LAS VEGAS -- Qui Nguyen won the 2016 World Series of Poker main event late Tuesday night, earning $8 million and the diamond-encrusted gold bracelet.

He defeated Gordon Vayo in a heads-up battle that lasted 182 hands and well over seven hours to win the WSOP bracelet in his first time playing the WSOP main event.

Qui Nguyen earns $8 million after outlasting Gordon Vayo in a seven-hour heads-up match to win the World Series of Poker main event. AP Photo/John Locher

After failing to put Vayo away in three all-in showdowns, the fourth all-in between the pair led to Nguyen's victory. On the final hand, Nguyen raised to 8.5 million chips and Vayo re-raised all-in for 53 million. Nguyen called with Kc-Tc and had Vayo's Js-Ts in bad shape, but Vayo improved from three winning cards to eight on a Kd-9c-7d flop. The 2s turn and 3h river triggered cannons of confetti to fire off in the Penn & Teller Theater inside the Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino as the newest world champion of poker was crowned.

Even as one of the least experienced players at this final table, Nguyen dominated the action throughout the three days of this final table and didn't allow Vayo much room to maneuver in the late stages of the tournament.

"I actually never played much heads-up, but I was very aggressive," Nguyen said after his victory. "[Whether it was] five-handed or two-handed, I was still [just as] aggressive."

Nguyen was able to stay loose and relaxed despite the high-pressure environment in which he was playing, in large part thanks to focusing on his process over the results.

"With millions of dollars [on the line], I didn't think a lot about winning and losing," Nguyen said. "I was just thinking in my mind, 'Don't make a misstep at all.' In a tournament, you can't make a misstep -- if you make a misstep, you're done."

Nguyen, 39, was the chip leader to end both the first and second day of final-table play but quickly fell out of the top spot. He doubled up short stack Cliff Josephy on the first hand of play Tuesday, and then Vayo won most of those chips in a pot worth more than 200 million (out of 336.6 million total chips in play) with three-of-a-kind threes against three-of-a-kind deuces.

Josephy doubled his stack through Nguyen twice, bringing himself briefly back into contention only to dump those chips back shortly before his demise.

Despite being the chip leader to begin the final table Sunday, Josephy was unable to make much of a positive move until the start of Day 3. While he was ultimately eliminated in third place, it came after a chaotic start to the final table; in 16 hands of three-handed play, Josephy was involved in five all-in pots, including the double-up on the very first hand and set-over-set hand against Vayo. Josephy also lost the last of his chips to Vayo, when his Qd-3d made a pair of threes and couldn't beat Vayo's pair of kings with Kh-6d. For his third-place finish, Josephy received $3,453,035, eclipsing his next-best tournament payout by more than seven times.

"They gave me a good sweat there," Josephy said. "I was happy to get cards -- I was card-dead for two days, and I wasn't happy about that. I played the best that I could, finally picked up some hands early, got excited and then they just beat me right down."

Vayo and Nguyen traded the lead several times early on in heads-up play, but the tournament turned well into Nguyen's favor with a single river card. Nguyen took aggressive actions on the flop and turn despite holding just a draw with Qc-5c, against Vayo's Ad-9h on a board of Ac-Ts-9c-Ks, but the Kc on a river made Nguyen's flush and he immediately pushed his stack all-in -- the first such bet of heads-up play. After more than six minutes, Vayo ultimately folded, but that pot gave Nguyen a lead of more than 2-to-1.

During the next 20 minutes Vayo's stack dwindled further until he found himself all-in for the second time Thursday with As-Jd against Kh-9h. Neither player improved his hand, pulling Vayo back to within a 2-to-1 disadvantage. Although Vayo hovered around this mark for a considerable stretch, he continuously found himself worn down by Nguyen's aggressive style.

On one particular hand, where Vayo flopped the top pair on a nine-high board, Nguyen eventually put Vayo all-in on the river. Had he called, he would have taken his first lead of the final table; Vayo instead elected to fold, and that was his only regret in how he played.

