MGM Mirage has announced that it's writing off approximately $1.3 billion (i.e., taking an "impairment charge") against CityCenter, with $348 million of that chalked up to falling real estate values. (Some $174 million of that will apparently be fobbed off on MGM's partners, bringing MGM's writeoff down to $1.1 billion.) The value of MGM's half-share of the project has been restated at $2.44 billion (a 31% decline). No word yet from Dubai World as to what it thinks its half of CityCenter is worth.

Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. shook a rhetorical fist at Wall Street, stating in a press release that there is "substantial unrecognized value in MGM and CityCenter that is not reflected in the market value of MGM’s stock." It's nice to know that even mega-corporations can feel underappreciated.

Bottoming out? Air traffic into and out of Las Vegas was almost flat, year over year, -1.2% in September, helped by passenger-load increases -- and I don't mean those hefty people who take up two seats -- on nearly every domestic carrier not named US Airways (-26%). Considering that international traffic was -21%, this is augurs well for a return of domestic consumer confidence in Sin City. And, yes, flat is the new "up."

Pennsylvania: Rendell intervenes. Never accuse the Keystone State Lege of acting in haste. The table games bill is still mired in conference committe, prompting Gov. Ed Rendell (D) to wade into the fray. Rendell's magic number for the amount of revenue table games must yield in fees and taxes is $200 million. To get there, the guv believes the tax rate must be 16%. But he's closer to the GOP position, warning that the higher levies favored by Dems would "kill the golden goose" and deprive Little Johnny's school of needed funding. Meanwhile, Rivers Casino continues to disappoint, with the lowest revenue-per-slot in the state.

Finally, a taker! Out of left field, a contender has emerged for the orphaned casino license in Cherokee and Crawford counties in Kansas. You'll recall that it was awarded to Penn National Gaming, seemingly ages ago, but Penn -- spooked by nearby tribal competition -- all but spat on the license before leaving in a huff.

Enter Ozark Trail Gaming, a consortium of Kansas businessmen, offering to build a $225 million, 900-slot, 30-table casino. After some bad experiences with carpetbagger casino developers trying to dictate terms to the Sunflower State, you have to think the Kansas Lottery Board will look kindly upon this native-son effort.

ColSux loses again. A $41.5 million summary judgment has been slapped on Columbia Sussex for abrogating its purchase of the President riverboat in St. Louis (now the property of ColSux arch-foe Pinnacle Entertainment). Regulators for Missouri didn't like the looks of ColSux and its CEO, William J. Yung III (above). The latter pulled his license application and used that as an excuse to void the President purchase, but a federal district judge wasn't buying it.

The former President owners were also suing ColSux for jacking up parking rates for casino patrons by 560% (no, that is not a typo), a truly Yungian move. If poetic justice were served in this case, the court would award the ship to ColSux. Since the President's days on the water are numbered and Yung will licensed in Missouri only in his wildest dreams, trying to dispose of that near-worthless asset might be the aptest punishment of all.

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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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A new law in Illinois that legalizes video poker statewide may have some unforeseen consequences. Namely, video gambling at truck stops throughout the Land of Lincoln. This represents a much bigger expansion than was originally sold to the public. Whenever you think Illinois' casino industry has finally hit bottom and might begin to recover from previous legislative sabotage, it gets pushed off yet another cliff. New casinos licenses may soon be available in Missouri (1) and Iowa (4-5). Riverboat operators in Illinois should seriously consider hoisting anchor and moving across the river.

CityCenter suit. This one alleges basically that MGM Mirage pumped and dumped its stock, and misrepresented its chances of funding CityCenter. The allegations may prove more entertaining than true but they will certainly make lively reading.

Wait Until Dark. If you prefer an evening at the theater to curling up with a lawsuit, you can't go wrong with CSN's presentation of Frederick Knott's 1966 thriller.

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Second-quarter results from Boyd Gaming and Ameristar Casinos gave continued reason to be sanguine about each company. Both reported profits (12 cents per share at Boyd, double that at Ameristar) and both missed their revenue targets by an aggregate of only $8 million. A whopping (27%) jump in Colorado revenues for Ameristar last month was additional reason for confidence, offsetting weakness in Kansas City.

Cost control was credited with helping Boyd's performance, as was much-better-than-expected cash flow at Borgata. The Las Vegas locals market also ran ahead of expectations in that regard, while downtown and the Midwest/South casinos lagged. Bankruptcy filing or no, Boyd maintains that it continues to be a suitor for Station Casinos. Oh, and keeping Echelon mothballed -- while the least expensive of alternatives -- isn't cheap, costing Boyd $3 million a month.

