Although no new casinos are expected to open this year, several will be renovating and expanding.

The latest on the expanding list is M Resort, the upscale casino-hotel located off the Interstate 5 miles south of the Strip. Work has finally begun on the M’s long-planned second hotel tower. When completed in “mid-2025,” the $200-million, 384-room tower will bring the total number of rooms and suites at M Resort to 774. It will also expand meetings space and some amenities will be upgraded.

New casino jackpots: It’s widely believed that just-opened casinos are lucky for gamblers, and while there were no opening-night fireworks (inside) at Las Vegas’ newest, Fontainebleau, the casino has done its part to perpetuate the myth. Within the first month after the opening, slot jackpots have been hit there for $1.1 million and $1.2 million.

Survivors split: After 20 weeks of perfect prognosticating, four out of 9,267 entrants remained to split the record-setting winner-take-all Circa Survivor football-contest grand prize of $9,267,000. Since there were four survivors, each took home $2,316,750 after the split.

More rodeo: Las Vegas has extended the contract to host the National Finals Rodeo by 10 years, which means it will be held in Las Vegas until at least 2035. The National Finals Rodeo first came to Vegas in 1985.

Question: I’ve heard a Culinary Union strike is possible. Didn’t that get settled last month?

Answer: Tentative labor agreements were reached with Caesars, MGM and Wynn, which employ the lion’s share of Las Vegas’ culinary employees, but that leaves more than 20 properties and about 7,000 workers still without contracts. A strike deadline has been set for Feb. 2 if agreements aren’t reached by then. These are mostly downtown casinos with a few on and near the Strip.

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