Joseph Magliarditi is confident the $50 million invested in upgrades to the Palms is money well-spent.

After more than a decade of successfully luring thousands of 20- and 30-somethings and locals to the off-Strip property with its popular Ditch Friday parties and The Real World suite, the Palms needed to change its look.

So, the hotel-casino spent millions of dollars in just more than eight months, renovating 428 rooms in its original Palms Tower, renamed the Ivory Tower, and demolishing old bars, restaurants and clubs and replacing them with new experiences.

“You’ve got a short time to make an impact on the customer,” said Magliarditi, president of the Palms. “We are always re-creating things. We think what we have done to the Palms will have the most impact.”

Among the projects recently completed is a new entrance and Social, a new bar in the middle of the casino that took over the former Center Bar.

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Two high-profile incidents and the fast-approaching summer months led state gaming regulators and Las Vegas police to issue a stern warning Thursday to hotel-casino operators: Keep a close watch on your nightclubs and pool parties or face disciplinary action for any illegal activity.

In a memorandum from Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett and Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, resort leaders were told they are responsible for any criminal conduct in their venues, even if a nightclub, ultra lounge or day club is operated by a third-party vendor.

“Recent investigations have not only shown a lack of enforcement effort to curtail criminal activity on the part of patrons, but that venue staff have played an active role in condoning and/or facilitating the criminal activity,” Burnett and Gillespie wrote.

In an interview, Burnett said last month’s shooting and ensuing multicar wreck on the Strip, which left three people dead, played a large role in the notice to gaming licensees. The grisly, pre-dawn shooting had its origins in a dispute at the Aria valet area.

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The Nevada Gaming Commission signed off Thursday on a $1 million fine against the Palms to settle compliant issued by the state’s Gaming Control Board resulting from an investigation that discovered rampant drug sales and prostitution at clubs on the property.

It’s the third-largest fine ever approved by the commission.

Under the deal, the Palms will also pay $78,000 to cover the cost of the control board’s investigation. The commission voted 4-0 to approve the fine, with Commissioner John Moran Jr. abstaining.

“We are very sorry to be appearing before you today,” George Maloof, minority owner of the Palms, told the commission. “We take these (charges) very seriously and have implemented many changes to prevent these issues from happening again.”

The violations contained in the 17-count complaint made public Jan. 11 were gathered during five undercover operations last year by board investigators and Las Vegas police.

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The parent company of the Palms has agreed to pay a $1 million fine to settle a 17-count complaint by the Nevada Gaming Control Board resulting from a failure to prevent illegal activity, including drug sales and prostitution, at clubs on the property.

FP Holdings L.P. also agreed to pay $78,000 to cover the cost of the control board’s investigation.

“We are deeply concerned and disappointed about the matters outlined in the complaint as they are not consistent with the values of our company,” the Palms said Friday in a statement. “We are resolved to address these problems comprehensively and decisively.”

The Nevada Gaming Commission must approve the settlement. The violations contained in the 21-page complaint made public Friday were gathered during a joint undercover investigation by the board and Las Vegas police.

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Talk about shenanigans … like a raucous old-school reality show reunion, the Pokerati game re-emerged with fireworks last night — making its first appearance during the 2012 WSOP and first showing at the new CantorGaming poker room at the Palms. The 1/2 NLH/PLO action quickly turned into a big, drinky 1/2/5 all-PLO, compliments of @TheMark and his G-Vegas crew.

All fine and dandy until one rather big hand revealed a little more than a flopped set at showdown:

Funny to see all the cameras whipped out around the table as players and the dealer alike realized something was amiss. And as the floor and dealer backed up the massive pot to effectively declare a misdeal, the cameras upstairs musta been going ape-shit, one poker room official told me.

This was not the first time a Pokerati-ish Game has seen something like this …

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There are times when a gambler yearns for a fresh start, when past losses magically disappear. You could also say that the gambling city of Las Vegas is built — and rebuilt — on the idea of fresh starts. Rooms are gutted and names are changed at a frenetic pace, all with a goal to wipe the slate clean.

