Q. That's $60,000. How'd you get that on?
A. I didn't [laughs]. Lee told me it was coming out of my budget. Needless to say, it went over very well.

Q. That's not something you'd ever see in one of the Vegas' megajoints. One boss deciding on his own to cough up $60,000 on the spot.
A. No. We're a lot more like Vegas in the old days, with cash baccarat, bosses getting to make decisions on the spot -- we think those things are important. And we did a lot of other things on the fly, too. We took the layouts off of the tables and had them mounted for the finalists so that they would each have a nice memento -- it seemed like a good idea at the time. And still does. Of course, the best memento was the $1,000,000 in cash that Mr. Maloof took home on his jet.

Q. You said earlier that you let people eat while they play at the blackjack tables. Is that anyone or just high rollers?
A. No, it's everyone and not just tables; slots too. It's part of our five-star service and our customers love it and so do we, because they never leave the games. And we kept serving gourmet food in the party rooms downstairs. A couple of guests commented that in Vegas all they do is put out a spread and when it's gone, it's gone. We kept the chefs going full time and served a gourmet spread 24/7 for three days.

Q. With all of the eating on the games and down in the private rooms, you must have saved money in your gourmet rooms.
A. A little. But a few players went celebrating in San Diego and another one took a limo and had a sightseeing tour of Tijuana. Of course, being high rollers, we got the bills for all of that, too. But we didn't mind.

Q. Whales do know how to live. speaking of which, did they all get to stay in suites?
A. No, we only have 33 right now. Some got standard rooms.

Q. How did you decide who got the suites?
A. The biggest lines got the biggest suites.

Q. That must have made for some interesting conversations at check-in.
A. It all went very smoothly. We did the best we could to accommodate everyone. The players understood. The players who had standard rooms were guaranteed suites the next time they came and our standard rooms are lovely. We even put up some of the pilots from the private jets.

Q. Did the player reps come in?
A. Every rep who booked a player stayed at the hotel as our guest.