Watched by more than 106 million people, Super Bowl XLIV was the most-watched program in television history. The game proved to be another exciting championship, but instead of seeing more magic from Peyton Manning, we watched as the Super Bowl took a surprising twist. Manning was far from magical while Brees and the Saints, who posted 20-1 odds to win the Super Bowl in August, played the underdog role perfectly. It was a fall from grace for one of NFL’s favorite quarterbacks, while it was the rise of Drew Brees, and the return of the New Orleans Saints. The Saints gambled and won on a recovered onside kick, they scored on an interception return and they leaned on a mistake-free Brees to upset the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 on Sunday in Miami.

The biggest betting weekend of the year was a win for Las Vegas because there’s was a party all over the city as restaurants were full, bars were full and of course the casinos were full.  With an estimated 30,000 more visitors compared to last year hotel occupancy rate is up to 83 percent, which is 6 percent higher. This means roughly $90 million was made in Las Vegas in non-gaming revenue alone.

Despite an early wagering rush on Indianapolis, results were mixed at Las Vegas sports books. Initial action on the Colts drove the opening line from 31/2 to as high as 6, but most of the late money showed on the Saints as the line closed at 4 and 41/2. A high volume of money-line bets on New Orleans to win straight up at about plus-180 (wager $100 to win $180) cut into the books’ profits. Also a proposition wager that hurt the books, paying off about plus-500, was on a successful two-point conversion and Brees passed for one.

The largest reported wager yesterday was a $2 million money-line play on Indianapolis, and it looked good when the Colts went up 10-0 in the first quarter. Spot 10 points to Manning and you would expect to be cashing in, but driving to try to tie the game with just over three minutes remaining, Manning was intercepted by Tracy Porter, who raced 74 yards to secure the win for the Saints and their bettors. The state-wide estimate for gaming revenue is eighty to eighty-five million, but numbers won’t be finalized for a couple days yet.

Aside from the betting, the Super Bowl is the center stage for companies trying to win over consumers with their commercials. Betty White plays football, babies talk about “milkaholics” and a house made of Bud Light cans make audiences laugh throughout the game. Amid the humor Sunday night on CBS, advertisers such as Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola also put the focus on their products. Not every commercial was strictly humorous as automaker Toyota aired several ads before and after the game to reassure worried owners after its recalls connected with accelerator problems. Advertisers pay dearly for the airtime from $2.5 million to more than $3 million per 30 seconds.

The much anticipated Super Bowl is just a day away, and aside from the big game many are anxious for the expensive commercial ads. Several weeks ago, the National Football League announced that it was relaxing some policies and would allow Las Vegas to advertise during the Super Bowl, lifting a ban that has existed for years. Inconsistencies in the league’s gambling stance limits the NFL from making a lot more money from generating considerably more revenue with tourism. The NFL should reconsider some of its business philosophies, most importantly among them the advertising policies for Super Bowl Sunday. Las Vegas is familiar with the NFL’s heavy-handed approach to protecting its brands.

One thing apparently lost on the NFL over the years battling with Las Vegas, is that the city can and has successfully teamed up with other major sports leagues and entities. The National Hockey League brought its annual sports awards program to Las Vegas for the first time in June along with NASCAR’s annual sports banquet in December. Several years ago, the league jumped on resorts that used “Super Bowl” on marquees. That’s why print ads and radio spots for events related to the Super Bowl reference “the big game” or “championship Sunday.” Among the theories on why the NFL is so aggressive about protecting the Super Bowl brand is its well-known contempt for gambling, legal and otherwise. The ban ended up drawing far more attention to the city than any 30-second spot during the game ever could. News outlets nationwide ran the ads or portions of them in stories reporting on the controversy over the NFL policy.

This year, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority had to decide whether to pay $3 million for 30 seconds during the Super Bowl broadcast. It decided against placing an ad for this year’s Super Bowl because officials determined an ad wouldn’t have delivered enough return to the city, particularly considering that the NFL would not allow it to show Las Vegas hotels or gaming icons.

Instead, the authority planned a few, less expensive regional broadcast ads and some national cable buys in the two-week run-up to the Super Bowl. The authority purchased time in markets such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix and Denver. It spent $1.3 million on ESPN and the Fox Sports Network and in USA Today. Online, the buys were made on ESPN, Versus, NBC Sports and Yahoo. The first step in resolving this feud with Las Vegas would be for the NFL to acknowledge the existence of legal gambling and adopt an ad policy that doesn’t discriminate against the gaming industry.

Clark County is spearheading a program to inspect existing casinos for building code compliance and they have found some shocking results with thousands of violations. Surprisingly, there was not too much public resistance from resort owners, who are smiling through their teeth when they must foot the bill of bringing their properties up to code. Altogether, the 18 inspected sites have yielded almost 8,000 code violations with the most severe either corrected the same day they were found. In some distinct cases, such as the Tropicana and Hooters who have until early summer to clean things up, failing to do so could result in voluntary closure of the unsafe portion of each property until repairs were complete and inspections passed. Casinos get extended time to resolve violations that do not present an immediate hazard.

