... says the Motley Fool, in essence. Even Borgata, which posted a higher operating profit year/year, is deemed merely to suck less than everybody else. I'm not sure I'm with the Fools on this one. For instance, shouldn't Sands Bethlehem be doing better than fifth among Pennsylvania casinos, especially when you consider its proximity to New York City?

Elsewhere on the Boardwalk, the UAW is fighting Trump Plaza, the Plaza is fighting the National Labor Relations Board and Trump dealers are fighting amongst themselves. Since 32% of dealers initially voted against UAW representation, it should be a cinch to round up 30% to sign a decertification petition. Kudos to Trump Entertainment Resorts CEO Mark Juliano for going out of his way to soothe potential animosity between labor and management.

MILF convention in A.C.: On Oct. 3, former Bunnies and other veterans of the short-lived Playboy Hotel & Casino will return to the shore to relive the good old days. A few might even wriggle into their old Bunny costumes. Maybe a re-infusion of the Playboy brand is what Atlantic City needs. It can only help. Are you listening, Carl Icahn? Revel? Pinnacle Entertainment? Anybody?

Finally, a reason to visit Orlando ...

... or maybe not. And that dude from Scotland is in serious need of subtitles.

Resort-style casinos come to Colorado and doesn't Ameristar's new hotel look lovely? Now, if only somebody would build a mid-market property like this on the Strip. Why must average Americans settle for older, second-tier properties if they're to afford a Vegas vacation?

Health care reform + Internet gambling? Is it just me or is Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) onto something here? This may be just the carrot to dangle in front of legislators who still balk at allowing Americans to wager on the Web.

Creditors screwed again. How much is Greektown Casino worth? Is it the $725 million its creditors claim? Or the $540 million that Greektown asserts? Or maybe the lowball $485 million that lead bidder Tom Celani is willing to pay? Greektown's recent -- and well-publicized -- inroads into the market share of its Detroit rivals lend merit to the higher-end valuations. If the place was in the doghouse, I might sympathize with Celani (who's likely to boot the very management team responsible for Greektown's turnaround), but Fine Point Group has definitely enhanced a once-seedy casino's value.

It's official. VIP-player commissions in Macao will be capped. Since the war over junketeer commissions was threatening to make Macao a negative-revenue proposition, the new ceiling will greatly improve cash flow for Macanese operators. Middle-of-the-pack Galaxy Entertainment is expected to benefit the most (+27% EBITDA), followed at some distance by Stanley Ho (16%), with Las Vegas Sands and MGM Mirage bringing up the rear. Although the elderly Ho may be on his deathbed, he's lived long enough to broker peace in a potentially destructive situation where the only sure winners were the sought-after junket operators.

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Plans by Pinnacle Entertainment to move its President riverboat upriver just hit a big snag. Taking the view that the President's license is portable, Pinnacle hoped to use either the vessel itself or the license to jimmy open a new market niche along the Mississippi River.

Seems the Missouri Gaming Commission doesn't hold with Pinnacle's logic. Move the ship, they say, and it's open season on that 13th (and last) license in the Show-Me State. Right now, Pinnacle's keeping the President operational as a charity case -- thereby preserving the license -- but the Coast Guard is likely to shut her down in 10 months, so decrepit is the vessel.

Not that I wish ill for Pinnacle, one of the classier outfits in the industry, but this here is what's called "karma." Both Pinnacle and Ameristar Casinos pushed hard for legislation last year that uncapped the state's loss limits in return for capping the number of licensees. It was an anti-competitive move that was inveighed against in these pages.

Ameristar and Pinnacle tried to lock up what was an open territory. Now, with the President's license skittering about the field like a wet football, Pinnacle's going to find itself having to grapple with the very competitors it thought it had excluded from the game. Which is as it should be.

There can be only one. Two casino proposals from Cordish Gaming and Penn National have been forwarded to the Kansas Lottery Gaming Facility Review Board (Uff da!) for final arbitration, Remember that the last time we went through this, Penn got a whopping zero votes (probably due to a series of peevish public pronouncements), but then Cordish wanted to resubmit its project in smaller form.

