A Boy Named Soo

Say what you like about Bally’s Corp. Chairman Soo Kim. He’s bipartisan when it comes to greasing the gears of power with cash. One never forgets how the then-mayor of Chicago, a certain Lori Lightfoot (D), short-circuited her own selection process for a Second City casino the moment Kim crossed her palm with $40 million. Bally’s got the nod hor concours in what was corruption plan and simple. Now Kim has his eyes on a bigger prize: the White House.

If Bally’s is tapped for one of the three casino licenses up for grabs in New York City, it’s a guaranteed, $115 million payday for President Donald Trump (R). Although he already pocketed $60 million for the former Trump Links in The Bronx, the deal contained an escalator clause whereby the land becomes worth $175 million if a casino is built there. Very clever and very perspicacious. Because the earning power of a golf course is peanuts next to that of a casino. Sanitized as a “gaming event fee,” this sweet accord recently turned up as court evidence of Trump’s hidden worth. And Bally’s would have only 10 days to fork over the cash, a big ask for a company with less than $200 million in the bank. (Loophole alert: Is the deal invalid because Bally’s President George Papanier used an autopen to sign it?)

The New York City licenses are expected to be awarded sometime in 2027, smack in the middle of POTUS #47’s term. Now there’s something unseemly about the occupant—ANY occupant—of the Oval Office accepting a nine-figure gratuity for real estate rendered. For some, the fact that it’s coming from a (horrors!) casino firm would make it doubly undignified. Would it be legal? Probably. Ethical? Not very.

Imagine the howls of Victorian indignation that would arise from Fox News or the pearl-clutching congressional calls for impeachment were Joe Biden on the receiving end of Kim’s perfectly legal, if sleazy, largesse. It’s less than a bribe and something more than an embarrassment. But, during his business career, Trump was always a virtuoso of gaming the system. Why should the minor technicality of running for the highest office in the land stop him from taking Bally’s to the cleaners? Soo Kim was a mark and Trump took him for everything he was worth. Karma.

Speaking of karma, ABC News reports that “Trump remains highly unpopular among many public officials in New York who will be in a position to influence the process, and it is possible that antipathy could wind up being a handicap for Bally’s bid.” Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who’s not been shy about putting her thumb on the scales of the casino-selection process, would be in the opposition corner, although New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) owes Attorney General Pam Bondi a solid and would surely carry water for Bally’s.

He’s not the only one. Two area solons, state Sen. Nathalia Fernandez (D) and Rep. Mike Benedetto (D), are peddling legislation that would rezone Bally Links from parkland to commercial use, blatant favoritism for carpetbagging Bally’s. Not to mention that Bally Links (which sits across from a slum, Throggs Neck Houses, by the way) used to be a public course. New York citizens are being taken for a ride in order to make Kim richer. Remember, we said Kim’s corruption was done on a bipartisan basis.

Not to be left out of gaming the system, Hochul favorite Steve Cohen (owner of the New York Mets) isn’t bothering to wait for a casino license to start building his. Never mind that New York State hasn’t authorized the work … yet. A mere nicety, surely! Like Benedetto and Fernandez, state Sen. John Liu (D) is lugging casino water at the state house, proposing the same kind of exemption for Cohen that Bally’s would enjoy. Liu’s bill is a fuck-you to state Sen. Jessica Ramos (D), who represents the Citi Field area. Ramos’ sole hope is that New York’s godfather of gambling, state Sen. Joseph Addabbo (D) uses his influence against Liu, as he seems predisposed to do. If following legislation is like watching a sausage press, the Gotham casino-selection process employs a particularly unsavory recipe.

Indian giver. We were supportive of the appointment of former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum to head the Interior Department. He has a reputation for being an honest broker with tribes and is a known skeptic of predecessor Deb Haaland‘s ultra-expansive interpretation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Under Haaland, “tribal lands” were extended to encompass cyberspace, a massive overreach. However, this week Burgum spoke—to evoke an old-time Western—with forked tongue. The Interior Dept. yanked the land-into-trust agreement upon which the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians hoped to build a casino near Vallejo. It’s presently unclear whether Burgum was acting at the behest of a notoriously anti-tribal White House or of a rival California tribe … or three.

You see, the United Auburn Indian Community, which operates Thunder Valley Casino, thinks the historically landless Scotts Valley Band is poaching on its turf. They point (not unreasonably) to the fact that the latter tribe would be building a $700 million gambling palace 120 miles from its reservation. Then again, tribal casinos can be operated on “ancestral lands,” not just the parched earth that our forefathers left the Indians. The Vallejo site was the Scotts Valley Band’s fourth bite at the apple, having been rejected by the feds for other, nearby locations. Still, the United Auburn and two other tribes accuse the Biden administration of having “rushed through the approval, dismissing legal procedures and objections over the casino from other tribes in the area.”

One can’t help wondering if the proposed casino’s lengthy remove from the rez will spark a revival of the discredited “commuting distance” argument that Ryan Zinke used to nix a tribal gambling hall when he was Interior secretary for George W. Bush. Also, Burgum’s fatwa against Scotts Valley bodes quite ill for a planned Koi Nation casino north of San Francisco and an off-reservation casino recently green-lit for Medford, Oregon. The not-so-old rules definitely don’t apply anymore. In the meantime, tribal Chairman Shawn Davis bristles, “The Scotts Valley Band will not be bullied and we won’t back down.” That’s the spirit.

Whistling past the graveyard. Recent and very unfortunate numbers out of Las Vegas prompted Truist Securities analyst Barry Jonas (pictured) to take a revisionist view of Boyd Gaming. He lopped seven dollars off his $92/share price target. Ouch. True, the Las Vegas Strip sucked wind in February and Downtown took a hit but the locals market was flat, which bodes moderately well for Boyd. Jonas expected things to be better in March and they could hardly get worse. Could they?

Jonas is certainly much more circumspect than was Jefferies Equity Research analyst David Katz, who simply blew off a number of concerning economic indicators to proclaim that everything is fine. He reported that “balance sheets are probably in decent shape. For now.” Never mind that fewer than 20% of Jefferies survey respondents plan to buy a new car, 31% expect imminent layoffs, 30% saw their own hours cut and 28% had family members affected by recent federal worker purges. What’s more, 55% had changed their spending habits in light of tariffs, 70% aren’t patronizing restaurants as often and (this should concern Big Gaming) 36% had curtailed their vacation plans. Katz may not know it, but he’s the canary in an economic coal mine.