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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Any well-furnished casino that doesn't try to monetize its fine appointments is missing a revenue opportunity. However, it's one thing to covet the lovely furnishings of, say, the Sky Lofts at MGM Grand. It's quite another to check into a hotel room in a struggling Nevada market (hint: think blood-red aluminum siding) and see the following:

"Take A Little Something Home With You"

... followed by a list of prices for virtually everything that isn't nailed down. At the high end, you could pay $175 for a bed spread or $100 for a phone, while hand towels ($10), washcloths and pillow cases ($5) occupied the bargain end of the spectrum.

In between, you could drop $45 for a Lilliputian coffee maker or $25 for the TV remote. Since the TV was not for sale and remotes tend to be brand- and model-specific, you wonder who'd be fool enough to spring for that last item.

Not only is Casino X clearly desperate for anything on which it can turn a buck, it also has rather inflated ideas of the value of its appurtances. I can see paying $175 for an Encore bedspread, but Steve Wynn doesn't operate out in the sticks, if you get my drift. Oh, and Casino X might want to think about staffing up its players' club and check-in windows, if the length of the lines at both is a telling metric.

Harrahs' new BMOC. The incoming president of Harrah's Entertainment's Flamingo-centered bloc of casinos departs Indiana to rave reviews. Philanthropic, community-oriented and socially aware, Rick Mazer sounds like just what the doctor ordered for Vegas -- to say nothing of being someone upon whom we should keep close tabs.

Justice delayed. Employees of Station Casinos who may (or may not) have been short-changed in their paychecks, will just have to bloody well wait for their day in court, if Clark County District Court grants Station's request for "breathing room." Station is pleading hardship due to its current bankruptcy. Since the company has no one but itself to blame for being in Chapter 11, it's difficult to muster sympathy. But perhaps the judge will be of a more forgiving nature.

Don Marrandino's first coup. The newly installed boss of Harrah's Atlantic City casino quartet inks a new labor pact with Unite-Here. That was a piece of cake. Now, about those dealer-contract talks with the UAW ...

Meanwhile, back in Gary Loveman's 'hood ... You know those on-again, off-again Massachusetts casinos? Well, they're "off." Again. Not that there's any reason to rush, especially as the repeated delays lend additional borrowed time to struggling Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun.

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In case you've wondered whether Columbia Sussex's endgame in its interminably protracted -- and often preposterous -- negotiations with the Culinary Union was to provoke a strike at the Tropicana Las Vegas, the company's actions elsewhere leave little doubt. (I have it on good authority that ColSux had drawn up plans to drive the Culinary out, in the great Margaret Elardi/Paul Lowden tradition.)

Now those anti-union chickens have come home to roost. The 13,000-member Alaska chapter of the National Education Association has ripped up its contract with ColSux's Anchorage Hilton and calling for boycotts of all 71 ColSux-owned hotels. That'd include ...

... Las Vegas' own Westin Casuarina.

What a stroke of luck. At a time when Strip hotels are mostly just muddling through in terms of occupancy and convention bookings, William J. Yung III goes and pisses off one of the U.S.'s leading unions. Less bidness for him -- and more for everybody else!

Thanks, Bill. Keep up the good work. We could use non-casino hoteliers with your infallible reverse-Midas Touch. Would you alienate a few other major convention-holding bodies (especially ones who might like to convene in Vegas) while you're at it? It would really help your competitors speed up this economic-recovery thing.

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Our Comment-Eating Server has been at it again, so here are a few reader remarks that got devoured in cyberspace (where no one can hear you scream at your computer) ...

With regard to "Gambling Scandal Ensnares Eight More":

This is disgraceful! How dare the Federal government interfere with private enterprise like this? Undoubtedly the casinos' self-government practices would have detected these infractions, right?

If -- and I'm not sure about this -- you're referring to tribal casinos, all generalizations are false, including this one. The Tran Organization took down 26 scores that ran the breadth and depth of casino industry: Strip resorts, locals casinos, backwater Isle of Capri operations, U.S. ones and Canadian ones, the smallest tribal casinos and the biggest, too. Even Barona Casino & Resort, which prides itself on being ahead of the industry, technologically speaking, got taken. The moral I draw from this is that too much stock is being put in game-protection technology and not enough in the human component. All the king's PTZ cameras and all the king's digital scratch pads don't know what a "false shuffle" is.

