15 Silver and black facts about your Oakland Raiders!

1. The Oakland Raiders were first granted a professional football franchise on January 30, 1960 in the now-defunct AFL. They joined the NFL in 1970 with the AFL-NFL merger.

2. The Raiders won football’s ultimate prize, a Super Bowl Championship, three times:

Super Bowl XI on January 9, 1977, 32-14 win over the Minnesota Vikings

Super Bowl XV on January 25, 1981, 27-10 win over the Philadelphia Eagles

Super Bowl XVIII January 22,1984, 38-9 win over the Washington Redskins

3. Entering the 2016 season, the Raiders’ all-time NFL record stands at

389 wins, 354 losses and 6 ties.

4. While they don’t often play each other, the Raiders have a heated rivalry with the adjacent San Francisco 49ers to capture bragging rights and Bay Area fan attention. 

5. In fact, they’ve only played 13 times with the Raiders winning 7 and the 49ers 6. They aren’t slated to play head-to-head again until 2018 (unless they both meet in the Super Bowl before then!)

6. Since 1961, the team cheerleaders have been called the Raiderettes, often known as "Football's Fabulous Females".

7. Part of the Raiders’ checkered history includes a move from their native Oakland to Los Angeles in 1982. Spurned by Oakland’s refusal to improve their stadium and add luxury boxes, Al Davis and the Raiders moved to the 95,000-seat Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum after a lengthy legal battle, where they played until 1994, before moving back north.

8. The all-time record holders among Raiders players include:

Marcus Allen – most rushing yards with 8,545 yards (1982-1992).

Ken Stabler - most passing yards with 19,078 yards (1970-1979).

Tim Brown – most caught passes with 1,070 receptions (1988-2003).

Sebastian Janikowski – all-time Raiders leading scorer with 1,574 points and growing (2000 to current).

9. The Raiders are famous for their silver and black pirate logo and uniforms, but those weren’t always the team colors. In fact, the original Raiders’ jerseys were gold and black, with gold stripes on the sleeves.

10. Although they soon switched to all silver and black uniforms, it wasn’t the end of color changes. The team used to wear silver jerseys when they played on the road, and black ones at home. But on sunny days the reflection caused a problem for TV cameras and viewers, so the NFL asked them to change to black road jerseys.

11. “Just win, baby!” was a Raider rallying cry made famous by owner Al Davis, but Davis originally proclaimed “Just win! Be right!” and Raider linebacker Phil Villapiano added the “baby” to the end.

12. The Raiders’ official credo is “Commitment to Excellence,” in reference to a line from a speech by Winston Churchill.

13. The team we know so well as the “Raiders” almost never was, since the original team name was left up to a fan contest, which voted for “The Señors.” But after plenty of ridicule and jokes, the name was changed after only 48 hours.

14. The official team song is The Autumn Wind, a ballad of bad-guy buccaneers (and football teams) that’s played before every home game. In fact, the song was originally written impromptu by David Morocom, an employee of NFL Films, to accompany footage of the Raiders.

15. The Raiders now play in venerable Oakland Coliseum, which they’ve shared with the Oakland A’s baseball team since 1968 (except for the years in Los Angeles). In fact, the A’s dirt infield is still bare and visible for Raiders games, and the midfield and end zones are devoid of any Raider logos or badging like you see on other NFL fields. 

16. The unofficial name for Raiders fans is “Raider Nation,” known for their undying loyalty, rambunctious behavior, and colorful costumes to express their fandom. Al Davis coined that phrase was back in 1968.

17. “The Black Hole” is a particularly rowdy (and sometimes dangerous!) area of fans at home games, located on field level in the end zone in sections 104-107 in The Coliseum.

18. Famous California rapper Ice Cube recorded a song called "Raider Nation" in 2009, as well as contributing to a documentary about the role of Raiders clothing and gear in 1980s Los Angeles gang culture.

19. Over the years, the Raiders have featured a host of players that are former Heisman Trophy Winners, including Marcus Allen, Bo Jackson, Tim Brown, Charles Woodson, Billy Cannon, Desmond Howard and Jim Plunkett.

