Fall of the Roman Empire

Eldorado Resorts is no longer the only bidder allowed access to Caesars Entertainment‘s “data room.” Tilman Fertitta now has free run of the place, as the bidding for Caesars—expected to begin in earnest next week—heats up. According to the New York Post, it is only a matter of days before the Caesars board announces that a sale is on. Tilman better break open his piggy bank: Caesars still carries a groaning $23.6 billion in debt (which makes one guardedly pessimistic about the wisdom of a sale), a morbid legacy from Gary Loveman, so the Roman Empire isn’t going to come cheap.

The company has only itself to blame for becoming a takeover candidate: In addition to paying an above-market price for Centaur Gaming, it allowed corporate expenses to balloon from $202 million in 2o17 to $332 million last year. That offends primary shareholder Carl Icahn‘s sense of propriety. Enter Eldorado and Fertitta. Eldorado’s 26 properties (to Tilman’s five) would seem to give it an advantage in terms of augmenting Caesars’ hub-and-spoke marketing structure, but these bidding wars rarely make sense or even financial probity (see Aztar Corp.). May the best company win.

* It’s Buses 1, Light Rail 0 as Clark County has opted for a rapid (in theory) bus line north from McCarran International Airport to downtown Las Vegas, via Maryland Parkway. The project is budgeted at $345 million. Great. I move away and *then* they upgrade my bread-and-butter bus route.