Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh (right) wants the awarding of a Beantown-area casino put off … mainly so he’ll have more time to cadge and scheme his way into “host community” status, where the big money is to be found. Steve Wynn‘s Everett site directly abuts the Boston city line and Suffolk Downs, where Mohegan Sun would set up business, is split between East Boston and Revere. As the Boston Globe reports, both projects have been configured in such a way as to spill into Boston and give the city veto power.
Fractious Bostonian Charles Lightbody is accused of being behind an anti-casino campaign in Revere, including large drops of anti-casino literature and direct-mail propaganda. Unions at Suffolk Downs are alleging a “massive, secret expenditures of monies by unknown sources in an illegal effort to defeat the ballot question.” Lightbody’s attorney responded that “Suffolk Downs seems to try and blame other people for their failures.”
Former Mohegan Sun partner Northeast Realty is coming after the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority over their failed Palmer project. It’s seeking documents that would prove that Mohegan Sun was in cahoots with Suffolk Downs while still ostensibly seeking a casino in Palmer. Unfortunately for Northeast’s Leon Dragone his public-record requests are coming up snake eyes.
Cold weather in Illinois drove punters indoors — and to the comfort of slot routes. The machines are posting impressive numbers, much to the delight of cities like Jacksonville, which is reaping $13,000 a month in taxes. Illinois has even spawned its own version of Dotty’s, called Lucy’s Place and catering to people who don’t like hanging out in bars.
According to Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett, 
hackers who assaulting Las Vegas Sands‘ Web sites neither gained access to patrons’ credit card information nor did they tamper with gambling systems. (They may have tried, for all we know.) That’s some comfort for Sands customers’, who have run into a stony wall of silence from the company itself, which restricted comment to an inscrutable e-mail. Revelation of employees’ Social Security numbers was confined to Sands Bethlehem. “Gaming regulators are now working to ensure Sands did everything possible to protect employee information,” reports the Las Vegas Sun, which says that Sheldon Adelson‘s workforce remains unable to log into its own workplace computers.
In the day’s happiest story, craft brewing has returned to Beau Rivage and its Tunica cousin, Gold Strike Casino Resort. The MGM Resorts International properties will be the exclusive dispensers of Crooked Letter Brewing Co. flavors Sheep Shank Ale, Anchor Bend Imperial Stout and Double Half Hitch Imperial. Here’s mud in your eye.
Looking at the locations for Lucy’s Place they are all in downstate Illinois, far away from Chicago.
I graduated college from Illinois State in 1989 (which is located in central Illinois) and occasionally we would drink at country bars and most of them would have video poker machines.