For nine years, Las Vegas based magicians have competed on “America’s Got Talent,” from Nathan Burton in season one to Smoothini the Ghetto Houdini this year.

But on Wednesday, it was non-Nevadan Mat Franco who became the first magician ever to win NBC’s talent contest and its $1 million prize.

Still, the city is so thick with magicians that it’s no surprise Las Vegas can claim a little piece of the 25-year-old magician’s victory.

“It’s not little at all,” Franco said by telephone from New York today. “Jeff McBride was the biggest magic influence in my life growing up,” he says of the Las Vegas-based veteran who stages the monthly event “Wonderground” in Henderson.

“It was just a complete obsession ever since I saw him on ‘The World’s Greatest Magic 2’ on NBC back in ’95,” Franco says. “He’s just a huge inspiration to me, big time.”..

Read more