"I read into something I shouldn't have," Vayo said. "I made a little deviation from my strategy, and I didn't feel strong enough. I should have called."

There was a brief moment of recovery for Vayo, who got lucky to hit a running turn and river to make a flush when both players flopped a pair of queens, but he'd never get closer than a 50-million-chip gap.

After grinding down Vayo's stack yet again, a third all-in pot led to one final double-up for the eventual runner-up -- but Nguyen would finally seal the victory on his fourth try.

It was clear that Nguyen executed his plan to near perfection, as he had all of his opponents scrambling for the majority of the final table. "It's hard to pinpoint his strategy," Vayo said. "He just kind of plays every hand uniquely; he doesn't necessarily have a constructed strategy. Not that that's a negative, but most people aren't able to adapt to every hand and make so many correct assumptions and correct plays over and over again, and he was able to do that."

Qui Nguyen is the 47th WSOP main event champion and just the second Vietnamese-born winner; the first was Scotty Nguyen, who won the 1998 WSOP main event for $1 million.

ESPN's Dave Tuley contributed to this story.</s>It was 3:20 a.m. today when Las Vegas resident Qui Nguyen, wearing a Marvel Comics “Guardians of the Galaxy” hat, won gaming’s richest and most prestigious event with the top prize of $8,005,310 and his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet. Until now, the 39-year-old from Saigon, Vietnam, had won only $9,029 in a prior WSOP event in 2009. It was an unimaginable achievement.

As the new world champion of poker, Qui took the lead on the first hand of the Final Table on Sunday and rode the momentum through the marathon 47th annual poker session that ended pre-dawn this morning in Penn & Teller Theater at The Rio. Qui was regarded as the least-accomplished player at the November Nine Main Event Final Table.

Qui, a married father of a 4-year old son who once owned a nail salon in Alaska, now regards himself as a professional Las Vegas gambler. He became the second Vietnamese-born world poker champion after Poker Hall of Famer Scotty “The Prince of Poker” Nguyen captured the title at the same event in 1998.

Moments after the victory, the new champion said: “I just tried to remind myself to never give up, to never give up. It was tiring, it was tough, but I wanted to stay aggressive and never give up, and thankfully for me it worked out. I’m so excited. I don’t know what to say.”

Seth Palansky of WSOP said: “Playing an aggressive style, and arguably the least accomplished player at the table coming in, Qui did the unimaginable by constantly playing pots, applying pressure and putting his tablemates to tough decisions.

“In the end, the combination of cards, fortitude and aggression led him to capture poker’s ultimate championship. With just $52,986 in lifetime live poker winnings, no one expected him to be the last man standing against an experienced, accomplished Final Table of mostly poker professionals.”

The runner-up was Gordon Vayo, 27, of San Francisco. Recently engaged, Gordon’s run ended after defeating 6,735 other hopefuls, and he went to sleep this morning with $4,661,228 for his efforts. He entered the Final Table in third place.

Gordon commented: “It was a little frustrating at times, but Qui played phenomenal. I didn’t get a lot of hands heads up, but all the credit to Qui, he played great.” Before play began Sunday, the nine finalists spent time riding the world’s tallest observation wheel, the High Roller at The Linq Promenade.

From an event that began July 9 with 6,737 hopefuls who each ponied up the $10,000 entry fee and received 50,000 in starting tournament chips, Qui wore his trademark Rocket Raccoon hat from “Guardians of the Galaxy,” tinted sunglasses and plenty of bling. He outlasted them all, capturing all 336,850,000 chips in play and winning the $8.005 million first-place prize and Jostens-crafted $500,000 WSOP gold bracelet.

Three-handed play began at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and lasted 80 minutes before Cliff Josephy, chip leader entering WSOP, was eliminated. The 50-year-old former Wall Street banker was the only one at the Final Table with WSOP victories, and he earned a payday of $3,453,035, his largest live poker tournament cash win, taking his total to nearly $6 million in earnings.