19. John Madden is one of the most iconic Raiders and football “lifers.” Madden was the Raiders head coach starting on February 4, 1969 and went on to a surprisingly good 12-1-1 record that year, with a close loss in the AFL Championship game. 

20. Madden went on to coach the Raiders for 10 seasons and his lifetime winning percentage (including playoffs) is the second best in league history! In fact, Madden led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl and never had a losing season, and went on to become a household name as an announcer and for his Madden Football video game.

21. When the Raiders hired Art Shell as their head coach in 1989, he became the first African American head coach in the NFL. The Raiders had also hired the first ever Latino head coach in the NFL when they brought on Tom Flores in 1979. 

22. The Raiders ushered in a new era of leadership when they hired Jack Del Rio has head coach on January 14, 2015, replacing fired coach Dennis Allen and then interim coach Tony Soprano.

23. This year’s team shows particular promise to soon overcome the Raiders playoff and even Super Bowl draught. With young stars Khalil Mack (1st player ever to be selected as an All-Pro at 2 positions the same year), wide receiver Amari Cooper (first Oakland Raider rookie to reach 1,000-yards) and budding QB star Derek Carr  (53 TD passes in his first two seasons are the 2nd–most in NFL history) they Raiders are poised for an epic resurgence!

24. However, there is a cloud over the future of the team remaining in Oakland, as plans are underway for the Raiders to relocate to Las Vegas. On September 15, 2016, the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee voted to approve an initial $750 million funding package for a new stadium to host the Raiders. 

25. But if history has shown us one thing, it’s that no matter where the Raiders play the diehard Silver and Black fans will remain loyal! 

80 Fun and crazy facts about Las Vegas, (part 2)

Las Vegas is one of the most dazzling cities in the world, a mecca of gambling and entertainment that attracts millions of tourists every year. In this blog, we'll continue our look at fun, crazy, and fascinating facts about Las Vegas. To read the first 35, click on part 1 of this blog. 

46. If one person wanted to stay one night in every hotel in Las Vegas it would take them 288 years.

47. A 2013 study revealed that 15% of people come to Las Vegas with intentions to gamble, but 71% actually gamble during their stay.

48. The Bellagio Hotel has more rooms (3,933) than residents in Bellagio, Italy, for which it’s named.

49. Most of the water features like fountains, waterfalls, and man-made lakes in Vegas use grey water, which is recycled from sinks, tubs, and showers.

50. Plenty of people try to cheat and rob the casinos in Las Vegas, but 34% of those incidents are perpetrated by staff and employees of those establishments, not outsiders.

51. Every day, more than 60,000 pounds of cocktail shrimp are consumed in Las Vegas, which is more than the rest of the U.S. combined.

52. The Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas stands 1,100 feet tall, the highest building west of the Mississippi and the 5^th highest in the U.S.

53. A marriage license costs only $60 in Nevada and there is no requirement for a blood test or any waiting period.

54. What happens in Clark County…? Few people realize that the legendary Vegas Strip actually mostly sits in neighboring Clark County, not within the Las Vegas city limits.

55. The Nevada Test Site lies about 65 miles north of Las Vegas, home to more than 100 above-ground nuclear tests our government performed between 1952-1962. 

56. The bomb blasts were made public and spawned Atomic Tourism, where people would watch the show from the rooftops, decorate their bars and restaurants with atomic themes, and dedicate parties to witnessing the atomic blasts.

57. During the era of the nuclear scare, a wealth businessman built a 16,500 square foot mansion underground beneath Las Vegas, with a swimming pool, putting green, and other luxury amenities, along with plenty of stored food and water to keep him alive for decades in case of a nuclear war.

58. The rise of modern-day Las Vegas from a dusty desert town in the 1940s is largely thanks to Mafia gangsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin Hymen Siegelbaum, known as Bugsy Siegel, who brought together mob families, movie and music stars, and business people to get the Flamingo hotel and casino built.

59. Bugsy Siegel reportedly got inspiration for the name “Flamingo” from the long legs of his showgirl girlfriend.

60. The list of power players who held a tight grip on Vegas business and development reads like a list of kings in any monarchy. Steve Wynn started out as an apprecintice to the incumbant Frank Rosentha, but eventually “dethroned” him.

