Presumably foiled once again by the Comment-Eating Server, reader kerr_mudgeon writes:

From the article about the A.C. contract settlement: "In his praise of the deal, Don Marrandino, the Eastern Division president of Harrah's, appeared to refer indirectly to tortured negotiations with the United Auto Workers involving dealers, which have degenerated into a costly, bitter fight that is scaring away customers.

Two and a half years after the union won representation elections at four Atlantic City casinos, it has yet to sign a contract with any of them.
"Harrah's is proud of its record as a responsible union partner as further evidenced by this contract which was developed and agreed to in just a few short weeks and without disruption to the business and employees," he said."

- Is Harrah's equally proud that, after 2 1/2 years, it can't negotiate a first contract with the other union?
~~~
As for the hotels' prices for sheets, towels, etc., other posters' comments are correct: these are long-standing inflated charges intended to deter theft by room guests - and yes, I read of cases where guests stole the (unusable) TV remotes... and even the pictures on the walls.*

(By the way, I bought a $10 3-cup coffee maker at Walgreen's Drugstore, downtown LV, on my last trip to use in my room; I'll buy another next trip.)
There is a new revenue stream that David alludes to: High-end resorts selling robes, mattresses, wine glasses, etc. to hotel guests who appreciate the supposed superior quality of those goods - and are willing to pay inflated prices to own them.

* -- Editor's note: The pictures in the hotel rooms at Casino X were the only things looked to be worth stealing -- but they weren't for sale.

Give that man a blue ribbon: State Senate President David Williams of Kentucky may not be a friend of racinos but he hit the nail on the head recently. In a multi-point statement outlining his opposition to slots at Bluegrass State tracks, he said that horseracing was beset by "endemic" problems. He's the first public official that S&G can recall stating an overdue truth: that the ailments afflicting the horsey set can be temporarily soothed by slot revenues, but not cured.

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After sporadically butting heads, Columbia Sussex CEO William J. Yung III and Kentucky preservationists have reached agreement on the immediate future of the old Bavarian Brewery. Yung had bought it and an assortment of nearby properties on the rash presumption that the Bluegrass State would vote in casino gambling and he'd be one of the lucky licensees. He went 0-for-2.

Today's compromise preserves the most historically significant buildings while giving Yung the green light to demolish everything else. The accord may make it easier to flip the site. It also removes one very contentious issue from the table, should the CEO make another casino push. So it's a rare win-win for ColSux.

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(Well, only with their shareholders' money, perhaps.)

Huffington Post, with the considerable assistance of VegasTripping.com, has sifted through the contributions of casino industry moguls during the last election cycle and all I can say is I'm sure glad these folks' business acumen (usually) exceeds their political prescience. Overwhelmingly, the captains of our industry backed loser after loser, with a preponderance of contributions to going to newly unemployed Jon Porter (R-NV) and to the vaporware presidential candidacy of Rudy Giuliani.

Las Vegas Sands President William Weidner has a truly dreadful political batting average. Boss Sheldon Adelson can gloat that he connected with more pitches than Weidner did. (Since the RNC and RSCC failed their main tasks in '08, I'm counting those as "strikes.")

William Weidner exaggerates the extent of his political acumen.

Former MGM Mirage CEO J. Terrence Lanni more or less "broke even," while Wynn Resorts Director Elaine Wynn's early and frequent support of President-elect Barack Obama gives her the Prescience Award. (Husband Steve didn't do too badly when it came to picking winners, either ... especially if one counts his primary-season support of Sen. Joseph Biden toward the latter's eventual vice president-elect status.)

Harrah's Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman is the closest thing to a liberal -- with donations to Sens. John Kerry and Christopher Dodd in '04 and '06, respectively -- and the only consistently Democratic donor in the bunch. Columbia Sussex CEO William J. Yung III (three Dem donations to one GOP one) went 0-2 at the federal level and 2-0 at the state one ... though it still hasn't gotten him a Kentucky casino.

Still, given the number of times this roster of CEOs and presidents (including multiple Fertittas [Fertittae?] and a Maloof) rolled snake eyes, you wouldn't want them placing bets on your behalf.

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A pressing workload of late has muted me (mercifully, perhaps) on a number of issues, such as President George W. Bush's parting shot at online gamblers and offshore casinos: Ramming a last-minute codification of the UIGEA* up their tail pipes, thereby completing the damage set in motion two years ago by soon-to-be-ex-Sen. "Slick Billy" Frist (R-TN).