From there it was a head-to-head showdown for the two finalists, 8 1/2 hours of heads-up play before Qui defeated Gordon to claim the ultimate prize and title. Qui was the only Las Vegas resident at the Final Table. The finale was broadcast on ESPN on 30-minute delay.

Final stats: The event’s total prize pool was $63,340,268, with more than $25 million going to The November Nine. A record total of 1,011 entrants cashed in during the event. The 2016 WSOP attracted a record 107,844 players from 107 countries to its 69 events, generating a total prize pool of more than $221 million.

Our thanks to Seth, vice president of WSOP corporate communications, for his contributions to this report.</s>Qui Nguyen may not have been the best player in the field of 6,737 players who entered the World Series of Poker’s Main Event in July.

The 39-year-old Las Vegan may not have even been the best technical poker player at the final table of nine that began play Sunday night to crown a champion.

Nguyen is, however, a gambler and that instinct helped carry him to the $8 million prize and a spot in poker lore as the 2016 WSOP $10,000 buy-in No-limit Texas Hold ’em World Champion in the wee hours of Wednesday morning at the Rio’s Penn & Teller Theater.

The longest heads-up battle since the WSOP moved to the current format of the last nine players returning several months after the final table had been set for a made-for-TV spectacle. It finally ended at 3:21 a.m. as Nguyen’s suited K-10 held up against Gordon Vayo’s suited J-10.

“I’m so excited. I don’t know what to say,” said Nguyen, who looked every part the throwback to a an old-school Las Vegas gambler with his flashy jacket, jewelry and even a distinctive “Guardians of the Galaxy” Rocket Raccoon baseball cap. “I just tried to remind myself to never give up, to never give up. It was tiring, it was tough, but I wanted to stay aggressive and never give up and thankfully for me it worked out.”

Aggression was never a problem for Nguyen, who used a significant chip advantage throughout heads-up play to consistently press the action and not allow Vayo to see cheap flops. Vayo survived three all-in showdowns, including one where he needed to draw a longshot runner-runner flush to stay alive.

Finally, on the 181st hand of one-on-one play, Nguyen’s cards held up and he became the first champion since Jerry Yang in 2007 to win after his 30th birthday.

While the recent trend has been for young online players who had seen countless poker hands both on their computer monitors and at live tables in their young lives to emerge from this field as champions, Nguyen bucked the trend.

He had cashed in just one prior WSOP event when he took 54th place in a $1,500 event in 2009 for a $9,029 prize. Nguyen had won $52,986 in live poker tournaments in his life. Conversely, Vayo cashed eight times at the 2016 WSOP alone. He earned a second-place check at a WSOP event in 2014 for $314,535 and just won a tournament in September where he cashed out $587,120.

Yet, it was Nguyen who controlled the table.

“I felt like this was the Qui show, to be honest with you,” Vayo said. “He really deserves it, man. I did a lot of preparation, a lot of calculation and (Independent Chip Model) work.

”What I couldn’t prepare for was the Qui factor. He’s tough to prepare for because he’s willing to do things very few people are and willing to and adopt a strategy almost nobody plays anymore. It was almost like a blast from the past. I’m so disconnected from people playing like that. It was tough for me to re-evaluate why he was doing what he was doing. I think he just has a phenomenal feel for the game.”

While those instincts may have been developed at a casino, it may not have been at the poker table. Nguyen says he just enjoys gambling and his most beloved game is baccarat. In fact, when he won a satellite tournament to qualify for the WSOP Main Event, there was some thought given to selling the entry.

Nguyen thought better of it because there was a good chance he may have just taken the money straight to the baccarat table anyway.

“I just decided it didn’t matter how far I got, I wanted to play poker,” Nguyen said. “I say no more baccarat for me. I’ll play poker for now.”

Nguyen, a native of Vietnam who has lived in Florida and Alaska before settling in Las Vegas, didn’t spend much time in preparation for this event thinking about what he might do with the money.

Shortly after winning, he still wasn’t ready to ponder the possibilities.

