"Doesn't the IOC realise it will be winter in Brazil in August, 2016?" -- comment Blackberried in by a reader, regarding the award of the '16 games to Rio de Janeiro. Y'know, I'd been wondering about that myself. The average August temperature in Rio hovers between 66 and 78 degrees. Not frigid but not exactly torrid, either. Meanwhile, the IOC promises to keep an eagle eye on the betting lines for the Vancouver games in 2010.

From Jeff in OKC, regarding the recent National Coming-Out Day promotions on the Strip: "Casino ads need a gambling reference in their marketing, I found it cute. If I want to offend easily, I would say that 'Two queens are more fun than a straight' suggests that straight people are inherently less enjoyable than gay people, and NY-NY doesn't want my money. I think we can always be offended, if we look hard enough."

From kerr_mudgeon, on the growing possibility that Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman will tilt at the 2010 gubernatorial race: "I don't think he'll run because the odds are less than 50% in his favor as a non-partisan + he'd not want to disrupt his family by taking a job in Carson [City] - BUT if he runs and wins, he'll start pushing immediately to move the state capital to Las Vegas (maybe to take over one of the partly-built Strip complexes in/near bankruptcy)."

It's not the worst idea I've heard. Nor is this ...

Singapore is building an expansion of its ocean-liner terminal, enabling it to berth four cruisers at a time. The good news for Las Vegas Sands and Genting Bhd is, obviously, that this means more potential customers for their ultra-megaresorts. The not-so-good news is that the new berths won't be ready until late 2011, by which point both casino-based resort will have been open nearly two years.

Everybody's got a private equity fund these days, like the 21-year-old owner of a Persian resaturant in Maryland. Youthful Artin Afsharjavan claims he's got the scratch to buy Trump Entertainment Resorts, prompting Trump CEO Mark Juliano to reply, "Show me the money."

Hey, if some kid wants to throw as much as $500 million into acquiring five (mostly) bottom-of-the-barrel Atlantic City casinos, including Resorts Atlantic City and the A.C. Hilton, I'd like to see the color of his money, too. If it's for real, TER and the others ought to pluck the guy clean. You don't get a pigeon like this every day.

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... but maybe not long for long. A momentary uptick in the price of PokerTek stock temporarily rescued it from penny-stock status. But after decisive rejections of dealer-less poker in both Las Vegas and Atlantic City, the future of PokerTek as anything other than a marginal supplier looks bleak.

Vegas casino operators continue to learn that you can't export the Strip business model to Macao (our over-optimistic expectations to the contrary). Case in point: Wynn Macau, which is cannibalizing restaurants, kitchens and even a showroom to make room for more gambling positions. A sanguine-sounding Steve Wynn, meanwhile, yawns in the face of competition from Singapore and tries to spin his Macanese IPO as a philanthropic gesture.

Neil Bluhm's big break. Although $800 million Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh maybe up and running, the county assessor continues to tax the site as though it were empty land. As the bureaucrats let tens of millions of property-tax dollars slip through their fingers, casino owner Neil Bluhm has a chance to bank some serious coin here. That'll take a little of the sting out of Pennsylvania's 55% gross-revenues tax rate.

A Texas track that's now come into tribal hands may hold the key to the future (if any) of limited Vegas-style gambling in Texas. The Lone Star State's gubernatorial aspirants are all over the map. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) has cozied up to the Stone Age anti-gambling crowd, making Gov. Rick Perry's (R) qualified pro-gambling position preferable ... even though Perry would still relegate Indian tribes to the back of the bus.

S&G likes candidate Kinky Friedman best on this issue (the Kinkster is pro-casino, period), while Tom Schieffer (D) is back in the Dark Ages somewhere with Hutchison. Hank Gilbert occupies a wussy, "let's take a poll" middle ground somewhere between Perry and his GOP rival.

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Last week, Audit Integrity identified the 20 companies most at risk of bankruptcy (minimum market capitalization: $1 billion) and the lone gambling operator on the list was Las Vegas Sands. On Friday, Business Insider piled on. Pruning Audit Integrity's list of any firms with market cap below $3 billion, that still left nine companies ... and Las Vegas Sands.

