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What is Cuba Caliente?
While it’s tempting to use AI to help you write a submit, we please ask that you avoid doing so, as once again, the more personal an entry is, the better we can judge it across our key criteria.
The submission form will close on 1 October, at which time nominations will be put to our esteemed panel of judges for final review.
More information on judges, submissions and deadlines can be found here. You can also access interviews with last year’s winners and the final list for 2025, as well as for every year prior.
What is Cuba Caliente?
The artifacts also include a 1966 cocktail waitress uniform, a Cleopatra costume and headdresses from opening events, a Tom Jones show program from 1971, Caesars Palace Grand Prix posters, and an old high-stakes slot machine.
The statue now stands, bargeless, mounted on a red-striped pedestal flanked by golden sphinxes.
Cleopatra’s Barge opened in September 1970 in what is now the Nobu Hotel tower, replacing the earlier Nero’s Nook lounge. The 180-seat lounge featured as its centerpiece a “floating” stage designed as a replica of the vessel aboard which the Egyptian queen is said to have bewitched Mark Antony.
The pleasure craft, installed in a shallow lagoon, featured a gold-painted, topless figurehead that extended far into the public walkway. Guests quickly turned rubbing the statue’s golden breasts for luck into a classic Vegas tradition; staff regularly repainted the most-touched areas.
About Cuba Caliente
The shift means that rather than spending their time pricing and managing established markets, traders can now apply their expertise where human judgement has the greatest value, including developing and testing new products. AI removes many of the practical limits on what can be offered and priced, and manages the resulting scale and complexity. The result is greater efficiency for Kambi and a better service for its partners and their customers.
“To this point, sportsbook product creation has largely been guided by a trading department’s ability to profitably price and risk-manage certain bet offers,” Lamb says. “AI trading lifts those limitations, while also enabling that existing human expertise to be leveraged more effectively.”
The 2026 tournament demonstrated why Kambi believes this total integration of AI is necessary. Sportsbooks are no longer built primarily around match results and traditional pre-match markets. Bettors increasingly expect to construct wagers around individual players and specific moments within a game.