Straight Outta Vegas

[Cap'n Rick]

Day 3 - The Wednesday Nudges and @CPJohnson helped 16 more Muggles off their respective couches:

Snood
benchen71
SeamusOL
Johnny Luau
Carolyn
DebbieC
DavyGravy
haydendog
KayW
Sharkicicles
Dow Jones
woozy
jbird
Laura M
bhamren
Cinny

That brings our solver total to 58. If we play our cards right, we should be able to break 60 by tomorrow morning.

[cbarbee002]

Should be over 60 - - think I'm there.

[michaelm]

Off the couch.
Not before the puzzling, devilish diversions of Sin City, Cap'n Rick!

[hoover]

I should not have needed all of those nudges, but I'm off the couch now with an imprint of a foot in my back.

[Cap'n Rick]

Day 4 - Ten more Muggles have separated from their settees:

LindaPRmaven
cbarbee002
ferdibarda
Emma Oxford
Pair O Ducks
michaelm
hoover
Richard
Rufus T Firefly
ChemBrewer

That brings our solver total to 68. Can get to 70? Only time will "tell".

[Laura M]

Full disclosure: I was really oblivious on this one and needed all the nudges. Very nice puzzle, thanks!

[Cap'n Rick]

Full disclosure: I was really oblivious on this one and needed all the nudges. Very nice puzzle, thanks!

Thanks for solving, Laura. And you're not alone; this puzzle fooled more than a few Muggles. I will have to use this mechanism again in the future.

[Cap'n Rick]

Day 5 - Seven more Muggles successfully solved today:

Tobonic
Naptown Kid
Dawn Landry
Joe Pickett
Landon Kimmel
Anonymous Crossharer
MaineMarge

This brings our solver total to 75! Keep it rolling, Muggles!

[MaineMarge]

Cap’n says I can get off the couch now. Just in time, as I don’t really like this guy’s choice of shows

Great metanism Rick!

[Cap'n Rick]

Day 6 - Only one more Muggle found the hidden Vegas secrets today:

BrennerTJ

That brings our total to 76. Stay tuned for the big reveal tomorrow!

[Cap'n Rick]

Ahoy Muggles!

The meta answer is "POKER", and the "straight" out of Vegas is an ace-high straight formed by the last words of 1A - Air Force ace; 24A - German king; 40A - Honorees of the queen; 55A - Western actor Jack; and 71A - Graded on a scale from one to ten. The first letters of the answers to these five clues spell the meta answer - "POKER" (see below).

I was a little concerned that the poker hand would stand out like a sore thumb among the clues, so I included a few gaming red herrings in the grid (e.g. LOTTOGAME, SALEMSLOT, BETTHERANCH, KNIGHTS (as in Golden Knights of the NHL), etc.) The ATFACEVALUE entry at 63A was intended to hint at the "face cards" in the straight, and the "Make straight" - ALIGN clue/answer at 11D was intended to hint at the linear poker hand descending from the NW to SE corners of the grid.

Thanks for solving, everyone!

Until next time,
Cap'n Rick