Freudian slip and fall; Loveman’s shabby show

One week after he became S&G‘s Casino Owner of the Year for his “george” treatment of Green Bay Packer fans, Derek Stevens stepped on a PR banana peel. His Golden Gate and The D casinos are holding monthly drawings whose winner will receive a General Motors vehicle — make and model to be determined later. Unfortunately, the event is billed as a “Joint ‘Keep America Rolling'” promotion. That phraseology should bring the cannabis users out in force, although I don’t think we want them behind the wheel while rolling their own, let alone filling their lungs with loco weed.

Then there was Caesars Entertainment, which stepped on its own foot this week with a bungled announcement of its first 11 tenants at The Linq. A big media event was set for Pure Nightclub, last Monday evening. Ink-stained wretches (or would that be ‘Linq-stained’?) would be able to mingle with and even query the likes of Gary Loveman and Jan Jones-Blackhurst. But — whoops! — Caesars spilled the beans with a 9:19 a.m. press release, rendering the media event moot. I wonder how many journos showed up anyway. The second-most dangerous place in Las Vegas is between a media person and free food. (The most dangerous spot is getting caught between Robin Leach and free food.) I’m not up on trends in food and retail, so I don’t know whether I should be impressed by the Linq tenantry or not.

Never failing to screw up a good thing, Loveman has turned his gorgon-like gaze upon the former Barbary Coast. First off, it will be renamed from Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall (a worthless brand that will now be completely expunged from the Caesars portfolio) but probably not as a Horseshoe or anything with actual brand equity. My guess is they’ll call it “The Qorner” or something comparably ghastly. Anyway, Boyd Gaming had given Barbary Bill’s a makeover shortly before selling it to Loveman for a king’s ransom and change but Caesars plans to lavish another $180 million on the pocket-sized property. In case you were wondering what Loveman’s much-bruited, long-concealed master plan — seven years in the making — for the east Strip was … you’re looking at it.

Worse still for the forty- and fifty-somethings who favor Barbary Bill’s, Loveman’s new scheme for the place includes “a rooftop pool deck and nightclub attraction.” In other words, Baby Boomers out, douchebags in. After a half-decade of neglect, Loveman promised visiting Wall Street analysts that he’d renovate Caesars’ other Strip properties, whose worsening decrepitude has become a sore point along The Street, leading to unpleasantries like downgraded bond ratings.

In the understatement of several centuries, Loveman called his LBO of the company “ill-timed.” Which is a little like saying nuclear weapons are “slightly disruptive” when detonated. Never mind the timing: It was monumentally stupid from Moment One and Loveman’s lucky he still has a job. Mangling the English language, he said the deal “was architected in a boom period that [now] has to be managed in a much more difficult period.” See, that’s the problem with predicating deals on unprecedentedly high volumes of business: You’re stranded the moment the tide goes out. Professor Loveman would have been better off taking a page from Southwest Airlines and using lean economic periods as his baseline. Pathetically, he is now reduced to hyping the “meaningful” earnings potential of Facebook application Playtika. As for Loveman gloating over the fate of Fontainebleau, all I can say is: Pot meet kettle. He predicts — wait for it — that Carl Icahn will recoup his F’bleau money by selling the structural steel. Ya think? Really? Wow! Most of us only figured that out a year or two ago, Gary. Then again, unlike Loveman, Icahn is a smart investor.

And, after rashly assuming that additional gambling concessions in Macao just had to be coming, five years ago, Loveman has belatedly realized what anyone else could have told him: No new U.S. operators will be allowed into the market. Given the sub-glacial pace of building approval in Macao, Caesars will have long since passed into Chapter 11 by the time it could open the doors to so much as a quonset hut with baccarat tables. Instead, Loveman bragged on the slivers of revenue that he’s going to be taking out of Cleveland, Cincinnati (above), Baltimore and just maybe Boston. Oh, and Toronto. Like that’s gonna happen. Never mind that he forfeited the St. Louis market to be a junior partner in East Coast markets. Caesars has become the industry’s equivalent of a compulsive spender maxing out its credit cards.

It’s pathetic.