Bally’s Chicago lurches from crisis to calamity. Its latest misfortune would be aggravating were it not so perversely funny. Although Bally’s Corp. is shaking practically every tree in Christendom in its desperation for money, a group of cranks feels left out of this sucker bet. A couple of Texas crackers, Richard Fisher and Phillip Aronoff, are suing Bally’s, claiming their rights as white men are being violated by not being able to put money into this boondoggle. Fools and their money …
Having too much time on its hands, the Orwellian-named American Alliance for Equal Rights, a stalking horse for white-male supremacism, is going after Bally’s on the grounds that “a race-based stock offering is illegal, and this court should declare it as such.” Also piling on is the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, presumably on the principle that one should have the liberty to make stupid financial decisions. Who knew that Bally’s megaresort was such a hot meal ticket?
Reluctant though we are to defend Bally’s Chicago, the stock offering is NOT race-based, as women of all hues can participate. Also, if Bally’s is out of compliance with its female/minority set-aside, it will be in breach of contract with the city of Chicago. So it finds itself in a pickle. To compound the obvious racism of the Alliance’s lawsuit, Bally’s happens to be a company run by two gentlemen of color, CEO Robeson Reaves and CFO Marcus Glover, a fact that has probably not gone unnoticed by the litigants—as has overall leadership of Chairman Soo Kim, yet another minority face. How dare they! Don’t they know their place?
Such is Bally’s need for cash that its underwriter, Loop Capital, isn’t actually verifying the race or gender of ‘minority investors,’ which quite undercuts Bally’s moral high ground. Doubtless the only color Bally’s is concerned with is green. (Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson should look into this.) However, Bally’s saw Fisher and Aronoff coming, having published a disclaimer that the set-aside “may result in lawsuits against us and the City of Chicago by persons that do not meet” its criteria, i.e., white guys.
You’d think the latter group would have so many dubious investment opportunities (Bitcoin! Election betting! Multi-game parlays!) luxuriating about at every hand that they would not need to sink their money into this turkey. You would think wrongly. To add to the perversity of this Quixotic honky crusade, if “a court were to find the Class A Qualification Criteria to be invalid or unconstitutional, the Host Community Agreement could be terminated,” aborting Bally’s Chicago half-finished and possibly sinking Bally’s Corp. in the process. It’s—by Bally’s own admission—a risky investment, one that will take at least three years to show a return.
Their sense of humor being as dark as their skin is pale, Fisher and Aronoff have the cojones to claim that Bally’s is affronting “the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first Ku Klux Klan Act and years of Supreme Court precedent.” It takes some huevos to claim you’re a civil rights crusader at the same time you’re trying to wrest opportunities away from women and people of color. (Equating Bally’s with the KKK is so offensive we won’t even go there.)
“It’s so blatantly discriminatory, I can’t imagine how that could possibly be permissible,” wailed Chicago-based lawyer Patrick Callahan, conveniently forgetting that, if he wants to gamble recklessly, he can always buy as many BALY shares as he wants at $18.10 a pop. Callahan may be an earnest, if naive, wannabe investor. Others are not so innocent. Their real target is the concept of diversity, equity and inclusion. (And you thought the United States was the land of opportunity. Ha!) And never forget that when someone is called a “DEI hire” it’s only because the speaker doesn’t yet dare to use the N-word in public.
“In short, defendants have stacked the deck against them,” the legal filing straightfacedly pleads of its two white men of privilege, showing that somebody enjoys a rich vein of irony. That person might be Edward Blum, a bitter old man of means, with nothing better to do with himself than persecute women and minorities for having the effrontery to try and get ahead in life. His alleged persecutor in life is the NAACP, as Blum openly seeks to take us back to the Fifties (if not earlier) and the evil days of ‘separate but equal.’ He is, in intent, if not in word, a racist.
