Downtown workers may be safe, but will Paris burn in ‘hot’ jail?

Tamares has announced that its diminutive Gold Spike Casino is for sale, and Woolf’s Navegante Group is separating from the company. Navegante has run Tamares’ casino operations since late 2005. Tamares also owns the Plaza Hotel and Casino, the Las Vegas Club and the Western.

Woolf, the former MGM Grand boss, is said to be assisting in the search for a new casino operations manager, and an informed source notes that the jobs of Tamares’ 1,600 downtown employees are safe.

IRON BAR HILTON: Paris Hilton’s 45-day jail sentence for violating her parole on an alcohol-related reckless-driving conviction has the paparazzi abuzz. But what are the odds she’ll actually serve all her time?

The smart-aleck handicappers at WagerWeb are glad you asked.

With Hilton scheduled to don a less-than-designer orange jail jumper on June 5, WagerWeb is floating a series of Paris proposition bets. A few of the G-rated offerings include 4-to-1 odds that Hilton will be caught while trying to escape, 5-to-1 that she’ll announce jail is “hot” and 20-to-1 that she’ll try to smuggle her dog Tinkerbell into the slammer.

REMEMBERING SHULER: The senseless death-by-motorcycle of former lightweight champ Diego Corrales reminds me of the demise of another promising young boxer, James Shuler, who also killed himself riding a big bike.

Shuler was one of the nicest, most genuine people I met in the years I followed the fight game. Unlike Corrales, who was a wild man and did jail time for beating his wife, Shuler was known as a clean-living guy who rose to the top of the middleweight division at a time when it was extremely competitive.

“I’m one of the few fighters around who doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and doesn’t get high no kind of way,” Shuler once said.

I met Shuler while he was training for a world title fight against Thomas Hearns. The two squared off on March 10, 1986, at Caesars Palace, and the “Hit Man” made quick work of Shuler. It was Shuler’s first professional loss.

Less than two weeks later, the 26-year-old Philadelphian died when he lost control of the new motorcycle he bought with a piece of his fight purse.

Corrales, 29, was reportedly traveling more than 100 mph on Monday night.

STROMBOLI STAR: Four Kegs owner Mario Perkins is beaming after his restaurant/tavern was featured on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” show starring Guy Fieri. The segment on the Kegs’ stromboli has sent visitors from as far as Tennessee to the unpretentious pub on Jones Boulevard.

“It’s been incredible,” says Perkins, who started working in the kitchen at the Four Kegs in 1977.

Perkins has even been asked to autograph a menu.

SAMMY’S SENDOFF: Poker room jewelry vendor Sam Angel was celebrated Wednesday night in the fashion he would have appreciated — at the Tap House in a room jammed with friends and casino family members. The party included videos of Angel, who died recently at 86 after a life lived in Runyonesque splendor.

Poker room bosses, sports radio mavens, handicappers, hunch players and actual gamblers turned out to propose a final toast to the loudest little freelance watch-and-jewelry salesman to ever turn a wrist green.

ON THE BOULEVARD: Former Las Vegas sports radio talk king Lee Pete is battling medical issues in Toledo, Ohio. … Vinny Ferrara, the Boston mob figure freed after a successful appeal in which investigators and prosecutors were found to have misled the court, was in Las Vegas for the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight and to thank his longtime defense lawyers, Oscar Goodman and David Chesnoff. … San Mateo County Sheriff Greg Munks’ trip to Las Vegas, in which he was caught in the Doll House roundup, cost his constituents $14,000 in cash and services, according to published reports. Imagine what it might have cost had he not been interrupted. … Las Vegas Bookshelf: “Elvis: Still Taking Care of Business” is a positive, but occasionally pointed, memoir by the King’s former bodyguard Sonny West, written with Marshall Terrill. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Presley’s death.

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