MGM Resorts International‘s post-20th anniversary, post-Travis Lunn dumbing down of Borgata continues apace. Our man on the Boardwalk visited recently and found all the Borgata-branded pens to have been retired in favor of generic pencils. “MGM previously replaced the soap bars and small shampoo containers with liquid soaps, fastened to the sink and to the shower wall,” he reports, although that’s part of a company-wide sustainability initiative.
Good luck getting out of Borgata, by the way. On Sunday night, departure from self-parking took 12 minutes instead of the usual three or four. The culprits were the automatic card-reading machines, which were so self-sufficient that three staffers had to be detailed to help operate them. One worker told our guy that the new devices cost $100K (apiece, presumably), money that MGM’s not going to see back anytime soon, from the sound of things. Also, the employee needed a pair of pliers to extract a players card from the ‘automatic’ machine. And woe betide those who don’t have the correct level of player card: It’ll cost you $10 instead of $5, so we’re told. MGM is just alienating customers with such cheeseparing moves, which hardly seem likely to redound to the benefit of the bottom line.
By contrast, money’s actually being spent at Bally’s Atlantic City, at the opposite end of the food chain. After 45 years in the same place, the VIP lounge is being moved temporarily next to the Ocean Ballroom, while the original one is fixed up. “If Bally’s totally renovates the VIP lounge and starts a customer-self-service buffet, this could become quite an attraction to a lot of customers,” suggests our scribe. “We’re looking forward to July when the work should be done.” Change at Bally’s does come at a price. In with a new lounge, out with Guy Fieri. The white-trash chef’s eponymous restaurant has been drywalled shut. In its place is promised Park Place Prime, also tabbed for July. In lieu of Mr. Fieri, the breakfast restaurant is seating diners, albeit at $75 a head. (Our correspondent passed.) The offerings were described to us as “small buffet, with some Guy Fieri’s type food (obvious leftovers from the closed restaurant).” We’ll pass too.
Meanwhile, the legal and familial troubles of Mayor Marty Small (D) continue to hang over the Boardwalk. According to Ben Dworkin of the Rowan Institute, “This is far from the typical greedy corruption that has marred Atlantic City.” It almost makes you long for the good old days of graft. Incidentally, Mayor and Mrs. Small make $350,000 between them … 10 times when the average Atlantic City resident brings home. What to if you’re the Smalls? Claim you’re the victim of “politics and racism” of course.
Closer to home, our correspondent took a very unscientific survey as to whether or not he should patronize Rivers Philadelphia. He was told it’s unsafe and “even classy homeless people don’t go there.” No wonder that Philadelphia Live continues to eat the lunch of the erstwhile SugarHouse, even if Rivers is the senior casino. Elsewhere still, Jeff Gural of Tioga Downs and Jim Allen, CEO of Hard Rock International, are evidently jockeying for the prerogative to build a casino at that great white hope, the Meadowlands. (Home of crappy NFL football.) Allen was playing on the panic button at the East Coast Gaming Congress, predicting as much as a 30% hit to Atlantic City when New York City casinos go live.
Were we living in the Five Boroughs, the saliency of a Meadowlands casino seems less than obvious, especially since there will be three others almost as close to home. Perhaps Gural and Allen will try to go into the Meadowlands together. Otherwise Hard Rock will win that contest nine times out of 10, at minimum. As for the Big Apple’s part, its leaders are smoothing the path for eventual casino siting by obviating certain zoning rules that would stand in gambling halls’ way. The vote was 35-15. Only the three final choices for casino development would be able to take advantage of the new, Slim Fasted zoning interpretation. Local-approval boards get cut out of the casino-selection process this way, thereby shaving precious months off the timeline toward development.
Explained City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, “Currently, casinos are not permitted uses within New York City zoning. This text amendment would resolve this zoning conflict, while maintaining communities’ decision making authority on casino licenses within the state’s application process.” The roughly 10 bidders still have to jump through the hoops of the Community Advisory Committee, although that body is somewhat a creature of Albany. Conservatives and progressives came together to oppose the amendment, with some saying it created a slippery slope for any other development the city wants expediently expedited. Just plain enmity toward casinos also motivated a number of ‘no’ votes. Both Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and Mayor Eric Adams (D) want those casinos, and they’ll steamroll any opposition in order to get them.
Jottings: Harrah’s Columbus, aiming to become Nebraska‘s premier racino, is set to open next month with a Marriott Hotel and a terrestrial Caesars Sportsbook. Early returns from a temporary racino seem to have prompted Caesars Entertainment to downscale the casino, the first permanent one in the state. Instead of 500 slots and 14 table games it will offer 400 and 11, respectively … Viejas Casino & Resort, in California, is going electric. It is installing 426 charging stations for EVs and hybrids, a decision clearly taken long before Tesla‘s current troubles … Potowatomi Casino Hotel in Milwaukee is crowning its $190 million refurbishment with a new poker room. Pros Matt Berkey, Jamie Kerstetter and Jaman Burton will attend the May 2 opening … Too much, too soon? Saracen Casino in Arkanas wants to be permitted to offer iGaming as well as brick-and-mortar gambling. Regulators begged off, saying they’re too busy to be bothered … Thanks to monopoly operator Rush Street Interactive (aka BetRivers), iGaming in Delaware saw record revenue of $4.5 million last month. Naturally, legislators responded by trying to break up the monopoly … A mammoth casino was set to open in Oklahoma last weekend. LakeCrest Hotel & Casino is slated to deploy 1,000 video lottery terminals, 1,000 Class II games and eight table games, to the greater glory of the Chickasaw Nation of the Oklahoma Tribe … Gambling in Ukraine has become a hot-button issue. So what better way to handle it than to disband the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling & Lotteries? Regulation isn’t completely going away; it’s been dumped upon the Digital Transformation Ministry. Makes perfect sense, nyet? … “Several productive meetings” haven’t produced diddly in Alabama. The Lege continues to be stymied by radically differing views of gambling expansion proposed by its upper and lower houses …
Star Entertainment Chairman David Foster‘s testimony last week in an ongoing probe of the Australian casino operator must have gone pretty badly. Foster was sacked over the weekend, with his replacement conceding that Star was currently unsuitable for licensure. She sure got that right … Arizona‘s doughty Tohono O’odham Gaming Enterprise continues to plow ahead. The tribal company recently previewed Desert Diamond Casino White Tanks, a $450 million endeavor. ‘Hard hat tours’ are usually premature, since they’re usually given when the gambling facility still looks like a nuclear reactor, but we have no doubt the T-Os will deliver, as they have in the past.
Any thoughts on news around slot routes?
Seemed like a hot topic 5 years ago, now wondering if they’re starting to fade.