As the ironies multiply, it is meet and right to point out that Bally’s Chicago is a terrible investment, one that the Black community has gotten hip to. Just ask financial boffin Damon Jones, on the faculty of the University of Chicago‘s Harris School of Public Policy. Citing its inherent risks, Jones counsels against putting one’s money into it: “When people have really good investment opportunities they don’t advertise them. They keep them to themselves. [As] a general financial rule, if someone is advertising it to you, question it.“
To their discredit, Chicago officials have been talking up the megaresort to potential investors as a way to build up “generational wealth.” To us, it’s sheerest financial speculation. And since the window for buying into it closed Jan. 31, the point may be moot. But, since we’re fair-minded …
By all means Bally’s should let Fisher and Aronoff and any other damn fool of their stripe buy a chunk of this boondoggle. The rest of us will laugh all the way to the bank when they ultimately lose their shirts. (We suspect Blum is too smart to follow his fellows down the fiscal rathole.) It would merely serve them right.
Having booted the ball several times in his oversight of Nevada gambling regulation, Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) finally got one into the glove. He has appointed Deputy City Attorney Chendani Sendall, from Reno, to replace the embattled Brittnie Watkins on the comparably embattled Nevada Gaming Control Board. OK, Sendall is an attorney and the board needs a third lawyer like it needs a hole in the head. (Wait, it’s already got a hole in the head.) But she’s also a former internal auditor for Caesars Entertainment and if there’s any realm in which the board has found itself lacking—besides courage—it’s understanding the inner workings of a casino. Sendall’s appointment gives us hope that the board won’t be so easily hoodwinked in the future. Heck, maybe she can feed George Assad a clue or two. We’d be most grateful if she did.
JOTTINGS: Having chosen to go big rather than go home, Resorts World New York is rolling out its plans for a $5 billion upgrade, should it get a New York City casino license. And we mean big: 35,000 square feet of convention space, a 7,000-seat arena and (oh yes) 350,000 square feet of gambling. Genting Group promises that local businesses won’t be shut out from the 30-plus restaurants and so on. We hope not … Repeated hacking of MGM Resorts International is going to cost the company $45 million in damages to plaintiffs. That’s the settlement figure on a class-action lawsuit and it sounds like MGM got off light … Hawaii has had several abortive flirtations with legalized gambling. The oddest was when then-guv Linda Lingle proposed a one-year-only casino as a test flight. Imagine having to recoup 100% of your investment in a single year! But we digress. iGaming is on the Lege’s docket for this year. It probably won’t pass but they have our best wishes … No wonder Hawiian solons are interested in iGaming: It brought in $8.4 billion last year, despite being limited to a handful of states. How come? According to the Department of Commerce, allegedly hard-pressed consumers are “making more and spending more.” Indeed … Kalshi, which just signed Donald Trump Jr. to a sinecure, is wading into sports betting. For mere pennies, you can bet on the Super Bowl with Kalshi, although we’d opt for a bookmaker that isn’t forbidden to engage in “gaming” under federal regulations, as Kalshi currently is … Seminole Hard Rock in Tampa is on the move. It’s added 350 slots, upgraded 240 hotel rooms and hired 200 more employees. The hotel, by the way, is now 100% non-smoking, a move we applaud … A major tribal casino could be coming to North Dakota. A proposal is being advanced by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa to build a Class III casino and 200-room hotel alongside I-29. We hope local officials see the wisdom of the Chippewa’s pitch.
I can’t understand the anti-dei knuckleheads in this country. I wonder if they’re capable of seeing the fact that they’re are by far the loudest and largest group droning on about race 100% of the time. It’s pretty sad.
Lol if they were concerned about DEI they’d should be pushing for an amendment to make the Senate to end it’s 2 per state rule. All it does is add equity to states like Wyoming where no one lives, brings is diverse people that wouldn’t have a voice so they could be included in the process.
DEI is as old as this country itself. But it’s only bad when it gives any power to the marginalized people.
Basing eligibility on gender and/or race is discrimination, period, full stop. I didn’t like the idea from the start.
My first reaction to this restriction was, “Well, that’s not fair.” Then I thought, “Who cares? It’s a lousy investment. If I want to waste my money, I’ll go to my local casinos and have a lot more fun!”
My unsolicited advice to the people heading this alleged investment would be to agree to what these two so-called men are demanding. Let them invest. Concede nothing, but let them throw their money away. They want a public fight; don’t give it to them. They’ll still be bigots, but they’ll wind up poorer bigots. It’s guerrilla warfare, doing the unexpected.
I advise anyone who is eligible to invest in this to take a second look. And a third. And a fourth. Then please please PLEASE invest elsewhere.