David Mckee's Stiffs & Georges - Kentucky

From the mailbag #7

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:47:00 -0700

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.

ColSux makes peace

Mon, 18 May 2009 16:19:00 -0700

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.

Good thing they don't gamble ... do they?

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:09:00 -0700

(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.

Bush-Frist ban fisked

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:42:00 -0700

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.

Adelson's megaphone muted

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:29:00 -0700

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.

By the numbers

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:21:00 -0700

$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.

Who's your GoDaddy now?

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:49:00 -0700

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.

Beshear's War: This cracker's crazy (like a fox)

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:49:00 -0700

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.

Quote of the Day

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:30:00 -0700

“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.

'Luxoricana'?; When unions attack (each other)

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:47:00 -0700

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.

This week in Columbia Sussex

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:29:00 -0700

"Things are a little murky." That's how the Cincinnati Enquirer describes the Did-he-or-didn't-he issue of whether Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear met with million-dollar booster and Columbia Sussex CEO William Yung III, whose desire for a Cincinnati-area casino is the worst-kept secret in the Bluegrass State. (Beshear does, for the record, acknowledge hobnobbing with several players in the horseracing industry, but not with Yung.)

However, a game of keep-away involving records of visitors to the governor's office is clouding the issue. For some, the whole matter is starting to look rather seamy. And, considering the ethical sinkhole that swallowed the administration of Beshear's predecessor, can you blame them?

Having proclaimed for all to hear that the arrival of Pinnacle Entertainment would write finis to one of their riverboats, Penn National and Columbia Sussex have to decide whether to put up their dukes or cut and run. Not that they have to hurry: Pinnacle's Riviere project is still two-plus years away.

But if Hollywood and the Belle of Baton Rouge (soon to be displaced by Amelie Bell [above]) stay put, it's a tacit admission that their parents' anti-Pinnacle campaign tactics were a bunch of B.S. Or so implies the Baton Rouge Business Report. An analyst hired by Penn crunches the numbers and concludes that Belle has the better profit margins, ergo the better chance of eking it out in a post-Pinnacle market. Penn could counter-attack by bringing Argosy Lawrenceburg downriver from Indiana, greatly increasing its Baton Rouge capacity.

But New Orleans-based gaming analyst Nicholas Danna "says [Columbia Sussex] has shown a tendency to overpay for properties, making it harder to reinvest in what they have." He notes, though, that Baton Rouge is a market with considerable room for growth, compared to New Orleans (Belle's former home).

Back in Atlantic City, there are still only two bidders for the Atlantic City Tropicana, although the others may be waiting until next Monday, hoping to slap down a last-second bid that catches the competition unawares. However, since trustee Justice Gary Stein isn't held hostage to "maximizing shareholder value," he doesn't have to take the highest offer. (By contrast, Aztar Corp. had little choice but to sell its assets to Columbia Sussex, even if it knew full well what depredations would follow.)

According to Richard Perniciaro, director of the Center for Regional Business & Research at Atlantic Cape Community College, as paraphrased by NJ Biz, desiderata include "stability, cash to invest and experience in both gaming and working with labor unions. “ In other words, somebody 180 degrees from Columbia Sussex's CEO. Despite the paucity of bids on the table, analysts are starting to doubt that Stein can have the sale wrapped in June (his deadline has already been extended once)

Tropicana execs and overseers, meantime, are forecasting a rosier future, as part of their sales pitch, according to a 36-page memo intercepted by The Press of Atlantic City. Part of the turnaround is to be achieved by restaffing player-development and marketing staffs that Yung decimated. These aren't pie-in-the-sky estimates.

According to the document, it will take more than two years to restore revenue levels to pre-Columbia Sussex levels. And though 300 staffers will be added by year's end, employment levels at the A.C. Trop will still be only 85% of what they were before Yung's minions got in and started slashing away.

Pinnacle remains sanguine

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:46:00 -0700

... despite pulling back somewhat from its commitment to redevelop the site on which once stood the Atlantic City Sands. Does Pinnacle's hesitation regarding the Boardwalk portend ill for riverboat projects in East Baton Rouge or St . Louis County (below)?

"In a word, no," says a Pinnacle representative. The costs of these projects are but a fraction of the Atlantic City one ($250 million for Riviere, in Lousiana) and it's really a matter of returns, the company says. The expected returns on Riviere, for example, would make it worth financing, even in a softening economy. A multi-billion-dollar property in a market that isn't license-limited (read: Atlantic City) is a different story, though.

There's no deadline, Pinnacle maintains, no gun to their heads. Financing doesn't need to be raised until late 2009 or even 2010, by which time the credit markets could still be quite a different story.