Quoth the Insider: "Conditions in Las Vegas are horrible, Asian expansion isn’t enough, and if this lasts too long then LVS will end up in bankruptcy court looking like it bit off more than it can chew."

Marina Bay Sands: a megaresort too far?

No shit. With an unfinished casino-hotel in Pennsylvania and the abortive St(ump) Regis condo on the Strip, Sheldon Adelson has too many fingers in too many pies. Plus, his $5 billion Singapore albatross will get beaten to the starting line by subsequent entrant Genting. And even with a sudden easing of access from mainland China to Macao, it's too soon to be going pedal to the metal on the remainder of the Cotai Strip™, as Adelson would clearly like to do.

(As though to twist the knife in the wound, retail developer Taubman Cos. made a point -- in the course of reiterating its interest in a rival project -- of saying it wasn't in the market for the two shopping malls Adelson is desperately trying to unload.)

Ohio's supreme court delivered a swift kick to the groin of Gov. Ted Strickland (D) -- and to the casino industry's hopes for imminent expansion into Ohio. By a 6-1 vote, the high court ruled that addition of seven racinos needs to go before a vote of the people, throwing as much as a 14-month hitch into the process.

If that weren't enough, Strickland has to cope with the continued meddling of Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), who seems to believe he still occupies the governor's mansion, too. Governors hate it when the congressional delegation bigfoots them on intra-state affairs. Such a clash led to a permanent rift between fellow Republicans then-Gov. Kenny Guinn and then-Rep. Jim Gibbons.

Strickland, meanwhile, is poring over the court's ruling in search of loopholes that might allow Class II gaming to go on line in December. It's that or cut $852 million from the state budget. If he can insinuate VLTs into horse tracks by May, then voters have a few months to get habituated to them before the 2010 vote.

For Harrah's Entertainment, the good news is that the court's ruling temporarily shaves $47 million off the sale price of Thistledown Park (the full $89 million tab is contingent on racino conversion). For seller Magna Entertainment, the bad news is that the deal may fall through entirely if Harrah's doesn't want to gamble on the outcome of further legal challenges and the tender mercies of the electorate.

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Congratulations (not!) to the producers of Peepshow, whose rent-a-headliner stratagem has finally blown up in their faces. They're replacing a Jew (Shoshana Bean) with a fan of the leadership abilities of -- I kid you not -- Adolf Hitler. Oh, and she's a googly-eyed admirer of Fidel Castro, who -- among other offenses against humanity -- ran the casino industry out of Cuba.

Of course, this town has a tycoon or two known for cozying up to the authoritarian regime of Singapore and the downright despotic one in Peking. So perhaps Ms. O'Day's pathetic excuse for a brain will just be a 48-hour story ... but that's what we thought about Sen. John Ensign's escapades, at least until Mike Ensign's role as payola daddy came into play.

(Thanks to Richard Abowitz for the heads-up on this one.)

A reader informs me that the site LasVegasDowntownNews.com appears to be defunct. I couldn't get it to load either and blogger Jeff Burbank's output was sporadic at the best of times. Has this site gone the way of all flesh? If anybody has the skinny on this, please let S&G know.

"Oh shit!" headline of the day: Seen at Huffington Post, "Harry Reid to take the wheel on health care." That's like finding out the one family member who's certifiably incapable of navigating the driveway is going to pilot the family car up Mount Charleston.

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Despite taking a 22% gouge out of expenses, Colony Capital and its Goldman Sachs sidekicks managed to convert a 2Q08 profit to a $10.5 million 2Q09 loss. Revenues were down $30 million (or 40%), half of that from diminished room bookings. Could the service cuts be driving the revenue plunge? It wouldn't be the first time we've seen "death spiral" management be a company's undoing.

It's certainly interesting to see the bracing effect the recession has had on Vegas casino execs. They, who once took convention business for granted and looked upon conventioneers as less desirable than gamblers, have had a salutary wake-up call ... hopefully not too late.

