Dark Summoning

What is Dark Summoning?

While Station has remained steadfast in its opposition to Culinary, the union has made gains elsewhere in recent years. The entire Las Vegas Strip is now unionised, and Culinary used city-wide strikes as leverage in late 2023 and early 2024 to gain new multi-year labour agreements with the city’s major operators, including Wynn, Caesars and MGM.

Other than Station, Las Vegas Sands had been the other largest non-union holdout in Las Vegas for many years. But when the Venetian-Palazzo was sold to Apollo Global Management in 2021, the firm had no issues with Culinary and ratified the property’s first-ever deal with the union in 2024.

The animosity between the sides has become political over the years. Station is owned and operated by the Fertitta family, who have been prominent Republican donors for many years. Culinary is a largely Democratic organisation that typically supports and endorses left-leaning candidates.

How to play Dark Summoning

To sweeten the deal, Caesars is serving complimentary daily breakfast for visitors staying at Caesars Palace, Paris, and The Vanderpump Hotel. Stays at the Flamingo and LINQ are given $50 daily food and beverage credit.

Caesars, of course, isn’t the only major casino participating in the “Vegas 5-Day Sale.” MGM Resorts, which operates the most casinos on the Strip, has slashed Bellagio rooms by 25% and is incentivizing guests with $100 in daily F&B credit. MGM Grand rooms are 50% off.

The Venetian and Palazzo suites are 33% off, Wynn and Encore are discounted 20-30%, and Fontainebleau is 20% off with $50 daily resort credit. For budget travelers, Treasure Island has rooms from $69 and no resort fee, Westgate has two-night stays for $199 with $100 resort credit and four Cabaret tickets, and Golden Nugget has $49 rooms that come with a $20 gas card.

What is Dark Summoning?

Two operators alone – Kalshi and Polymarket – topped the combined $1 billion mark in NFL trading activity over the first six days of Week 1, according to numerous measures this week. During the period, Kalshi recorded NFL volume of $983.4 million, according to DeFi Rate, earning the pole position by a large margin. Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs thrashed the Denver Broncos 31-10 on Monday Night Football, capping the largest week for prediction markets ever.

Even before the primetime matchup in Kansas City, it became abundantly clear that the industry would shatter previous marks for weekly activity. The AFC West showdown bolstered the already robust totals. Overall, volume for the week hit a record $15.9 billion, according to Bank of America, up 16% from a week earlier.

The pure-play prediction market-operators, Polymarket and Kalshi, emerged from Week 1 as the clear winners. On one hand, Kalshi’s market share lead narrowed over its competitors, falling to 82% for the week ended 13 September, down from 86% a week earlier.