Is MGM Grand Detroit too successful for its own good?

From a labor-relations standpoint, yes. Although workers at Greektown Casino were quick to ratify a new collective-bargaining agreement, closely followed by MotorCity Casino, it was a different story across town. Employees of MGM Grand Detroit decided their union reps were feeding them a shit sandwich and threw it back in Big Labor’s face by a 5-to-1 margin. The situation isn’t as acrimonious as it sounds. Workers will conduct ‘informational’ picketing but will go about their jobs as usual, and management has promised not to impose a lockout.

I thought I’d never live to see the day that a gaming board member made the argument “casinos make mediocre profit margins compared with other industries,” as Greektown’s Jake Miklojic contends. (That’s one way to give Wall Street pause about investing in Big Gaming.) Both G-town and MotorCity, behind stand-alone properties, can at least plead a certain amount of poverty. However, when you’ve got the entire MGM Resorts International portfolio at your back, that’s not such an easy case to make. MGM and union leaders both found themselves on the wrong side of what we used to call a “credibility gap” back during the Vietnam War. The Motown property’s reputation for being profitable and what the Detroit Free Press describes as “a high-performer for MGM Resorts” worked to its disfavor at the ballot box. If the proposition is, as workers believe, that smallish pay raises are going to be more than negated by higher deductibles and premiums, union bosses are going to have to come up with a more compelling sales pitch.

Aqueduct reopens. Who wouldn’t want to be the company that’s just put 5,000 VLTs at the doorstep of Manhattan? Were I Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson, I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over electronic table games with robotic dealers siphoning away significant action from my live table games at Sands Bethlehem. However, Atlantic City‘s stomach should be in knots. Slot fleas and fanny packers from the Five Boroughs are going to find it considerably less enticing to make the commute to southern New Jersey. But if punters should decide that there’s no substitute for a real one-armed bandit … well, what’s the over/under on how long it will take Genting Berhad to start petitioning for round-the-clock operations at “Resorts World Asino.”

Whether you own a casino, racino or asino, you’ve got an opinion on whether or not New York State should sunder the thin membrane separating what it has now from full, Class III gambling. Empire State voters would likely pass it, should the question be put to the electorate.

New Jersey voters will get the chance to weigh the chicken-or-egg question of legalized sports betting. True, the ballot question which they’re likely to approve is a moot point, pending a reversal of existing federal law. However, as I. Nelson Rose points out, the Swiss-cheese nature of said law, riddled with exemptions, makes it ripe for litigators’ plucking. Gov. Chris Christie (R) has opposed a court challenge, but on narrow grounds, not across the board. If Garden State voters give sports betting their ‘aye,’ that’s valuable time saved by Atlantic City’s casinos if and when a courtroom rebuff of the feds takes place.