This time around, Penn execs have been playing well with others, rather than trying to dictate the process. They're promising a three-phase, $564 million casino-resort (subject to certain economic conditions). Cordish is choosing to under-promise, committing only to a $390 million casino, at least until bluer skies return. Partnership with the Kansas Speedway still gives Cordish an edge (as does the Hard Rock brand) ... but the Kansas-casino process has been long, tortuous and filled with reversals of fortune. (Mike Ensign, anyone?)

Speaking of Kansas ... shoo-in Foxwoods has announced that it's restructuring its debt and enlisting outside assistance, yet another victim of ill-timed expansion. Small wonder Foxwoods and Lakes Entertainment decided to pool their pennies on Chisholm Creek Casino (above) rather than duke it out for the Wichita market.

Compromise is near. Down in Florida, that is. A formula too complicated to summarize here would bring the Seminole Tribe and the Sunshine State's Lege into agreement. (The Seminoles took one look at the compact fashioned by the Lege last spring and spat it out like bad food.) In return for accepting some restrictions on game offerings at some casinos, the Seminoles get a complete exemption from paying taxes to the state -- if private-sector gambling spreads beyond Broward and Miami-Dade counties. And if existing non-tribal casinos get, say, blackjack the Seminoles' obligation to the state is halved.

So tell me, why does Sheldon Adelson seriously think Florida is a potential growth market?

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Under CEO Gary Loveman's leadership, Harrah's Entertainment keeps tripping over its own feet. In the latest development, management's foot-dragging approach to negotiating with Atlantic City casino dealers and slot technicians has resulted in pro-strike votes at two casinos. Caesars slot technicians, in fact, voted unanimously in favor of striking (at some undetermined future date). The dealer votes were 92% in favor at Bally's Atlantic City and 97% "aye" at Caesars Atlantic City. Legislation currently before the U.S. Senate could turn up the heat under Harrah's considerably.

Closer to Harrah's HQ, this morning's drive-by of The Rio suggests that the corporate motto is, "Maintenance? What's that?" Not only does the paint continue to peel off the older Rio tower, which is starting to look outwardly seedy, but a big sign for Fuego continues to adorn the marquee, even though the club closed weeks ago. Expect giant cobwebs to cover the property any day now.

Jeff Beacher and his crazy critters are making trouble again, this time in Florida. Seems cops had to take down an Oompa Loompa in Beacher's employ.

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Martin Stern's 1975 conceptualization of a Xanadu casino-hotel, as virtually reconstructed by Dr. David G. Schwartz, struck a familiar chord with one S&G reader. They quickly detected a resemblance between Welton Becket's 1971 Disney's Contemporary Resort, built in modular fashion (hotel rooms were hoisted into place one at a time) for Disney World ...

... and the Xanadu design ...

How does it look to you? That pyramid look was certainly the "in" thing back when Stern was pitching Xanadu (which probably explains his choice of concept). Here's another example, from Cancun, the Grand Oasis:

Of course, when Las Vegas did get around to a pyramid-shaped hotel, it was such a flub (Luxor) that it's still being "fixed" to this day. Too bad we'll never know if Stern's concept would have worked because post-Luxor nobody's going to try anything remotely like it in Vegas again.

In other news: What may soon become know as Juice Train 2 continues to make headlines, thanks to Sen. Harry Reid's (D-NV) sudden flip-flop.

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Florida's popular, gaming-friendly Gov. Charlie Crist is going to make a run for the U.S. Senate seat that opens up in 2010. First, he has to get past former archnemesis Marco Rubio, who recently termed out as speaker of Florida's lower house, but early polling suggests Rubio won't be much of an obstacle, running a mere 46% behind Crist.

Rubio was the loudest and most nuisance-making of the various opponents of Crist's compact with the Seminole Tribe. His qualms were ultimately upheld by the Florida Supreme Court and there's never been any love lost between those two. If the GOP hopes to keep that Florida seat, Crist ought to be a lock.

Speaking of Florida, whose face keeps popping up in TV footage of GOP pizza parties but ex-Gov. Jeb Bush. Never mind "brand equity" problems that the Bush name might have these days. The Jebster's diehard opposition to gambling, his backhanded treatment of the Seminoles and his socially interventionist tendencies (think Terri Schiavo) make him the perfect presidential candidate for '12 ... as in 1912.