Still, hindsight being 20/20, you have to wonder if Pinnacle would have been in such a rush to demolish the Sands had it known last July what it knows now?

And Oswald acted alone, too. Local newspaper finds man who takes sole credit for two ballot initiatives that would cap Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority funding at 2006-07 levels (even though they couldn't go into effect until 2011), adjusted for inflation. I guess the fact that these initiatives would accomplish a prime objective of Sheldon Adelson is just a big coinky-dink, after all. Whew! There I was, all worried about nothing.

Same paper, different day. "The sky is falling!" Why? Because most Nevadans, polls show, want to raise the privilege tax on gaming from the lowest to the second-lowest. That ink might have been better spent lobbying for a gross-receipts tax that would spread the (relatively modest) pain across a broad spectrum of businesses. But to decry a 9.75% privilege tax rate as The End of the World As We Know It when companies like Las Vegas Sands are jostling to pay 50% in Kentucky doesn't pass the laugh test.

Quote of the Day: "Lets see? Four guns, deadly poison and books on anarchy. I don't think we have anything to worry about. " -- Keith Hulbert, in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, commenting on Las Vegas Metro's response to last week's ricin scare.

Columbia Sussex dodges bullet

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:31:00 -0700

Yes, Columbia Sussex is in default on $960 million in debt, says a Delaware court. But it's not in immediate default, giving the hotelier at least another month to wriggle out of that tight spot. However, a source for the Las Vegas Sun says the verdict "is probably the death of Columbia Sussex's equity interest" in the Las Vegas Tropicana.

If a receiver has to be appointed, it won't happen a moment too soon. The LV Trop has fallen into dire condition, seemingly more through indifference than anything else, and parts of it are appallingly filthy and/or dilapidated. It's several decades behind the rest of the Strip. Even though people like to deride Circus Circus, Jay Sarno's labyrinthine monument to coulrophobia, it's at least 100X nicer than is the Trop at present.

One potential buyer Casino Aztar, in Evansville, Ind., has been tipped. Racino owner Centaur Inc. could make a logical suitor for the riverboat. The Indiana market has been diluted by the addition of racinos and a casino resort at French Lick, the latter hitting Casino Aztar fairly hard. And Centaur's Jim Brown used to run Casino Aztar.

But Centaur is apparently close to exhausting its $1 billion gaming-acquisition fund; with Kentucky taking a good, hard look at legalizing casinos, a Hoosier State riverboat on the Kentucky border just might not be the prize purchase it once was. And Columbia Sussex may have less than a month to cut a deal before its Indiana license is yanked. (Currently, Casino Aztar is operating with a staggering number of job vacancies, including internal auditor and director of security.)

More and more, Columbia Sussex's overambitious attempt to absorb Aztar Corp. is looking like one of the biggest debacles in casino history.

Case Bets: Kentucky, Nevada Palace

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:39:00 -0700

Although a proposed constitutional amendment passed out of committee (shorn of three of Gov. Steve Beshear's 12 casino licenses), the Kentucky Equine Education Project had a tough call to make. It had supported casino legalization, provided that racetracks were explicitly part of the package, for starters. The amendment, as passed, does no such thing. But KEEP has decided to back it all the same. As for Beshear, he's as much in favor of greenhouse gases as casinos, it seems.

Toppling the Palace: Leap Day also marks the end of one of Las Vegas' grindiest grind joints, Nevada Palace. Las Vegas Sun reporter Mike Trask's largely affectionate piece doesn't mince any words: "It was a dive the day it opened and has been slipping ever since ... " (Be sure to check out the Sun's stunning slide show -- in "full screen" mode.)

How decrepit was this little casino that could (a favoritewith the truckers)? It's only going to take a front loader to knock the place down. That still doesn't best my favorite casino-demolition proposal, by Nick Christenson of the invaluable Las Vegas Casino Death Watch, who suggested collapsing the Klondike by having a couple of burly men lean against its walls.

Disillusioned much? Something's eating at Las Vegas Review-Journal gaming/tourism correspondent Benjamin Spillman. Not only did he lash out in the Las Vegas Business Press at casinos, calling them "monuments to gullibility," he's been venting an awful lot lately about the neighborhood in which he works. In a Feb. 8 story about possible redevelopment at the Moulin Rouge, Spillman wrote: "It's in a blighted area of downtown Las Vegas near a soup kitchen, vacant lots and boarded-up storefronts."

The Rouge also happens to be across the street from the claustrophobic, depressing confines of the R-J, where good journalists toil away in narrow study carrels and windowless rooms.

