Jeff Burbank

How do you take something as exciting as crime and stupidity in Las Vegas and make it boring? Jeff Burbank does a pretty good job of showing us how. And, really, the reason becomes evident quite quickly – Burbank cannot give up his reporting background, his need to stick with transcriptual facts, to make the stories entertaining.

And there is great opportunity for entertainment. We have here the story of the casino owner who was accused of “worshipping” Nazis, a psychological scheme to make computerized slot machines look like they were about ready to pay off, a failed sports book that was intended to make the sport of kings a kingly sport, and a number of other great little tales of how things have gone wrong.

But the potential excitement is drug down in the details. Far too often, Burbank “goes to the transcripts.” Sure, sometimes what occurs is almost laughable, but those “actual words” are not wrapped around enough story to keep them moving. And Burbank either cannot or will not flesh out the stories with anything that makes the people real and the stories compelling.

I read this shortly before a trip to Vegas, and I kept looking at the slot machines and pit bosses and gaming tables and all the other accoutrements of the casino with a more jaundiced eye.

Imagine how much more jaundiced I would have been if the stories had been just a little bit more engrossing.… (mehr)