Good news, bad news in Atlantic City; Feinstein: “Stay on the rez!”; Buffalo Bill’s rides again

For once, however, it’s mostly good. Almost entirely good, in fact. The headline item is that Dennis Gomes‘ purchase of Resorts Atlantic City has cleared licensing, sweeping out the disastrous Colony Capital era. Gomes and financier Morris Bailey say $31.5 million for the oldest casino on the Boardwalk was a steal and, at $33,510 a hotel room plus 10.5 acres of undeveloped land, they’ll get no argument from this quarter. The former Chalfonte-Haddon Hall Hotel‘s market value has dwindled from $301 million in 1996 to $140 million in 2001 to 22% of that. It might have been possible for ex-CEO Nicholas Ribis to keep Resorts going had the property’s owner, private-equity dunce Tom Barrack, not lumbered it with a $360 million mortgage — one of the most numbskulled decisions in casino industry history.

Gomes plans to aggressively retheme Resorts and capitalize on the current réclame enjoyed by HBO‘s Boardwalk Empire series. (Who knew the answer to Atlantic City‘s problems was a healthy dose of Steve Buscemi?) Given the venerable nature of the property, it’s a logical course to pursue. Changing the low-equity name of the place probably wouldn’t hurt, either. Unlike previous ownership, the Gomes-Bailey duo promises to be enthusiastic, engaged and well-attuned to the Atlantic City market. Unfortunately …

All of Resorts’ employees are getting pink-slipped and having to reapply for the same jobs at lower wages. Were it not for the fact that Resorts is losing money hand over fist, even after Barrack stopped servicing the casino’s debt (perhaps because he was engrossed in the collected works of Stephenie Meyer), it would be difficult to see ownership’s point of view here. Market conditions in Atlantic City being what they are, though, Gomes has got his employees over a barrel and they know it only too well.

The axeman cometh. Another new CEO who’s entering the building chainsaw in hand is Trump Entertainment Resorts‘ Robert Griffin. The waterlogged company has been trying to shed payroll from the top down. If the 250 employees sacked this week can take any consolation from this, it’s that they were preceded out the door by previous CEO Mark Juliano (left), then by 50 middle managers. At least the job cuts are taking place at all levels and two of Trump’s three casinos are losing money — quite an enormous amount, in fact. Griffin’s hand has been forced, to a degree, by lead owner Marc Lasry‘s public commitment to keep all Trump casinos open no matter what. So if Griffin’s going to have to bail out the sinking ship that is Trump Marina, workers are going to get pumped out with the bilge water.

A baby that might get thrown with that waste water is New Jersey‘s regulatory system, currently the most stringent in the nation. A suspiciously industry-worshipful set of proposed rule changes would enable gaming regulators to sweep bad acts under the rug by rendering their decisions in camera, with the public being none the wiser. While there’s definitely some duplication of investigative effort between the Division of Gaming Enforcement and the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, the possible “reforms” may leave the Garden State with complaisant, impotent regulators such as one sees in Nevada, where even the industry’s few rotten apples remain free to contaminate the barrel. Outgoing Commissioner William T. Sommeling worries that so much power will be invested in the DGE that the NJCCC will be rendered more or less redundant.

Politicians are strange critters. I have no idea if Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) likes to poke sticks into wasp nets for a hobby. If so, she’s taking it to a new level with a proposed rewrite of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that she hopes to sneak through lame-duck session in the U.S. Senate. She’s likely to enjoy the connivance of Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). By curbing the spread of tribal gambling in California, Sixty Votes Reid would have a chance to deliver yet again for his supporters in Nevada’s bidness community. Who says one hand doesn’t wash the other?

However, Feinstein might be getting in for more than she bargained. Tribes rightly dread any reopening of IGRA for debate because, once that happens, it becomes an all-you-amend buffet that could seek to claw back 22 years of gains — or at least hinder the $26 billion tribal-gaming industry’s progress, which is clearly what Feinstein aims to do. The bottom line of her proposed law would be to keep tribal casinos out of urban areas on the grounds that Native Americans lack a “substantial direct modern” connect to same.

Of course they do … because they got driven off the good land by our forefathers (left), leaving them to enjoy the isolated, sovereign scraps of desert upon which they subsist today. The better alternative would be to block the Obama administration’s attempts to breach the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, currently the sturdiest bulwark against the (over-hyped) specter of “reservation shopping.”

A Mississippi tribal casino that’s been giving the vapors to Gov. Haley Barbour (R) would be a gambling-centric affair posing little threat to nearby businesses, unlike all-encompassing private-sector resorts. Or so contends The Hattiesburg American.

Primm mystery solved. Some strange events and scuttlebutt reported out at Herbst Gaming‘s three struggling borderline casinos are beginning to make sense. Buffalo Bill’s did not close Nov. 22, as rumored, but shut down a week later for a month-long refit. Herbst, which just emerged from an agonizing reorganization, will be installing a Denny’s, which would actually represent an upgrade to the depressing food offerings there — as well as give Herbst a chance to offload some operating costs onto an outside vendor. By the way …

Does Penn National Gaming know that it stands to lose M Resort sports book players to Tropicana Las Vegas, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and the Cosmopolitan as the mobile-wagering services of Cantor Gaming continue to attract new clients? To double the blow, Cantor will be introducing a new suite of applications on Super Bowl weekend. Sports betting is clearly Cantor’s mother lode, despite its attempts to sex-ify technology up for the pool-party and table-games crowd.