Any well-furnished casino that doesn’t try to monetize its fine appointments is missing a revenue opportunity. However, it’s one thing to covet the lovely furnishings of, say, the Sky Lofts at MGM Grand. It’s quite another to check into a hotel room in a struggling Nevada market (hint: think blood-red aluminum siding) and see the following:
“Take A Little Something Home With You”
… followed by a list of prices for virtually everything that isn’t nailed down. At the high end, you could pay $175 for a bed spread or $100 for a phone, while hand towels ($10), washcloths and pillow cases ($5) occupied the bargain end of the spectrum.
In between, you could drop $45 for a Lilliputian coffee maker or $25 for the TV remote. Since the TV was not for sale and remotes tend to be brand- and model-specific, you wonder who’d be fool enough to spring for that last item.
Not only is Casino X clearly desperate for anything on which it can turn a buck, it also has rather inflated ideas of the value of its appurtances. I can see paying $175 for an Encore bedspread, but Steve Wynn doesn’t operate out in the sticks, if you get my drift. Oh, and Casino X might want to think about staffing up its players’ club and check-in windows, if the length of the lines at both is a telling metric.
Harrahs’ new BMOC. The incoming president of Harrah’s Entertainment‘s Flamingo-centered bloc of casinos departs Indiana to rave reviews. Philanthropic, community-oriented and socially aware, Rick Mazer sounds like just what the doctor ordered for Vegas — to say nothing of being someone upon whom we should keep close tabs.
Justice delayed. Employees of Station Casinos who may (or may not) have been short-changed in their paychecks, will just have to bloody well wait for their day in court, if Clark County District Court grants Station’s request for “breathing room.” Station is pleading hardship due to its current bankruptcy. Since the company has no one but itself to blame for being in Chapter 11, it’s difficult to muster sympathy. But perhaps the judge will be of a more forgiving nature.
Don Marrandino’s first coup. The newly installed boss of Harrah’s Atlantic City casino quartet inks a new labor pact with Unite-Here. That was a piece of cake. Now, about those dealer-contract talks with the UAW …
Meanwhile, back in Gary Loveman’s ‘hood … You know those on-again, off-again Massachusetts casinos? Well, they’re “off.” Again. Not that there’s any reason to rush, especially as the repeated delays lend additional borrowed time to struggling Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun.