MGM Mirage has sent LVA a revised, official list of dates for the debut of the various bits and pieces of CityCenter. (Excepted, of course, is the Harmon[ini] which, as of last Wednesday, had no firmer opening date than "late 2010.") The openings are as follows:

Vdara (Dec. 1); Crystals (Dec. 3); Mandarin Oriental (Dec. 4); Aria (Dec. 16), while condo closings in Veer Towers are set to "begin in January." When MGM gave a CityCenter dog-and-pony show to the Nevada Hospitality & Lodging Association last week, the computer graphics still showed Baldwin's Bump at its original, 48-story height. Also, the bluish tint that denoted CityCenter's acreage, by quirk or design, extended to embrace the Cosmopolitan. A portent?

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"We don't want them in there," huffs Ameristar Casinos' Troy Stremming (left) with regard to pathological gamblers. Stremming's high dudgeon rings a mite hollow now that the Missouri ballot initiative he crafted and shepherded to victory last fall is providing a free pass for problem gamblers. Once boarding requirements were repealed, away went the mechanism for screening self-banned gamblers. Whoops.

It's not like they still can't be caught on-property, though. Woe betide the player who hits a sufficiently big jackpot for his slot machine to go into "IRS lockdown." His identity has to be verified -- which means he can kiss those winnings goodbye and prepare to be handcuffed. To quote Geena Davis in Thelma & Louise, "The law is some tricky shit."

But Missouri's got nothing on Illinois, where casino employees double as "bounty hunters." If you're a self-banned player who's shooting dice at Alton Belle or Casino Queen, there's literally a price on your head.

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While the Bible Belt may hold out until the bitter end, we may finally be seeing the demise of the "boats in moats" arrangement, a fig leaf that enabled Midwestern states to blushingly accept casino money. Illinois has started phasing it out. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland's decree today that seven Buckeye State racetracks can go to racino status may be a real game-changer for neighboring Indiana.

First, a word on the Strickland move. It anticipates legislative passage of a package deal that would require tracks to pay $65 million upfront and the usual usurious tax rate (48-50%). However ... slot machines would be purchased by the state (and run under the auspices of the Ohio Lottery), which softens some of the pain. Racino facilities would have to be periodically upgraded, too, at an average of $16 million/year.

All this has spurred (well, slowly prodded) Indiana's Lege to take a second look at the Hoosier State's riverboat regime. This could mean everything from on-land casinos to free drinks for players. There's also talk of "simplying" taxes and admission fees. How about simply eliminating the latter? It's a paternalistic anachronism that needs to go away.

Don Barden's two Majestic Star boats will likely prove an impediment. Some solons want any arrangement to include moving one of them out of Gary, Ind., to better the chances of both. Whatever the case, don't expect any action until next year.

The recession is catching up with regional casino markets. Even the loosening of operating rules in Missouri wasn't enough to stave off a slippage in revenues. Chrysler and Hummer plant shutdowns might explain a -1% shift in St. Louis, but what about a -2.5% June in Kansas City? A 2% drop in statewide slot win was almost countered by an 8% jump at the tables, where higher betting limits are now in force.

Ameristar Casinos took the hit in K.C., down 12%. All other three major boats posted growth, led by Isle of Capri, up 5%. With a $19 million June, the Ameristar boat still led the market in dollar volume but both Harrah's Entertainment and Penn National are closing the gap.

In the greater St. Louis area, both Harrah's and Ameristar fell by an average of 5%, while Pinnacle Entertainment's Lumiere Place gained almost 6%, really starting to give the two older casinos a battle. Even the snake-bitten President had a good month, chipping in nearly $2 million to Pinnacle's kitty.

Further good news came in the form of the bulletin that Isle of Capri had eked out a month in the "plus" column. So even an outwardly disappointing June in the Show-Me State cosseted some significant tidings of comfort and show.

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May wasn't great for Las Vegas, to say the least, with hotel occupancy -6%, a figure somewhat amplified by the presence of 3% more hotel rooms. The local ADR of $96.96 would have been regarded as real money back in the day. Hoteliers now are more likely to look at it in the context of the -28% shift from last year's rates. More worrisome is that convention attendance (-33%) outslid the number of conventions held (-26%), whereas it used to be the reverse.

Indiana has absorbed the effect of its two new racinos. Casino revenues were flat in June, a decline at most boats offset by the extra dollars generated at Harrah's Entertainment's Horseshoe Hammond (+13.5%) and Boyd Gaming's Blue Chip (+4%), both of which recently expanded. Penn National was hurt by the switchover to Hollywood Casino Lawrenceberg, its new vessel, and Ameristar East Chicago (-15%) withered under the glare of Horseshoe Hammond.

