As reported earlier this week, MGM Resorts International is considering monetizing disappointing MGM Springfield via a sale to MGM Growth Properties. The company sought to reassure customers, saying the deal 
“focus exclusively on the transfer of real estate and have no bearing whatsoever on the property’s management or operations … These transactions have no impact on employees, partners or the guest experience.” Springfield Mayor Dominic J. Sarno intends to hold MGM to that, saying he would enforce MGM’s host-community agreement. Also, it’s not as simple as transferring the deed to MGP. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has to approve the REIT sale, as it did earlier with Plainridge Park.
Since nothing has been formally proposed, the MGC does not presently know what permissions will have to be required. However, Boston College‘s Richard McGowan regards the sale as unlikely. “I really doubt that the MGC will approve unless it can be shown that this will allow MGM to reinvest in its Springfield property. I doubt anyone believes that this is going to happen,” he told Casino.org. McGowan added, “MGM’s figures are very disappointing and Encore’s numbers are also not up to expectations because of the amount of casino gambling that is available.” Selling MGM Springfield would certainly be a speedy way to reduce MGM’s outlay on the resort.
* After a good, 20-year run, Red Square at Mandalay Bay is closing. We’ll miss it, to say nothing of the headless Lenin statue that provided a convenient point of orientation in the sprawling resort. If you’re unhappy about this turn of events, blame Sam Nazarian. His SBE Entertainment got its claws into Red Square earlier this year. Nothing associated with Nazarian can be all good.
* Convicted felon O.J. Simpson is suing The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas for alleged defamation of character. Really? Does the Juice have any character left to defame?
* In the Preposterous Claim of the Week, a Genting Group exec asserts that the company could quadruple the financial performance of Resorts World Catskills by taking it private. Before we all fall down laughing, let it be 
known that Resorts World Catskills is making less than 50% of projected revenue is presently losing money. So going from $12 million in the red per month to $36 million in the black maybe isn’t out of reach. “We concluded that we [would] need to take it over, take it private, and operate it with the type of optimization that we utilize downstate now in Queens,” an anonymous source told Casino.org, “which continues to be highest-grossing and most efficient video lottery terminal facility on the planet, bar none. We [want to] bring that upstate to Empire.”
Well, at least it’s easier than bringing Empire downstate to the New York City area. Bankruptcy is still an option in the Catskills, although maybe less so now that Kien Huat Realty has put $129 million into the company.
* Scarcely had Station Casinos shut the doors of KAOS than it was hit with a class-action lawsuit, filed by lead plaintiff Alyssa Faulstick and other employees. It charges Station with having terminated the KAOS staff without proper notice or recompense. Federal law requires 60-day notice. Station gave KAOS employees two week’s pay plus wages owed.
