It’s all at GodsTips, anchor of OffshoreInsiders.com

The Big East has five teams ranked in the Top 25: Georgetown
Hoyas, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Louisville
Cardinals, Connecticut Huskies, and whatever the Marquette Warriors are now
called. Two more teams have 22 wins: West Virginia Mountaineers and the Pittsburgh
Panthers.

To say the least, the 2008 Big East Men’s Basketball
Tournament should be one of the most hotly contested ever. This is perhaps why
the Vegas odds
are so close. John Thompson Jr. and the Georgetown Hoyas,
led by Roy Hibbert and Jonathan Wallace, are the
favorites at 3/2.

However, Louisville
is very close behind at 5/2 and Connecticut
and Notre Dame are 5/1. Rick Pitino and his Cardinals have very much rebounded
from early season injuries that saw David Padgett miss 10 games, Juan Palacios
out for nine and Derrick Caracter have some off court
distractions.

Marquette and Pittsburgh
are both fairly long shots at 12/1. Pitt though won 3-of-4 to enter the
postseason after a midseason conference swoon. Marquette
has only one conference tournament win in six years and stumbled across the
finish line.

The once highly regarded Villanova Wildcats can be had at
15/1. Bob Huggins current team, the West Virginia Mountaineers are at 15/1 and
the team he made his name with, the Cincinnati Bearcats are 30/1, the same odds
as Seton Hall. The Providence Friars backed into the tournament, but with a
recent win to Connecticut,
perhaps the 40/1 odds a a
bit steep.

Though most sportsbooks
have posted the March Madness tournament lines, these quoted odds are courtesy
of NewBodog

As the post All-Star Game stretch run is set to begin, sportsbooks have the Boston Celtics and
Detroit Pistons as the favorites to win the 2008 NBA Championship.

Boston is +265
while Detroit is +275 according to Bookmaker. NBA betting expert
Curt Thomas from GodsTips, anchor of OffshoreInsiders.com says the oddsmakers recognize the Eastern
Conference Champion will have an easier road than the Western Conference. “We
could see a team win 50 games in the West and not make the playoffs,” says
Thomas, “thus no team had an quick path while the East should come down to the
Pistons and the Celtics.”

Phoenix and
newly acquired center Shaquille O’Neal are next at +500, followed very closely
by the Spurs at +505. Cy McCormick of MasterLockLine.com
emphasizes, “The Spurs have been there, done that,” and adds that they
are better than their record indicates because of several injuries.

Perennial bridesmaid and first-round upset victim last
year, Dallas is +600. The Lakers,
who recently added Pau Gasol
to the equation, are +700.

Can LeBron James repeat and exceed last year’s one-man
show? The Cavaliers are +2000, showing little respect for the defending Eastern
Conference Champions.

Who is the best long shot? Thomas says it’s New
Orleans at +1100. “Their starting five is their
strength and benches shorten up in the postseason,” says the NBA betting guru.

To win your bets for the NBA stretch run, March Madness
and more, visit OffshoreInsiders.com