Earlier today, I penned a 1.5-page Question of the Day on the recent past and dubious future of the Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, which I habitually type as “Las Vegas Hilton.” Even if one confines the narrative to the last 15 months, or roughly the period after Hilton International informed Colony Capital that it would have to haul down its flag on Dec. 31, it’s still a calamitous microcosm of private equity’s swath of destruction through Big Gaming. Tom Barrack (above), the grinning boob atop Colony, managed to convert a $280 million asset purchase into a $252 million deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure debacle, losing 90% of his investment in the process.
Well, not his investment … although I wonder if he shares this latest triumph with the poor schmucks he tries to lure into his crap-ridden funds. Now, the casino will devolve into the hands of two more PE firms — a Goldman Sachs subsidiary and Grammercy Capital, even as the LVH’s money troubles begin to yawn like a bottomless pit.
For all intents and purposes, Goldman has left the building, even as it plans to 
take title to it. Instead of folding it into its American Casino & Entertainment Properties portfolio, Goldman is trying to position the casino for a quick flip. Good luck with that. If you think times are lean now, just wait for the all-but-inevitable austerity regime that will follow once Navegante Group takes the keys, as manager. Where Navegante goes Continue reading
The league, you see, thinks this is a matter of chump change between itself and the locked-out referees (who understandably balk at having their pensions dumped into that crap shoot known as a 401k). But that won’t be the case much longer. The league is generous with information that informs point spreads and prop bets. When sports bettors in Las Vegas casinos are out $9 million just on last night’s fiasco and one betting site is refunding wagers (above) because the on-field screw up was so egregious, that’s a lot of action which could dry up overnight. Perhaps sticking it to Vegas is 
If you’re ever tempted to envy those of us who must attend media events for restaurants: Don’t. They’re a chore — crowded, noisy and sprinkled with microbes of food that is usually grossly unrepresentative of the daily bill of fare. Although a minor on-the-job accident got me out of last night’s Golden Gate 
Hurricane Isaac. Allowing for a few blips here and there throughout the state, including a rare bad month for El Dorado Shreveport, the Isaac-related upheaval was pretty localized. As you’d expect, New Orleans (-9%) and Baton Rouge (-1%) had the worst of it. Pinnacle Entertainment‘s Boomtown New Orleans was off 19%, while all other casinos in the Big Easy merely experience single-digit declines. Penn National Gaming‘s Hollywood Baton Rouge was down 5% while Belle of Baton Rouge improved by the same amount. Go figure. Lake Charles, naturally, continues to chug along, up 11%.
Update: The head of Tamares Group’s Vegas casino operations, Anthony Santo, has contacted S&G. He categorically denies that any sale of the Western has taken place.
Give Caesars Entertainment for making a good call this week. It’s inked a one-year residency deal with American Idol winner Taylor Hicks to return to Bally’s, starting Oct. 17. Prices will still begin at a wallet-friendly $40/seat and, in light of the amount and quality of a show Hicks puts on, that’s an incredibly good value for your money. Even some of the most rinky-dink offerings at V Theater start higher than that! Although I’m sure another casino may try to make lightning strike twice, I don’t think the Idol-to-Vegas route will become a heavily traveled one. After all, how many winners can one even name? The latest, Phillip Phillips, isn’t even old enough to drink or gamble in Nevada and his fanbase doesn’t appear to have been long out of diapers.
Word around here is that Caesars Entertainment did an in-house survey on potential re-names of Imperial Palace — soon to become “The Quad” — and promptly dumped the poll results in the nearest wastepaper basket. Se non e ver, e ben trovato … that is, if it didn’t happen, it sounds exactly like the sort of time-wasting exercise for which the Gary Q. Loveman administration has become infamous, like the never-to-be-built Paris-Las Vegas pedestrian bridge. Seriously, this is a company that owns the Showboat, Harveys and — ahem! — Horseshoe brands and the best it can do for the Las Vegas Strip is “The Quad”?
“Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall” will forever be thought of as the Barbary Coast. And let’s skip the cultural tone-deafness of evoking the character ‘4’ in an Oriental-styled casino. What I want to know is: Did the letter ‘Q‘ have a going-out-of-business sale? What is Loveman’s fascination with that particular part of the alphabet? Does he have market research that shows a high correlation between customer spend and a proliferation of Qs? First “Linq,” now “Quad.” No doubt his delusional Toronto megaresort proposal will be dubbed “Qanada.” The casino he’s helping to build in Baltimore could be slugged “Qamden Yards.” And if and when he and Richard “Coastal Marina” Fields get done spending an incredibly superfluous $1 billion on Suffolk Downs, they can finish by renaming it “Suffolq Downes” or something comparably pretentious. If he thought he could do it and escape ridicule, Loveman would surely rename his flagship property 
Except for a 4% slippage in July, the motto around Pennsylvania might be, “Cannibalization? What cannibalization?” The Keystone State has shrugged off new competition from Ohio, from New York City, from Revel in Atlantic City, and even from within the state itself. Once new Valley Forge Casino Resort (right) and its $6 million gross are subtracted from August’s numbers, Pennsylvania is still up 4%. Despite Parx Casino having had a poor month (-12%) and Sands Bethlehem a very good one (+32%) at the tables, the casinos occupy an elite class of two, grossing $40 million (+1%) and $39 million (+20%), respectively. Considering that it has the Pittsburgh area almost to itself, Rivers Casino‘s $31 million makes for a surprisingly paltry third-place showing.
Yup, it’s the same old Imperial Palace, with a few doodads and curtain walls up front that fail to mask the tiki-tacky design, a lingering tribute to the Axis Powers from the late, unlamented Ralph Engelstad. The Hitler Palace’s 
Stick a fork in the Dennis Gomes legacy at Resorts Atlantic City. Son Aaron Gomes is not only leaving but going halfway around the globe, to team up with former Borgata exec Larry Mullin and reboot Jupiters Gold Coast Casino, Down Under. He’ll have $625 million to spend on the Jupiters’ relaunch, which must feel like unparalleled lolly after having to reposition Resorts on a shoelace-and-chewing-gum budget. (Even Mohegan Sun‘s new cash infusion comes to a modest $35 million … 
configuration. Any wider-ranging decisions require Bailey’s say-so, although the majority owner 
S&G readers have been reporting difficulties accessing LasVegasAdvisor.com and/or seeing this column in more than a rudimentary HTML version. Is this a widespread phenomenon? We’ve certainly been having computer problems up the wazoo here at LVA HQ and I apologize for the inconvenience. If you are experiencing technical difficulties, any information you could provide us would be of great assistance in alleviating the problem … and it is a severe problem indeed.
… and not with customers unfortunately. Las Vegas is currently experiencing torrential downpours and flash flooding — including on the Strip. This suddenly closed the Tropicana Las Vegas‘ “
Do you own a Trump International condo? Guess what? In another instance of the impotence of the Trump brand name, he’s sublicensing part of Trump Int’l to a genuinely powerful hotelier. Vegas Today and Tomorrow blogger Mark Adams