the maloofs confound me.

The Maloof Brothers confound me. They seem to be an iconoclast to everything that's happening in Vegas. Harrah's, Wynn, Las Vegas Sands, and so on; all of the major gaming operations on the Strip are corporate and publicly traded. But not the Maloofs.

As you probably know, they own The Palms Casino in Vegas. Did you know it only has 600 rooms? Me neither. That seems awfully small when you consider the fact that my lovely Imperial Palace has over 2,000 rooms.

And The Palms is a pretty hip, trendy place. The Maloofs score big with the younger crowd, mainly because they've positioned themselves well to capture them. The Real World, Celebrity Poker Showdown, ghostbar, and so on. They found their niche and are hitting it.

Perhaps it's the fact that they're so successful with this casino while showing very little interestin self-promotion. In a town where egos drive the bus (read: Steve Wynn), the Maloofs don't seem to focus that much attention on themselves. I had to dig around to find a definitive bio about them (I found it at the ARCO Arena site, of all places).

Here's a little bit of what it said:

In addition to their gaming business, the Maloofs have exclusive proprietorship rights to the distribution of Coors Beer throughout New Mexico. The Maloof Companies also is the largest single shareholder in Wells Fargo Bank, which operates banks and branches in 23 states throughout the Western United States with over $200 billion in assets and 15 million customers.

And, of course, they also own the Sacramento Kings and Monarchs.

They hired a new PR director in February of this year, Larry Fink, who came from television production. Perhaps I'm being a jealous snob, but that seems odd. Then again, I'm sure the Maloofs' idea of PR is vastly different than mine. And I'm sure they know what they're doing.

So what's at the root of my befuddlement? I guess I wasn't expecting the Palms Press Room to be so lacking of tangible information, you know? After reading so many other gaming pages that have releases, contact info, investor information, etc, that the Maloofs' down-home approach shocked me.

I can't wait to hear from my friend Heather about dealing there. I'm waiting to hear what celebs she meets. Mostly, I can't wait to hear how brutal the action is!