No, thank you! And you're most welcome.
As to your current question, nothing much has changed -- at least on paper -- since we addressed a similar query in the earliest days of QoD, back on May 23, 2005. Here's what we wrote back then:
"Donald Trump has never applied for a full casino license in Nevada. However, back in February of 2004, he was licensed as a 10% shareholder of the Riviera, having purchased 358,000 shares in the parent company, Riviera Holdings Inc., over the 2002–03 period. At the time, Trump explained that he did this purely to test the licensing waters and to shorten the time it would take for any future investigation," but that he had no long-term interest in the Riviera.
True to his word, having successfully won theoretical approval from the Nevada Gaming Commission as being a suitable candidate to own and operate a casino -- and with a unanimous vote -- Trump promptly sold his stake in the Riv, netting a profit of $900,000 on his original $2.7 million investment.
Even though he was licensed as a 10% shareholder, at the time state gaming regulators made it clear that this did not guarantee Trump future licensure as the owner and operator of a Las Vegas casino. Apparently there was no major probing at the time of his recent Atlantic City bankruptcy, but it was duly noted that the entrepreneur would have to answer a lot of probing questions before the Gaming Commission would consider granting him a full license.
This minor foray into the Vegas market, back in '04, was far from the first reported attempt by Donald Trump to get a foothold in the Nevada gaming industry, with published reports stretching back as far as 1986, when then-Review-Journal columnist Ned Day had information that the developer had tried to acquire land at the southwest corner of Spring Mountain Road and the Strip from Howard Hughes' Summa Corp. but lost out to long-time rival Steve Wynn, who built first the Mirage, and then Treasure Island on the plot.
The same year, Donald Trump was linked to a failed takeover of Bally Manufacturing Corp., which at the time owned two Nevada hotel-casinos, including Bally's Las Vegas on the Strip. Efforts to purchase both the Dunes and the Desert Inn were also reported as having been made, without success. Ditto the story the following year that Trump was looking to take over downtown's Golden Nugget from his then nemesis Wynn, fueled by typically provocative comments from Trump, including his notorious remark about how "I've always wanted Stephen Wynn to work for me." But none of those deals, or several others that followed, ever came to fruition.
Back in '05, when we first addressed his lack of presence in Las Vegas, Donald Trump was about to break ground on what was being touted as the first of a brace of Trump Towers on the former New Frontier site, where he'd already constructed what was, with its $3 million price tag, the most expensive temporary sales office ever opened in Las Vegas.
Two towers turned out to be one, but Trump managed to emerge a lot less unscathed than others (including ex-wife Ivana and her investors, if she actually had any) when the whole condo bubble burst here so spectacularly shortly thereafter, and as recently as during his presidential campaign, there have been rumblings of a Las Vegas Trump casino yet. Still, those rumblings emanated from Trump's son, Eric, and from his buddy and business partner in Trump International, TI owner Phil Ruffin, and we've heard of no further developments on that front since the comments were made many months ago.
Also, while Donald Trump appears to have sailed through the preliminary registration process in Nevada, actually obtaining a casino license is a much more protracted process, entailing detailed probing into the candidate's character, known associates, and prior business and financial history, and how these might reflect on the state's gaming industry and reputation as a whole. Judging by the damning statements we heard today from the former chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, speaking on NPR's "Weekend Edition" show, and given his subsequent track record in the gaming industry and the its contribution to the current woes of Nevada's East Coast rival, we feel safe in saying that the Donald may have his work cut out for him down the line, should he ever prove to be really serious about owning and operating a casino in the state of Nevada.