Illinois is scraping along, having evidently struck bottom ... for now. Once the impact of a fire-closed Empress Joliet was backed out, Illinois was down a mere 3%. That's practically a moral victory. Of course, with the institution of slot routes en route and the Lege contemplating a huge casino expansion in the state, any celebration will be short-lived. Harrah's Joliet was the logical beneficiary of the Empress Joliet shutdown (+5%), while MGM Mirage's Grand Victoria spiraled -17%.

There were a few gainers, ranging from miniscule (Boyd's Par-A-Dice) to massive (+109% at independent Casino Rock Island). East St. Louis-based Casino Queen finally lost a significant chunk of business (-11.5%) to its augmented Missouri rivals, while Penn's Alton Belle kept its leakage to -3%.

It's not a free market. Lawmakers in the Land of Lincoln have not only introduced slot routes, they may add four more casino licenses to the state. Factor in Neil Bluhm's casino project in Des Plaines (license #10), and the gambling market in Illinois becomes seriously diluted. However, no compensatory tax reduction is on the table.

When it comes to casinos and taxes, solons think simply that more = more. However, in a state where competition is limited by statute, not only does guvmint control the levers of the market place it has an obligation to take the economic consequences of its actions into account. This is not being done and the repercussions are likely to be severe.

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Is waxing and buffing the Pinnacle Entertainment limo a prerequisite for scoring an interview with its CEO? This small masterpiece of selective omission is more interesting for what it elides than what it says. The article parrots Dan Lee as saying Pinnacle believes "not to start building something without the money to finish."

That's an excellent precept but it would resound with greater authority had Pinnacle not gotten bogged down in Atlantic City by failing to practice what it preaches. It bought Carl Icahn's old Sands, razed it, cleared the land ... then found it couldn't raise the capital to build the megaresort Lee had envisioned. By that point, Pinnacle had exercised such a heavy hand in its attempts to acquire more acreage -- at prices it intended to dictate to the market -- that the project's subsequent collapse didn't even inspire much regret along the Boardwalk. Now Pinnacle's got money tied up in Atlantic City it could be using to go trophy hunting along the Strip.

Also, it's not a good sign that Pinnacle's half-billion-dollar Lumiere Place is finishing a very distant second in the company's portfolio, doing only 57% the revenue of L'Auberge du Lac, down in Lake Charles, La. True, L'Auberge owns a near-stranglehold on its market, while Lumiere Place has several competitors. But the latter has scarcely made a dent in rival operations by Harrah's Entertainment and Ameristar Casinos. Nor, despite being smack-dab in the middle of the St. Louis waterfront, has it pulled significant amounts of business away from Casino Queen, across the river in Illinois.

Pinnacle has overspent and overcommitted itself -- and don't forget it nearly followed Columbia Sussex over the precipice in the feverish bidding for Aztar Corp. To Lee's considerable credit (no pun intended): A) corporate debt is below $1 billion; B) Pinnacle completely outfoxed Harrah's in their Lake Charles-for-Biloxi property swap; C) that Houston-fed market is rich enough to carry Pinnacle for the time being, and D) a clever if anti-competitive ballot initiative (for which Ameristar's Troy Stremming gets most of the credit) will entrench Pinnacle's Missouri position.

As 2009's gaming group goes, Pinnacle is faring better than all but a few. But it's made its share of MGM Mirage-like mistakes, just on a smaller, more-affordable scale. Pinnacle wasn't the only irrationally exuberant casino company during the 2005-07 boom but let's not go paint it as a paragon of restraint, either.

Deep within the septic tank that is the Las Vegas Review-Journal's online-comments section one finds the (very) occasional fact. In the case of the gaping void left at the Tropicana Las Vegas by the peremptory closure of Folies Bergere, longtime Vegas observer Phil Hevener had the following scoop: "One of the issues at the Trop was that the owners decided to leave the matter of a show for the new operator (Alex Yemenidjian) since show creators and hotel builders alike are having trouble finding money these days."

Not only does that have the ring of plausibility but when Hevener's got a tip, chances are you can take it to the bank. As for CEO Scott Butera and his underwhelming LV Trop administration, do you ever get the feeling they're just making it up as they go along?

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Fourth-quarter and year-end numbers from Harrah's Entertainment are out and the report raises several red flags:

• Harrah's absorption of Park Place Entertainment has left the company seriously overexposed in Las Vegas, where revenue was down 20% in 4Q08, compared to much smaller declines in non-Nevada markets.

• Even though most regional markets showed or regained strength in the last quarter (Atlantic City and Illinois being notable exceptions), Harrah's remained weak. This trend continues to be confirmed by revenue reports from individual states. Last month, in Missouri, Harrah's was the only operator to register a decline -- even Isle of Capri is doing better. Something is very wrong here.

