First Amendment 1, Sahara 0; Pennsylvania sets record

While Meruelo might yet appeal, his immediate response seems to have been to have Roeben ‘trespassed’ from the Sahara, a petty move that says more about him than Roeben. Among his unrealistic demands while his lawsuit limped forward was that the Sahara would be given prior approval of anything Vital Vegas was to print about it. Who does Meruelo think he is? Owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal? As Roeben says, “The only real bright spot in this mess is Sahara has probably stayed open just to spite us. That’s great for the employees, and while we won’t be able to tell them our feelings in person, they know we love them and miss them.”

What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. It’s warm and smelly, and gets relieved on your legs but a drug-addled North Carolina pastor on a red-eye flight home from sowing his wild oats in Sin City. The man of the cloth apparently couldn’t make it to the bathroom so he simply whipped out his John Thomas and urinated on the woman next to him. “I jump up and I seen his private area out and I screamed and that woke everybody up,” said understandably traumatized Alicia Beverly. “By that time I actually looked at him and I see him shake himself off and I’m like this man just peed on me! I looked and there was a puddle of pee in the seats!” Beverly had to spend the rest of the flight in urine-soaked clothing. The man was taken into custody, presumably booked as Exhibit #3,849 of people who think that being in Las Vegas entitles them to act like a pig.

Hard Rock Atlantic City is trying that reinvent-the-buffet thing. It flopped at Wynncore but we wish Hard Rock better luck with it. Your requests will be delivered to your table and the whole thing costs $29.99, a good deal as buffets go. Maybe Atlantic City gamblers won’t be so persnickety as Las Vegas ones and won’t turn up their noses at the idea of being able to belly up to the buffet, sans social distancing, and load their plates to the limit (and beyond).

Whilst still on the Boardwalk, we note that Konami Gaming is coming to town this week with its traveling roadshow of new slots. Virtual demonstrations of gaming product have become the order of the day but there’s no substitute for trying a new game in person. Global Gaming Business describes Konami’s caravan as “a Winnebago Winnovation RV emblazoned with Konami’s logo and colors that has been crisscrossing the country since midsummer, parking at key customer locations and inviting clients from across each region for demonstrations.” Potential buyers from as far away as Pittsburgh have been flocking to Ocean Casino Resort to sample Konami’s 16 slot wares. Said COO Thomas Jingoli, “Ocean really stepped up and gave us a good location. You can do demos, and you have an ocean view. You don’t get that too often.” Next, Konami heads for Covid-crazy Florida. Stay well, guys.

Finally, after some A.C. uncertainty—including a New Jersey Casino Control Commission hearing scrapped at the 11th hour—it’s a done deal for Bally’s Atlantic City. The property passes to Twin River Holdings for a paltry $25 million and Caesars Entertainment gets out of having to invest another $125 million in Atlantic City capex. Twin River plurality owner Soo Kim, now stepping to the forefront, said, “This is an opportunity for us to revive a brand that is synonymous with American gaming.” To that effect, almost all Twin River brands are out and Bally’s is in as the new company moniker of choice. It’s sure an improvement on “Casino Kansas City” (can you get any more generic)? The one exception is Bally’s Las Vegas, to whose name Caesars retains the rights. Twin Rivers still covets a Las Vegas Strip casino, so don’t carve anything in stone.

Pennsylvania has joined the sports betting elite, along with Nevada and New Jersey, registering $463 million in handle last month, thanks to the highly unusual confluence of NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL seasons. (Who says the pandemic is bad for business?) Betting in August was a healthy $365 million but September’s numbers were truly a moonshot. “The question now becomes whether Pennsylvania can sustain this level once the sports calendar returns to normal,” remarked analyst Valerie Cross. “Pennsylvania has etched a place in the top tier of gaming markets and could possibly pass Nevada as the nation’s No. 2 market before the end of the year.” However, the record amount of betting flowed through to just over $6 million in taxable revenue. Unsurprisingly, online betting dominated with 89.5% of the action, much of that ($168 million) was generated by FanDuel Sportsbook at Valley Forge Casino Resort. Much-vaunted Barstool Sports got off to an inauspicious start, losing $3 million on $29 million in wagers. Looking at the bright side, analyst Dustin Gouker said, “On the surface it seems like it has the potential to eat into the dominant market shares of FanDuel and DraftKings. But that is no easy task considering how entrenched both have become in the Pennsylvania market.”

Retail wagering ($49 million) was most lucrative for the books, which won $5 million, led by Rivers Casino Philadelphia with $5 million. Another bright spot was Internet gambling, which produced $57 million in win. That’s $16 million for the state coffers, identical to the haul made by state-leading Rivers Philadelphia. As Cross noted, “Pennsylvania’s online casinos generate nearly five times as much in bets as sports betting, and revenue doesn’t fluctuate nearly as much. That has quickly made online gambling a dependable and significant tax revenue driver for the state, accomplishing the main goal of regulation.”