If you haven’t been to Vegas lately, these are some of its latest reincarnations:

On May 15, 2011, the Sahara closed its doors. At the time, there were no plans for the Rat Pack’s former home. But in November, the Clark County Commissions approved plans to renovate the property. Alas, the roller coaster will not live to see another day.

The Las Vegas Hilton is now LVH- Las Vegas Hotel and Casino: The hotel, located near the convention center, lost its Hilton franchise in January. The LVH is currently being run by a court approved receiver while Goldman Sachs proceeds with its foreclosure of the property.

Fitzgeralds Casino & Hotel changed its name the D Las Vegas. The “D” apparently stands for “Downtown,” “Detroit” (hometown of the Stevens brothers who now own the property) and/or CEO Derrick Stevens’ nickname “D.” The new owners are also kicking in $15 million to renovate the old Fitz.

O’Shea’s celebrated one last Saint Patrick’s Day before it closes its doors on April 30, 2012. But this Strip casino owned by Caesars Entertainment will rise again. The new O’Shea’s will open as part of the Linq project, due for completion sometime in mid-2013.

Wynn Resorts has a restaurant named Okada, named after a one-time (?)  partner in the casino. But Steve Wynn and Kazou Okada have been embroiled in an epic feud. As a result, the restaurant will be renamed Ohtaki and will include some changes to the menu.

Steve Wynn also cut ties with chef extraordinaire Alex Stratta. Needless to say the Wynn’s restaurant Alex has disappeared and will be replaced with a new nightclub named Climaxx.

The Lady Luck closed in 2006 for renovations. But financing collapsed and the lay dormant for years. But the downtown casino and hotel is now scheduled for a rebirth as the Downtown Grand in April 2013.

The Playboy Club at the Palms is closing in June 2012. Will the rabbit warren be reincarnated?  The Vegas odds are in its favor.

I guess I’ve been somewhat slacking in the blog department. However, I’ve been fully engaged in grind mode ever since my last downswing and plan on writing an update in the very near future. In keeping with the grinding and writing theme, I’ve been trying out this new pokerchiptracker.com tool that allows me to log my day at the office. It’s pretty cool, in my opinion, because I like taking photos, I like writing, and I (sometimes) like playing poker. This thing lets me do all three at once. It also allows the user/writer to really bring the reader into the poker room with them, as well as provide for some creative opportunities.

Here’s a recent session that took me from Aria to the Palms.

Buy In @ 4:15 PM Amount: $300 Starting a sesh at the fabulous, luxurious and unrivaled Aria Resort Casino Hotel and Spa Destination Location Sensation. Gl me.

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A middle-aged local approached the Treasure Island poker room supervisor early Sunday evening, inquiring about how many hours he had played.

“I want to make my $50,” he said.

At the start of the year, the room announced its latest promotion on signs around the casino, flyers outside the room’s entrance, and business cards on the supervisor’s counter — “GET PAID TO PLAY POKER!”

The 8-table room at TI pays back players with money collected in the rake. For every 10 hours of play (up to 60 hours), a grinder can earn as much as $599 in extra cash each week. This good-for-players promotional trend is catching on around Vegas. Whether it’s called “rakeback” or advertised as an hourly rate, it pays close to a minimum-wage job.

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There’s a trend developing in Vegas (mostly among independent “family-run” casinos) of giving loyal poker denizens cash back for their time at the tables. Makes for a lot of +EV options around town, extra action, and an overall good situation for players.

Here’s how our friends at Palms Poker Room are doling out rebates in their $3500 Weekly Player Appreciation Giveaway … which I’m pretty sure is already under way:

Win your share of $3,500 every week. The more you play, the more you can earn. Palms Poker Room is awarding players $8 an hour for time logged at the table — 5 hour minimum, 74.87 hours max. That’s anywhere from $40 to $599 coming back to you!

We’re counting time each week from Sunday at midnight (12am) until Saturday at 11:59pm. We distribute Player Appreciation Money on Mondays at 11am — in order of most hours to least hours until $3,000 gets paid out.

We then hold five $100 drawings for everyone who played at least five hours but did not get a share. That drawing is at 2pm on Mondays. Players need not be present to win and have 24 hours to claim their cash prize. Any unclaimed monies get rolled over into the next week’s giveaway.

It’s been a few weeks since my last post but the grinding hasn’t stopped. Well, actually I didn’t play much at all over the Thanksgiving weekend as I spent the holiday in Palm Springs with some family. Here are some photos!

I went into a bit of a breakeven stretch over the following four sessions. I have only myself to blame for this because I failed to use any sort of anti-jinx methodology. For example, say you send a tweet talking about how hard you’re crushing a game or how amazing you’ve been running at the tables. I usually don’t like to write such tweets because over 50 percent of the time they carry the jinx-virus, which will abruptly halt any and all rungood and stop it dead in its tracks. That being said, it is possible to tweet such thoughts to the twittersphere, but it would be foolish to do so without using anti-jinx protection. You’re simply putting yourself and your bankroll at risk without strapping on a hashtag along the lines of #plsdontjinxitkthx at the end of your happy tweets.

I don’t know why we call the poker gods, Gods, but we do. They seem more like a bunch of high school dropout, weird uncle, goofball idiots to me. When they abandon you, it is the filthiest, loneliest feeling you can imagine. But when they reflect their light on you for any kind of extended stretch, you feel, well, enlightened. Chosen. So in tune with everything you can hear the hum of the earth.

I somehow managed to sneak a $117 victory past the jinx-bouncers playing $1/$3NL at the Rio on the 1st of the month. But the next day when I ventured into the Palace of Caesar, his games of $1 and $3 were not so kind. I left @CLVPoker $400 lighter in the pocket, and followed that with a small $85 loss on the 3rd. My spirits were quickly risen on the very next day, which was a Thursday. Thursday evenings, as you should know by now, means Pokerati game night. The PLO/NL mixed game has treated me really well since its incarnation @PalmsPokerRm (#nojinxnojinxnojinx) and this particular Thursday brought happiness in the form of a $520 win, erasing losses from the previous two sessions. Unfortunately the breakeven stretch continued another day; on Friday I played a long, 10-hour session at the Rio dropping about $700 in frustrating fashion. Actually there was a pretty interesting hand from said session…

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Oh, almost forgot to tell you … two Pokerati Game players are/were bounties in this weekend’s Epic Poker Pro-Am satellites. Both have far more accomplishments to their Hendon Mob cred than just playing 1/2 NLH/PLO with me, obv … but still, happy to declare that this is plausibly proof that playing in the Pokerati Game at the Palms is key to satellite success.

Kathy played yesterday, and Stacey takes her seat in just a couple hours — so get to the game @PalmsPokerRm ASAP! Today’s event is a $100 NLH with $50 rebuys. More Epic satellite details here.

Check it out. This story in PokerListings is probably a bit too kind without any LOLs. But hey, as a guy who’s key flaw in his plan to offer Pokeratizens the best low-stakes action in Vegas was not learning how to fold more often pre-flop, I’ll take the love!

While it is true that nowhere in Vegas could you “run it twice” in a 1/2 game before Pokerati NLH/PLO came to town, now plenty of poker rooms hardly blink when two or more players get it all-in and want to reduce variance by seeing more than one river … just like they used to do it on High Stakes Poker.

So crap now the secret of the Pokerati Game’s success is out:

• Offer games people want to play, at stakes they’re comfortable playing
• Give preference to poker rooms with skillful, supportive staff (and maybe a really big sign)
• Treat low-stakes players no differently than high rollers (h/t Benny Binion)
• Suck out often to keep the nits away

That’s pretty much all it takes to host a game that attracts tourists and locals alike. And now that I can expect casinos everywhere to be spreading Pokerati-style live action, I suppose my pioneering days are over and I can go back to being just another poor-man’s Jean-Robert Bellande.

The redevelopment of the the Palms Poker Room continues. While some of us can’t wait for the state-of-the-art-in-2003 room to step into 2005ish with the coming addition of an electronic Bravo check-in system … Joe, Bobby, Eldon and crew are pushing forward with their plans to bring non-$20,000 tournament action back to the Palms … starting with a Tuesday-night $100 HORSE tournament.

