Whoever gets the three resort casinos that Gov. Deval Patrick (D) wants to bring to Massachusetts, it probably won’t be Fall River and it certainly won’t be the Mashpee Wampanoags. The city has pulled a controversial land deal with the tribe off the table. The project was contingent upon, among other things, Congress “fixing” the Carcieri v. Salazar ruling, so this was always one of the longer shots for a Bay State casino, although one expects the tribe to shop it elsewhere around the commonwealth.
Start making sense. There are few states whose attitude toward gambling is as mixed-up as South Carolina‘s. You can buy lottery tickets in the Palmetto State but God forbid you should hold a raffle. Politicians down there can get incredibly tight-assed about gambling, egged on by their allies in the pulpit. Heck, if you put video poker machines in Fort Sumter, they’d probably bombard it all over again.
A hopeful sign. Amid flutters of improvement in the Louisiana gambling industry and at Pinnacle Entertainment itself, the company is showing it’s serious about completing its Baton Rouge casino, a project voted in over the opposition of Gov. Bobby Jindal (R). During the interregnum that followed the ouster of former CEO Dan Lee, it looked like the riverboat might be one of the casualties of company-wide retrenchment.
But with a December opening planned and a new general manager in the form of Mickey Parenton (a Pelican State native and Gulf Coast casino veteran), all systems are “go.” Once again, the ranks of current and former Caesars Entertainment executives prove to be a plentiful hunting ground for other companies’ managerial needs. Number-two man Rafael Verde, by contrast, has been shipped in from Pinnacle’s jettisoned Casino Magic Argentina, a far-flung outpost that was sold as part of the company’s belt-tightening regime.
Even Vegas locals are said to be agog over The Cosmopolitan, which might be the resort’s most remarkable feat of all, per Las Vegas Sun columnist John Katsilometes. Just this morning, I was e-mailing a friend about Las Vegans’ schizoid attitude toward the Strip. We live and die by its fortunes, yet few things are more vehemently disparaged than tourists and Strip casinos alike. Go figure. And by the way, doesn’t it look like somebody Photoshopped Cosmo CEO John Unwin‘s head onto the body in that photo? Does he really have so little neck and a noggin so disproportionate to the rest of his body? Say it ain’t so, John!
(For those who tired of Cosmo coverage, I simply want to add that its buzz has longer “legs” than those of CityCenter, which was old news by this time last year.)
Congrats to Pinnacle for going ahead with the Baton Rouge project. There appears to be much untapped potential there. They have a great site and their competition is abominable. It should be a real winner for them.
The Cosmopolitan has the fun factor that City Center lacks, I was just at both places. I’m less sure, however, that the Cosmopolitan will keep the edge instead of growing stale. So far, so good — the place sparkles and the pool decks are spectacular. Cosmopolitan faces and embraces the Strip, the icon space of Las Vegas.
It looks like Duetsche Bank hired the right guy with Mr. Unwin. From the pictures I have seen Cosmo looks really cool. The Chandelier Bar is probably a great place to meet friends.