61. Wynn now serves as chairman of Mirage Resorts, and the MGM Grand, which is the most successful hotel in the world.

62. But not all Vegas legends were auspicious gambling tycoons, gangsters and wheelers and dealers.  A virtual unknown named E. Parry Thomas is given credit for helping Vegas develop into what it is today because he was the only banker in town at the time who would loan money to build casinos.

63. Almost everything is a gamble in Vegas but there’s one sure thing – that a whole lot of people will be hungover every morning. To help them recover, there’s actually a service that comes to their hotel and hooks up an IV with fluids and vitamins!

64. All the fun isn’t in the casinos and clubs in Las Vegas; a heavy equipment playground lets people drive around bulldozers and other heavy machinery just for kicks.

65. Legend has it that there’s an entire secret city buried under Las Vegas and guess what? The legend is true! Nearly 1,000 people inhabit a massive tunnel system that runs under the casinos, most of them living and sleeping under there full time, even with pets and whole families. The city knows about it, of course, and has outreach programs that try to bring them above ground and integrated into shelters or society.

66.Outside the Paris hotel in Vegas stands a monumental replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was originally slated to be a full size rendition, but because it was near an airport and might interfere with the flight path of planes, it was shrunk to a ½ size scale during construntion.

67.Pop icon Michael Jackson had plans to build a robot likeness in Las Vegas in 2007 as a tourist attraction. The robot was reportedly to be 50-feet high and able to moon walk through the desert.

68. In 2007, Michael Jackson had plans to build a 50-foot tall moon walking robot, a replica of himself to roam the desert sands of Las Vegas.

69. A lot of people don’t know that the majority of casinos in Las Vegas will cash in chips from their competitors.

70. Las Vegas may be known for great eatieries and fine dining, but no one accused them of being health conscious. For instance, at the the Heart Attack Grill in that city, any patron weighing over 350 pounds eats for free and a popular item on the menu is called the “Quadruple Bypass Burger,” which is more than 8,000 calories!

71. Thanks to their close relationship from encouraging tourism, Las Vegas holds the unofficial designation of being Hawaii’s 9th island.

72. Vegas is so brightly lit at night that you can actually see the lights from outer space.

73. The Great Recession hit Las Vegas particularly hard, as most people opted to stay home and financially conservative as the economy faltered. But now, Las Vegas tourism is back and just as big as ever.

74. In fact, construction was under way on the Harmon Hotel, the largest private funded construction project in U.S. history. Once completed, it would have 400 hotel rooms, 207 condo suites, casinos, and a full shopping mall. But that will never happen because the project’s developers and contractors were accused of falsifying 62 reports and compromising the safety of the structure to pocket money. So the ill-fated hotel was demolished in 2012 before it ever opened its doors.

75. Casinos employ all sorts of subtle tactics to keep customers inside their establishments gambling away. In fact, the casinos in Vegas have no clocks, keeping people disconnected from reality so they’ll keep spending money instead of leaving.

76. There are also no windows in casinos so people can’t tell the passing of time by day or night.

77. Casinos design their interior floor plans like mazes so people can’t exit easily.

78. And the best tactic of all, casinos give free alcohol to patrons who are gambling, which encourages them to stay and “helps” them make bad decisions and fosters sloppy play. The House always wins!

79. They’ll bet on just about anything in Vegas, though sometimes it crosses the line. In 1980, a hospital there suspended workers who were betting on when patients would die. One nurse was even accused of killing patients to help win bets.

80. Other than casinos and nightlife on the Strip, the Hoover Dam is the largest tourist attraction in or around Las Vegas. The Dam was competed in 1935 after The Hoover Dam was completed in 1935 after 21,000 men worked on it for 5 years, and regulates water to make the region habitable.

