Say it ain't so, Joe! The death of Emerald Island

Emerald Island is the last bastion of Vegas value. Great VP, terrific promos, fantastic players' club, excellent and cheap food, and an overall welcoming atmosphere.

It's about to die.

It, along with its sister property, Rainbow, next door, will be sold in January. Its owner, Tim Brooks, who has done so much to create this player-friendly environment, couldn't resist the siren song of cold, hard cash. The company buying the place--I'll call it "Fuck You, Haha Investments," because I don't want to bother to look it up, made some disingenuous statements about planning to "Maintain the culture" of the two properties. I call bullshit. They're going to gut the place like a fish.

Most of their current customers will be driven away and will never return. But that consequence didn't stop Stations, Boyd, etc. from butchering their formerly "locals'" casinos. Now, they're "rich retirees with too much time on their hands" casinos. The buyers of Emerald/Rainbow may have similar goals. One thing is for sure: the 99%+ penny video poker and the $5.49 breakfast are going away.

Forever.

Maybe. I've talked to Tim Brooks and he thinks they'll stay with the model, at least for a while. One of the new owners is Ron Winchell who owns the Winchell's bars, also good value places. The problem might be his partner, Marc Falcone, who comes from the corporate world and was the CFO at Station Casinos. I think you might be right, but not immediately.

Well, then, it might come down to which of the partners actually wears the pants. I would be surprised if it wasn't Falcone, who is surely clutching a huge bag of cash. Winchell might just be window dressing.

A temporary saving grace might be the physical setting. Neither property has a very large footprint, and as they're catty-corner rather than adjacent, there's no good way to combine them. So they probably won't be turned into one giant megatoilet.

Maybe two mega-outhouses.