Another reader caught a hasty slip-up I made, when I wrote that Harrah's Entertainment's "$10 million a year for energy conservation isn't even 'a blimp on the radar' when it comes to Harrah's gargantuan annual budget. Heck, it's less than 2/3 of CEO Gary Loveman's compensation package for 2008 alone."

Maybe his compensation has gone down since 2002? I don't think so:

"Loveman, himself, is doing a bit better too: His business school professor's salary, approximately $120,000 (before consulting fees), is now well over $3 million, including stock options. He shuttles between his Boston-area home and Harrah's casinos around the country in a corporate jet. He has long since traded in his professorial Honda Accord for a Ferrari F-355 Spider. After 12 years in the same house, the Lovemans are currently building what neighbors describe as 'a very large' house in the Boston suburb where they live."

Maybe he's riding in a "green" corporate jet now?

Good point. What I was trying to compare was Harrah's $60 million in energy savings over six years. That is less than 2/3 of Loveman's $92 compensation for 2008. (His base salary for '09 is $1.9 million.)

And with regard to labor strife at Trump Plaza:

"While the casino's latest appeal is tied up in federal court, Trump Plaza management has refused to bargain at all.

"Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which owns Trump Plaza, has said it expects to win in court. The case was first filed in September 2008.

"The court could side with the casino or uphold the National Labor Relations Board's ruling requiring the casino to bargain.

"'Throughout this entire process, it has not been our intention to attack any dealers who have chosen to support the union,' Juliano continued."

... David, you said "Kudos to Trump Entertainment Resorts CEO Mark Juliano for going out of his way to soothe potential animosity between labor and management."

- I would say: Kudos to Juliano if Trump would bargain in good faith with the union that won the election. As it is, Trump Entertainment Resorts owns & controls Trump Plaza and refuses to dignify their employees with negotiations that they voted for.

That's a major reason that we need passage of a "card check" law, which includes heavy fines against employers like this who refuse to negotiate (for years) with their workers' duly elected representatives.

Fair enough. And finally:

I don't gamble on the Internet because of security concerns with unregulated offshore sites, but I agree with this comment [same blog entry, under ["Health care reform + Internet gambling?"]: This is great! Ron Wyden is an innovative and responsible law maker. As an Internet gambler, I'd be happy to support American-based companies, and pay my patriotic taxes, instead of sending my "business" to Costa Rica.

Thanks to everyone for corresponding.

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... 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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This is the sort of bottom-feeding move you'd expect from Columbia Sussex but not from Hyatt. Suffice it to say that if casino-hotels try this cheapjack number in Atlantic City, Detroit or Las Vegas, there will be holy hell to pay, especially the next time the collective-bargaining agreement is up for renewal. As it is, some hotels (*cough*Tropicana Las Vegas*cough*) have tried to operate with skeletal cleaning staffs and one shudders to imagine the consequences.

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S&G yields the floor to former President Jimmy Carter:

Runner up, among many choice quotes, goes to South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian: "I think [Rep. Joe Wilson]'s conduct was asinine, but I think it would be asinine no matter what the color of the president.  I don't think Joe's outburst was caused by President Obama being African-American. I think it was caused by no filter being between his brain and his mouth." (Harpootlian knows Wilson from way back.) And, as a former South Carolinian, let me say, please don't boycott the Palmetto State. (Even though they still have a hangup about casinos down there.)

Meanwhile, in its fruitless search for comity at all costs, the White House turns a blind eye to the whole mess. Which ought to remind us that all it takes for evil to triumph is for people of good will to do nothing.

Health care "reform": It's out and it stinks, basically. It incorporates the one truly bad, deal-breaking idea of the '08 McCain campaign by making health benefits reportable as income. But don't worry: Sen. Harry "Hapless" Reid (D-NV) promises to make the bill even worse.

I have only five words remaining: You da man, Jay Rockefeller!

