Bally’s Atlantic City and Golden Nugget traditionally jockey for last place in Atlantic City monthly gaming grosses. Indeed, a midweek visit to Bally’s by our East Coast correspondent found the place practically deserted (and in need of more capex $$). But he went back last weekend and found a “decent number of people.” It surely did not hurt that Bally’s—seen above—was being ‘george’ with promotions (reversing an A.C. trend), crossing customers’ palms with everything from $50 gift cards to 32-inch LCD TV sets. Room rates that start at $19/night and whiskey-tasting promos can’t be harmful, either. Concurrently, at the Nugget, business was also moderate, perhaps having settled down after a big chicken-wing dining promo. Nonetheless, the Nugget (below) “had a much more vibrant vibe than Bally’s.” We hope the mayor’s office in Chicago is taking a look at Bally’s A.C., since there’s a serious chance it could pick Soo Kim‘s underachieving company over Hard Rock International and Rush Street Gaming, improbable as that may seem.
Let’s start the day with a rare, feel-good story about an invalidated jackpot. Normally, these things go the way of the house. But not this time. On January 8, at Treasure Island, a player named Robert Taylor was playing the slots and hit a $230K bonanza. But the machine goofed and didn’t go wild, as it’s supposed to do. Give credit to Treasure Island staffers for noticing the mega-glitch and informing the Nevada Gaming Control Board. To our eternal gratitude (and that of Mr. Taylor, no doubt), “gaming officials combed through hours of surveillance videos from several casinos, interviewed witnesses, shifted [sic] through electronic purchase records and even analyzed ride share data provided by the Nevada Transportation Authority.” Eventually Taylor, an Arizona tourist, was located and remunerated.
The whole thing took two weeks but jackpot delayed was not jackpot denied. Last week the NGCB did the wrong thing by approving Apollo Management to take over Venelazzo. In the Treasure Island affair it very much did the right thing (as did the casino), an instance of fair-mindedness that is rightly garnering Las Vegas an armful of good publicity that no PR campaign can buy.
You’re playing dollar pNSU Deuces Wild, the 15-9-4-4-3 pay schedule also called Airport Deuces, five coins at a time, and you’re dealt W W W7♦ 9♦, where each Windicates a wild card. Specifically, a deuce. This is a dealt straight flush, worth $45 in this game. Congratulations!
It’s difficult to keep track of the mixed messages coming from Bally’s Corp. Chairman Soo Kim. He’s promised to make a Chicago casino the “flagship” of his company. But he’s also talking about razing the Tropicana Las Vegas and building a Strip megaresort. So wouldn’t that be the Bally’s “flagship”? Or is it his priority to take the company private, as appears to be the case? (A special committee has been formed to study the offer.) In the meantime, there’s work to be done at Bally’s Atlantic City. Our East Coast correspondent “made a wrong turn and got here. It’s so empty that it’s creepy (but wait, it’s always that way) … I am wondering if Bally’s is up to the job of doing a large-scale renovation. As I wandered around, seeing worn carpet seams, rusted metal around mirrors in bathrooms, it reminded me of Uncle Carl’s Taj Mahal, not worth fixing … Hey, I found a 9 cent machine and for a total of 14 cents including a bonus, I won a few pennies.” So don’t say there’s no excitement to be had at the House of Kim.
Having quietly broken ground on $750 million Durango Station, proud papa Station Casinos announced that despite “some headwinds,” the company had achieved record-level cash flow in 4Q21. “The government’s mask mandate across the state of Nevada remained in place and we definitely felt the effects, along with increased inflationary pressure on ordinary goods and services,” said CFO Stephen Cootey of the aforementioned headwinds. Fortunately for Station, customer spend per visit was up, as was time expended playing the slots. As for rooms and F&B, it was the most profitable fourth quarter in Station history. Older customers continued to stay away but 21-to-25-year-olds more than made up for them, playing in greater numbers (60%) than in 2019.
As usual when billions are on the line, regulators dove under the table regarding the sale of Venelazzo to an unholy alliance of Apollo Management and Vici Properties. Although the Nevada Gaming Control Board cried foul—and rightly so—at the sexual predations of Steve Wynn, it turned a blind eye to similar malfeasances by principal (12%) Apollo shareholder Leon Black. The latter had to step down as Apollo chairman for having “paid convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein $165 million for financial advice.” Is that what the kids are calling it these days? The 70-year-old billionaire is also under investigation for having allegedly raped a Jane Doe at Epstein’s Manhattan crash pad back in 2002. (Classy gent that he is, Black is having his lawyers shame the alleged victim.) The Epstein/Black connection is a tangled one … and this is the man Nevada regulators are prepared to gift with one of Las Vegas‘ premier resorts.
Yes, Tom Brady has retired but there’s actually other news happening today. For starters, Fontainebleau has a new president. And not just any prexy but “a visionary leader for our next-generation luxury resort.” He’s Cliff Atkinson, late of Luxor. If anything about that last sentence strikes you as incongruous it’s that Luxor isn’t exactly F-blue’s price point. Fortunately, Atkinson does have experience in the top tier of Las Vegas Strip hospitality, having served as general manager of what used to be Mandarin Oriental at CityCenter, a tenure that earned him the sobriquet “Hotelier of the Year” from the Nevada Hotel & Lodging Association. Although you’ve probably never heard of him, Atkinson is described by Jeffrey Soffer‘s PR team as “one of the Strip’s most dynamic leaders.”
NSU is the 16-10-4-4-3 pay schedule of Deuces Wild that returns 99.728% when played well. “pNSU” (for pseudo NSU) is the name Liam W. Daily and I used to describe the 15-9-4-4-3 Deuces Wild pay schedule that returns 98.913%. Our name is still seen out there sometimes, but the name Airport Deuces, among others, is a far more common nickname for this game. Some people prefer to call these games “NSU (or pNSU) Deuces” or “NSU (or pNSU) Deuces Wild” but I’ve always preferred just NSU and pNSU.
I know NSU really well. I’ve played it probably 5,000 hours over the years. Taught it several dozen times, including the Advanced Strategy with all the penalty cards perhaps ten times. I co-wrote the Winner’s Guide for the game. And I still review the fine points periodically.
That hissing sound you hear is the air going out of DraftKings‘ and FanDuel‘s electoral balloon. Florida Education Champions, their front group for bringing online sports betting to the Sunshine State, folded its hand, conceding that it can’t get enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. It says it’s “reassessing long-term options, still hoping one day to get voter approval for legal online sports gambling in Florida.” FEC says it collected over a million signatures, but only 471,536 could be verified. “While pursuing our mission to add sports betting to the ballot, we ran into some serious challenges, but most of all, the COVID-19 surge decimated our operations and ability to collect in-person signatures,” FEC complained, failing to add that the dog ate its homework. All gambling-related signature drives, had they made the ballot, might have faced serious voter backlash, given the in-your-face petitioning tactics alleged, which included encroachment upon private property.
Here We Go Again . . .