Colony also threw in the towel on Resorts Atlantic City, although it left CEO Nicholas Ribis behind to run the place. That means he will serve two Boardwalk masters: The Resorts mortgage holders and Colony, with whom he co-owns the Atlantic City Hilton and which Ribis has also been running (into the ground, some charge). What happens if it's in Resorts' best interest to steal business from the A.C. Hilton?

It's difficult to decide who was more foolish here: Colony, for borrowing 2.5X the value of a casino whose best days were behind it, or the bankers who secured $360 million in loans with a $140 million casino. Let the floggings commence!

Speaking of death spirals, when you can get an Imperial Palace room for $18 (as an acquaintance recently did), who'd stay in Mesquite? That exurb's travails continue drag Randy Black's oligopoly down with them. Scant competition appears to have bred slackness and complacency in the Mesquite and Primm markets. It may be mere coincidence that the competition-rich Laughlin market has suffered to a much lesser degree ... but I don't think so.

Defaulted interest payments, renegotiated loan covenants, drawn-out cash reserves ... these are some of the unappealing alternatives facing Planet Hollywood. No property's struggle is fun to watch but this one is sadder than most because there's been considerable reinvestment (and some stunning redesign) made to turn the ex-Aladdin into something viable. However, all Robert Earl's horses and all Robert Earl's men have come up a bit short.

Plummeting ADRs have precipitated this crisis and, although losses at Planet Ho have consistently narrowed (and continue to do so), this isn't the first time we've heard that Earl's place was really struggling. And, no matter what Earl does, his casino-hotel has intractable, customer-hostile design flaws that cannot be solved by any means short of implosion.

I've been given reason to believe that whoever ends up owning the physically and fiscally bloated ($4.4 billion, at latest count) Fontainebleau, it won't be Penn National Gaming (at least not unless it's free and clear, and presumably cheap -- a tall order). If Steve Wynn has indeed already spurned F'bleau that'd leave Apollo Management, which never saw a bad casino investment it didn't like, and this one's nearly $1.8 billion underwater.

F'bleau would also give Master of the Universe Leon Black a de facto Harrah's Entertainment property on the north Strip, although Harrah's needs to fill thousands more hotel rooms like it needs a gaping hole in the noggin. Considering that it costs Boyd Gaming $3 million a month to keep Echelon on ice, preserving the F'bleau monstrosity until such time as new rooms can be absorbed seems a better use of capital than trying to finish the accursed thing.

Shakeup at Sands. Geez, you don't think executives on the chopping block could have anything to do with Genting Bhd's rival project getting ahead of slow-moving Marina Bay Sands, do you? Naaaaah! After all, the executive situation at Las Vegas Sands has been so very tranquil this past year. Just ask William Weidner ... or Bradley Stone or ...

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Actually, the headline misstates what was a very collegial -- if occasionally dissenting -- exchange of views between Union Gaming Group's Bill Lerner and Yr. Humble Blogger on Jon Ralston's Face to Face show. It was only my second-ever gig as a talking head -- and it shows. (Note to self: Consider Botox injections to paralyze overactive facial muscles.)

The ostensible subject of discussion was newly bankrupt Station Casinos, but it ranged as far afield as Singapore and Macao. Actually, we probably could have taped an entire week's worth of shows without exhausting the topic(s).

Lerner was a perfect gentleman, despite all the snarky things I've written about him in S&G (assuming he even reads it, which I doubt). I could certainly learn a thing or two from his poised on-air demeanor. I also found that, if you're in the middle seat on Face to Face, you need to "cheat" a little to your right and downstage or else you'll be masked in all the wide shots. And, as Ira David Sternberg taught me, don't ever look at the camera.

My ex cathedra pronouncements were, however, overshadowed by my alarmingly jowly appearance. When the video is posted, you will see that I look every one of my 200 lbs. -- and quite a few more! Since the episode isn't available on the Las Vegas Sun Web site yet, here's a preview:

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If you're hiring for a Las Vegas (hell, any U.S.) casino right now, you're apt to face an embarrassment of riches. In Singapore, it's the other way around ... as Las Vegas Sands is finding out.

