Porn Oscars Hosted by Vegas Casino, Linking Sex to Gambling

Strip clubs are working deals with casinos to provide eye candy by supplying girls to lounge at resort pools.

In yet another sign that the sex and gambling industries are blurring the lines where one form of adult entertainment stops and the other begins, one of the premiere events of the new year will be the AVN Adult Movie Awards, to be held at the Mandalay Bay Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. This is essentially the Oscars for sex films.

Just as the gambling industry in general, and recently online casinos in specific, have endured legal assaults due to stigmas and mistaken assumptions about the nature of the business, so too has pornography had to suffer social alienation and legal persecution before achieving acceptance.

Yet, the x-rated movie industry may offer hope for the future for gambling aficionados. Even though participants in the porn field were threatened with lengthy prison sentences in the Seventies and the Eighties, porn has become socially cool. Jenna Jameson is an idol to many young girls, and porn goddesses regularly earn mainstream work, once unthinkable when porn work made actors and actresses lepers.

So, even though currently online gambling operators are relentlessly pursued by federal law enforcement, advertising a sports wagering service earns long jail terms, and millions are forfeited to the government, gambling can expect that laws will soften as the immutable truth sinks in, as it did with porn: America likes it.

Meanwhile, Las Vegas continues to snuggle ever closer to sex industry brands. Penthouse is searching for a Strip casino to buy, and Playboy operates a club at the Palms casino and an online casino under its own brand. Strip clubs are working deals with casinos to provide eye candy by supplying girls to lounge at resort pools. And the Girls of Glitter Gulch strip club wants to install slots.

So, the Adult Video News Adult Movie Awards will take place at Mandalay Bay on January 10th, hosted by noted fornicator Belladonna. What could make more sense? With tickets running from $107 to $240, it's a sure sellout. After all, whether the government likes it or not, people love porn and gambling.