Update: Crist's declaration inspired this blogosphere zinger, "Florida's Crist to run for US Senate -- anti-Crist says bring it on." Throw in a speedy NRSC endorsement and it looks like Game Over for Rubio.

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Given their tightly held scruples about gambling, period, I figured that there was no way on God's green earth that Florida's Republican-dominated House would agree to lowering the gambling age (at least for slots) to 18. That looked, at first blush, like a deliberately inflammatory proposal, a star atop the state Senate's Christmas tree of gaming-industry concession and the first thing to go during negotiations.

Ha! I repeat: HA! House members are still dead-set against letting people in Tampa play blackjack, but lowering the gambling age to 18 has passed without a murmur, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Even the House has come round to granting the Seminole Tribe some tables (but only blackjack), while the Senate counterproposes a two-tier system whereby half the Seminole casinos get the full monty and half get none, just slots. As with poker limits, it's not a question of "Will they or won't they (get tables)?" Now it's, "How much?" Class II machines for parimutuels are off the table but state senators have come back with something even more contrived. It's enough to make your head spin.

No longer a Dream: June 1 has been set as the date for City of Dreams, the first megaresort built by Melco Crown Entertainment. Despite having two (eventually four) hotel towers, it will open with but 600 hotel rooms, potentially maxing out at 2,200 units. Hopefully, the initial business will give CEO Lawrence Ho something to crow about when he addresses G2E Asia later that month.

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With the Lege drawing to a close, Florida lawmakers will procrastinate on the tribal-gambling-compact issue in one of two ways: Leave it until the very end or handle it in a special session. (Your tax dollars at work, Floridians.)

Although uncoupling the compact from education funding has slowed negotiations to a crawl, there are hints of movement toward compromise. Stick-in-the-mud Republicans in the lower house, who essentially don't want to concede diddly, may be open to permitting blackjack at one Seminole casino. What the state Senate is prepared to yield is less clear (its pet proposal would spread Class II gaming statewide), although a lowering of the gambling age to 18 is certain to go over the side, if it hasn't already.

The initial Senate proposal was a "Christmas tree" of goodies for every stripe of the gambling industry, presumably with the intention of bartering away this or that bauble once negotiations got serious. And every business with a vested interest in the outcome of House/Senate negotiations seems to have a special exemption or amendment of its own to peddle.

Then again, don't put it past Florida lawmakers to just walk away from $280 million. Gov. Charlie Crist (R) may be in step with the national zeitgeist but he's far in advance of many in his own state party who pine for the days when gambling was unsafe, rare and illegal. At least the GOP's historical preference for lower corporate taxes has been put to good use in the current debate, with Class III private-sector casinos in Miami-Dade and Broward counties granted a 30% reduction in taxes levied. While that's not enough to level the playing field vis-a-vis their Seminole competitors, it gets them back in the game. Here's hoping it brings back some of the companies that have soured on the low-yield South Florida market.

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"We took their land and it is coming back to haunt us." -- State Sen. Steve Wise (R-Jacksonville), a casino opponent, observing that the Seminole Tribe's gambling-driven ascendancy in Florida is a form of karmic payback.

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Isle of Capri Casinos is coming up for air, literally extricating itself from underneath Ricoh Stadium in Coventry, U.K. As part of CEO James Perry's attempt to refocus a company that spread itself too thin under his predecessor, he's walking away from an ill-starred British venture. Rank Group not only assumes Isle's lease, it gets the casino itself for pocket change, by industry standards: $940,000.

Perry may also be preparing to unload Isle's Pompano Park racino in the disappointing Florida market. At least one analyst is now picking Isle, so recently stuck in the mud, as one of the better bets to emerge intact from the gaming group's crisis.

A house divided cannot flush. Staggering from miscalculation to mishap, the Tropicana Las Vegas has sustained another self-inflicted wound. But don't blame current steward Tropicana Entertainment, predecessor Columbia Sussex or even Aztar Corp. The non-kosher plumbing that got the Paradise Tower shut down dates back to the 1990s, when the Trop was under divided ownership (one of the many obstacles to its redevelopment). The scary part is that it took at least 10 years for the code violations to be discovered.