45 Fun and crazy facts about Las Vegas, America's favorite playground. (Part 1)

“Vegas, baby!” That’s the rallying cry of people from all over the world as they get ready to descend on the city of Las Vegas for festivities, fun, and plenty of gambling. And whether they’re into the biggest boxing matches and fights, star-studded concerts and shows, the finest dining and most luxuries shopping on the world, dancing and partying all night long, shopping, or just lounging by the pool to watch all of the pretty people, Las Vegas has something for everyone. But few people realize the fascinating history behind America’s ‘Sin City.’ In fact, once we started documenting all of the fun and crazy trivia, there was so much we had to write two blogs! So enjoy and stay tuned or subscribe to this blog for part two, coming soon.

1. As of 2011, 368 million people visit Las Vegas every year, and visitors stay 3.7 nights on average.

2. It’s estimated that 38% of all Americans have been to Las Vegas in their lifetime!

3. 17 of the 20 biggest hotels in the United States call Las Vegas home.

4. There is one slot machine for every 2-½ resident of Las Vegas!

5. Every year, nearly 20,000 conventions hold their meetings in the city.

6. Las Vegas is the fastest growing city in the U.S.

7. Every year, players lose $6-8 billion betting and gambling at Las Vegas casinos.

8. Las Vegas became a city in 1905, with 100 acres of land bought at auction.

9. The first hotel and casino that opened in Las Vegas was the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino in 1906.

10. Gambling wasn’t always legal in Las Vegas and Nevada: a 1910 law made it illegal, though that was later repealed in 1931 by the Nevada Legislature.

11. Second only to South Africa, Nevada is the next largest gold producer in the world.

12. The Golden Nugget Hotel displays the largest gold nugget ever found, weighing 61 pounds!

13. During the era of gangsterism, the slot machines in Vegas used to be fixed to give smaller and less frequent payouts. It was largely the work of one engineer under employ of the mob, but when he threatened to go public with the admission, he was found murdered.

14. Now, it’s mandated and carefully regulated that video slot machines pay out a minimum of 75 percent on average.

15. Vegas Vic, the huge neon cowboy likeness on Fremont Street, is the largest mechanical neon sign in the world.

16. There have been many notable eccentrics in the history of Las Vegas, but non wackier than Howard Hughes. He once came to Vegas and stayed at the Desert Inn. After a few months of not leaving the management complained and asked him to leave…so he bought the hotel.

17. Hughes went on a hotel-buying spree, including the Castaways, the Landmark, New Frontier, the Sands, and the Silver Slipper. Although he also did some horrible, bizarre things, Hughes is largely credited with ending the mob stranglehold on the Vegas gaming business.

18. Las Vegas has a dark history of racism and segregation that largely has gone unrecanted. In the 1950s, the city was known as the “Mississippi of the West” because of its brutal Jim Crow practices. At first in the 1930s, it was partially racially mixed, but as Southern racist visitors started complaining about black people in the casinos, hotels, and restaurants – even if they were working – the black population was forced to West Vegas, which had dirt roads, tents and shacks, and often no running water.

19. Even famous performers like Lena Horne and Nat King Cole had to come and go through the Blacks Only exits in the back of casinos and hotels when they performed.

20. It was actually the Rat Pack and Sammy Davis Jr. who can be given some of the credit for shifting Vegas’ segregation. Davis suffered horrid racist treatment like the rest of his less-famous black people, including the hotel pool being drained after he swam in it at the request of white patrons.

21. In the 1950s the Rat Pack, with legendary headliner Frank Sinatra, refused to keep playing at the Sands Casino unless Sammy Davis Jr. was allowed to stay in the hotel like the rest of them. That brought some new attention and forced a crack of progress on the issue.

22. In 1960, the NAACP planned a massive march down the Vegas strip to protest the racial conditions. City officials met with hotel and casino owners because they were worried the march would cripple their tourism, so they decided to end formal racial segregation in the city.

23. The Moulin Rouge became the first racially integrated hotel in Las Vegas in 1955.

24. Quite a few fortunes have been lost at the Las Vegas casinos, but a few have also been made. In 1992, a man named Archie Karas turned $50 into $40,000,000! Imagine that! But then he kept playing and ended up losing it all.

25. Fred Smith, the CEO of Fed Ex, saved his young company in 1970 by gambling his last $5,000 in Vegas. He turned that 5k into $32,000 at the Blackjack tables, which was enough to keep his company expenses and payroll afloat a few days longer, at which time the company was saved with an $11 million investment.