• One of the company's top cost-saving measures is to cut jobs. This was a foregone conclusion the moment the Harrah's LBO was consummated but, in such a customer-service-intensive industry, if the reductions are taking place in the front lines of the workforce, expect business to continue suffering.

• Another high priority for reduction: marketing expenses. There's a term for this and it's called "death-spiral marketing." That's where your revenues are down so you reduce your marketing outlays and if business continues to decline so does the marketing budget ... and so on. Which is too bad, because Harrah's has been launching some of the better casino ad campaigns I've seen in the past year. It would be a shame if all that creativity wasn't used to its full potential.

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Finally, someone (in this case, Liz Benston) has written the definitive user-friendly analysis of how the casino industry crashed and burned. To try and quote the salient points would require little short of reprinting the entire article (to say nothing of its copious charts).

In essence -- as run through the S&G juicer -- we're dealing with an industry that could be said to have lost its marbles four to five years ago. As I've contended on the Vegas Gang podcasts, captains of the casino industry, borne aloft on a bubble of illusory "wealth," mistook a bubble for a baseline. Instead of paying down debt on acquisitions, they doubled down on extra-super-megaresorts and wholly unncessary LBOs.

And now that the party's ended, the resultant hangover is shaking out the business like a case of the DTs. The irony is that Strip revenues have reverted to 2005 levels ... back when business was pretty darn 'phat,' and MGM Mirage and Harrah's Entertainment were so flush they were able to devour Mandalay Resort Group and Park Place Entertainment, respectively, with scarcely a burp.

One of the few things now standing between insolvent casino companies -- a group that may soon include both Harrah's and MGM -- and outright disaster is that gaming has become "too big to fail." In an otherwise normal economy, collapsing companies like Herbst Gaming, Black Gaming, Colony Capital and even big shots like Station Casinos would probably be staring receivership in the face. But extraordinary forbearance -- in more than one sense of the term -- by lenders is keeping the lights on and the doors open. The bankers and bond markets have obviously decided it's better to keep their wobbly dance partners upright than let gravity take its course. Lord knows, the seismic impact of a cascading series of casino bankruptcies beggars the imagination and not in a good way.

Into this maelstrom, is flung the news that two companies are going to miss their scheduled 10-K filings. In the case of Pinnacle Entertainment, they need some extra time to perform mark-to-market ledger-demain, writing down $275 million-$330 million. J.P. Morgan analysts are sanguine, though, partly because of an 18% increase in fourth-quarter revenue. Also, although Pinnacle's net loss may be as high as $308 million, other results "should be above expectations, reflective of PNK’s strong Louisiana performance at Lake Charles, stable New Orleans trends, and a ramp at Lumiere [Place] in St. Louis. Trends that, generally, should continue."

Also playing for time is MGM Mirage. According to the Sun, last week's draw-down of credit has tapped out the company's liquidity, a statement confirmed in a J.P. Morgan note. Contrarily, the Review-Journal implies there's plenty left.

(Update: MGM tells me, no, there isn't and I was wrong to have concluded otherwise last week. Error duly noted. Self-flagellation in progress.)

Whatever the case, Wall Street is sounding like it's accepted that Chapter 11 is all but inevitable. Slightly less apocalyptic scenarios still include potential defaults, debt-for-equity swaps that would surely cost Kirk Kerkorian his majority ownership, asset sales, a restructured balance sheet and a $7 billion note that's less of a balloon payment than an incoming Hindenberg.

Or, as Morgan analysts write, per their wait-and-see strategy: "We expect to hear from MGM over the next few weeks, and suspect it is or shortly will be working with its banks on amending its bank covenants (leverage covenants now likely tripped after drawing down debt last week and hoarding cash) and looking to restructure its bank debt, among the other options MGM is considering (asset sales, amending CityCenter, etc.)."

Emendations to CityCenter? That would be an extremely bitter pill for MGM to swallow. First the Harmon truncation, now this prospect. In a totally unscientific measurement, page views of our online image gallery of Aria and Vdara were barely a ripple compared to the levels of interest manifested in Encore, M Resort and, good golly, even the Cabana Suites at the El Cortez -- all of which have vastly outpaced Aria/Vdara in viewership. Like I said, unscientific but who'da thunk we'd see an El Cortez ≥ CityCenter equation?

And we still haven't touched upon today's earnings report from Isle of Capri (half good, half bad) or the latest round in the Station-vs.-Boyd catfight, chock full of hissing and spitting. We live in interesting times, to be sure, regardless of whether that's a blessing or a curse.

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