Boardwalk brinkmanship

As the hours tick away toward this week’s expiration of labor agreements at nine Atlantic City casinos, managements are all but daring Culinary Union parent Unite Here to strike. Caesars Entertainment had the brass to declare it was continuing “to negotiate in good faith” … without actually conducting any negotiations. The market having literally been buffeted about during hurricane season and revenues continuing to decline, union prexy Robert McDevitt (below) finds himself in a horrible bargaining position and clearly knows it, having set no strike date. McDevitt says he’s doing it for the good of the city but he’s also dealing from a position of weakness.

On principle, demanding a 25% benefit reduction from your workforce is a crappy thing to do. However, with over half of the city’s 11 casinos running at an operating loss, ownership has a case for pleading poverty. Over at ancient Resorts Atlantic City, CEO Dennis Gomes is conducting a discrete set of labor talks (having already made the truly draconian austerity measures when the former Colony Capital catastrophe property changed hands) and Borgata has a year in which to wait and see how its fellows’ hard-line stance plays out. But Caesars tribune Don Marrandino‘s optimism is well warranted. Since McDevitt has unilaterally disarmed, Marrandino’s colleagues can take their own sweet time waiting Unite Here into submission.

My old pal, Saverio Scheri III continues to ascend within the casino world. Sal has been named CEO of Valley Forge Casino Resort, which is aiming for a Spring 2012 debut. Valley Forge is something of an experiment: You have to stay there to play there. As such, its competitive threat to Parx Casino, Harrah’s Chester Downs and SugarHouse will be minimal.

But that creaking noise you hear is the door closing on the hapless Sniderkatz consortium, who will soon have to make the case that there’s room in the Philadelphia market for five casinos. Sniderkatz having been lapped time and time again by abler competitors, its continuing pleas for executive clemency deserve to fall upon deaf ears. Elsewhere in the state, the tortoise-powered Valley View Downs racino crept closer to reality, having secured a third of the $455 million budget required.

The sky is falling! “It’s a jungle out there,” wails a Maltese regulator, bemoaning the lack of European Union-wide, uniform oversight of Internet gambling. Expect the EU’s “Green Paper” to be offered as a blueprint for online-poker regulation in the U.S., as politicians on Capitol Hill continue to fitfully grapple with the issue.

Liberal comping appears to have driven yet another good month for MGM Grand Detroit and MotorCity Casino. However, casino expert Frank Fantini, whose opinions one is well advised to heed, thinks Detroit is on the leading edge of a rebound in regional casino markets. If so, hurrah! Greektown Casino (left) continues to suffer from having shown ex-manager Fine Point Group the door. With Greektown down 8% last month, the main beneficiary of its struggles is MotorCity, up a coincidental (?) 8%.