“I’m just thinking about going home to sleep and have my breakfast,” he said.

Nguyen is married with a 4-year-old son named Kyle, who wants a house with a pool. According to a representative for Nguyen, he has also committed to giving some portion of his winnings to the Wounded Warrior Project.

He’s also quite likely to become a star in the poker world, where he will look to continue confusing players so immersed in math and game theory they can sometimes forget they are gambling.

“I was recently watching something called Puzzles and Mysteries,” Vayo said. “A puzzle is something you can kind of put together the pieces and solve, while a mystery is something you’re confounded by. Qui was a mystery for sure. He was not a puzzle. He was not somebody you could piece together and say, ‘This is his range. He’s going to do this with ‘X’ and ‘Y’ hands. He just wasn’t like that. Every hand was a unique circumstance and he’s tough to play against.”

Now, he’s also got a whole lot of chips to play.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-277-8028. Follow @adamhilllvrj on Twitter.</s>Las Vegan Qui Nguyen spent his first two days at the World Series of Poker’s Main Event final table becoming the darling of the poker world.

He spent Tuesday night and Wednesday morning building a monster stack before finally securing a world championship when he eliminated Gordon Vayo at 3:21 a.m.

Nguyen, a complete unknown on the professional circuit that prefers baccarat to poker, outlasted a field of 6,737 players to capture the WSOP’s $10,000 buy-in No-limit Texas Hold ’em World Championship.

Nguyen eliminated the poker pro when he called Vayo’s all-in bet with suited K-10. Vayo was holding a suited J-10 and he failed to improve when the board fell 7-9-K-2-3.

It was the 365th hand of the final table.

The victory earned Nguyen $8 million. Vayo collected $4,658,452 for finishing second.

Nguyen was the breakout star on social media over the first two days of the final table. His aggressive, borderline erratic play, combined with his enthusiasm and “Guardians of the Galaxy” Rocket Raccoon baseball cap, proved a winning formula.

It was his play at the table, however, that made him rich.

While poker experts and analysts tried to make sense of some of his moves, his opponents never could get a read on Nguyen at the table.

In the end, that helped him rake in the cash prize and world championship gold bracelet. His only previous WSOP cash was a $9,029 check for taking 54th place in a $1,500 tournament back in 2009.

Nguyen began the day with a sizable chip lead over Vayo and Cliff Josephy. After taking a big pot from Nguyen on the first hand of the night, Josephy ran into major trouble when his set of 2s was dominated by Vayo’s set of 3s.

Vayo knocked him out soon after with Josephy taking home the third-place prize of $3,451,175.

That left Vayo and Nguyen heads up.

Vayo faced two huge moments early in heads-up play that helped keep his chances alive. He took more than five minutes to decide to fold to Nguyen’s all-in bet when Nguyen had rivered a flush to top the two pair Vayo had flopped.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Vayo was all-in with a suited A-J and Nguyen called with a suited K-9. Vayo’s lead held up and he cut into what was a 4-1 chip advantage for Nguyen.

Vayo then needed a big stroke of luck to stay alive just after 1 a.m.

He re-raised Nguyen all-in after a flop of 7-8-Q hit the board and Nguyen immediately called.

Both players had a queen in their hand, but Nguyen’s ace was far better than Vayo’s 5.

Nguyen was an 81 percent favorite to win the and hand and end the tournament, but Vayo drew consecutive spades on the turn and river to double his stack and stay alive.

Vayo was able to rally to within about 30 million chips, but Nguyen continued to grind away at Vayo’s stack with aggressive bets that didn’t allow Vayo to see many hands played all the way through. He did survive several all-in bets where he had the best of the cards when the chips went in and a whole bunch where Nguyen simply folded.

In the end, he was just never able to overcome Nguyen’s big stack.

The heads up battle was the longest since the event switched to the current format where the top nine players return for a made-for-TV final table.

