Turmoil along the Boardwalk

Cult figure Glenn Straub is back in the news again, if indirectly. Stockton University has received Superior Court Judge Julio Mendez‘s blessing to sell the former Showboat and Mendez has enjoined the obstreperous Straub from challenging the sale. Stockton is thereby closer to ending the nightmare that was its $18 million attempt to establish an Atlantic City campus. Straub’s consolation is that he gets his $26 million purchase back — plus interest. Anybody want an ex-casino where you can’t gamble anymore?

In other Boardwalk news, the AFL-CIO has called for a boycott of Tropicana Atlantic City, which Carl Icahn owns, and Trump Taj Mahal, which he would like to. This is seen as a harbinger of a strike at the Taj, as is Unite-Here‘s stockpiling of supplies for a long siege. Icahn has tried to make the case to the rank and file that Unite-Here leadership is the real adversary but, as workers who can’t afford Obamacare try to scrimp by without health insurance (stripped from them by Trump CEO Bob Griffin), it’s not proving to be a persuasive argument.

Up at Borgata, poker pro Phil Ivey claims that Boyd Gaming used scantily clad waitresses and bottomless glasses of booze to distract him while he played. Sexy ‘Borgata Babe’ waitresses and free drinks in a casino? I’m shocked, absolutely shocked. There was some consolation for Ivey. “I got quite a few [phone] numbers,” he brags.

* If the casino industry can convert social gamers into slot players it will have hit the demographic jackpot.

* If you’ve got $14.5 million to spare (Phil Ivey, take note), you might be able to spring for casino developer Gary Primm‘s suburban Las Vegas mansion. Its myriad amenities include an underground shooting gallery, a driving range and a gas station, making the estate a world unto itself. We’d expect no less from the auteur of New York-New York and Primm Valley Resorts.

* It’s always two steps forward, one step back for the Mashpee Wampanoags. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is rewording a previous announcement, saying that the BIA was taking comments on the Massachusetts tribe’s “request to issue a reservation proclamation … Issuance of a reservation proclamation is a separate and distinct action from acquiring land in trust.” So the Mashpee Wamps are only slightly closer to getting a casino (below) in Taunton.

In addition to the tribe, Rush Street Gaming is on pins and needles, as its Brockton casino proposal is hostage to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission‘s desire to see how the situation in Taunton plays out. The MGC’s hesitation has to do with the magic number of 17: That’s how many miles separate Brockton from Taunton and it’s also the percentage of gaming revenue that the Wampanoags would have to pay the state … unless there’s another casino in Region C, in which case they pay nothing. Events, agonizingly slow though they are, are turning in the tribe’s favor, undoubtedly much to Rush Street’s chagrin.