Aliante: Alone again, naturally

After a year as a management-only company, Station Casinos is departing the soon-to-be-former (effective Nov. 1) Aliante Station and taking its brand with it. To celebrate the occasion, Virgen Inc. PR firm busted out every font in its computer (really, you should see this thing) to announce that the $662 million mistake on the north beltway is becoming Aliante Hotel + Casino. Well … it could be worse. They could have called it “AHC.”

More to the point, pardon the pun, out goes Boarding Pass and in comes “a brand-new player loyalty program” according to General Manager Terry Downey. Yup, it’s time to build a customer database largely from scratch, although the blow is being softened by starting members with a point balance equivalent to whatever they had on their Boarding Pass. Also promised are unique sports-betting wagers and ’round-the-clock, all-paper bingo. (Hey, don’t knock it: There’s damned little to do up in that far corner of North Las Vegas.) Restaurants will be re-branded, etc.

Going solo does have its white-collar upside. As Downey put it, “we created many more jobs in the marketing, finance, entertainment and hotel departments.” After all, Station’s not around to handle that anymore. Since Aliante’s private-equity ownership picked up the place for pennies on the dollar, continuing to fly solo isn’t out of the question. However, with Station out of the picture, companies licensed in Station-allergic Missouri such as Isle of Capri Casinos, Ameristar Casinos and Pinnacle Entertainment — all of which lack a Vegas presence — might well find it worth offering the management experience in return for access to a new tranche of customers, albeit a smallish one. It’d certainly be a chance to (re)familiarize themselves with the market while staying low on the radar.