The most expensive casino resort ever? Train-able labor in desperately short supply? Prohibitive entrance fees for Singaporeans? An untested market? A(nother) soft opening? A weak global economy? Naaaaah, I don't see how this can be anything other than a slam dunk.

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When he acquired Aztar Corp., back in 2006, Columbia Sussex CEO William J. Yung III also became one of the company's debtors. So what's his $36 million worth today? According to the Wall Street Journal, 100 grand or less. If that weren't enough to make the ColSux/Aztar deal the all-time biggest casino-sector wipeout of the last 15 years, consider that Carl Icahn's "$200 million" credit bid (i.e., no money down) was placed with debt acquired at 27 cents on the dollar. So Icahn has himself a new casino for a tidy $54 million outlay.

In a less-reported development, Icahn also gained a controlling position in Tropicana Entertainment. Without either its Atlantic City or Las Vegas Trops, it'd be a car without an engine, a gaggle of riverboats and motels. Exactly where this leaves CEO Scott Butera and what role he'll play remains an open question. Hopefully, either his or Icahn's first move in Atlantic City will be to replace floundering Trop General Manager Mark Giannantonio (a Yung crony) with someone more up to the job.

Movement at Cosmo: The GM of Caesars Palace, John Unwin, has resigned. He'll become CEO of the stalled Cosmopolitan in October. While it's still unclear under whose aegis the casino will be run, Unwin's hiring is the first concrete move to get some gaming expertise on board since Deutsche Bank seized the property.

Whining in Macao: Those two "integrated resorts" in Singapore haven't even opened yet and won't for another half a year, but Stanley Ho (whose venerable Hotel Lisboa is seen above) already has his panties in a bunch. According to Bloomberg News, the ancient casino oligarch has been wringing his hands about the burdensome, "serious issue" posed by Macao's 39% tax rate.

Boy, Singapore must be a more serious threat than I'd given it credit, if it's got a Communist Party suck-up like Dr. Ho all a-twitter and taking issue with the government. He's still in better shape than his American rivals; the attempt to graft Vegas-style megaresorts onto Macao has left them badly exposed to anemic market conditions. Ho's gambling-centric strategy gives him less cause for worry.

Today Singapore, tomorrow the U.S.? Even while lender's remorse has paralyzed American banks and stalled any hopes of "unbundling" the U.S. casino industry, diversification may be coming from an unlikely corner. Malaysia's Genting Bhd, riding a sustained runup in its stock, has $2 billion in the kitty, is raising more and could pump $7 billion into casino acquisitions.

That isn't to say there aren't a lot of "ifs" and "buts." Still, Genting's fundamentals appear far more sound than those of say, Las Vegas Sands. It's also in a position to deal a serious blow to Sands in Singapore. Not only will its Sentosa Island casino-resort open before Marina Bay Sands, but customers who "subscribe" to a $1,388/year entrance fee to one casino or another must play exclusively at that casino for the year. Once again, Sheldon Adelson's inability to finish a megaresort on schedule threatens to bite him in the butt.

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Construction of Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, as experienced when you've had too much caffeine.

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As the media rages down Memory Lane, here's one from the Strange But True file: Michael Jackson partnered with Detroit entrepreneur Don Barden in a scheme to gerrymander a Motown casino into Barden's hands. I covered the story for Casino Executive at the time but have no recollection of the Jackson angle.

Allah stands on soft 17: These guys are so busted. Eighteen Muslims got nailed for gambling in Java. Guess they couldn't wait for those Singapore casinos to open.

What does a bankrupt casino look like? Sort of like this. If you watch the full video, you'll see that Twin River Casino is literally going to the dogs.

Slots soaked. Heavy storms claimed 75 one-armed bandits at Rivers Casino, in Pittsburgh, a trouble-plagued project from Day One. A four-day delay of the opening is the result. I hope they've got a rainy-day fund.

Bad news for Sands and Genting: Potential Singaporean high rollers are fewer in number these days. The island-state is also in a tourism slump of unpredictable duration. Not only are Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa hoped to turn that around, they'll have to. So, no pressure there.

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