Ohio‘s slot hoppers have been emptied for August and it was a month marked by some dramatic swings of fate. Belterra Park‘s 
$6 million haul won’t blow anybody away but, at $145/slot/day, it’s doing an acceptable average and improved 41% from last year. It’s actually catching up with Dan Gilbert‘s ThistleDown Racino, which slipped 22% and is on a trajectory for last place in the Buckeye State. How the mighty have fallen. Gilbert’s Horseshoe Cleveland ($17 million, -17%) has slipped to third place in the state but he could take some comfort in the performance of Horseshoe Cincinnati ($17 million, up 6%).
State leader Hard Rock Rocksino socked away $19 million, a 14% increase. Despite tightening its slots, Hollywood Casino Columbus slid 13%, generating $171/slot/day. (Maybe some of those players were over at Eldorado Resorts‘ Scioto Downs, up 1%.) Penn National Gaming-managed Hollywood Casino Toledo, however, managed a slight (2%) uptick and an impressive $212/slot/day, despite looser holds. Out at the racinos, Hollywood Austintown continues to do astounding business ($294/slot/day), as does Hollywood Dayton ($234/slot/day). Somebody needs to find out what they’re drinking and send a case of it to Gilbert.
* If you fancy having a bit of a flutter in the Golden Triangle, do we have the casino for you. Its Kings Romans Casino, an islet of indulgence in a country — Laos — whose reputation for repressiveness is exceeded only by that of North Korea. Chinese players are the customer of choice but you won’t find Sociedade de Jogos de Macau or Melco Crown Entertainment horning in on the action: Laos has given exclusive gaming rights and a 99-year lease in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone to Hong Kong-based Kings Romans Group.
Customers fly into Thailand and are bused to the Laotian border. At Kings Romans they find that “Businesses accept Chinese currency and restaurants serve Chinese fare. Clocks are set to Beijing time, 
an hour ahead of the rest of Laos,” according to the Los Angeles Times. As far as we can tell, the cultivation and smuggling of opium are still the special zone’s cash crop but Kings Romans has managed, if that were possible, to make the Golden Triangle’s reputation worse. Instead of the promised golf course, spa (unless you count “untraditional massages”) and yacht harbor, you will find rampant prostitution, for starters.
Kings Romans is not without daring. It has set up shop in the Wild Wild East area of Burma known as Mong La, deep in rebel terrain. Kings Romans has also turned a blind eye to the trafficking of endangered species, such as elephant tusks. From the looks of it, the Laotian government has traded a fair measure of sovereignty for an extra-large serving of corruption.
* Atlantic City‘s labor dispute is devolving into farce. Using the facade of Trump Taj Mahal as a giant projection screen, Unite-Here shone derogatory messages about the casino onto its front, in effect using the casino as an advertisement against itself. A judge has put a stop to all the fun but the union is ingenious, lining up protestors along the Boardwalk with body-high neon signs that spell “BOYCOTT TAJ.”
To furthermore show that it meant business, Unite-Here rented Randy the Rat, an inflatable labor mascot known for his 
“distended, carbuncular belly.” Randy’s manifestation is regarded as a surefire harbinger of a strike. The union might still prevail in court with its argument that, since it was stripped of its Taj health benefits after the collective bargaining agreement had expired, bankruptcy court Judge Kevin Gross overstepped his authority in approving what (so the argument goes) is the purview of the National Labor Relations Board. With a series of contract renewals at other casinos due in September, Unite-Here doesn’t want to hand Icahn any easy victories and set a dangerous precedent.
