By the time you read this, Binion's Horseshoe could very well be reopened with a fresh new look. As of this writing, MTR Gaming and Harrah's are still pushing for an April 1 opening date, and workers are feverishly attempting to get the place spiffed up with more than $1 million of improvements.

The improvements include new carpeting, new signage, a revised traffic flow with a few hundred fewer slot machines and new mattresses in the hotel rooms. The casino-level deli and Chinese restaurant will remain closed but the steakhouse atop the restaurant and the sports book are expected to reopen, although probably not at the same time as the rest of the property.

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Get your calendars out and save the date of April 28, 2005. That's the very special Thursday night the Wynn Las Vegas will open on the land once home to the legendary Desert Inn, making it the first new megaresort on the Strip in five years.

The $2 billion Wynn property, done by the same guy who built Mirage and Bellagio, will feature more than 2,000 suites, an eight-story man-made mountain along the Strip shielding a lake, and its own Ferrari and Maserati dealerships, among other luxury perks.

April 28 is significant in a couple of ways -- it is Steve Wynn's wife's birthday, and it is the same date (or within a few days of the same date, depending on what source you listen to) on which the Desert Inn opened in 1950.

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Las Vegas has two honorees among the nominations for the very prestigious James Beard Foundation awards for excellence in restaurants and chefs. Bradley Ogden's namesake restaurant at Caesars Palace was nominated as best new restaurant, and Luciano Pellegrini of Valentino at the Venetian was nominated in the best chef in America category. The winners of the awards, considered to be the Oscars of the food industry, will be handed out in the first week of May.

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Who knew it would be so hard to do the right thing? By now you may have heard about the Ohio sniper suspect being apprehended in Las Vegas after an eagle-eyed Las Vegas resident spotted the man in the Stardust Casino.

What you may not have heard about was his all-day ordeal trying to get local authorities to listen to him and do anything about it. Conrad Malsom first spotted the man he believed to be Charles McCoy Jr. around noon. He called 911, the local police nonemergency number, the Nevada Highway Patrol, 911 again, several Las Vegas police departments, the FBI and authorities in Ohio but was thwarted at every attempt to get someone to respond. Malsom actually went to the local FBI office personally before giving up and returning home to do some more sleuthing on his own. After finding a description of the suspect's car, he went out looking for the guy again and eventually found the car at the Budget Suites of America near the Stardust. It was after midnight before he was finally able to convince local law enforcement to take his calls seriously and McCoy was arrested in the early morning hours, more than 12 hours after Malsom's initial contact with authorities.

An internal investigation is under way to find out if any of the agencies involved mishandled the incident.

This Week's Trivia

Q: What major Strip resort opened on April 1, 1966? ANSWER

The Weekly Trivia Question is sponsored by the Online Memorabilia Museum at Vegas4Visitors.com

The Full Story

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