(In political fairness, it should be noted that Frist's co-conspirator, then-Rep. Jim Leach [R-IA], was one of President-elect Barack Obama's emissaries to the recent G20 summit -- which could have made for some awkward moments with representatives of the nations that UIGEA has inconvenienced.)

In lieu of an extended commentary on Bush the Second's underhanded stick-it-to-the-gamblers move, I present this video report, which does a virtuoso takedown of the situation in less than five minutes:

Additional delights include: Mr. Potato Head in the role of Hypocrite-in-Chief Steve Beshear (D-KY), a "smashing bird" named Kate, and the timeless music of ABBA. What more could you want?

APCW's latest report maybe? Filmed at G2E, it and oodles of other tasty reportage, satire and invective can be found on the APCWperspectives channel.

*--Thanks to Frank J. Fahrenkopf, I now know the correct pronunciation of this acronym: "WE-guh." Aptly enough, it onomatopoetically suggests the passage of something painful through one's digestive tract.

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If Sen. John McCain pulls off the Nov. 4 comeback he's predicting, it won't be any thanks to Sheldon Adelson, who puts his mouth where his money is. (Hence those queasy-making odes to Chinese totalitarianism: "People seem to be living a good life in China. Look at the incredible progress China has made. How can someone say they're doing the wrong thing?")

Politico reports that, stung by the hornet's nest that is present-day Wall Street, Adelson has "pulled the plug" on one of his pet projects, Freedom's Watch.* The latter's "neverending campaign" has downsized from an artillery barrage ($200 million in planned expenditures this election cycle) to the rattle of small-arms fire ($30 million).

Small wonder, then, that Las Vegas Sands spokesman Ron Reese airily informed the Washington Post that "Mr. Adelson does not comment on his political activity." Except when he does, of course.

I've long wondered if Adelson's high-profile GOP affiliation worked against him in Kentucky, where Sands found the door rudely slammed in its face. Mind you, the object of Gov. Steve Beshear's bromance, Columbia Sussex CEO William J. Yung III, has also been a lifetime Republican backer -- until he saw how the chips were falling, so to speak, in the Bluegrass State. Whereupon he strewed Beshear's path with greenbacks.

As politically polluted as Pennsylvania's casino-selection process has been (Give Democratic, get a casino!), at least one right call was made: Handed a choice between a Yung-backed Allentown project and Adelson's Sands Bethelehem, Pennsylvania regulators opted for the GOP-friendly mogul with a track record of impressive projects, not the one who would shortly become a synonym for insolvency.

* -- Back when Adelson's wallet was still open, conservative activists used to bitch extravagantly (but always anonymously) about how many strings he would attach to the use of what was, after all, his money.

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$800,000

That's how much it'll cost Penn National's Hollywood Casino riverboat for failing to check its direct-mail-promo list against Illinois' roster of self-banned gambling addicts (casinoholics?). That meant a 146-name overlap out of a mailing that blasted out to almost 16,000 people. The three managers responsible will be able to meditate upon the virtues of due diligence as they sit out their state-imposed suspensions.

29,000

That's how many fewer prospective customers Las Vegas Sands will have for its Marina Bay megaresort project in Singapore, thanks to that nation's aggressive problem-gambling prohibitions. Unlike U.S. states that have voluntary-exclusion policies, in Singapore it's sufficient if a member of your family drops dime on you as an alleged gambling addict.

Moral: Don't piss off anybody to whom you're related by blood (or marriage). "At this time, we cannot anticipate the volume of applications, but my concern as a social worker is that we should not take it as a punitive measure," says one regulator with masterly understatement.

Sands, meanwhile, having publicly identified Calcutta and Jakarta as target markets for the Cotai Strip™, not Marina Bay, has placed itself in the position of robbing Singapore to pay China.

$75 million

And that is the size of a lawsuit that pits Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker against their software vendor, after a loophole in that software allowed some players to peek at others' hole cards online.

Value in free propaganda to Internet-casino-bashing Gov. Steve Beshear? Priceless.

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There are finally some roars of organized resistance to Gov. Steve Beshear (D-Ky.) and his unilateral war on Internet gambling. Both the Internet Commerce Association and the Poker Players Alliance have fired off salvos, and it that looks like just the beginning, especially once Bluegrass State taxpayers start getting hit with the legal bill for Beshear's tilt at the Internet windmill.

For all his moral posturing, Beshear looks like an arch-hypocrite with each new revelation. The best one yet comes from Beshear's hatchet man, J. Michael Brown, who -- as befits his name -- is doing a heckuva job. As he explained to the Louisville Courier-Journal, the gambit is to force the GoDaddy.coms of the world to surrender domain names of gambling sites to the State of Kentucky.