The county’s new system to monitor existing resorts is unique in the nation, say county leaders and industry consultants. Launched in late 2008, the program so far has checked out nine properties on the Strip, seven off-Strip properties, the Gold Strike in Jean, and Buffalo Bill’s in Primm. Although the program will cost casinos more money in these tough economic times, the inspections are something that needs to be done for the safety of the general public.

Circus Circus, which went through the first-ever resort inspection in late 2008, ended up with 858 violations; by early January, 90 percent of them were corrected. Planet Hollywood, inspected in late 2009, ended up with 985 violations and had fixed about 1 percent of them by this year. The number of violations could depend on the size or the building, its complexities, the number of stories, the age, what the code was when it was originally built. There are more common violations, such as sloppy electrical wiring hidden above a dropped ceiling; things like this are classified by the inspectors as “maintenance” items. The county has indicated the methodology will be refined as the resort program evolves.

Casino owners who have kept up their buildings will ultimately have to pay less at inspection time because there will be fewer upgrades. Those who deferred maintenance or built without permits will pay for initial inspections that take longer, as well as for inspections of the eventual repairs. MGM Mirage was the only company in this go-round of inspections to reduce its costs by disclosing to the county, before its inspections, all work that had been done without permit. Six of its hotels have been probed up to date including Circus Circus, Excalibur, Gold Strike, Monte Carlo, New York-New York and Treasure Island. Some of the inspected hotels where work done without permits was found include Harrah’s Las Vegas, Hooters, The Orleans, Palms, Planet Hollywood and Tropicana. After this first batch of 18 inspections, about 30 more resorts in the county’s jurisdiction await their turn. As for downtown, the Fremont Street casinos fall under the oversight of Las Vegas, not Clark County.

Apartment rents are at a four-year low and property owners continue to adjust pricing to market realities. A drop in Las Vegas apartment rent comes as bad news for landlords and owners, but at the right time for budget-conscious renters in these hard economic times. California based Real Facts says the average rent in December was $768 a month, which is a 12.5% drop from a year ago. Of the 37 markets covered in RealFacts’ quarterly report, only Phoenix had a steeper quarterly decline at 8.7 percent to $695 a month. Other markets posting big declines were Salt Lake City (7.3 percent to $745); Denver (6.1 percent to $819); Vallejo-Fairfield, California (5.7 percent to $1,092); Seattle (5.4 percent to $981); and Reno (4.9 percent to $776).

On average the rents are down about 150 dollars a month from where they were a few years ago. There is a plethora of options available to renters so the demand for apartments is low, and going to go lower. Not only are apartment owners are lowering prices to attract renters, but they are also using other incentives to close the deal. Some tactics used by the renters include offering a free month’s rent, lower damage deposits, or even offering you a 32 inch television if you sign a lease.

With the enormous amount of options available for renters the traditional apartment complex is being overlooked by individually owned homes and condos. People prefer to rent a home if they can, especially if they have kids and pets. Another perk about renting a home at this time is you can usually get it with a pool in an affordable price range. Renters can now get into a home for close to the same monthly rate as an apartment which means it’s a good time for renters, not so good for apartment owners.

Although rents appreciated by an unprecedented 6 percent a year during the building boom in Las Vegas, all of those gains have been lost and the owners are now taking a beating. Reportedly there are 106,680 apartment units in Las Vegas at 373 properties. Average rent ran from $506 for a 422-square-foot studio to $1,231 for a four-bedroom, 1,862-square-foot apartment. It is a good time to rent right now, there are good bargains to be had compared to a few years the past. However, unless you absolutely need to get in a place, it’s best to wait it out for the best possible deal because rent is probably going to drop more.

For the second time in less than a year, President Barack Obama made an example at Las Vegas’ expense. First, he said there should be no Vegas junkets for banks that had received government bailout money. As if that was bad enough, Tuesday, at a New Hampshire town hall, he added insult to injury, implying that Las Vegas is a place of profligacy.

“When times are tough, you tighten your belts,” Obama said. “You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage, you don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices. And it’s time your government did the same.”

Las Vegas has built an entire industry and an entire city around out-of-towners blowing their discretionary income. However, as of late people have less to spend making it harder to part with their money. With the economy issues aside, something else that came up from this Obama comment was the fact that the Nevada government themselves could be to blame because of their failure to diversify the Las Vegas economy.

 “The president needs to lay off Las Vegas and stop making it the poster child for where people shouldn’t be spending their money,” said Democratic majority leader Sen. Harry Reid. In Obama’s response letter to Sen. Reid, “I hope you know that during my Town Hall today, I wasn’t saying anything negative about Las Vegas. I was making the simple point that families use vacation dollars, not college tuition money, to have fun. There is no better place to have fun than Vegas, one of our country’s great destinations. I have always enjoyed my visits, look forward to visiting in a few weeks, and hope folks will visit in record numbers this year.”

Most of the people in Southern Nevada live normal, suburban lives, but sometimes forget how the rest of the country views us. For starters there’s the prostitution, which they mistakenly think is legal, there’s gambling, and who can forget the 24-hour partying. Obama’s remark is barely controversial, but for a city that has gone through so much in the past couple years, the President would throw Vegas a compliment rather than an insult.