{"id":909613,"date":"2026-03-04T12:05:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/?p=909613"},"modified":"2026-03-04T12:05:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:05:47","slug":"texas-sized-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blog\/texas-sized-defeat\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas-Sized Defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nobody can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory quite like Dr. Miriam Adelson<\/strong>. The ancient meddler and majority owner of Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> saw another slate Sands-proxy candidates go down to defeat last night in the Lone Star State’s primary. Texas<\/strong> voters applied a 10-gallon boot to Adelson’s carpetbagging posterior, in yet another rejection of her ham-fisted agenda. It takes a special kind of reverse political acumen to take a state where a majority of the electorate favors casinos and sports betting, and then turn them into a vociferous bunch of NIMBYs. But Miriam has done it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

To her credit, Adelson picked a couple of winners this time. State Rep. Angelia Orr<\/strong> (R) won her primary fight, as did Democratic senate hopeful James Talarico<\/strong>. Sure, Gov. Greg Abbott<\/strong> (R) was renominated, but that was as safe a bet as Adelson could have placed. However, she went 0-4 against Abbott<\/a> in her attempts to unseat Abbott-backed incumbents, including Rep. Terri Leo Wilson<\/strong> (R), who crushed Sands pet Nathan Watkins<\/strong>. Should Texas have casinos? Yes. Sports betting? Absolutely! But Adelson’s clumsy string-pulling (to say nothing of her ruination of the Dallas<\/strong> Mavericks<\/strong>) does the cause no favors.<\/p>\n\n\n

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For one thing, it’s lured a deep-pocketed opponent in far-right Tim Dunn<\/strong>, who’s only to happy to chip in his billions against Adelson’s. Other Sands-friendly candidates suffering the Adelson Kiss of Death were Stan Kitzman<\/strong> (R), Cecil Bell Jr.<\/strong> (R) and Kyle Morris<\/strong> (R). No word yet on Willie Ng<\/strong> (R) but surrogates Ken King<\/strong> (R) and Jay Hardaway<\/strong> (R) defied the Adelson Curse and won their races. The casino mogul has also, finally begun to reach out beyond the country-club crowd for a change, making donations<\/a> to the Mexican-American and Black legislative caucuses. She may yet build a pro-casino coalition. But the pro-gambling cause could clearly use a different, less-toxic poster girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next door,<\/strong> casinos in Louisiana<\/strong> were up 5% in January … not counting Louisiana Live<\/strong>, in Bossier City<\/strong>, which pushed the statewide tally +10.5%. Nor did it hurt that $140 million Bally’s Baton Rouge<\/strong> debuted in December, finally putting antediluvian Belle of Baton Rouge<\/strong> out of her misery. The new Bally’s Corp.<\/strong> casino catapulted revenue 768% skyward, pulling in $4.5 million. The company’s Queen Casino <\/strong>was dimmed only slightly, down 3% to $7.5 million. And rival L’Auberge Baton Rouge<\/strong> was flat at $13 million. Congratulations to Bally’s on having evidently expanded the Baton Rouge<\/strong> market instead of cannibalizing it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Everybody was up in Texas<\/strong>-facing Lake Charles<\/strong>, led in January by L’Auberge du Lac<\/strong>, jumping 12% to $26 million. Golden Nugget Lake Charles<\/strong> made $25.5 million for a 4.5% gain, Delta Downs<\/strong> did $13.5 million, leaping 17.5%, and Horseshoe Lake Charles<\/strong> nudged 3% to $8 million. New Orleans<\/strong> saw some wild swings. Fair Grounds<\/strong> racino experienced an exodus of revenue, -29% to $2 million. Boomtown New Orleans<\/strong> faded 7% to $8.5 million. Caesars New<\/strong> Orleans<\/strong> jumped 16% to $21 million, while Treasure Chest<\/strong> was up 15% to $13.5 million. Nearby Amelia Belle<\/strong> vaulted 21.5% to $3 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That leaves Shreveport<\/strong> and Bossier City, where Bally’s is doubling down by purchasing Sam’s Town<\/strong>. Why, one is hard-pressed to say, as Sam’s Town grossed only $2.5 million (-5%), whereas Bally’s Shreveport <\/strong>collapsed 23% to $7 million. Boomtown Bossie<\/strong>r took a 20% tumble to $2.5 million and Louisiana Downs<\/strong> was down 9% to $2.5 million. Traditional leader Margaritaville<\/strong> slid 15% to $12 million, almost losing supremacy to Horseshoe Bossier City<\/strong> ($10.5 million), up 5.5%, with Louisiana Live hot on its heels with $10 million. Outlying Evangeline Downs <\/strong>slipped 2% to $5.5 million. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nobody can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory quite like Dr. Miriam Adelson. The ancient meddler and majority owner of Las Vegas Sands saw another slate Sands-proxy candidates go down to defeat last night in the Lone Star State’s primary. Texas voters applied a 10-gallon boot to Adelson’s carpetbagging posterior, in yet another rejection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83928,"featured_media":864475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1728],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Texas-rotunda.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83928"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909613"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":909619,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909613\/revisions\/909619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}