The real victims, of course, are the hotel guests who are getting bumped from their Paradise Tower rooms. Since it's far and away the nicest part of the Trop, by definition they'll be moving to less-desirable rooms, some of them in truly decrepit parts of the hotel. Given the condition of the Trop's physical plant when I made a "secret shopper" visit, today's news comes as less than a surprise. The resort's advancing years were bound to catch it out sooner rather than later.

Penn's fancy footwork. While not out-and-out denying an attention-getting New York Post story about a possible 'credit bid' play for The Mirage, executives of Penn National Gaming were at some considerable pains to imply that it was all smoke, no fire. CFO William Clifford put it thusly: "... there were quotes and things said that have been pulled all the back to the last year’s Gaming Conference ... I’m not quite sure that the Post article is a very good reflection of anything we’ve ever said at any point in time."

CEO Peter Carlino followed with, "Some of the most interesting quotes were made at a time when none of the stuff that you are all currently thinking about was out there so it’s unfortunate. It’s just a hodgepodge of things pulled together to make a story. We would have preferred not to have seen it that way. Look, common sense says if there’s an opportunity we’re going to follow it but it’s no more exciting than that; enough said." [Emphasis added]

A Bloomberg News report that Penn was pursuing Greektown Casino went unaddressed in yesterday's earnings call. To the extent that Carlino was willing to commit himself on Las Vegas, he said Penn wanted no more than a single property "if we can find one." The consensus of Penn execs was that Vegas would be a "viable" market for the company ... in five years. (The company's strategy is partially predicated on an exodus of Californians relocating to Vegas and jump-starting the local economy.)

Sadly, Atlantic City seems to have slipped off Penn's radar screen altogether. On a happier note, the company promises a new and "exciting" replacement for the Empress Joliet pavilion that was destroyed by fire -- which makes it sound like the previous Ye Olde Egypt theme is now history, so to speak.

Schreckliche Idee! At a time when institutions like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank control ever-larger chunks of the Strip, the Nevada Gaming Commission is seriously considering lowering the threshold of scrutiny even further. (Because if there are any two words that instill confidence nowadays, those words are "Wall Street.")

The man fronting this idea, veteran gaming attorney Frank Schreck, argues that his proposed rule change wouldn't result in casinos ceding managerial or operational control. However, that's already happened at the Las Vegas Hilton, where a Goldman-owned stalking horse holds a sizeable minority interest. What he's proposing would take a bad precedent and codify it.

By linguistic coincidence, schreck is the German word for "fright" and the root of schrecklich or "horrible." Which is what this idea is. But Nevada regulators are already overburdened and about to become more so, once the next budget is enacted. Given that grim future, Schreck's proposed lightening of their workload will be probably be embraced.

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Who says nobody finds redemption in the slammer? Washington, D.C. über-sleazeball Jack Abramoff, presently spending some quality time as a guest of the federal penal system, is seeking redemption via a pair of Hollywood liberals. (Irony abounds.) Kevin Spacey and Factory Girl director George Hickenlooper are developing Casino Jack, a biopic that aims to present a kinder, gentler Abramoff.

Considering that Abramoff bilked and deceived Native American clients, fraudently gained control of the Sun Cruz casino line (part of a beyond-seamy saga that included eventual bloodshed) and was an out-and-out racist, Spacey and Hickenlooper are going to have employ a bathysphere to dredge up empathy for this sack of sludge and like-minded sidekick Michael Scanlon (to be played by Young Darth Vader himself, Hayden Christensen).

But, an Abramoff sympathizer insists, it was "Casino Jack" who was the victim and what he did "wasn't ... anything that wasn't happening on K-Street already." Even if you swallow that bullshit sandwich, the supposition that Abramoff's actions were just bidness as usual doesn't even begin to excuse them.

Let's hope this project gets put in perpetual turnaround. Besides, Abramoff doesn't deserve to be portrayed by an actor as good as Spacey. I'm thinking they should cast the part with Ted McGinley instead.

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