The 181 hands of one-on-one play between Vayo and Nguyen surpassed the mark previously set when Pius Heinz beat Martin Staszko after 119 hands in 2011.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-277-8028. Follow @adamhilllvrj on Twitter.</s>Former nail salon owner and failed professional baccarat player Qui Nguyen won the World Series of Poker Main Event early Wednesday morning in Las Vegas, claiming the top prize of $8,005,310 and a gold bracelet after a nine-hour heads-up session that was the longest in tournament history.

Wearing a raccoon baseball cap throughout the final table, the 39-year-old Nguyen eliminated San Francisco poker pro Gordon Vayo on the 364th hand of the final table — almost 200 hands with just the two of them at the felt with the first place prize money splayed between them in giant bricks of $100 bills.

The native of Vietnam emerged from a field of 6,737 in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold ‘Em Main Event, the final and most prestigious in a series of 69 World Series of Poker tournaments.

Down to his last opponent — and holding a more than 5-to-1 chip advantage — Nguyen was dealt a king and 10 of clubs.

Vayo got a jack and 10 of spades.

The first three community cards came out, and among them was a king to give Nguyen a pair.

Two blanks followed and Nguyen was the winner — the oldest Main Event champion since 2007, ending a streak of eight straight 20-somethings to claim the title. The two players hugged, confetti fell from the sky, and Nguyen’s supporters bounced over the rail to celebrate with him.

“It’s so exciting,” Nguyen said. “I don’t know what to say.”

Earlier in the session that began on Tuesday night, Cliff Josephy was eliminated in third place and collected $3.45 million.

In addition to one of the biggest prizes in poker, Nguyen receives a $50,000 bracelet made from 427 grams of white and yellow gold and more than 2,000 diamonds and rubies totaling more than 44 carats. The centerpiece opens like a locket to house the hole cards from the winning hand.

The last nine players were already paid $1 million — ninth-place money — when the field was winnowed to a final table of nine over 11 days in July. After waiting three months to meet again as the “November Nine” — moved up one week this year to avoid a conflict with the election — they played down to five on Sunday night and down to three on Monday.

Josephy, a 50-year-old former stock broker, was the oldest player at the final table and a two-time bracelet winner. With the money between them, Vayo and Nguyen said little to each other over almost nine hours, though with each all in from Vayo they stood together at the rail, away from the table, to watch the cards come out.

Vayo’s chip stack rose and fell, but Nguyen used his larger stake to put pressure on his opponent and frequently forced him to fold better hands. With some luck and good timing, Vayo was able to prolong play but he spent most of the time on the verge of elimination.

Still, he matched his best-ever finish at the World Series of Poker and earned three times as much as his total previous tournament earnings.

Vayo, 27, was the youngest player among the final nine.

Josephy arrived at the final table on Sunday night as the chip leader. He started Tuesday night far behind, in third place, but doubled his stack to more than 101 million chips on the first hand.

Soon, he was down to about 10 million. Despite petting his dog at the rail for good luck, he was eliminated when he went all-in with a queen and a three; Vayo had a king that paired when the first three community cards were dealt.

Heads-up play went back and forth until Hand 207, when Nguyen won a 30 million chip pot and the lead. Two hands later, with 83 million already in the pot, Nguyen moved all-in with a flush; Vayo took seven minutes to think about it before folding his two pair.

Nguyen methodically used the pressure of a bigger chip count to cut away at Vayo’s stack before he was forced to go all in four times in nine hands. On Hand 298, Nguyen called the raise of 52 million chips, putting Vayo at risk, but he took the pot when back-to-back spades gave him a flush.

Two hands later, he won a 66 million chip pot with a full house to increase his stack to 143 million — only 49 million behind Nguyen.

But again his pot was eaten away by the blinds, the mandatory bets that force players to enter pots or risk watching their money slowly disappear.</s>The previous eight world champions of poker had, to varying degrees, turned the game into a science.

