Missouri casinos dipped 3% last month (4% in the St. Louis area), a figure that seems bigger than the “unfavorable calendar” excuse covers. Pinnacle Entertainment took a 7.5% haircut at River City ($18 million) while its Ameristar St. Charles was off 
2% (to $21 million). Neighbor Hollywood St. Louis fell 8%, to $18 million. Tropicana Entertainment defied the odds at Lumiere Place (pictured), up 6% to $11 million. Over in Kansas City, Pinnacle had the worst of it, with Ameristar Kansas City down 6.5%, to $18 million, while Isle of Capri Kansas City stumbled 5% to $6 million. Argosy Riverside was up 2.5% to $13 million, while Harrah’s North Kansas City rose 4% to $14.5 million.
Out in the boonies Isle of Capri Boonsville dropped 6% to $6 million and Affinity Gaming‘s Mark Twain casino fell 9%, to $2.5 million. St. Jo Frontier was up 4% to $3.5 minor, while Isle of Capri Cape Girardeau and Lady Luck Caruthersville had very minor dips in revenue.
* Legalized prostitution could be coming to select areas of Vietnam. It’s part of a larger experiment to widen casino gambling to the include the citizenry. “Life has such realistic demands. We’ve got to go with the flow and work out an appropriate management mechanism,” said one lawmaker of the world’s oldest profession. Also on the table are a $44 admittance fee to casinos for Vietnamese citizens and a means test for gambling (with income of $440 a month the mooted baseline). It’s not entirely clear which casinos would be included in the pilot program but it’s expected to be incepted by Dec. 1.
* All of sleazy Shawn Scott‘s horses and all Scott’s moneymen couldn’t put a racino measure over on Maine voters, who 
trounced it 83% to 17%, the most one-sided gaming wipeout at the ballot box that we’ve every seen. It tells you something about how toxic Scott is. Not even an expenditure of $15 (of an $8.8 million total) for every $1 spent in opposition could put this pig in a poke over on the electorate. Opponents, who included Churchill Downs, barely had to work up a sweat. All Scott has to show for his efforts is a $500,000 fine for campaign ethics violations.
Said opposition leader Roy Lenardson, “As much as I would like to take credit for this, it’s a case of democracy working. Everybody did their job, from the governor to the Legislature to the Maine ethics commission to the media, who dove into this 
story. Voters got the information they needed and they made a good decision.” Scott’s crafting of the ballot measure as a sweetheart deal for himself was a big turnoff for voters, leaving the would-be mogul to skulk back to his Saipan lair and lick his wounds. Winners included the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Penobscot Nation, who stood to lose subsidies from Churchill’s Oxford Casino, had the long-shot initiative passed. On the losing side along with Scott were the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, who had a vague quid pro quo with the casino hustler. So, once more it’s good riddance to Scott, the ultimate bottom-feeder of the casino industry.
* Although his meaningless SLS brand bombed in Las Vegas, huckster Sam Nazarian is try, try, trying again in the Bahamas, where a 299-room SLS hotel will open as part of the Baha Mar megaresort. Baha Mar is currently sucking wind, so this will be like deja vu for Nazarian.
