David Mckee's Stiffs & Georges - Jack Binion

Marrandino: going but not forgotten

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:00:00 -0700

Don Marrandino may be Atlantic City-bound but here's how S&G will always remember the Harrah's Entertainment exec, with the Alizma triplets close at hand. For all our ribbing of Marrandino's high-profile lifestyle, he did preside over a much-praised revamp of the Flamingo, and kept the Imperial Palace alive and busy long after it was supposed to have bit the dust. If you need lemons made into lemonade, he's your guy.

Marrandino also seriously rethought the entertainment offerings at the five casinos within his purview. Just in the last couple of years, he's brought on board Donny & Marie, Human Nature, Matsuri and Nathan Burton. Not every one was a jackpot, but the Osmonds and Human Nature were pure gold, and Matsuri has possibilities. I'd love to have that track record.

Replacement Rick Mazer looks promising, not least because he's a Jack Binion protégé, not one of the "propeller-heads" of which Harrah's CEO Gary Loveman is famously fond. The Strip could use some Binion-like thinking right now and S&G fervently hopes Mazer is bringing some of that Horseshoe luck with him.

MGM: Deal or no deal?

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:55:00 -0700

MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren is re-mulling asset sales of MGM Grand Detroit, Gold Strike (Tunica, Miss.) and Beau Rivage. But all Strip assets are definitively off the market (yes, even Slots A Fun). Since the Detroit and Tunica casinos are already encumbered with CityCenter-related debt, presumably Murren would transfer those mortgages to some or all of the "Mandalay mile." As far as I know, those three casinos are still unencumbered. The Detroit resort would be a real "trophy asset" for any potential buyer ... presuming that banks are more inclined to lend than they were(n't) the last time Murren shopped this trio around.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal took a good look at MGM's Giza deal -- and it's even better than initially thought. Not only will the company collect management and franchise fees, it also gets a cut of any profits. If there's a downside here, I'm too myopic to see it.

MGM wouldn't sell Monte Carlo when Jack Binion came calling. One presumes this had more to do with potentially being able to extend CityCenter into Monte Carlo, rather than Jack's money not being good enough for MGM. However, if the company really cares about the property, why are they slowly letting it go to seed? The Brew Pub will close on July 12.

Also ... our LVA research team has discovered that no further Lance Burton performances are scheduled. This seemingly writes finis to his long relationship with Monte Carlo. Is it just an expedient way to save money or was Burton's unpardonable sin to get very good reviews from the local dailies right after Criss F. Angel laid an $85 million egg with Believe? Burton out and Angel in? That's just not right.

"IUER"? WTF? Don't call Melco Crown International's new City of Dreams a "casino." Melcospeak for the new pleasure place is "integrated urban entertainment resort." At least Steve Wynn's "casino-based destination resort" coinage rolled off the tongue a little more felicitously. On second thought, just call it "a casino."

Holy cow! The husk of the late, lamented Holy Cow Brew Pub & Casino (home of the best beer in Las Vegas) is proposed for redevelopment -- again. It was briefly the site-to-be of the phantom Ivana condo tower, one of the more egregious examples of condo "vaporware" during the recent bubble. Arizona- and New Mexico-based developers intend to tip the old Cow and replace her with a low-rise, low-cost (no hotel) casino.

The Strip needs some fresh mid-market casinos and this one could be it. But why make your anchor tenant a Walgreens when it's the flagship retailer ... of Palazzo. We sure could use the jobs, too, what with unemployment hitting record levels in Nevada. A good thing that Gov. Jim Gibbons was shamed into accepting federal funding for the jobless.

No Surprise Dept.: So the Moulin Rouge is (literally) toast and arson is suspected. The fire happened the day after a bankruptcy auction found no takers for the property.

Obama backpedals (sidepedals?) on gay rights. If he wants to give the country change it can believe in, how about revoking the profoundly un-American policy of throwing our LGBT brothers and sisters out of the military? If they've volunteered to lay down their lives for Old Glory, they're better people than me. And if Harry Truman is remembered for nothing else, he'll always be the president who integrated the military with a stroke of a pen. Does President Obama have Truman-like intenstinal fortitude?

One of the vilest of major-league baseball players back in the Eighties was slow-moving, philandering, showboating slugger Mel Hall. But we never knew just how loathsome he was. Good luck in the slammer, Mel.

Responding to readers

Tue, 19 May 2009 15:46:00 -0700

As you probably know, Huntington Press has been branching out into e-books. An S&G reader asked if any were compatible with Kindle. I'm told the following titles are available in Kindle-ready format:

Casino-ology by Bill Zender

Confessions of a Stripper by Lacey Lane

Cullotta by Dennis N. Griffin

Golf Las Vegas by Ken Van Vechten

Tax Help for Gamblers by Marissa Chien & Jean Scott

Video Poker for the Intelligent Beginner by Bob Dancer (who else?)

Whale Hunt In the Desert by Deke Castleman

But wait: There's more! We're putting the finishing touches on our first e-book-only release, Topless Vegas. We were in the midst of page-proof corrections when Forty Deuce up and died, so we really dodged a bullet there, I tell ya.

He knows jack: An LVA member has alerted us to some Down South scuttlebutt that had Jack Binion lined up to take over the Gold Strike in Tunica. If that's the case, MGM Mirage's recent encumbrance of the Mississippi casino as debt security runs a cart and horses through that notion, I guess. Which would be a pity, if true. The casino industry needs Jack Binion and entrepreneurs of his ilk right now -- a lot more than Jack Binion needs the industry, one might add.