Poor Sam Nazarian. He’s still two months away from opening SLS Las Vegas and Thrillist has gone and jumped the gun. It’s crowned The Cromwell “already Vegas coolest hotel.” Not even an unfinished parking garage could dampen their enthusiasm, motivated by things like a Playboy Playmate-inspired cocktail, a free-champagne happy hour, celebrity restaurant Giada, champagne in the rooms (do you sense a theme emerging?) and the Drai’s al fresco nightclub/pool deck … although from the descriptions, I wonder if Thrillist actually just read about that last item: The place must be a pretty hot ticket. Well done, Caesars Entertainment.
(Not so well done: The parking garage at Paris-Las Vegas, strewn with trash when we visited yesterday.)
* Out east, the designers of MGM Springfield are touting their “inside out” casino, whose 19 points of ingress and egress are intended to promote interaction with the surrounding area. But warning voices are (rightly) being raised about putting all of Springfield‘s chips for fiscal turnaround on a casino, no matter how handsome.
* Iowa would take a fiscal hit if Nebraska legalized casinos. That’s from 
the No Shit, Sherlock File, somebody having actually commissioned a study to make that earth-shattering discovery. What’s worth knowing is how bad the high might be. Nebraskans constitute 25% of the western Iowa player base, pouring $327 million into casino coffers last year.
“It is not a question of ‘if’ this will happen but really a question of ‘when’ because these states are highly incentivized to keep those tax dollars in-state, to create new jobs and stimulate capital investment,” warned the Union Gaming Analytics report. Nebraska has flirted with ‘instant racing’ but is perceived as hostile to casinos for the time being.
A particularly odious bill, by state Sen. Paul Schumacher, would have required Iowa to share gambling revenues or else Nebraska would build casinos near the state line. “We sit here and complain about property taxes, and this is something that we can do about it. But no, we’re not even going to look at it. It makes no sense to me,” fumes casino supporter state Sen. Russ Karpisek. But, with the Iowa market inarguably saturated, it’s unclear what Nebraska would accomplish beyond clawing back that one player in every four.
* Gaming is making for some very strange bedfellows in New York State, like odd couple of Penn National Gaming and Cordish Gaming. Now there’s another one. Up in the capitol region, Rush Street Gaming and Saratoga Casino & Gaming are vying for licenses in Schenectady and East Greenbush, respectively. But they’re also tag-teaming rival candidates in Orange County. “Serious discussions are under way about a partnership,” said a Saratoga spokesman about the $670 million Newburgh-sited proposal.
This creates a paradox, as outlined by the Albany Times Union: “In the competition in the Capital Region, where only one casino license is expected to be awarded by the state, [Saratoga boss James] Featherstonhaugh must market his suburban project with Churchill Downs as superior to the Rush Street proposal for the distressed city of Schenectady. He must also portray it as better than the Hard Rock/[David] Flaum project in the economically challenged city of Rensselaer.” But must also ideal sell the idea of Neil Bluhm‘s Rush Street as the ideal team player for Orange County.
The most polygamous partnership is in Rensselaer, where a consortium of Hard Rock International, the Chickasaw Nation, Flaum Management and Capital Region Off-Track Betting Corp. are carving up the pie into little slices. By the way, what’s become of the Southern Tier? We’ve not heard any news from there in ages. Should we send out a search party?