"Brown said the state's intention is to enter into settlement talks with the online casino operators, asking them to block Kentucky users from their sites and pay damages in exchange for the state returning control of the sites to them."

That's right: Beshear and Brown intend to take these sites hostage and hold them for ransom. This is a shakedown, pure and simple.

Happily, Judge Thomas Wingate got a glimpse of the enormity of the case and hit the brakes. Beshear had hoped to effect his money-grab last Friday, but he'll have to make a grudging concession to due process, looks like. Beshear may be an improvement on his corrupt predecessor in Frankfort but, in light of his continuing ass-clownery, that's the most relative compliment of 2008.

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Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) is coming for your Internet casino, even if he has to pry it from your cold, dead fingers. No, the "D" behind Beshear's name doesn't stand for "demented," "deranged" or even "doofus," as there's a coldly pragmatic rationale behind his actions (which he lays out in rich, high-fidelity MP3 sound).

He's right upfront about doing this not to stop gambling per se but to ensure that Kentuckians who gamble do so at the Bluegrass State's horse tracks or in its lotteries (or maybe in those brick-and-mortar casinos he still dreams of building). Thus, any pieties the guv may utter about the social costs of gambling are at best mouthwash and more likely hypocrisy.

Steve Beshear, working on his "crazy" look.

Were Beshear's actions not so much in line with liberal do-gooderism (as well as with right-wing nanny-state-ism), casino detractors might point out that he's apparently hunky-dory with the "ease, availability and anonymity" of losing one's money playing the ponies or the lottery -- a notoriously regressive form of taxation.

When you come right down to it, Beshear's doing the dirty work of one branch of the gaming industry at the expense of another ... much as he carried water for Columbia Sussex oligarch William J. Yung III when he put casino legalization before the Kentucky Lege, in what became known as "the Bill Yung scandal."

Beshear's certainly right about this case being "unprecendented" and "potentially groundbreaking": Not even the U.S. Department of Justice has unleashed such a wide frontal assault on Web-based casinos. And, in his defense, he's enforcing laws already on the books in Kentucky. As for why enforcing aforesaid laws is suddenly such a priority, my colleague David Matthews has the answer: "He hopes to be able to have the state take over the domain names and then shut them down, or perhaps even use them for his own marketing purposes."

"In essence, this is a threat to national security." Yes, Beshear really says that. Before you stop rolling with laughter, know also that he brandishes the old "terrorism" and "money laundering" shibboleths that Slick Billy Frist used to help ram the UIGEA through Congress in the dead of night. Oh, and Internet casinos are not to be trusted, Beshear tells us, because they're "foreign," unlike wholesome American casinos in "Ne-vaahhh-da."

Mmmmmm ... xenophobia served between two piping-hot slices of fearmongering. Yummy! And, as Matthews points out, Beshear's on "a political crusade" that will please the churchy and horsey sets alike. It's a win-win for him. 

"Don't gamble on the Internet, child. Do it at the track."

One of Beshear's lieutenants acknowledges that the domain-name grab could impact sites that have already blocked Kentucky users. Meanwhile, there's been no concerted response from Internet casino operators. Nevada's congressional delegation and über-lobbyist Frank Fahrenkopf, for their part, continue to promote a ridiculous resolution for a one-year study of Internet gambling, yet another indignity foisted upon long-suffering taxpayers.

Worse still, they oppose federal regulation in favor of a patchwork state-by-state approach. Faced with that potentially nightmarish crazy quilt of divergent regulatory regimes, overseas 'Net casino operators may decide that trying to do business in the U.S. is prohibitively expensive -- which may be Fahrenkopf's endgame and that of his patrons.

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“The real story here is the workers, who put up with the worst working conditions, having the fortitude and tenacity to say we’re not going to be run out of here by someone who has come in from Kentucky to destroy our standard of living,” -- Culinary Union Secretary D. Taylor, on Tropicana workers' long-in-the-making victory over Columbia Sussex CEO William J. Yung III. New Trop management capitulated to the Culinary's demands last week.

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Labor unions aren't very popular these days but sometimes even the mere threat of one is enough to effect improvements. Such seems to be the case at Luxor, where the International Union of Security, Police & Fire Professionals of America (uff da!) seeks to expand its MGM Mirage presence beyond MGM Grand Detroit. After Luxor comes Mandalay Bay.

Prior to the union showing up at the pyramid, "officers say, hiring and overtime freezes left properties understaffed and on-duty guards vulnerable," reports the Las Vegas Sun. "Cuts were so deep, they say, that a lone guard was sometimes posted on the Luxor casino floor." What is this, the Tropicana?!?