Each winner since the World Series of Poker Main Event went to the delayed “November Nine” final table format was a 20-something professional who honed his skills through playing millions of hands of online poker. The experience set into motion their eventual championships by imbuing them with intimate knowledge of concepts like calculating hand ranges and making decisions based on expected value, all meant to cut down on the variance intrinsic to a card game.

Poker at its core, however, remains a form of gambling. For a reminder of that fact for the first time in nearly a decade at the WSOP, it took a 39-year-old local who was more likely to be found at a high-stakes baccarat table than a poker room before this summer.

Qui Nguyen, originally from Saigon, Vietnam, eschewed new-school principles like optimal game theory and the independent chip mathematical model for classic staples such as instinct and aggression over the last three nights at this year’s final table. It worked to perfection for Nguyen, as he claimed the $8 million first-place prize and the world championship bracelet early Wednesday morning at the Penn & Teller Theater inside the Rio.

“It feels amazing,” Nguyen said. “I don’t know how to say it because I don’t believe it. I just tried to do the best I can.”

The poker world was almost as excited as Nguyen after a total of 18 hours of play and 364 hands at the final table. The early consensus was that this year’s November Nine was the best one ever to watch.

That was almost entirely because of Nguyen, a previous unknown who bluffed and raised sometimes seemingly without much reason through the final table. He thrilled viewers as much as he tormented competitors — especially Gordon Vayo, a 27-year-old San Francisco resident who battled Nguyen heads-up for a Main Event record 181 hands over eight and a half hours.

“He’s a great feel player and that’s something, to be honest, I’ve struggled with in my career — going up against really tough feel players,” Vayo said. “Because my game is so rooted in this game theory and technical stuff that it’s a little bit difficult for me to put myself in their shoes and decipher what they’re doing.”

Nguyen was wild ever since winning his way into the $10,000 buy-in event, which attracted a total field of 6,737 players, by prevailing in a $1,1000 buy-in satellite tournament this summer. He kept the same style for the first two days of the final table, and stuck to it again from the beginning of the last session.

On the first hand Tuesday night, Nguyen called off 50 million chips with Ace-4 against opponent Cliff Josephy, who went all-in with Ace-Queen. Josephy, who ultimately finished in third for $3.4 million, held onto his big advantage in the hand to make for the first of many times Nguyen had to rebuild after adversity.

And it wasn’t always self-inflicted due to poor decisions. Nguyen had an 82 percent chance at an elimination the first time he called a Vayo all-in bet.

Vayo committed his entire stack with Queen-5 of clubs after a flop of Queen-7-5 with one club. Nguyen had a dominant Ace-Queen, but Vayo hit two consecutive clubs to stay alive.

“They gave me bad beats but I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t give up, don’t ever give up,’” Nguyen said. “I held up my chin and kept telling myself that. I just tried to do the best I could for a show.”

Vayo, who entered heads-up play with a lead but lost it for good after 12 hands, cut his deficit to as low as 37 million chips before Nguyen again ramped up his pressure. Nguyen got up to more than 300 million chips to Vayo’s 30 million chips before scoring the bust out.

The decisive hand came when Vayo shoved his dwindling stack all-in with Jack-10 of spades, which was no match for Nguyen’s King-10 of clubs.

“I felt like I was more a part of the Qui show, to be honest,” Vayo said. “And he really deserves it. I did a lot of preparation for this final table, a lot of calculation and ICM work and what I couldn’t prepare for was the Qui factor.”

Nguyen often laughed and smiled in between hands at the table, but briefly broke down in tears while posing for victory photos. He said he was too exhausted to begin allocating the prize money.

But a representative said Nguyen, who was sponsored by the Marines on Tuesday night, would donate a portion to the Wounded Warriors Project, which helps injured veterans. ESPN’s broadcast repeatedly mentioned that Nguyen’s son, 5-year-old Kyle, had begged him to buy a new house with a swimming pool.

A priority will be staying away from the baccarat tables, where Nguyen has admitted to losing thousands of dollars in the past. He’s found a better way to satisfy his thirst for gambling.

