With Pitbull getting his own slot machine, will other stars follow suit?

Forget about the Cristal, the Rolex and the Reebok endorsement deal. You want to be a music industry baller now, you gotta get yourself a slot machine.
Pitbull visits Las Vegas on Sunday to play the Mandalay Events Center, co-billed with Enrique Iglesias.
But he also was here last week, at least long enough to pop by Surrender nightclub at Wynn Las Vegas for a brief appearance at a Global Gaming Expo party, celebrating his new status as “brand ambassador” for Bally Technologies’ line of Playboy-themed machines.
This partnership will eventually yield a game of chance promising to use Pitbull’s image and some of his songs.
“There’s no way, shape or form we would have ever thought a first-generation Cuban-American would ever have a game (with) Bally’s,” Pitbull told those on hand. He is happy to be “a part of something that for me is iconic, and that’s Las Vegas.”
So is Pitbull, if you think about the suits, the babes and the bottomless bottle of Voli. A perfect match both for Playboy and casino branding, except the game-maker will probably leave instructions to use any name for the machine except “Give Me Everything.”
Picture it. You slide a C-note in and the machine lights up with “Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor)” as Pitbull announces, “Make money, make money, this chico here right here gotta eat, baby. Scared money don’t make money.”
Line up a straight string of Voli bottles, and ka-ching! Pitbull chimes in with some “Timber”: “Blessed to say, money ain’t a thing. Club-jumping like LeBron now, Voli! Order me another round, homie! We about to clown.”
But if the reels don’t line up, he taunts you with a touch of “Don’t Stop the Party”: “You don’t get money, but I do, I do.”
If this sounds vaguely ridiculous, then sit yourself down in front of the Rolling Stones machine currently on your friendly neighborhood casino floor.
“It’s time to start me up,” announces a British accent that sounds more like Austin Powers than Mick Jagger. Try to line up your microphones or your “VIP All Access” laminates as the animated lips-and-tongue logo dances across the animated screen.
The Stones were never known to turn down money. But why should classic-rock geezers such as ZZ Top, the old greedbags in Kiss, or estate lawyers cashing in on Michael Jackson be the only ones to score a slot machine?
Las Vegas has found younger people to be more interested in its clubs than its casino floors. Slot-makers trying to catch up to pop culture so far have done better with movies and TV shows (“Avatar,” “The Walking Dead”). What better way to turn 20-somethings back into the slot zombies who built this town? At the very least, they’d have to lay eyes on airbrushed, Chevy van-quality images of said stars and hear snippets of their hits while lined up to get inside the club.
Here’s a little inspiration to help machine designers get started.
■ Kanye West: You don’t think the upcoming Life Is Beautiful headliner (Oct. 24) will let a Pitbull slot machine stand unchallenged, do you? Hit a jackpot and proclaim “I Am A God.”
“Welcome to the good life. … Let’s go on a livin’ spree,” Yeezus will tell you when you’re hot. And when you’re not? “Oh, how could you be so heartless?”
■ Nicki Minaj: As music did in the ’80s, slot machines are evolving into a visual medium. So what better for the gents on the floor than a jackpot in which four winning reels are represented by the bootylicious shot that comes at the 1:09-minute mark (not that we had that memorized) of the official video for “Anaconda,” obviously inspired by Las Vegas’ very own “Crazy Girls” statue.
The only drawback is having to wait for the old retired guy to leave the machine. But you can’t blame him for playing it with the volume down.
■ Jason Aldean: Sit down, you’re “Just Gettin’ Started” with the headliner of the just-concluded Route 91 Harvest festival. Aldean wouldn’t mind us repurposing his Nashville anthem “Crazy Town” for the slot-club crowd: “It’s a crazy town full of neon dreams, Everybody plays, everybody sings.” But if you crap out and start to walk away, be prepared to hear, “Don’t You Wanna Stay?”
■ Katy Perry: So, as we were saying, younger audiences drop their cash in the clubs, not the casinos. And since we no longer hear much protest about machines based on cartoons or “The Wizard of Oz” corrupting minors, a pop gateway button-puncher is in order.
What better song title than “Hot N Cold” describes the casino experience? “You’re up and then you’re down,” says wise Katy, and also the chain-smoking grandma in the chair next to you.
Victory at a Katy machine should erupt into a “Firework,” or at least a little video cleavage. But if the last reel does not match the rest of the line? It’s “The One That Got Away.”
■ Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett: “Anaconda” videos can’t solve every generation gap posed by Top 40 slot machines. But these unlikely duet partners — who will team up live on New Year’s Eve at The Cosmopolitan — could make yesterday’s and tomorrow’s high rollers sit side by side, waiting forever for that free drink.
Throw the multigenerational stars enough lettuce and they just might record “Luck Be A Lady” as an exclusive for the slot-maker. If not, winners could settle for the title song of “Cheek to Cheek” — “Heaven, I’m in heaven …” — while those who loved and lost their $9.85 (because you never walk away from a penny slot empty handed) could take their choice of last-call anthems, from “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” to “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.”
Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.