Caesars: What sauce!; Macao underwhelms

With more than a bit of nerve, Caesars Entertainment is jacking up resort fees again. Caesars Palace and Nobu Hotel will have $51.01 in levies (the highest on the Las Vegas Strip, I think; is this a status thing?), while The Rio‘s impost will be $39.68. Resort fees seem to have become—pardon our language—a dick-measuring contest between rival CEOs. We sure wish they’d leave the consumer out of it. Of course, you can always stay at the Four Queens or Binion’s Gambling Hall and avoid this resort-fee madness altogether.

On a happier, Caesars-related note, Diamond members who achieve 25,000 tier credits are elevated to Diamond Plus status. This entitles them to Laurel Lounge access and a rewards card. But if you get to 75,000 tier credits, you become Diamond Elite and earn a $600 airfare credit to Las Vegas. Just thought we’d mention that.

* Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk is the latest poster child for knowing when to stop gambling. The tycoon was on a winning streak at Mohegan Sun, when he claims the casino wouldn’t let him cash out $900,000 in chips. Rather than quit while he was ahead, Melnyk was “induced” to keep playing, resulting in “substantial losses.” Melnyk tried to cover his losses with a series of bank drafts, none of which were honored. Now Mohegan Sun is suing him for the 900 dimes, plus another 15 grand for damages, costs and interest. This all could have been avoided if Melnyk had known when to say ‘when.’

* The DraftKings sportsbook at Scarlet Pearl casino in Biloxi has a hefty appetite for risk. It’s taken a $3.5 million wager that the Houston Astros will win the World Series. The bettor is Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, owner of Gallery Furniture in Houston. If he’s right, it’ll be a $7.7 million payday. Not content to wager big in Biloxi, McIngvale flew to New Jersey to put down $1.5 million on the Astros at the Meadowlands sports book. Mattress Mack’s even got $200K riding on the Astros at South Point, not to mention sundry wagers with various other Nevada sports books, and he’s not done yet.

FanDuel is negotiating with Garden State regulators for permission to take a $5 million bet from the Mattress King. The latter is laying all this action to cover a possibly incautious promotional offer: If you spend more than $3,000 on one of his mattress, he’ll refund your purchase price if the Astros win it all. “I know these wacky promotions like this one, when people get their money back, it’s the greatest publicity I could ever hope for,” McIngvale says.

* Stock analysts are poring over their crystal balls and predict a 3%-6% decline in Macao gaming revenues this month. November and December could be worse still: -6%-8%. A trio of Morgan Stanley analysts said this could all turn around early next year but it’s an iffy scenario … if the smoking ban gains greater acceptance, if Beijing eases up on junket operators, if unrest in Hong Kong abates (no sign of that), if liquidity improves …

Of September’s flat outcome, the Morgan Stanley boffins wrote, it was “a bit softer than we would have liked … We would like to think this is a blip given the impact from Hong Kong SAR social unrest and renminbi devaluation; nonetheless, the trend is bit concerning and definitely worth monitoring.” About the nicest thing that could be said about September was “in line with reduced expectations.” (Sanford C. Bernstein analysts) Normally the advent of Golden Week—Oct. 1-7—would be cause for optimism but not even that is raising hopes this year.