“He was willing to do things that very few people are and adopt this very bizarre strategy that almost no one plays really these days anymore,” Vayo said. “It was almost like a blast from the past. I’m so disconnected from people playing like that it was tough for me to re-evaluate why he was doing what he was doing. I don’t know if he had a set strategy coming in or not. I don’t think he really did. I think he was just adapting every hand, being very reactive and I think he just has a phenomenal feel for the game.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or case.keefer@lasvegassun.com. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.</s>Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton will visit Las Vegas this week.

First, the Democratic presidential nominee will have a canvass kickoff event with Labor Secretary Tom Perez at 3:15 p.m. Wednesday at Plumbers & Pipefitters Training Center, 760 N. Lamb Blvd. Doors open at 1:15 p.m.

The next day, Bill Clinton will be in Las Vegas. He’ll join musician Steve Aoki on Thursday for a get-out-the-vote performance that’s part of Clinton’s “Love Trumps Hate” concert series.

The event with the former president is at 5 p.m. Thursday at Cox Pavilion at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway.

To RSVP for the event with Bill Clinton, visit https://www.hillaryclinton.com/events/view/h6v26t7lz6f4xfrw/.

The two campaign events occur as early voting nears an end in Nevada. The final day is Friday.

Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2904. Follow @BenBotkin1 on Twitter.</s>LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada already has legal brothels, round-the-clock casinos and a coy catchphrase declaring that “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” If voters approve, the state could soon add another vice in the form of recreational marijuana.

A proposal on the Nov. 8 state ballot would legalize pot, and entrepreneurs hope its passage could someday allow the drug at Las Vegas’ glamorous nightclubs and perhaps provide the framework for a future Amsterdam-style cannabis district.

“I really think this would be the third-largest market in the country,” said Derek Peterson, whose company operates marijuana dispensaries called Blum. He predicts that only California and New York would offer a bigger customer base than Las Vegas and its 42 million tourists a year. “I think it should be able to fit in really well with the whole dayclub/nightclub thing.”

Nevada has allowed medical marijuana since 2000, and Peterson sees recreational pot as an alternative for visitors tired of cocktails that can top $15 apiece and inflict hangovers. But before waitresses begin delivering high-grade marijuana at clubs along the Las Vegas Strip, weed proponents will have to win over not just voters, who narrowly support the initiative in polls, but a risk-averse casino industry.

The Nevada Resort Association came out against the measure, pointing to an opinion from gambling regulators that casino owners should avoid the marijuana industry because the substance remains illegal under federal law. Las Vegas Sands owner Sheldon Adelson has bankrolled most of the opposition, pouring $2 million of his fortune into a campaign that raises the possibility that small children could become intoxicated from candy-like marijuana edibles.

In spite of its libertine reputation, the rigorously regulated casino industry is known to err on the conservative side to avoid scandalizing the middle-aged tourists who are its bread and butter.

“I don’t know that this is a game changer in terms of tourism,” Virginia Valentine, president of the Nevada Resort Association, said of marijuana’s potential. “We’re really known for other things. You may attract people or turn them off.”

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which promotes Sin City’s amenities to the world, is neutral on the issue.

There’s no solid state-sponsored research on how legal recreational marijuana has affected tourism in places that have legalized it, although both sides point to Colorado to make their case.

Pro-marijuana interests cite a state study that found Colorado set an all-time tourism record in 2015, capping a fifth year of growth. It’s unclear how much of that is due to weed, and how much can be chalked up to other factors, such as good snow in recent years relative to competing ski states.

Marijuana opponents refer to a report from the Visit Denver tourism bureau that logged increasing complaints about panhandling and open marijuana consumption in the city’s downtown corridor.

“Denver is losing visitors and valuable convention business as a result of these overall safety (or perception of safety) issues,” the report said. “We fear not being able to brand Denver away from this growing reputation.”

Nevada’s ballot initiative would not allow municipalities to put blanket bans on marijuana, as Colorado does. But it would bar consumption in buildings that are open to the public and permit local governments to restrict the locations of marijuana dispensaries and related businesses. It effectively blocks people from growing their own by banning the practice within 25 miles of a licensed marijuana store.

