Tilman’s Golden touch; Dotty’s gets respectable

Tilman Fertitta forked over $45 million to purchase Isle of Capri Biloxi. He is currently putting another $100 million into expansions and upgrades. From the look of things, he shouldn’t have any trouble making his money back. (Interestingly, parts of the casino floor resemble Planet Hollywood.) Like Las Vegas, casinos in Mississippi are experiencing the dismal epiphany that “Gaming isn’t unique anymore — it’s everywhere.” Tack on the triple whammy of Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession and Deepwater Horizon, and life’s not been too good for the Gulf Coast, which has fallen to eighth place in American gambling markets — quite a comedown.

It’s unlikely that legislators will embrace Internet gaming but at least the Bayou State has rescinded its Dark Ages mentality that prevented collegians from studying for careers in the Mississippi casino industry in Mississippi. Said one University of Southern Mississippi don, “We were finding that a lot of top-level jobs at the state’s casinos were going to out-of-state applicants.” No shit, Sherlock.

Fortunately, Fertitta can bring the “wow” factor to the Gulf Coast. He’s a “george” owner who puts his money where his mouth is. He may have gotten taken to the cleaners for Las Vegas and Laughlin iterations of the Golden Nugget but it was a teaching moment. Fertitta has been a canny acquirer ever since, while not being afraid to then spend money in order to make money.He once thought of buying the Riviera and decided against it. I wish I didn’t know that. The Riviera that might have been, under Fertitta, would be a very different and more successful story, I’m sure.

If you can’t beat ’em … so the hole-in-the-wall Dotty’s chain, which was basically like 80 downmarket Starbucks with slots, is having to go legit. Fine, says Dotty’s, two can play that game. To which end it is purchasing a casino-hotel outside Boulder City. Dotty’s will be buying out Michael Ensign and William Richardson, two relics of Mandalay Resort Group who have kept their hand in the game at the Hacienda. Dotty’s gets a relatively new (1998) property for an undisclosed sum of money. The route operator is hardly on its uppers but the Hacienda would give Dotty’s a new income source while it rejiggers the rest of its business model to accommodate new (and more expensive) Nevada regulatory requirements. The Dotty’s chain existed in a penumbral market — and snapped up the carcasses of many a defunct bar while doing so — and now the Hacienda buy gives the company a chance to go ‘legit.’