Patrons will be able to get prescriptions filled at M Resort

Another Nevada first. When M Resort opens March 1, patrons will be able to get their prescriptions filled … at a casino no less and using slot club points to pay for their drugs. Will it be a draw or merely a convenience?

I chuckled at the thought of getting happy pills at a casino after you’ve lost more than you can afford, but Dr. Tony Alamo, one of the Nevada gaming commissioners who approved M Resort’s licensing today, thought it was “a huge thing” and “a great marketing tool.”

The resort is going to market to locals as well as to the people in the 75,000 cars driving by each day on Interstate 15, according to M Resort Chairman and CEO Anthony Marnell III.

The other interesting tidbit: 75 percent of the people who applied for jobs at the new Henderson resort were already working someplace else. “People want to go back to working for a family,” he said, rather than a corporation. (Of course, it's a corporation, MGM Mirage, that provided a big chunk of his funding.)

One hint that comps might be a bit looser at M Resort: Marnell said his company owns the restaurants and will be using them as marketing tools. Presumably that means more comps?

“You’ve got a big nut to crack,” said Gaming Commission Chairman Pete Bernhard, concerned the timing made the project risky from a financial perspective. But he was optimistic that if economic conditions change, M Resort will do well.

My gripe: Calling it M Resort makes it hard to find in computer searches. But nobody thinks about that when naming their casinos.