Some of those provisions could be changed three years after passage. But even political leaders who are open to legalization say the embrace will not be immediate if voters approve the measure.

“I think it will be as much of a challenge for us as it will be a boon for us, because there’s no place in the world like Vegas,” said Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, whose urban district includes the Strip. “I think it’s going to take a while to work it out.”

Meanwhile, a Nevada lawmaker who has always pushed the envelope on marijuana says he’s requested a bill next spring that would allow Amsterdam-style pot coffeeshops and other places dedicated to public consumption. Democratic state Sen. Tick Segerblom envisions a pedestrian-centric outdoor entertainment district focused on giving visitors a new kind of “only-in-Vegas” experience centered around pot.

“It’s somewhere you do things you wouldn’t normally do,” said Segerblom, who’s so supportive of marijuana in Nevada that he sponsored a failed bill in 2015 to allow sick dogs and cats to use it. “Have fun, party, do things you wouldn’t do at home. Take a picture and brag about it.”</s>It’s a milestone achievement as the Las Vegas Review-Journal celebrates the 35th anniversary of the Best of Las Vegas with an awards show at The Venetian Theater on Saturday afternoon. The Best of Las Vegas is the city’s longest-running readers’ choice recognition.

It debuted as a two-page section in 1982 and since then, the RJ has handed out more than 8,000 awards to the city’s best places to eat, sleep, shop and play.

Actress and entrepreneur Suzanne Somers hosts the awards welcoming the cast of “Baz: Star Crossed Love,” performing “Lady Marmalade,” Human Nature, Clint Holmes and wife Kelly Clinton Holmes. Our President and Publisher Craig Moon will introduce Suzanne.

The awards will open with a blockbuster number, “Here I Go Again” by the cast of “Rock of Ages.” Nathan Burton will provide magic, and Eddie Griffin and Vinny Favorito will ensure that it’s a humorous and fun show.

Jennifer Romas and her “Sexxy” dancers will perform “Big Spender,” and electric violinist Lydia Ansel will DJ at the winners’ reception. Pia Zadora, Carrot Top, Elvis double Steve Connolly and yours truly along with the hunks of Chippendales also are among the presenters and performers.

The awards, with musical direction by Pat Caddick, is set to run 75 minutes without an intermission, with a 2 p.m. red carpet for the performers and presenters and 3 p.m. curtain up.

We’ve produced a special edition of 2016 Best of Las Vegas of all 227 winners, which Saturday’s attendees will receive one day in advance of the RJ tabloid on Sunday. Seats are $35 and include a 2016 BOLV tab and a gift bag.

We’ll present 10 Best of Las Vegas winners as part of the awards, and I’ll have my own 10 Icon Awards in the 2016 BOLV publication. The show will appropriately end with a finale saluting our desert kingdom by performers from “Las Vegas! The Show.”

Come join us for the excitement, and our thanks for the amazing 35th anniversary BOLV cake that Buddy “Cake Boss” Valastro and his team created at Carlo’s Bake Shop in Jersey City, New Jersey, for our milestone.</s>The U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada on Wednesday said a man who pleaded guilty to robbing six convenience stores in 2015 in Las Vegas was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Paul Daniel Loisel, 24, of Las Vegas, was sentenced after pleading guilty on Aug. 10 to five counts of interference with commerce by robbery and one count of discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, the Justice Department said in a statement.

According to the plea agreement, Loisel used a handgun to rob six convenience stores in Las Vegas between Nov. 22, 2015, and Dec. 16, 2015.

This FBI investigated the case with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and North Las Vegas police departments as part of the Safe Streets Task Force and Project Safe Neighborhoods program, a nationwide effort to reduce gun and gang crime in America.

Contact Raven Jackson at rjackson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @ravenmjackson on Twitter.
Qui Nguyen wins the 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event in Las Vegas, Nevada.