26. In 2004, a British gambler named Ashley Revell sold all of his possession and material things, including his wardrobe, and best his last money in the world, $135,300, all on red for a single spin of roulette. He actually won, doubling his money to $270,600!

27. In the United States (not just Vegas), the legal gambling industry creates more revenue than all pro sports, theme parks, cruise ships, movies, and music combined!

An estimated 87% of all people who visit Vegas gamble.

28. On average, those gamblers spend $580.90 on betting and gamble 4 hours per day.

29. The largest age demographic to Las Vegas is actually the 65 and older crowd, at 22% of all visitors.

30. Only two decades ago, it was legal to gamble in only two states. Now, gambling is legal in some form in 48 states, with only Hawaii and Utah still strictly banning it.

31. Nevada is one of only seven states in the U.S. that does not have a state income tax. The others are Alaska, Florida, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.

32. An astounding 84.4% of Nevada’s land is owned by the federal government, by far the most of any state.

33. Counting cards at the blackjack table is the subject of many movies. However, not many people realize that counting cards is not technically illegal in Las Vegas. But it is considered cheating, and violators who are caught may be suspended or banned from casinos.

34. Speaking of bans, the Nevada Gaming Control Board started keeping a black leather-bound book in the 1930’s with the names of people with a “notorious or unsavory reputation.” These people were blackballed from playing, owning, or even entering any casino or gambling establishment within the city limits.  The book still exists, though it’s called the List of Excluded Persons, and currently includes 66 cheats, mobsters, card counters, and other unsavory elements.

35. The minimum age to gamble in Las Vegas is 21, not 18. Minors are allowed in the hotels and casinos but only to pass through to their rooms or destination and they are prohibited from lingering around the gaming areas, even if they’re with an adult.

36. While Vegas may be the gambling capitol of the world, it’s not universally embraced in Nevada. In fact, only 25 miles off the strip in Boulder City, gambling is illegal.

37. In Chinese culture, the number four is considered bad luck, so to cater to Asian tourists and gamblers, the Wynn Las Vergas and Rio hotels and casinos have elevators that skip from 39 to 50 to exclude the 40s.

38. There are many famous handicappers in the history of Las Vegas, but the one so good he was called King or Guru is Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. He started the first sports and race book at the Stardust Hotel and Casino and his likeness was made famous as a character in the movie Casino (played by Robert de Niro).

39. Las Vegas even has mayors larger than life, as Oscar Goodman, who came to office in 1999, used to show up at public appearances with two showgirls at his side, rejected the attempt to make Vegas family friendly, called himself “The Happiest Mayor in the Universe,” and showed up at a Q and A for 4^th grader sipping martinis and responded to a question by saying his favorite pastime was drinking gin.

40. If Las Vegas and neighboring Nevada aren’t famous enough, Area 51 boosts its claim to the weirdest place on earth. Area 51 is a place in a dry lakebed in central Nevada where the government operates a top-secret military research facility, though it denied its existence until recently. Area 51 is where it’s rumored the government captured and researched aliens.

41. Area 51 employs hundred of civilian contractors, but as it’s an 8-hour commute to the next city, the government flies them in and out on a private plane for work every day. 

42. The fleet of private unmarked 737s is nicknamed “Janet Airlines” due to the call sign they use.

43. The first casinos lacked safety features like water sprinklers in the entire building. There was an epic fire in the MGM Grand Hotel in 1980 where 85 people died, 679 were injured, and 2,000 people airlifted to safety from the hotel roof on helicopters.

44. Despite rumors and even common practices, prostitution is not legal in Vegas. In fact, the law only allows legal prostitution in Nevada counties with less than 400,000 residents, which was originally made the cut off number to keep brothels out of Clark County.

45. Speaking of legal, you are allowed to carry around an alcoholic beverage in Las Vegas with some restrictions: you can only leave an establishment with said beverage if they allow and it’s not in a metal or glass container (no beer cans). Also, you can’t drink within 1,000 feet of a school, hospital, or place of worship.