Bargains galore at Caesars; Station savages Culinary; Mega-Jottings

Caesars Entertainment is holding a fare sale across its non-Las Vegas properties, a possible signal that the stimulus-fueled recovery may be cooling (in economics, what goes up must come down). In Atlantic City you have your choice of such starting prices at $54/night at Harrah’s Resort, $59 at Tropicana Atlantic City and $64 at Caesars Atlantic City. Elsewhere in the Roman Empire the bargain destination is Tropicana Laughlin at $35/night. Surprisingly pricey is Harrah’s Cherokee at $169. Up there on the price ladder are Lumiere Place ($159), Isle Waterloo ($105) and Isle of Capri Boonville ($99). Bargain hunters have their choice of—ick!—Circus Circus Reno‘s $39 but we’d advise spending a bit more and staying down the street at Silver Legacy for $49. Harvey’s Lake Tahoe is wallet-friendly at $49, as is Harrah’s Gulf Coast at $75. With prices like those who needs Vegas, especially right now?

Speaking of Caesars, it has been announced as an official sponsor of the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl and Guaranteed Rate Bowl, formerly known as college football games. (It is not Caesars’ participation which sticks in our craw but the defacement of college bowl games with cumbersome naming rights.) What Caesars gets for its money is the right to host lounges at the stadiums where the games will be played, as well as to put its moniker on pregame parties and a “kickoff luncheon.” Yes, your Caesar salad will be brought to you by Caesars Entertainment. It’s not clear whether the Roman Empire’s sports book at Chase Field, site of the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, will be operational come game time. Caesars is not the first Big Gaming company on the playing field, Barstool Sports having inked a deal to sponsor the Arizona Bowl. (Barstool’s sports book will be at Phoenix International Raceway), a pact that cost the bowl 40 grand from Pima County “though the decision had more to do with the unseemly reputation of Barstool and its founder than the fact that it was a gambling company.” (For more, see “Jottings.”)

Caesars has promised to use its bowl-game platforms responsibly, and that its presence will be more evident to spectators and partygoers than TV viewers. “We will have fan lounges at both events where we have brand ambassadors there to educate fans about sports betting,” Caesars Digital Senior Vice President Dan Shapiro said. “We are going to be encouraging people to download our app and sign up for Caesars sportsbook and be able to bet anywhere in the state.” “We are one of few states that even have a bowl game where [sports betting] is legal,” said Fiesta Bowl CMO José Moreno. “We’ve talked to other bowl games where it is becoming legal and everybody is having those conversations … The more dollars we generate [from Caesars], the more money we give back to the community.”

Culinary Union picketers are a familiar sight at Station Casinos properties. So it should be no surprise that Station decided to play tit-for-tat, staging a rally outside Culinary HQ. Brandishing suspiciously mass-produced-looking signs, 100-odd Station managers chanted “We despise union lies” and similar sentiments. What they object to most is a National Labor Relations Board order that Station negotiate in good faith with the Culinary at Palace Station and Boulder Station, both of which have tried to decertify the union after talks with management went nowhere. The NLRB found Station’s anti-union pressure tactics untoward and sent both parties back to the bargaining table. Noting the 99-degree heat in which the protest was conducted, the Culinary dryly noted, “We hope that they stay hydrated and cool today.”

Two days later, in an action seemingly timed to piggyback on the protest, employee Raynell Teske filed suit against the union, claiming it did not represent her, having lost a secret-ballot election after winning a card check. Teske contends that it was the former which was binding, not the latter. She is represented by an anti-union front group, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a team so ill-versed in the particulars of the case that it refers to Red Rock Resort as “Red Rocks Casino.” Sic! Argue Teske’s lawyers, “Secret ballots are a far more reliable way of gauging worker support for a union, because workers are often pressured, harassed, or misled by union organizers into signing cards.” (We don’t disagree.) They also allude to the troubled labor situation at the Palms where Station is trying to decertify the Culinary and may have been additionally motivated to sell the megaresort to be rid of the union headache.

“Ms. Teske and her coworkers had good reasons to reject the union. It is outrageous that [Judge Gloria Navarro‘s] order imposing unwanted unionization brushes aside the workers’ contrary preference clearly demonstrated in the secret ballot vote,” said Foundation President Mark Mix. We’re looking forward to seeing what happens when Teske gets her day in court.

Jottings: Ex-governor Andrew Cuomo‘s dog Captain has become a foundling after Cuomo cavalierly abandoned him on the way out of his love nest, er, official mansion. Captain, a “high-strung mix of shepherd, Siberian and malamute” evidently requires a great deal of maintenance, perhaps more than Cuomo cared to offer … Isle Grand Palais on Lake Charles comes ashore a year from now as Horseshoe Lake Charles (good call on the name change). The new casino will be 33% larger, have 1,000 slots, a World Series of Poker-branded card room and the requisite sports book. The land-based casino would have opened last May, had Hurricane Laura not torn the gaming barge from its moorings and smashed it into a bridge, delaying the transition … In case you missed it earlier, Main Street Station finally reopens on Sept. 8, complete with buffet. Still no word on Eastside Cannery‘s fate … Is a Slidell casino any sweeter by another name? Peninsula Pacific Entertainment, battling adverse public sentiment and political opinion, is renaming its relocated casino Camellia Bay Resort & Casino, presumably more orchidaceous than Diamond Jacks was. The one guaranteed winner in this whole shebang was local Kimberly Frady, who got five dimes for coming up with the new handle … SkyCity Auckland is back in the news for having apparently hosted Patient Zero in a recent outbreak of Coronavirus. SkyCity is understandably unhappy with the negative publicity, as well perhaps as with the “massive” deep cleaning that the infection entailed. The casino was closed for a week, while 240 employees had to self-quarantine … Barstool Sports launched in New Jersey this week. Company founder Dave Portnoy‘s decision to model his brand-identification campaign after The Sopranos may not have been the best idea, at least for the sake of image-conscious OSB providers … As of next month, Caesars Southern Indiana will still be a Caesars, complete with loyalty program, but the new owners will be the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, who received regulatory approval last week.

Quote of the Day: “You need to let the market dictate the size of the investment. I can’t think of a situation where it’s worked out well when the government dictated the minimum investment size.”—Global Marketing Advisors Managing Partner Steve Gallaway on Chicago‘s mandatory $1 billion casino investment.