It’s been conventional wisdom around LV for nearly two years that as goes the fate of CityCenter, so goes the fate of Las Vegas. The multibillion-dollar project and biggest construction endeavor since the Pyramids (and maybe the Great Wall of China?) has had its shaky ups and downs … Five workers have died building it, and the project almost was abandoned under bankruptcy until Dubai World bailed out MGM/Mirage, which saw a 10 percent drop in stock price Friday after Wall Street learned of Dubai’s own $60 billion debt problems. But the stock price did rebound …

The artistically bent glass-and-steel center-Strip monstrosity begins opening in phases tomorrow, with the Aria casino putting cards in the air on Dec. 16.

Your very quick look at the newest poker room in Las Vegas — at what’s supposed to be the crown jewel of the MGM/Mirage gambling empire — comes at 1:37. Cheesy (but apt) poker metaphor at 1:54.

I used to do business with the underground poker rooms in Dallas. I use the phrase “do business” lightly, as it generally meant these guys were willing to front me a couple hundred bucks whenever I needed a rebuy, which may have just been good poker. Regardless, I decided to leave all those red chips behind to work for PartyPoker — one of the biggest companies in the UK until Uncle Sam threatened to imprison my new bosses if they didn’t get out of Dodge by sundown. Bummer.

So now I have moved to Vegas — follow, the legal money, baby! — and find myself writing about bars, shops, restaurants, nightlife, etc. (among other things – sign up if you already haven’t). Good times, right? Maybe … but PURE — the swanky, Batface-friendly nightclub immediately next door to the Caesar’s Palace poker room — just got raided last night by the IRS.

More from the LV Review-Journal here.

Wha? The Feds also hit the Pure offices … seizing computers, paperwork, and presumably DNA samples. Perhaps coincidentally — or not — all this comes less than 48 hours after Dubai World, the Middle Eastern company that invested $5 billion into MGM/Mirage, reportedly bought a 50 percent stake in the Light Group, the biggest nightclub confecture in the world.

Yeow. This apparent shakedown has to be about way more than drunken chicks from Nebraska pretending they are Paris Hilton and slutting it up for guys who can thumb their noses at $350 bottles of Red Bull-and-vodka. But then again, maybe not.

July 2007: Gavin Smith, partying like a rock star at Pure.