If true, that's the kind of false economy we expect from bottom-feeders like Columbia Sussex, not top-echelon operators like MGM Mirage. For the love of all that's holy, next to fire safety, the last area where one should scrimp is security. I mean, that's not Monopoly money out there on the casino floor.

"MGM Mirage has reinstated overtime and boosted staffing levels, and is now offering officer-training classes," according to a union rep, as well as replacing "battered patrol vehicles." It shouldn't have to take a union-organizing drive to effect that kind of positive change, but in this case it's good it did. I sincerely hope this is the last we'll hear about security getting short-sheeted on the Strip.

When unions attack (each other). Well, I never thought I'd live to see the day when one union pickets another. But that's what's happening in the ongoing scrumdown between the Culinary Union and a Vegas newbie, the Transport Workers Union. The latter is representing casino dealers at Wynn Las Vegas and Caesars Palace.

At issue is an initiative petition through which the TWU seeks to outlaw the sort of tip-confiscation practices currently in place at Wynn (and creeping into other businesses in the Vegas and Laughlin markets, I'm told). But, responds the Culinary, the initiative is "half-baked," simplistic and would void existing contracts.

The Culinary's opening salvo in this escalating war practically oozes faux solicitude for casino dealers. But if getting what's fair for dealers were a Culinary concern, it wouldn't have been MIA during the Wynn dustup or the uprising at Caesars. It's the biggest open secret in Las Vegas that detente between the casino giants and the Culinary is maintained largely by dint of the Culinary taking a hands-off attitude toward dealers.

Still bloodied from its botched endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama, the Culinary is also having to tiptoe carefully in sending the message out that money from Sheldon Adelson is bad, bad, baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!

Drawing to a weak hand? Elections won by dealers' unions in Atlantic City and Las Vegas: Six. Contracts negotiated: Zero to date. Even if we subtract Caesars Palace, given the recency of the vote there, and the Atlantic City Tropicana, which is in trusteeship and in no position to negotiate with anybody, that still leaves an 0-4 record. Besides, with both markets experiencing revenue declines -- and the potential for job cuts -- casino management can probably afford to run out the clock.

This week in Columbia Sussex. The pep-talk tour by Tropicana Entertainment President Scott Butera played Cincinnati this week. "Clearly, the company is undergoing a full recapitalization," he understated. The story's reference to the LV Trop as the company's "crown jewel" will draw an ironic laugh from anyone who has witnessed the place's wilted condition of late.

Meanwhile, the company hasn't backed off its plan to erect a ginormous eyesore in place of the existing Trop: "a gambling facility twice the size of the Pentagon." Columbia Sussex CEO William J. Yung III "acknowledged the project may cost more than $1 billion." (More than a billion? Really? Ya think? A shrew customer, this Yung.) But, having arguably overpaid for Aztar Corp. (now reduced to one casino each in Las Vegas and Laughlin), the Wal-Mart approach seems inevitable. "It has to be done to maximize the value" of the site, according to Butera. Sadly, he's probably right.

Nor is it surprising that Yung is being blamed/scapegoated for the collapse of Gov. Steve Beshear's pro-casino push in the Kentucky Legislature. Yung's galumphing attempts to cash in on Beshear's candidacy were certain to raise a ruckus -- and, boy, did they ever.

Also, buying a would-be casino facility in Covington, before any enabling legislation had been passed, any popular vote had been taken, any applications made, any jurisdictions established or any licenses awarded is the sort of thing that looks at best presumptuous and, at worst, like the fix is in. And, following the catastrophic tenure of Beshear's predecessor, Kentuckians seem doubly shy of anything that smacks -- however remotely -- of cronyism.

Whitewash? There's a difference between not speaking ill of the dead and telling a very incomplete version of the truth. Such is the case with the sentimental obituary of a casino executive whose conduct at the helm of the Las Vegas Hilton was considered sufficiently deplorable that the Nevada Gaming Control Board voted unanimously to deny him a gaming license at the old Sands, in 1989. Sheldon Adelson was able to have that recommendation overturned by the Gaming Commission -- an instance of "juice" (as demonstrated here) so significant that it gets an entire chapter in the history of Nevada casino regulation (pp. 128-55).

(An interesting saga involving Max Schmelling also didn't make it into the obit even though it's a now-famous incident.) 

Full disclosure: I was delegated to edit Henri Lewin's copy during the period he had his Casino Journal column. To put it in positive terms, it was an experience that was indescribably unique and unforgettable.

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