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 Continue reading
If you live in the Las Vegas area, you’ve been exposed to the months-long “We Love Locals” ad blitz with which Station Casinos has been attempting to shore up its image. The company’s heedless expansionism, exorbitant executive salaries, its LBO and consequent bankruptcy, suspension of 401K matches, outsourcing of jobs, etc., caused Station to be perceived as having gotten too big for its britches. Hence the new, kinder, gentler Station, one that no longer stresses high-end nightlife but bargains and slot payouts. Las Vegas Advisor‘s coupon book swells with more (and more-liberal) offers from Station and its affiliated properties.
“This is what it has come to for the man who created a Nevada wave in 2008, winning the state by 12 percentage points, pulling Democrats up and down the ticket to victory … [President Barack] Obama previously had been greeted by Democrats high and low at the airport, many of them only too eager to shake hands with the president and perhaps ride in the motorcade. Now, the most powerful man in the world is treated like he is arriving on a quarantined plane, a political leper shunned by those who once embraced him — nay, by those he gave political life to just a few years ago.” — Jon Ralston on 
Perhaps due to his eagerness to get Wynn Cotai jump-started, Steve Wynn has become an even more pliant sock puppet for China‘s central government than was Sheldon Adelson. It must be a source of great amusement among the ruling elite to see these two “capitalist running dogs” scurrying about like greyhounds chasing a mechanized hare. In a boiled-down version of his latest Fox Business News jeremiad, Wynn offers up a couple of howlers. “People matter in Macao,” he solemnly intones. “And working folks there get primary consideration.”
Maybe they were just charmed by Dan Lee‘s babyish face (left) but leadership at MGM Resorts International can cite of plenty of other reasons 
In August, the putatively casino-famished Illinois grossed $137 million while Iowa revenues were $117.5 million. One might add that both Iowa’s casino regulators, its operators, and Gov. Terry Branstad (R, right) have all been firmly of the opinion that the state is saturated and doesn’t need more gambling positions, a position firmly rooted in the bottom line. Coming off a flat 2010, Iowa casinos are revenue-positive for 2011 mostly because of recently opened Grand Falls Casino Resort, up near the South Dakota border. Subtract the Grand Falls Effect and 2011 has been a tale of four flat months, two positive ones and two revenue-negative ones. So no, Mr. Canfora, 
Labor unions in Detroit will have a hard time selling the rank and file on their new pact with three Motown casinos. Despite enjoying an upward revenue trend, the casinos appear to be pleading poverty, requiring that workers pay a larger share of health-care costs. By law, the casinos have to report free play as revenue, so — in their defense — the recovery enjoyed by MGM Grand Detroit and Motor City Casino could be smaller than it appears or it could even be nonexistent. (Given the potential PR embarrassment, free-play numbers are kept under wraps.) By the same token, this is the last chance workers will have to get a better collective-bargain agreement before casinos open in Ohio and start siphoning business away from Detroit.
Aliante Station is now formally the property of Texas Pacific Group, Standard General and Apollo Management. Two of those funds also own Caesars Entertainment, which might create some interesting “Chinese wall” situations. (Can’t have trade secrets passing back and forth, y’know.) Either Station Casinos is getting some external input on how Aliante should be run or — now that it’s rid of one casino too many — is using the property as a testing ground for ideas it might implement elsewhere.
For instance, long before the Nevada Gaming Commission signed off on the transfer, Station had gone to a no-smoking policy in the Aliante bingo room — the only room in town to do so. Also, there are a few new names looking over Station’s shoulder, most notably 
Cyber-Trump. Faux ex-presidential candidate and NBC-TV comedy star Donald Trump 
Those last few remnants of Columbia Sussex CEO William J. Yung‘s former casino empire continue to topple about him. The Kentucky-based oligarch, whose properties are notorious for their poor working conditions and even worse maintenance, has been reaping a gargantuan load of karma ever since he over-leveraged his hotel company to buy Aztar Corp., the single most disastrous acquisition in the history of casino gambling. Yung hit town full of bluster about his superior operating methods (derived from his years supervising 
Has Steve Wynn jumped the shark? That is a question I never, ever thought I’d be asking. But an interesting thing happened in the wake of 
Maryland’s rapacity for new revenues resulted in a 67% tax rate, for which terms like “usurious” and “confiscatory” seem inadequate. What kind of facility can one afford to build, say, at Ocean Downs — and what kind of reinvestment is possible — when $23 million of your $35 million 2011 gross goes straight to Annapolis? Even executives at Penn National Gaming (who opened the first Maryland slot parlor), when discussing the impact of additional slot houses, frame it in the context of the ramifications for the company’s Charles Town, West Virginia racino, not their Perryville, MD property
Politics and gambling 
Casino revenues last month in Pennsylvania must have been riding a pogo stick — up 13% from last year. That includes a 39% moonshot in table revenues. Leaders include Sands Bethlehem (22%, right), while Penn National‘s eponymous racino must be counted a disappointment, up 1% in September but -1% for the quarter to date, thanks to flat slot revenues. Sands, by contrast, overshot expectations: slot revenues rose 9% and tables 78% (!), with another month to go before the effects of Resorts World New York begin to manifest themselves. Considering that RWNY will only have mock table games and VLTs, S&G now expects it will only make a minor dent in Sands’ performance.
In plain old dollars and cents, Parx Casino‘s $41 million (+7%) was tops for the state, although Sands ($8.7 million) is now the premier money-maker in the table-game subcategory — grossing almost 3X as much as Penn did. (Penn’s rejected Aqueduct Racetrack concept is seen at left.) Except for Presque Isle Downs (-4%), all outlying casinos had positive months, led by The Meadows racino’s $24 million (+3%). In downtown Philadelphia, one-year-old SugarHouse has leveled off at -
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