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"I can't personally say whether or not I believe there's any skimming going on, however, a large number of dealers suspect that it is." -- Wynn Las Vegas dealer Daniel Baldonado, to the Las Vegas Tribune, about closed-door reallocation of tokes. Lemme get this straight: Baldonado doesn't know whether he believes tip money is going missing but he does know that other dealers are of that opinion? Puh-leeze!

Of course, by locking the toke committee out of the counting process and only making it belatedly reviewable on videotape, Steve Wynn is leaving himself wide open to such quasi-accusations. The story itself is nothing new: I've been hearing it for years. But, were I a dealer at Wynn LV and my tips were being counted and divvied up by management, I might be suspicious, too.

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Still snowed under with non-S&G commitments, but here's a brief dispatch. First, with apologies to Woody Allen ...

"The federal stimulus package is so bad"

"Yes, and such small portions."

That's the sum and substance of this diatribe, penned by the old biddies over at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The federal stimulus dollars which the R-J opposed (as did its man-crush, Gov. Jim Gibbons) aren't trickling down in sufficient numbers for the editorialists' liking.

Ergo, 13% unemployment and a housing market that's "years away" from recovery are things from which Uncle Sam is meant to rescue us. Yes, and never mind that the real culprit is the overreliance of Nevada on a service economy, plus insane overexuberance in the real estate sector -- two phenomena for which the R-J has never had a discouraging word.

Mistaking one owl for a winter, R-J Publisher Sherm Frederick goes into full doom-and-gloom mode. His can't-miss economic barometer? A half-full flight into Las Vegas. (From Austin. On a Tuesday.) I've been flying into and out of this city for nigh upon 12 years and many's the half-full flight I've taken into McCarran International Airport. It's a side effect of Las Vegas being so liberally serviced by the major airlines.

Also, Frederick's half-baked "analysis" reeks of that local entitlement mentality whereby Americans are obligated to spend their money here -- during a recession, no less. (Maybe more of them would do so if we didn't continue to shift our tax burden onto their shoulders.)

We've got to take our lumps with the rest of the country and, as I've pointed out several times before, Southern Nevada would be weathering the current doldrums much better had it not been for an insanely euphoric attitude in our business community, with its pie-in-the-sky economic models. Harrah's Entertainment claims that, in the course of its mega-optimistic LBO, it projected a worst-case scenario in which revenue fell 30% and Harrah's came through just fine.

I don't believe it. Either that or Gary Loveman needs to sack his number-crunchers and find some ones who use real math.

Trouble at Cannery. Who knew? Things seemed to be going pretty well for them. But President Tom Lettero has been demoted from chief operating officer to CFO. His vacated portfolio will be taken up by Xavier Walsh, from Crown Ltd. Is minority shareholder James Packer flexing some muscle? Or has Cannery Casino Resorts decided that what works for Crown in Australia might be worth trying in Nevada and Pennsylvania?

Harrah's attempt to play hardball with its dealer unions has caromed off the company's noggin. The American Federation of Teachers is pulling its convention business from Harrah's-owned properties until contract negotiations with the dealers at Bally's Atlantic City and Caesars A.C. You might say that Caesar's fine Roman nose has been cut off to spite his face,

A provocative question is posed by Dr. David G. Schwartz. If there are fewer slots and table games on Nevada's casino floors, does this bode an ongoing decrease in casino revenue? Prof. Schwartz is far better educated than am I in these matters ... yet it seems that the proposition boils down to More gaming positions = More revenue.

But how many casinos are running at 100% game usage even a small part of the time? Also, with penny slots yielding higher hold percentages than their nickel and quarter brethren, denominations are trumping sheer numbers. Lord knows, people are drawn to those penny machines as though to a spider web because the (perceived) value overrides the (documented) less-favorable pay tables. In any event, Dr. Schwartz's in-progress study promises to be one of the most interesting casino-related documents emerging this year.

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"I have been pleasantly surprised by the tremendous reservoir of good will that exists in our work force ... Considering how previous administrators have neglected the property, neglected the operations and neglected the employees, it was very refreshing to find that despite all that neglect so much pride and passion can be harnessed. And regardless of what happened in the past, I am keenly aware that change can be scary for many of our team members. But change also irrigates the human condition." -- Tropicana Las Vegas CEO Alex Yemenidjian, on the future of the property.

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