Category: Casino News

Then there were seven … again. In a stunning reversal of fortune, Caesars Entertainment‘s plans for a Times Square casino have been ashcanned by the relevant Community Advisory Committee. The casino proposal had bitterly divided the Broadway community and was recently panned for its hostility toward pedestrians and bus passengers. Since the latter (plus subway commuters) were supposed to constitute 75% of the customer base, the behavior of Caesars and SL Green was perverse, to say the least, not least for a casino that projected a preposterous $2.3 billion a year in gambling revenue but was polling at anemic levels. “Despite extensive outreach by the applicants, that [necessary] level of support has not materialized,” said Councilman Erik Bottcher, who cast one of the ‘no’ votes.

Continue reading Shocker in New York City

Time to blow raspberries to the House Rules Committee. While permitting literally a thousand other amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act, it struck down Rep. Dina Titus‘ FAIR Bet Act, which would have redressed Congress’ imposition of new taxes on gambling losses. It was supposedly not germane to national defense, despite the fact that the Pentagon purveys a large fleet of slot machines, for the purpose of clawing back what little money it pays our servicemen and -women, to the tune of $100 million a year. Hypocrisy much?

Continue reading Congress to You: Drop Dead

What doth it profit a tribe to gain a casino but forfeit its birthright? The Dry Creek Rancheria of Pomo Indians just made a Faustian pact with Wall Street, for the sake of underwriting a Caesars Republic-branded casino near Healdsburg, California. In return for $225 million in construction financing, the tribe agreed to lease the casino until 2070 to “an affiliate” of financier Gaming & Leisure Properties Inc., which will magnanimously sublease it back to the band. Any guesses to who the friend of GLPI might be? Corporate PR simpering aside, it’s obviously going to be Caesars Entertainment at the helm for 45 years.

Continue reading Indian Givers

See that guy? He’s the single most overpaid CEO in Big Gaming. We’re talking about Jay Snowden, helmsman of Penn Entertainment. As revealed by the Nevada Current, the Institute for Policy Studies and Inequality.org, Snowden makes 734X the median wage of a Penn employee, who must eke out a living on $36,322 a year. Snowden’s obscene pay packet? $26.6 million. Nor is he alone in robbing shareholders blind. Read on.

Continue reading Grinning Bandits

DeNile is the only river that runs through the Las Vegas Strip and casino bosses having been boating on it big-time of late. But when it comes to blowing sunshine up one’s own ass, there’s nobody better at it than Pollyanna-in-Chief Steve Hill, CEO of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority. He dumped an extra-large serving of bullshit on the plate of CDC Gaming‘s Buck Wargo last week and demanded that the public swallow it whole.

Continue reading Hill the Shill Returns