Wynn Resorts Ltd. on Wednesday unveiled plans for Wynn Everett, a roughly $1.5 billion resort it hopes to build next to the Mystic River in Massachusetts, as the Las Vegas-based gaming company looks to capture the sole Boston-area casino license.

Wynn Resorts said Chairman and CEO Steve Wynn did not attend the event.

President and Chief Operating Officer Gamal Aziz unveiled a single artists rendering of the resort that shows a 19-story, 550-room hotel that includes several low-lying buildings with glazed skylights. The plan includes gardens and a walking path leading to the river.

The company said construction would be completed in 24 to 36 months.

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As Wynn Resorts Ltd. Chairman and CEO Steve Wynn confirms his intentions to build a $1 billion hotel-casino in Massachusetts, a key issue ahead will be obtaining local approval, a Las Vegas-based gaming industry analyst said Friday.

“To that end, there have been press reports in recent weeks suggesting that neighboring locations could oppose Wynn’s site,” Union Gaming Group principal Bill Lerner said in a research report. “In addition, Wynn is already bidding for a license in Philadelphia, and typically prefers to develop two projects (at most) at the same time.”

Wynn Resorts is developing its $3 billion hotel-casino complex on 51 acres on the Cotai Strip in Macau and has casino projects in Philadelphia and perhaps Massachusetts.

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So wow, so much is going on right about now. A lot of smart people doing a little bit more than just geeking out about poker and the industry’s/game’s/lifestyle’s future. Wish I could be everywhere:

We’ve got the Global Poker Thinking Society getting together at Harvard — featuring Howard Lederer, Charles Nesson, and Crandall Addington.

And then this weekend is the California Poker Conference — where speakers include WSOP Commish Jeffrey Pollack, PPA Executive Director John Pappas, and some influential old-timers such as Mike Caro, Lou Kreiger, Barbara Enright, and many others.

And then on the next day, Pappas heads back to Washington DC, where he’ll be hosting the Poker Player’s Alliance DC Fly-in — a little Beltway lobbying fest on behalf of pro-poker legislation. This is the one I really want to be at — and we’ll try to stay on top of things from afar — because twisting Congressional arms enlightening our representatives is a lot of fun. I gotta say, it also kinda makes me proud to know that our success wooing Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) as a co-sponsor to HR 2610, the Skill Game Protection Act, kinda inspired it.

From CardPlayer:

JP: We had a really great meeting in August with Congressmen Pete Sessions in his Dallas, Texas, office. It was myself and a number of our local PPA members, including Clonie Gowen, who’s a Dallas, Texan, and Robert Williamson III, another Dallas, Texan. We went in and sat down with him and talked to him about the Wexler bill and why it just didn’t make sense that a game of skill is being outlawed on the Internet. And it really resonated and it really came through and what I saw was, wow, this is something we need to replicate, this is something we needed to do more of. Based on that meeting, I thought we needed to get people out to Washington. Whether we make 20 meetings or 200 meetings, I think it’s going to be a worthwhile event.

Very cool! (And well done, Pokeratizen politicos!) Good times, all around. And indeed, we should do more of that.

I’ll be in Vegas … assuming I make my flight, which leaves in — yeow! — four hours, to do the TV Co-hosting thing with Tom Schneider for the inaugural Poker Bowl. This should be a pro-studded affair … even Doyle Brunson will be playing, along with Greg Raymer, Scotty Nguyen, reformed self-colluder ZeeJustin … and Absolute spokesman Mark Seif. Like seriously, we have so much to talk about!

And so little of it to do with how to play [cards]As Ks[/cards] in middle position.