We’re back from vacation at last and pick up where we left: Atlantic City. The drop-dead date for contract talks (basically July 1, a full month past the expiry of the collective bargaining agreement) is drawing nigh and no progress is evident. Our East Coast correspondent reports that the rank-and-file are seeking $16/hour in base pay, which is still less than the livable wage of $17.75/hour, so that’s kinda george of them. Casinos continue to whinge about how poverty-stricken they are and say pay no attention to the money being raked in from i-gaming. At this rate, a strike appears more likely than not—and just when the casinos can least afford it. Are they really willing to flush the July Fourth weekend just to make an increasingly indefensible point? Apparently so.
The situation is sufficiently bad that the local government has gone on record as supporting higher pay and greater hiring by the casinos. This essentially aligns it with the Unite-Here local spearheading the cost of living increase. Only a few days’ time will tell if it’s enough to avert Big Gaming from cutting off its nose to spite its face.
Meanwhile, at Borgata, the new administration is making a raft of changes both big and small. Chronicles our man on the Boardwalk, following three comped nights at MGM Resorts International‘s money-spinner, “Their updates included new room-door access just holding the card to the reader. The security guard in the hotel lobby looks odd holding a card-reading thing in each hand (they look like a small steam ironing device). Each guest/couple has to hold their room card against the device to show that it’s active in order to get to the elevators. In the elevator, you have to put your room key against a pad, it then allows you to select a floor.” We encountered some of such safeguards when staying at a Hilton property in Chicago last February, but having the security man guarding the elevators seems a mite paranoiac to us.
“The first surprise was that MGM removed the clocks from the rooms, so you have to look at your phone for the time. The next surprise was that no newspapers (including the Press of Atlantic City) are available in Borgata. Until this weekend, I’ve never been in a casino anywhere that doesn’t sell newspapers. The former Wolfgang Puck restaurant is now American Bar & Grill. The former Bobby Flay restaurant will reopen this coming week as B Steakhouse. MGM is so successful it no longer needs Iron Chefs names on them.” Indeed.
Meanwhile, “concrete” progress is taking place at Showboat: in the form of 70 cement-bearing trucks pouring concrete for the pump room of Bart Blatstein‘s water park. That’s 700 yards of cement, man. Blatstein has found a financier in the form of Procida Funding & Advisors, of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Explained fund CEO William Procida vaguely, “We made a loan for a lot of money to do a lot of things … I can be more specific in a few more months.” Blatstein’s been a busy man—just as Atlantic City needs—gobbling up land near and far from the Showboat as well as hosting the Black Excellence project for the second year in a row. Other Blatstein presentations include an animal-free circus, a family arcade, family oriented hotel rooms and an electric go-kart track. “Golden Nugget used to have a children’s arcade, now closed. The Claridge, next to Bally’s, has an arcade still open,” reports our A.C. bureau. Speaking of the Claridge, apparent (and significant) structural problems have been spotted on its parking garage, newly reinforced with steel columns. Just sayin’.
Back at Harrah’s Philadelphia, the casino that charm forgot, further signs of penny-pinching by ‘El Diablo’ are manifesting themselves. The Diamond Lounge has been closed. As our roving reporter puts it, “Thanks to ‘El Diablo” you can now buy your own food and drinks, rather than free. Besides the closed O’Sheas, the player’s club was closed (hope you don’t need a new player’s club card), the gift shop was closed, and the gastro pub (formerly Guy Fieri’s) was closed. The last photo appears to show a lack of casino marketing effort:”
Yup, Caesars Entertainment, keep up that competitive spirit.
One of the side benefits of spending a week-plus in the sylvan splendors of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was being exposed to the amount of advertising for Internet casinos on local TV. It’s heavy. We’re talking big spending, folks. FanDuel is inescapable, constantly peddling its product. Tilman Fertitta also logs a great deal of screen time, touting Golden Nugget Online and BetMGM is a distant third. Then again, when you practically own the market, you don’t need to draw attention to yourself.
Will the Las Vegas Strip be the same without Hawaiian Marketplace and Cable Center Shops, asks Vital Vegas author Scott Roeben? Evidently so. The sotto voce closure of these two Vegas standbys (and butts of humor) does not presage a new megaresort but probably still more retail. Just what the Strip needs: yet another mall. Gindi Capital splurged $172 million three years ago for this urban blight but the Great Pandemic seems to have put whatever grand plans it had on hold … until now. Gindi says it will “unveil plans for a new flagship retail, entertainment and dining experience.”
Notice the absence of “gaming.” Roeben thinks Gindi is hoping to ride the tailwind from Fertitta’s planned Strip megaresort, a stone’s throw away: “Fertitta’s high-end resort would make Hawaiian Marketplace look even worse, so it makes sense to move that project along to take advantage of improvements to the neighborhood.” This is one change to the Strip that will give few cause to mourn.
Jottings: In a setback for the State of Texas, the Supreme Court has ruled that Class II gambling is permissible at Speaking Rock Entertainment Center, operated by the long-suffering El Tigua Indians. Wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch, “If Texas thinks good governance requires a different set of rules, its appeals are better directed to those who make the laws than those charged with following them.” While the ramifications of SCOTUS’ ruling are still being pondered, the Tigua and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe can now continue offering Class II games without (racist) state interference … No surprise, new gaming regulations in Macao are expected to be rubber-stamped. Taxes will be higher (40%), concessions will now last 10 years, concessionaires will have to increase their cash on hand but the city’s dodgy ‘satellite casinos’ will be allowed to continue operating … Okada Manila‘s planned NASDAQ listing has been postponed after a beer-hall putsch of former management. Gee, we can’t imagine why.
Quote of the Day: “The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful and virtuous.”—Frederick Douglass
