New Year’s in Vegas

From VegasTripping.com

Combine Las Vegas and New Year’s Eve and there will be about as much subtlety as there were clothes on the showgirls that flanked Mayor Oscar Goodman on Thursday.

This year’s party, which will also end the city’s centennial celebration, will attempt to out-Vegas what has been an over-the-top annual event since 2001.

Officials promise a bigger and better fireworks show, as well as a goal of getting 12,000 people to simultaneously toast in 2006 together.

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It’s been a few years since we moved away from Vegas, but we still get back several times a year, with New Year’s Eve about an every-other-year trip. Do yourself a favor and book Vegas for New Years at least once in your lifetime.

Ex-mobster warns of athletes’ gambling ways

From the Des Moines Register

Michael Franzese, former heir apparent to New York’s Colombo crime family, is coming to Iowa with a warning: Your athletes have a gambling problem.

He’s pointing a finger squarely at the Hawkeyes. The Cyclones. The Panthers. The Bulldogs.

“I can’t tell you how many athletes gamble, and gamble hard,” Franzese said. “It’s prevalent. You’d be surprised.”

Twenty years ago, while the college sports world was sinking too far into denial to grasp that it was being corrupted by gambling, Franzese, the former Long Island Don, got filthy rich by raking in the tainted profits.

At one time, Franzese, the son of a Colombo kingpin who became a made, sworn member of the mob at age 24, earned millions a week through his operations in gambling, loan sharking and corporate crime.