The great riverboat robbery; Pusateri’s revenge; Gaming’s top 12

Increased funding for education is always the big selling point whenever gambling laws in Missouri are liberalized. This week, schools are finding out what sort of Indian givers their casino benefactors are. Schools are among the public services that stand to lose millions of dollars in a giant give-back from St. Louis County to its fleet of riverboat casinos. The new revenue shortfalls will be passed on to individual homeowners, who can expect a sizable increase in their property-tax assessments.

Pinnacle Entertainment made out like a bandit, getting the tax assessment on its fast-rising River City (+11.5% last month) lopped from $284 million to $139 million. But that was peanuts compared to the markdown Caesars Entertainment got for Harrah’s Maryland Heights, depreciated from $440 million to a mere $152 million.

Mind you, casinos in St. Louis County brought in $99 million last month alone, and through the end of August, Harrah’s and Pinnacle have grossed $180 million and $129 million, respectively, for the year. (Ameristar St. Charles is valued at $266 million.) County Assessor Jake Zimmerman (right) called the Board of Equalization‘s decision “outrageous,” although “ripoff” would do just as well. St. Louis-area casinos haven’t been especially hard-hit by the Great Recession and certainly haven’t suffered any Katrina-like disasters that would warrant such deep discounting of their value. Shame on Caesars and Pinnacle for weaseling out of their civic obligations in this manner, especially after having persuaded Show-Me State voters to freeze the number of licenses in the state, ensuring themselves a protected oligopoly.

A long time ago (okay, 2001), a new casino called the Palms came along and ate the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino‘s lunch, stealing its image as the hipster hangout in town. Now, after the near-total crapfest that was the Morgans Hotel Group era at the HRH, new managers Warner Gaming are looking to steal some of that Palms mojo back. Their plan is simplicity itself: Hire Paul Pusateri as the new HRH COO. Pusateri, you will recall, was forced out of the presidency of the Palms in a coup d’etat engineered by a couple of private-equity funds. Perhaps they should have paid the man a handsome sum to twiddle his thumbs for a year because now they’ll be going up against a hotel-casino run by the individual who knows the Palms’ strengths and weaknesses better than anyone not named George Maloof. One dish of revenge, properly chilled, for the gentleman, please.

Santarelli’s Top Five. Just as S&G got to wondering what had become of gaming analyst Carlo Santarelli, up he pops with a 500-page-plus “Gaming Industry Overview” for Deutsche Bank. Santarelli’s a bit cool on the manufacturing sector, with respect to Scientific Games. The magic word is “Macao.” It alone is sufficient to lift Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and even MGM Resorts International to three spots in Santarelli’s top five, with Sands sitting at the very summit.

Amongst regional operators, Penn National Gaming gets the highest marks, although Isle of Capri Casinos is regarded well enough for the sixth spot, followed by closely by Ameristar Casinos and Boyd Gaming. Pinnacle may be on the comeback trail but Santarelli ranks it #11, behind Bally Technologies and International Game Technology, but ahead of WMS Industries. For the next three months, Santarelli’s magnum opus will be available online. Manufacturing stocks are rated a good buy, due to “inexpensive valuations.” Upsides for operators, even those not in China, are reckoned to be “methodical” recovery on the Strip, cost-cutting and new casinos still in the pipeline.