Having been eclipsed both as a political mover and shaker, and — dare I say it? — casino developer by Sheldon Adelson, the suddenly ubiquitous Steve Wynn 
appears to be trying to regain the spotlight. His recent KSNV-TV marathon landed with a faint ‘plop’ in print media — unless you count Catholic Online — but got him a soapbox on cable-news channels. Despite looking quite bleary-eyed in a CNBC appearance from Düsseldorf (sorry, no embed available), El Steve offers stock tips, displays excellent German pronunciation and marshals his facts more effectively than in his arm-flailing Face to Face stemwinder. In other words, he took a massive Chill Pill. But gawd … is Baron Capital CEO Ron Baron a shameless ass-kisser or what? If Wynn is surrounding himself with sycophants like Baron it’d be no wonder that he sometimes seems out of touch with what most of us define as real life.
Wynn definitely states his case far better when he knows he’s playing to a national 
audience, instead of just venting in the general direction of the nearest journalist he can find. However, the Culinary Union should prick up its ears at the 13-minute mark, where his meds wear off and he starts spouting anti-union blather. Wynn’s relationship with the Culinary has been one of the most proactive on the Strip — including floating its health program a loan recently — but if he thinks unions should be driven out of the school system, does he also believe Wynn Resorts would be better off with a non-union workforce? D. Taylor, take note!
It’s a reasonable question. As you can see for yourself, Wynn likes to think of himself as Continue reading
doubly handicapped. Table-game revenues might put Maryland on par with Ohio but we’re 
Although you’d have to be either masochistic or insane to loan money to Caesars Entertainment at this point, the company has the nerve to ask for $180 million to fund this bizarre retrofit. Have the structural implications (and cost) of putting tons of water and a nightclub atop a 200-room casino-hotel been seriously contemplated? If they don’t require strapping a giant cement-and-steel truss onto the exterior of Barbary Bill’s, er, Caesars Drai’s, I’ll be pleasantly surprised, although Bill’s existing parking-garage infrastructure takes much of the lunacy off the concept.
CIO Advisors‘ Hugh Johnson. If Wynn were truly being honest, he’d cut to the quick: He’s scared witless that his high-income customers who play at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore, and the trust-fund babies who fill his night spots and Encore Beach Club (right), will have less discretionary dough to fling upon the green felt or into $500 bottle service. That’s a perfectly understandable concern but, self-righteousness being its own reward, Wynn can’t bring himself to tell the truth. “I’m watching my employees’ living standard go through the floor,” 
has perched the American economy. We will either be pushed over that cliff — and into a double-dip recession — or have it extended into Sometime Next Year (Maybe) during the lame-duck session, a situation in which neither an outgoing or an incoming president is going to have leverage. Either Wynn and Johnson naively subscribe to the Great Man Theory of history (or to what our German friends call 
that’s about it.) Sure, you feinted at Philadelphia and Atlantic City, played footsie with Massachusetts, but always cut and ran when the going got tough. When it comes to stateside investment, you may talk like a street tough but you throw like a girl (and that’s a libel on girls; my apologies, ladies). And if you’re going to resurrect the bedtime story that El-Ad Properties was going to hire you to build an arena and resort, and you didn’t do it because you’re “frightened” of the Evil Black Man in the White House* (a favored Wynn trope, freshly tinted with 
Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati (left). Ditto a pair of dueling racinos (one owned by Penn) in the Dayton area. Then there’s next year’s peculiar slugging match, when Dan Gilbert and subordinate Loveman open a racino at Thistledown, in direct competition with Horseshoe Cleveland, in typical Caesars form. As for Penn, its Ohio expansion has cost 160 Indiana workers their jobs at affected 
A reader in Arizona has run the numbers on Caesars Entertainment‘s proposed $180 million makeover of Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon and finds the cost rather alarming. Dividing it by Bill’s 200 hotel rooms, it breaks down to $900,000 per room. In other words, it’s comparable to spending $4.5 billion on a new, 5,000-room megaresort, “especially if they are aiming at the [Cosmopolitan] douche-baggery gang that really doesn’t gamble that much.” (For perspective’s sake, Onex Corp. spent less than $150 million on an extensive re-do of the considerably larger Tropicana Las Vegas.) Our correspondent adds, “I wonder if they are going to spend some of that money moving the bathrooms away from the outer walls so that you can have a window across the entire room (instead of only half of it like now). But only the building’s front half or so of the rooms really have a good view; the back half mainly has boring views of Bally’s and the Flamingo.” In other words, probably not.
Nightlife: 
Since S&G readers can’t view my big Las Vegas guides (unless you’re sitting at a computer in a Hilton-branded property at this very moment), I thought I’d share with you who made the cut. And the Downtown elect are …
Late last month, Bally Technologies landed a massive order of 4,000+ video poker terminals — VGTs in industry parlance — in Illinois. Y’all remember slot routes in the Land of Lincoln? They’ve taken so long to be put into place its legalization feels like an epoch ago. On top of those 4K worth of machines (half leased, half sold outright), Bally did such a good sales job for its MultiConnect management software, that 75% of the VGTs will be hooked into that. Two of the largest video poker outlets in Illinois will have a game inventory that is over 50% Bally-originated.
winner will receive a General Motors vehicle — make and model to be determined later. Unfortunately, the event is billed as a “Joint ‘Keep America Rolling'” promotion. That phraseology should bring the cannabis users out in force, although I don’t think we want them behind the wheel while rolling their own, let alone filling their lungs with loco weed.
visit disclosed that myriad schlock retailers had been banished, as Jay Sarno‘s toga party tries to keep pace with other upscale properties nearby. Our destination was the Bacchanal Buffet, a $17 million investment that was drawing a long — but not dauntingly so — line for midweek dinner. 
Former Resorts Atlantic City underboss Aaron Gomes might want to change his travel plans. Scarcely had he announced his departure from his late father’s casino than his new gig, Sydney‘s troubled Star Casino, looks very doubtful. Gomes had planned to join former Borgata prexy Larry Mullin, 
Hettinga (left), as CEO of the casino-hotel. So, if the Mohegans and majority owner Morris Bailey reach an impasse, whose bidding will Van Hettinga do, especially when he’s also still wearing the hat of Mohegan Gaming Advisors‘ president? The elder Gomes’ “dream team” is out, replaced largely by some of the last vestiges of the horrific Columbia Sussex era at the Tropicana Atlantic City. They include hatchet man Mark Giannantonio, who left labor strife in his wake, and former Trop marketing boss Mary Tindall, a 26-year veteran at the property. Tindall has the virtue of 
“There are a couple of douchey-looking guys over there. That’s probably the VIP line.” — me, to my wife, last night at Caesars Palace‘s new, $17 million 
Today, we got: “Officials unveil plans to improve Las Vegas Monorail.” If that doesn’t make you collapse in hysterics right there, let me add that the “improvement” involves neither dynamite nor affordable fares. It’s — get this — 
As in The D and its owner Derek Stevens, who is refunding bets made on the Green Bay Packers last Monday, when victory was literally stripped from their hands by nincompoop NFL scab referees. They’ve been likened to Foot Locker salesmen but I honestly think Foot Locker floor people could do a better job. As though his rescue of the former Fitzgeralds and reinvention of the Golden Gate weren’t enough, this alone makes Stevens the prohibitive favorite for casino owner of the year. He was