Spin Cycle: Hollywood’s Vegas Invasion Highlights Week In Gambling

Welcome to “Spin Cycle,” Casino Reports’ weekly Friday roundup of all things impactful, intriguing, impressive, or idiotic in the gambling industry. Pull up a chair, grab a stack of chips and a glass of your beverage of choice, and take a spin with us through this week’s news cycle …

Viva Las Vegas as a TV setting

One by one, the details of Netflix’s forthcoming scripted Las Vegas casino series are coming into sharper focus. We’ve known since December that Rounders and Billions writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien are the showrunners and Martin Scorsese is an executive producer, and we learned soon after that author and poker player Maria Konnikova is on the writing staff. Also, entertainment industry outlets reported last year on the basic outline that this will be an hour-long drama with a Vegas casino-hotel president as the central character.

This week, we got casting news, and lots of it — plus we got a title.

Variety reported Tuesday that the show will be titled The Roman, which sure sounds to us like it must be the name of the casino.

Oscar Isaac, star of everything from the Dune movies to the most recent Star Wars trilogy, will play the casino president, Robert “Bobby Red” Redman. His co-stars include Alec Baldwin as chairman of the casino Paul “Primo” Clark, Betty Gilpin as Redman’s wife Marla Blake, and David Costabile as rival casino operator Bill Saverick. Costabile, though perhaps best known for his run as Gale Boetticher on Breaking Bad, has worked extensively with Koppelman and Levien, as he played Mike “Wags” Wagner throughout the run of Billions on Showtime.

Netflix put in an order for an eight-episode first season.

But that’s not all the Vegas TV news this week. As the hotel on the Strip formerly known as the Cromwell prepares to reopen on May 29 as the Vanderpump Hotel, Bravo announced Monday a new limited series in the works called Vanderpump Rules: Lisa Las Vegas, a spinoff of Vanderpump Rules going behind the scenes as Lisa Vanderpump and others push to get the hotel ready for its closeup. Bravo did not announce yet when the reality series will air.

More news to know … 

• The latest on The Lodge Card Club in Texas, which has been closed since a March 10 raid but saw charges dropped in late April: The poker room is planning to reopen on Tuesday, May 26 at 9 a.m. local time — the same day the annual World Series of Poker begins in Las Vegas.

• As reported this week by iGaming Business, former federal prosecutor Monica Dillon pleaded guilty in West Virginia to five counts of identity theft, acknowledging that she used other people’s identities to open online gambling accounts between 2021 and 2023. By pleading guilty, Dillon avoids jail time and will serve two years’ probation.

• The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board launched its own podcast and YouTube series on Tuesday, called Behind the Bets in PA, hosted by PGCB Director of Communications Doug Harbach. “The goal of this series is to increase transparency and provide Pennsylvanians with an inside look at how gaming is responsibly regulated in the Commonwealth,” said Harbach in a release. “As the gaming landscape continues to evolve, this podcast and video series will serve as an accessible way for the public to stay informed.” PGCB Executive Director Kevin O’Toole appeared as Harbach’s guest in the debut episode.

House Rules: Insights from around our network

AGA Report: Commercial Gaming Revenue Up 9.1% In 2025, Online Casino Up 27.6%

Oklahoma Legislators Ban Sweeps By Overriding Governor’s Veto

Primm Property Closings Present A Challenge For Lottery Players From Nevada

Poker Pro Seidel: Dana White ‘Important Voice’ In Effort To Undo Deduction Cap

Ruddock Report: Down, But Not Out

Study: Let Marijuana And Gambling Mix In Nevada

Prediction Markets As Follow-Up To DFS: The Parallels Are Strikingly Similar

New York Commission Making Push To Steer Residents Clear Of Unregulated Gambling

Small stakes and hot takes

This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, I welcomed Eilers & Krejcik Gaming’s Alun Bowden, an industry veteran with deep knowledge of both the U.K. and U.S. gambling markets, to share his thoughts on FanDuel CEO Amy Howe’s exit, comparisons between DraftKings and FanDuel, what U.S. operators can learn from fallen U.K. giants, and more.

I also divulged what I think inspired the misguided bill in New Jersey that would punish customers who use RG tools, and I offered my first-person review of the experience of playing a big stack of birthday gift lottery scratch cards.

Full episode:

The Shuffle: Other news and views

Adelsons’ Sands Hiring ‘Casino Management’ Developers In Dallas Amid Texas Gambling Push [The Dallas Morning News]

Downtown Las Vegas Casino To Host $250K Super Bingo Event [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

Upcoming UNLV Gambling Conference Adds Speakers And Sessions [CDC Gaming]

Texas Lottery Commission And Former Director Criminally Charged In Connection With 2023 Lotto Scheme [Houston Chronicle]

Intrigue Over White House Ballroom Project Brings Hard Rock, Adelson Donations Back Into Question [iGaming Business]

Ho-Chunk Casino In Beloit On Track To Open In 2026 [WIFR]

50,000 Canadians Visit Las Vegas As Part Of Downtown Casinos’ Promotion [CDC Gaming]

North Las Vegas Casino Expected To Reopen This Summer [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

The Bonus Round

Completing the Spin Cycle with a few of our favorite social media posts of the week: