Station Casinos has announced that it will develop the 110-acre parcel it owns on and around where the Wild Wild West casino stands at the corner of West Tropicana and Dean Martin Drive, about a mile west of the Strip. The 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 or so more than MGM Mirage's CityCenter, making it the most expensive casino complex. When finished, it will have 10,000 rooms, though the first phase will have three casino-hotels with 5,200 rooms. Complete timetables and financing plans have not been announced, but the Station track record is sterling, so this sounds solid.

Echelon delay: Meanwhile, 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 is not set for a $1 billion, two-hotel component that's the responsibility of an outside hotel group.

Prime deal: The Hard Rock is serving an excellent all-you-can eat prime rib dinner for just $9.99, from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. every day in Mr. Lucky's restaurant. The meal begins with a 13-ounce slice of prime cooked to order, plus a choice of soup or salad, baked potato and veggies. If you're still hungry, you can order as many additional slices, served in six-ounce portions, as you can finish. If you don't want the prime, the same restaurant serves a super steak and shrimp for $7.77. Neither meal is listed on the menu, so you have to ask.

New name: Harrah's Entertainment, the biggest casino company in the world, is changing its name to Caesars Entertainment to capitalize on the powerful value of the Caesars Palace brand. The Harrah's brand isn't going away, though. Along with the Horseshoe brand, it will be maintained under the Caesars' umbrella; hence, the move is not expected to lead to name changes at the casinos themselves.

Historic increase: 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¢ for nearly 17 years, is now $1.99. That's the new retail price, anyway; you can still get this classic for 99¢ if you show a Golden Gate players card. It's free and takes less than 5 minutes to join.

Masters: Bellagio now has four master sommeliers, more than any other property in the world. The newest inductee at Sensi joins the master sommeliers at Picasso and Michael Mina, as well as Bellagio's director of wine.

New club: The next Las Vegas megaclub will be XS at Encore, the new Wynn casino scheduled to open in December. The 40,000-square-foot nightclub will apparently be built around a pool.

Question: Are Donny and Marie really going to be the next big celebrities to take residence in Vegas?

Answer: The Osmond siblings are the current odds-on favorite to succeed Toni Braxton at the Flamingo later this year. Ms. Braxton is scheduled to play the Flamingo till August, but health issues have led to recent canceled performances and could affect that timetable.

Question: 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.

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

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