Give credit where it’s due to the Las Vegas Review-Journal for today’s interesting revelation that Columbia Sussex had been running the Las Vegas Tropicana with rival GMs overseeing the casino and hotel operations, respectively. This appears to confirm rumors I’d heard that ColSux likes to ‘silo’ the gambling and lodging aspects of its casino-hotels into separate profit centers which compete against each other instead of operating symbiotically.
With corporate thinking like that, it’s no wonder that even Global Gaming Business Editor Roger Gros said, at G2E, that ColSux “didn’t understand the [casino] industry.” A newspaper interview with Casino Aztar interim skipper Tom Dingman details the decimation that took place there on ColSux’s watch. Given how rundown the Casino Aztar infrastructure was when Dingman arrived, his ability to turn around business there is all the more impressive. Whoever succeeds Dingman shouldn’t tinker with his business model, as it’s proven to be an indisputable success.
Further down in the same assemblage of news briefs is the announcement of Brooke Dunn‘s New Years Eve resignation from Shuffle Master. The former Shuffle Master senior VP has been under a cloud ever since the SEC recommended civil prosecution against him for allegedly passing privileged information to an unrelated third party. Dunn’s resignation was sadly inevitable, as he can neither fuufill his job responsibilities nor be entrusted with sensitive information as long as the SEC’s accusations hang over his head.
Also out the door is the Ameristar Casinos Chief Accounting Officer Thomas Malone “who has resigned to pursue other opportunities,” such as the opportunity of not having the doorknob hit you in the butt. Former Progressive Gaming CFO Heather Rollo replaces Malone. Given the performance of its casinos despite the recession, Ameristar has been unaccountably jittery of late, with Malone’s abrupt departure being merely the latest tremor.
Update: Yet another executive who is choosing to “pursue other interests,” like updating his resumé, is Tropicana Entertainment CFO Robert Kocienski. After a brief tenure in the job, he’s been shown the door in favor of ex-Shuffle Master CFO Richard Baldwin, a long-tenured slot industry executive. Combine this with the hiring of Ron Thacker to run the LV Trop and it’s one ex-Cosmopolitan executive in, one out. So I guess they can put that big Cosmo Class of ’08 reunion on hold.
