WELCOME Kimo’s Vegas ... The Player’s Edge!

THE 2009 SEASON OF Poker After Dark will be taped at the Golden Nugget’s new events center, The Grand. Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Erick Lindgren, Jennifer Harman, Gus Hansen and Phil Hellmuth will play a mix of six-handed, high-stakes cash games and winner-take-all freezeouts. The games begin Oct. 26, and I promise not to tell your significant other that you’re really more interested in watching the show’s host model Leeann Tweeden. Poker After Dark airs on KHNL starting Dec. 29, right after Saturday Night Live.

THE GOLDEN NUGGET has started construction on a new $160 million tower.

The 25-story third tower will feature shopping, gaming, three levels of parking, 524 guest rooms and a Chart House restaurant with a 7,000-gallon saltwater aquarium. High rollers, look for your invite to the grand opening in December of next year.

STEVE WYNN IS building a new trophy case to house his: the Michelin Guide Five Red Pavilions award (its highest), the Mobil Five-Star and the AAA Five Diamond 2008 awards. Groupie alert: The hotel is hosting the invite-only Oct. 22 Michelin Guide 2009 award-winners party.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: The Clark County Commission has decided that visitors will no longer have to park illegally and risk their lives to get a snapshot in front of the most-recognizable sign in the world. The “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign is getting a 12-stall parking lot (two of them handicapped-accessible) and room for two buses on the median ... Construction should be pau by November. The sign was erected in 1959.

THE O.J. SIMPSON trial has begun, and like a UH football game in Hawaii, it’s on TVs all over Vegas.

KIMO’S VEGAS TIP: Do you hate cashing out a bunch of slot machine slips one after the other? Before you hit TITO’s (Ticket In, Ticket Out) exchange machine, put all your tickets into one slot machine and immediately cash it out for a single ticket.

WHEN BINIONS brought back Benny’s Million Dollar Display last month, the first people in line for a picture with the big bucks were local bruddahs (nephew) Jordan and (uncle)

Manuel Mendonza. They also did pretty well in the hotel’s legendary poker room.

KIA ORA ... Minus 5 Group is a New Zealand company that owns six Minus 5 lounges in three countries. Constructed completely from Clear Ice imported from Canada, the first permanent ice lounge in the United States serves its vodka cocktails and mocktails for the kids in ice glasses (from New Zealand) while you sit on an ice couch admiring ice sculptures. Apopular wedding setting will be its ice chapel with colored stained-ice windows, ice pews, ice sculptures and candelabra made from ... you guessed it, ice. Cold feet? No worries - the newest attraction in Mandalay Place issues parkas and sheepskin booties to keep you chillin’.

GOOD NEWS ... In Las Vegas, 2,545 single-family homes were sold in August, up 93.4 percent from a year ago. The bad news is that home prices are continuing to decline. According to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, the median price was $210,000, down from $220,000 in July and off 30 percent from a year ago.

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