Big news for Atlantic City in April 2021, New Jersey Governor. Phil Murphy has increased capacity at casinos, restaurants, and other businesses to 50 percent.

As you probably know by now Virgin Hotels Las Vegas (Virgin Las Vegas) recently opened where the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino once operated. I visited the property after a few days to allow the employees to settle into the new digs. The good news is that everyone was in great spirits and helpful.

It is pretty fair to say that Vegas Visitation is jumping. It’s been a while since there’s been a supply and demand problem for visitors in Las Vegas, but here we are. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Association Executive Summary, visitation in February was up almost 19% from January. That should increase even more when March figures are released.

On Tuesday, I went to a small media gathering at Tuscany for the opening of the new Circa Sports location. Afterward, I saw a couple of friends from Florida for the first time in years. I saw more people in three hours than the entire year to date, and that was just the beginning. Wow, Vegas is packed.

Before we start to celebrate and discuss Vegas higher capacity limits, you may have noticed that I’ve been taking advantage of monthly offers to enjoy a couple of complimentary nights at the Cosmopolitan. My visits have remained mostly the same. I’ve been spending most of the time inside the room.

Let’s start the weekly Vegas News roundup with a short story about a big deal. This week Las Vegas Sands (LVS) sold all of its properties (aka “Venetian Sold”) in Sin City. The company is now just “Sands” since it has no more businesses in Las Vegas. The deal happened early in the week so I’m not going to get too deep.

Atlantic City’s nine casinos saw 9.3 percent more revenue in January 2021 than they did a year earlier, largely because of online gambling and from sports betting.

Casino earnings season came to an end with a bang this week. Caesars reported fourth-quarter and full-year earnings for 2020. We all know last year was bad for casinos. You can see that in the release. On the good news side, Vegas Pool Season arrives.

Before we share a huge amount of Vegas Quick Hits and the rumor about Hamilton in Vegas….. We’re going to start Vegas News off a bit differently this week. I received a rare Saturday morning marketing email from a gaming company that I have to share.

This week’s big news in Las Vegas is that there’s a plan to loosen restrictions in place to slow the spread of COVID-19 in Nevada. I’ll just cut to the chase with some bottom-line info on the details regarding the fact that covid restrictions will loosen soon.

This week Vital Vegas tipped us off to The Linq short pouring mixed drinks. This is useful to prep for future casino visits. A few years ago I wrote about the unintended consequences of drink monitoring systems at casino bars in Las Vegas. I don’t mind the practice because I usually play fast enough to not worry about getting complimentary drinks.

Caesars Entertainment Inc. has entered into a strategic investment in the daily fantasy sports platform SuperDraft Inc. According to a news release, “The investment complements Caesars strong mobile sports and gaming network by adding an innovative Fantasy Sports platform, further strengthening its pipeline to customer acquisition and retention for both online and brick-and-mortar.”