Job cuts continue at Las Vegas casinos. Boyd Gaming employees are out of jobs starting tomorrow, although health benefits will continue through June 30. For a company that’s sitting on as much cash as Boyd, that’s a 
strange move. Boyd’s board will go without pay during the hiatus, while executives are taking pay cuts (and some furloughs). The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas was somewhat more clement, extending pay for full-time and some part-time employees through next week. Their health benefits will also last until June 30. Earlier this week, MGM Resorts Entertainment announced a glitzy roster of entertainer-contributors (Hans Klok!) to its Employee Emergency Grant Fund, set up for the company’s 60,000 idled workers. Conspicuously absent from the donors: Cirque du Soleil, which has a clown’s nose full of problems of its own.
Those casino employees who are collecting their severance by mail ought to be concerned about the U.S. Postal Service, which is reportedly running low on cash, due to reduced business mail. (Though you’d never know it from the volume of junk we get.) $25 billion in emergency funding was redlined from the CARES Act, with the Treasury Department being given the option to lend USPS $10 billion. Let’s hope a less-rickety solution can be devised.
“We are all living in unique times.” With considerable understatement, that’s how Canadian Gaming Association CEO Paul Burns described the state of his industry, whose plight is much like that south of the border. Asked when customers would return, he replied, “We’re trying to work on realistic scenarios. I think in terms of getting back to previous levels, 12 to 18 months is more realistic in some jurisdictions.” Unlike their U.S. brethren, Canadian casinos—particularly the Gateway Casinos chain—have opened their doors to relief efforts. They’re offered overflow space for hospital patients. American Gaming Association, are you listening?
* “Oops!” That’s how the AGA put it in a news brief about a momentary brain-cramp at the West Virginia Lottery. As NBC News reports, “The … Lottery, which runs sports betting in the state, authorized its operators on Tuesday to offer bets on politics, most notably this fall’s presidential election.” Both the big DFS operators were quick to jump aboard but FanDuel pulled back within an hour, as the Lottery acknowledged it hadn’t bothered to clear the new form of betting with Gov. Jim Justice (R), a casino owner himself. Said Lottery Director John Myers, “I didn’t have the authority to do it, it should have never happened and I apologize to everyone.” As the secretary of state’s office pointed out, an obscure 1868 law forbids political wagers. Said Secretary of State Mac Warner, “Gambling on the outcome of an election has no place in our American democracy. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. This is a terrible idea. Let’s shut this down right now and be very clear about it.” Duly noted.
* The fix was in. So sports books discovered to their rude surprise where the NBA 2K Players Tournament was concerned. Not only were the one-
on-one matches taped, not live on ESPN, the scores had been leaked to some bettors, giving them what you might call an advantage. As a consequence, betting on the tourney has been suspended. “We initially made [Kevin] Durant the favorite to win the tournament, but when … the bets were completely one-sided toward [Derrick] Jones, it became obvious that someone knew the outcome of the game,” a source told Reuters. Bottom-seeded Jones took Durant down by 16 points. A minor-league Miami Heat affiliate had already fired a player for “providing inside information to an individual [he] knew was involved in betting on NBA 2K League games.” Sports bettors have one less option in this enforced off-season.
“I haven’t heard anyone ever utter the words ‘cancellation of the WSOP’ to me or in any of the discussions that’ve been held. So, I don’t see that as possible.” Thus spake World Series of Poker Vice President Seth Palansky, who’s caught between a rock and a hard place: a closed Las Vegas and a Rio that’s booked solid the rest of the year. Hence the WSOP’s indecision on whether to cancel this year’s tourney or maybe offer some Internet iteration. After all, by the time Covid-19 has subsided and/or a vaccine is on the market, we’ll be into 2021. Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that professional gamblers are trying to get a tranche of unemployment relief. We don’t begrudge anyone jobless assistance but this is extending our tolerance to the max. It’s not like sitting around the casino, gambling, compares remotely with the labors of the people who serve you drinks, deal your cards and inhale your secondhand smoke.
* DraftKings has postponed a shareholder vote over its merger with SBTech and Diamond Eagle Acquisition that was supposed to take place yesterday. It has been tentatively replotted for April 23. The delay means a pushback for DraftKings’ public listing of its stock. Following a ransomware fiasco at SBTech, the merger agreement has been amended to mandate that SBTech set aside $30 million in potential litigation settlements.
* Remember Kewadin Lansing? Neither did we. But the failed casino project is at the center of a $124 million-plus damages lawsuit. The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians had its land-into-trust application ashcanned 
by the Trump administration on the grounds that the casino would be too far from the reservation’s HQ to “enhance” it. (They had a point: It’s 260 miles away.) While the tribe goes about transferring the casino site back to Lansing, it’s being sued by JLLJ Development and Lansing Future Development for the 14% profit share they were allegedly to get both from a temporary casino and the first seven years of a permanent one. The plaintiffs claim that the Chippewa also misspent a $9 million construction loan.
* “Your team is less busy right now. Their skills, their knowledge and their insights can’t help guests because guests aren’t calling. But when the recovery starts, it won’t start with phone calls or in-person meetings; it will start online,” argues Tim Peter, advocating for an increasingly digitized future of selling hotel rooms and answering guest questions. He’s not wrong: Caesars Entertainment is way ahead of the rest of the industry in this respect. He concludes, “The recovery is coming. Maybe it’s not today but it will happen. And those hotel owners and marketers that make the effort to improve their digital presence now will find they will recover faster and more effectively than their competition.”
