Atlantic City may have seen the last of Glenn Straub. Last week, Global Gaming Business Editor Roger Gros took to Twitter to announce that 
Revel (aka Ten) had been sold, former exec Mark Juliano — late of Sands Bethlehem — would return to the helm and it would reopen as a casino … something that was far from certain under Straub’s mercurial ownership. If true, this news would explain Juliano’s sudden departure from Las Vegas Sands. So far that seems to be the only report to date on what would a pretty radical piece of news along the Boardwalk. Could the alleged buyer be that mystery private-equity firm that Straub denies having met? Only PR firm Digital Launch knows for sure and they’re not talking other than to say it’s a hospitality company that would (unlike Straub) apply for a gaming license.
Channeling his inner Donald Trump, Straub has called the rumored purchase offer “fake news,” going on to say, Continue reading
course, we could see — in fact, are likely to see — a Sega Sammy scenario in which the company takes the majority position in a megaresort project and one of the gaijin casino developers, like Wynn Resorts, holds a minority stake. Galaxy and Hard Rock International have already embraced this possibility, without explicitly naming any prospective partners.
you know this quarter was disappointing in terms of the lodging component, which is more and more important in Las Vegas,” COO Rob Goldstein allowed during the conference call, before predicting better results in the back half of the year: “business is picking up and the group business is accelerating, so we’ll do well.”
“[Americans] frequently misunderstand the nature of gambling addiction, seeing it as a symptom of moral weakness rather than a medical condition. [It’s why] people with problems are reluctant to get help.” — National Council on Problem Gambling Executive Director Keith Whyte on 
trips to Brazil 
“As soon as the government lets us, we’ll build more new and beautiful hotel rooms. We have property on both sides of our current land concession and we have already built connections to both sides of it, so we can build rooms when we want. We will erect beautiful hotel towers with convention and meeting space the minute we’re allowed to do it.” — Steve Wynn, 
to move forward. The reinvention of Palace Station could also include an all-important convention center (nightclubs are so 2015), a pool deck, an outdoor restaurant and 42,252 more square feet of casino space. It’s also unclear at this point whether the remodeling would undo the convoluted layout of Palace Station, which has very bad chi in that respect. If the Fertitta Brothers took my advice (and that’ll be the day), I’d say tear out everything except the existing hotel tower and the new bingo room and start anew.
Bracketing Caesars was another tribal casino, Pechanga Resort & Casino, in California. Another Caesars Entertainment property that is up and coming rapidly, The Cromwell, took the #8 spot. The dark horse on the list, given its small market, was Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, in Sioux City, Iowa. Hard Rock urged its patrons to stuff the ballot box and 
shortfall. One late-entrant idea that is gaining more traction than anything else is the proposal of mini-casinos, 10 of them. (The size of the casinos still appears to be undefined.) This would give the Keystone State three tiers of casinos: big, Vegas-style ones like Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh; smaller, restricted-admission resort casinos like Valley Forge (which sits immediately below the bluff upon George Washington encamped his army) and now “mini casinos.” Penn National Gaming is crying foul, since most of the prime locations happen to be around its eponymous racino near Harrisburg.
exposed as empty suits, but we won’t belabor the point.) In a bit of dirty pool, three Carson City casinos went to court to try and impede competition. The owners of Carson City Nugget, Gold Dust West and Casino Fandango asked the courts to block the licensure of Michael Pegram to reopen the defunct Horseshoe Club. What 
tumbling 11%. What Pinnacle Entertainment lost at L’Auberge, Tilman Fertitta made up at Golden Nugget ($24 million), vaulting 14.5%. Isle of Capri ($10 million) was flat but Boyd Gaming‘s Delta Downs ($15 million) gained 7%. In Baton Rouge, Pinnacle’s L’Auberge Baton Rouge ran away with the market, posting $15 million on a 15% gain. The best that Casino Rouge (+2%) and Belle of Baton Rouge (+15%) could between them was $11 million.
about the ultra-gaudy casino that become his erstwhile boss’ signature property. The beginning of the end of the Donald Trump era came this week, as Hard Rock International began removing the marquee and some external decorations, just the first step in converting the Taj into a sleek, modernistic, Hard Rock-branded resort. Interestingly, Trump was more forward-thinking than some of the his, favoring an open casino-floor plan of the type that has become standard, while Norton leaned toward the traditional maze layout (and if you’ve ever 
blow. One could argue that the paid-parking model is another step in making Las Vegas just like other major cities, but much of Vegas’ appeal was built on its otherness. Like MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment before it, Wynn has obviously done the calculus and concluded that alienating the locals is either irrelevant or an acceptable risk when tapping a new revenue source. At least Wynn is giving something back, in the form of as-yet-undisclosed discounts for Red Card customers. We learn to be grateful for so little these days.
(R) had to dragged kicking and screaming into approving Motown casinos 
swimming upstream, with MGM Resorts International and Las Vegas Sands seen as the front-running casino aspirants. Why? Wynn’s all-important convention footprint is puny compared to those of the Sheldon Adelson and Jim Murren. (Adelson has over 10 times as much.) Morningstar analysts wrote, “While Wynn Resorts has a successful track record of constructing and operating luxury resorts, its involvement with bribery litigation, along with its weaker MICE … and balance sheet position relative to MGM and Sands, leads us to believe that the company is unlikely to 
America’s Wire Act, his pet cause. Consequently, Dent 
announced a fleet of changes to the former Barbary Coast. For one thing, Giada will no longer have to carry the freight as the property’s sole restaurant. Caesars has rolled out 24-hour diner Eatwell. Whereas Giada aims to Improve You, Eatwell is strictly comfort-food focused. Tucked into the north side of the Cromwell, it’s equally convenient to Flamingo customers.
the in-person concierge. In their place comes “Ivy,” an electronic concierge service that can make dinner reservations or take housekeeping requests, all via text message. And, in the biggest change of all, the Cromwell is adding a 50-seat sports book (get there early), with a nine-by-32-foot video screen. That’s a lot of changes for one casino but CEO Mark Frissora seems to have decided that the Cromwell needs a little bit something more for everyone.