It may not be PLO, but hey, I’m no one-trick pony. More like a half-trick pony, lol. But regardless, I’ve been meaning to sack up and get more live, low-stakes Razz under my belt. (I dominated the $1,500 event in the ’07 WSOP for Playstation — won a bracelet and everything!) The tournament is just a couple weeks old and supposedly has gotten a great response from the start: three tables of tournament action last week, followed by a $4/$8 HORSE cash game as players started busting.

Something similar expected tomorrow. RSVP on Facebook here … and/or just show up @ the Palms tomorrow at 7:30pm.

CORRECTION(S): I got a few factoids wrong. According to Michelle Lau’s FB invite …

Michelle Lau

Every Tuesday night 7:30, last week was our first tournament. Also Palms is gonna spread a HORSE CASH game at 5pm ($4/8) Come on down, lots of fun and very playable structure.

In the good-for-poker category … Poker Gives is in the midst of its second annual National Poker Month. Not to be confused with the PPA’s National Poker Week, PG’s September declaration is about a nationwide series of charity tournaments “that unites the poker world to generate goodwill through ‘giving back’ and supporting worthwhile charities.” (Emphasis theirs, not mine.)

There have already been events in Arizona and yesterday here in Vegas at the Venetian. Coming up are an event Monday at the Golden Nugget and another at the new Tropicana Poker Room (which fyi, few know, had its opening day on Black Friday) on Saturday. More than 15 events — in the $60 to $125 range — in 15 different venues in seven states.

Click here for the complete schedule.

Our goal is to disperse the highest percentage of funds possible to the charities. While some fundraising operators are actually businesses for profit, Poker Gives is designed to give back and we do so in every way possible. Board members and founding members of Poker Gives receive no salary whatsoever. All expenses and administrative costs are minimized so that the maximum is directed to our charities.

— Poker Gives

Charity tournaments can be a dime a dozen … or more appropriately for poker, probably closer to 5 dimes a dozen. And some are better than others as an event and/or as a fundraiser. But apparently some big-timers in the poker biz (Mike Sexton, Linda Johnson, et al) saw too many such tourneys used as fronts for shady activities I mean not necessarily distributing funds appropriately, and thus back in 2008 created Poker Gives. It’s an effort designed to cultivate the collective giving of poker players and poker rooms around the country to make more notable donations to more mainstream 501c’s (Paralyzed Veterans of America, Make a Wish, Special Olympics, the USO, the Shriners, among others). It also becomes, imho, part of what some say is becoming a “movement” to clean up poker and make it more, er … presentable?

Also this week, as in today, is an Epic Poker charity event at Pokerati’s home room, the Palms. It’s a $240 with $100 rebuys event — hosted by Kevin Pollak, with all sorts of extra goodies overlayed — and the top three winning seats to the upcoming $1,500 Epic Pro-Am.

While this isn’t officially part of National Poker Month (I’m curious why not, too) tonight’s tournament at the Palms does benefit Fallen Heroes USA, a PG thumbs-up charity partner. Should be good times for a good cause; and who knows, maybe a Pokerati Game will break out with extra players in the mood to just be giving money away?

Who says poker media sucks. I mean sure the writing and diction might be lacking … but being a Pokerati alum (and degenerate Pokerati game player) has its privileges. Check out Mechdawg, former podcast critic, arriving in Vegas for work on the Epic Poker League, apparently not needing a ride to or from the bar at the Palms.

PERKY: Merchdawg’s in Vegas, and a sparkly green Escalade awaits.

Next Pokerati Game, btw, is tomorrow, Thursday, usual start time. Hoping Merchdawg et al(canthang) play when they’re done with the tournament coverage. Somebody asked me, lol, “Is this a WPT event?”

Apologies to @PokerGuyJoeV and/or @BobbyGriff9, btw, if every 1/2 PLO/NL player now thinks you can hook them up with airport rides just because.