Station Casinos has announced plans to develop the 110-acre parcel it owns on and around the site where the Wild Wild West casino stands at the corner of W. Tropicana and Dean Martin Drive, about a mile west of the Strip. The big vision is to build what would be Las Vegas' fourth "metaresort"—a mixed-use combination of hotels, condos, casinos, restaurants and retail—called Viva. The project is budgeted at $10 billion, $2 billion more than MGM Mirage's CityCenter, making it the most expensive casino complex ever. When finished, it will boast 10,000 rooms, though the first phase will have "only" three casino-hotels with 5,200 rooms total. Complete timetables and financing plans have not been announced, but the Station track record is sterling, so this sounds solid.

ECHELON DELAY: Making the Station announcement more impressive is the fact that other big Las Vegas projects are experiencing delays. The latest is Boyd Gaming's metaresort project, Echelon place, which may miss its scheduled fall 2010 debut. Financing "has not been secured" for a $1 billion two-hotel component that's the responsibility of an outside hotel group.

DEAD DEAL: It's a bad week for the bargain crowd, as one of Las Vegas' legendary deals has doubled in price. The famous Golden Gate shrimp cocktail, which was served from 1959 to 1991 for 50¢, then held the line at 99 cents for nearly 17 years, has sustained a $1 price increase and is now $1.99. That's the new retail price, anyway; you can still get this classic for 99 cents if you show a Golden Gate players card. It's free to join and will take you less than five minutes, so no excuses.

Q. Are there any more single-deck blackjack games in Las Vegas that deal the standard 3-2 on naturals? I think they're all 6-5 games now, which is a bad deal.

A. Yes, there are three downtown: El Cortez, Four Queens, and Western. The 6-5 game is about 1.4 percent worse for the player.

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