Less than three weeks later, the psychodrama continued: "Since the [Moulin Rouge] closed in late 1955 the neighborhood has continued to decline. In addition to the run-down remnants of the old hotel, it is home to a used-car dealership, a soup kitchen, a United Parcel Service distribution center and numerous empty buildings."

I'm guessing he was happier back in Palm Springs.

Racinos a bum deal?

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:55:00 -0700

They are if you're a horse owner at The Isle Casino & Racing @ Pompano Park, which not only left trainers and owners out in the cold, as far as slot revenues are concerned, it just slashed purse amounts by 35%, reports the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Pompano Park, it should be noted, is an isolated case. The track, owned by Isle of Capri Casinos, argues in its own defense that slot revenues were lower than expected. But will racing be driven out in the process? Again we are faced with the question of how viable horse racing actually is (I'm looking at you, Kentucky) if massive subsidies from slot machines are what's needed to keep it alive. And while not contractually obligated to do more than it's done for the horsemen, at first blush it looks as though Isle of Capri has pulled a bait-and-switch here.

My 18-year-old son is in the news again. Oh wait, that's Florida House Speaker Marc Rubio, fighting a dogged rearguard action against Gov. Charlie Crist's gambling expansion in Florida. Rubio is arguing that A) Crist's revenue projections won't pencil out and B) "it is morally wrong to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the working class."

It's a good day whenever a Grover Norquist-type conservative like Rubio comes out against regressive taxation. Unfortunately, Rubio's remedy is to dismantle the Florida state government. Also, he's made a habit of opposing fellow Republican Crist whenever possible (the two are vying for the mantle of Jeb Bush) and when Rubio says he's against "transferring" disposable income, it sounds to me like code for "By all means, let's keep it away from the Seminoles," whose Class III compacts Rubio is challenging in court.

So forgive me if I doubt Rubio's altruism just a bit. (And, no, I don't have an 18-year-old son.)

If he's lost Schwartz, he's lost Middle America. The lone media defender of Columbia Sussex CEO Bill Yung has left the building. UNLV's Dr. David Schwartz finally loses patience with the Kentucky hotel baron after reading about Yung bragging on his ability to fling $1 million at the feet of Kentucky's new governor in the same week that Columbia Sussex stiffed the state of New Jersey for 750 large. Is Yung's company really that hard up or is this a passive-aggressive way of getting back at the Garden State?

Excessive federal zeal in prosecuting gambling rings finds an unsympathetic ear at the Supreme Court. If there's a reason some Americans are distrustful of expanded federal law-enforcement powers, whatever the premise or the administration (the Clinton-Gore administration had its intrusive proclivities, too) it's because, inevitably, they will be pushed past the breaking point.

Criticism of Yung begins to sting

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:01:00 -0700

Editorial pinpricks, like a Cincinnati Enquirer jibe about "pay to play," evidently took their toll on Columbia Sussex CEO William Yung III. Defending his high-profile push for a Kentucky casino, which has included strewing more than $1 million in the path of Gov. Steve Beshear, Yung told The Associated Press: "I've got a First Amendment right to spend my money any way I want to spend it."

And he's absolutely correct about that. Yung's efforts may be ham-fisted but there's nothing the least untoward about them.

Beshear's granting of preferential access to the hotel mogul is another thing entirely. When you have to do as Beshear did and say there's "no quid pro quo," you're basically closing the door to the perception barn long after the horse has bolted.

That perception of a Beshear-Yung embrace appears to have stiffened the winds into which Beshear's casino proposal is sailing. Already a House subcommittee has proposed trimming the governor's mooted 12 casinos to nine. An uphill fight in expected in the state Senate and even then Beshear would still have to make his pro-casino pitch to voters. At least he knows a few deep-pocketed donors who would be happy to help him sell the idea.

As for Yung, he runs rings around the AP reporter, making it sound like he's calling the shots on the Atlantic City Tropicana sale. He also succeeds conflating the two-dozen Trop suitors with the unknown duo who have supposedly shown interest in Casino Aztar, in Evansville, Ind. -- a market that's certain to be grateful for cross-river competition from the Bluegrass State.

Local businessman hopes to spend $700 million bringing back the Moulin Rouge but can't pony up child-support payments? I sure hope this isn't a metaphor for events to come. Then again, Las Vegans have learned to take an "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude where the resurrection of the Moulin Rouge is concerned.

Glad that's settled. AEG Live/Concerts West President John Meglen has pronounced the IRS raids on the offices of Pure Management Group nothing more than a few "disgruntled employees stirring it up." Yep, keep moving everybody. Nothing to see here.