It looks as though Station Casinos and Manhattan-based developer Fisher Bros. are trying to put back together some of the pieces of their Humpty Dumpty megaproject along I-15. As you recall, the duo had acquired a swath of land (assembled at a considerable cost of time, money and ingenuity) extending from Palace Station all the way down to Desert Inn Road. If consummated, the condo/retail/gambling project would have shorn off the eastern third of the Richfield Village neighborhood. But the economy went bust and so did the project (although Station and Fisher were slow to read the handwriting on the economic wall), leaving a lot of empty or underutilized real estate in its wake. Station subsequently wrote off more than $100 million in land-acquisition costs.
But there may be life in that acreage yet. Station has been putting feelers out to Continue reading
This is either disingenuous or naive. The widespread use of such gizmos is now legal in Nevada, so there is a theoretical market opening for Paddy Power. But Cantor Gaming, beneficiary of the new law, already has a leg or two up on the market, and has spent the last six years currying favor and influence in Carson City. It’s also firmly entrenched at several major casinos, most notably at Venelazzo. To Cantor, a Paddy Power incursion will be about as welcome as IRA trigger men were in Harold Shand‘s “manor.” (Though if Cantor is Harold Shand, the movie will have a different ending this time.) For the bookmaker, which is currently taking wagers on the Dr. Conrad Murray trial, everything should hinge on whether it can substantiate 
In Caesars’ defense, its St. Louis-area casino saw revenue fall 8% in 2010 and River City continues to cut into its market share. But Caesars’ argument that it’s just not cricket to value Harrah’s Maryland Heights comparably to Ameristar Casinos‘ nearby riverboat in St. Charles looks, at first glance, like a crock. The former grossed $272 million last year, compared to $282 million for Ameristar St. Charles, which was down 6% for 2010 
“I left the toothpaste at home. Every time I’ve tried to put a tube in my bag, alarms go off, and I get body searched, and I have to take everything out of my bag — and then they ask me why I have this big tube of toothpaste. They make you feel like a criminal. But, I love my country, so I sacrifice the toothpaste.” — Las Vegas Review-Journal theater critic Anthony del Valle. Has our nation come down to this: Fight cavities or fight terrorism — but not both?
Alex Yemenidjian‘s efforts to reboot the Tropicana Las Vegas are sputtering quite badly these days. First, there’s the much-reported mess that is the Mob Experience, currently on the lam from foreclosure. Then a three-month extension of Gladys Knight‘s 
I’ve been debating whether or not to give Global Gaming Expo a pass this year and this morning’s dispatch from Deutsche Bank‘s Carlo Santarelli didn’t exactly quicken my pulse. His prediction? A “quiet” G2E, due to slow growth in the industry itself. Instead of significant new product, Santarelli forecasts a variation on what Steve Friess has dubbed The Next Little Thing: upgraded server platforms and new software. “Broadly speaking, we expect product innovation to again take a back seat to the overhang stemming from limited visibility and a lack of reasons for optimism regarding an uptick in replacement activity.” Suppliers, however, need to clearly articulate how they’re going to pivot into Internet gambling, if — or more likely, when — it is legalized, he advises.
Our “Question of the Day” on the Margaritaville Casino, opening early next month within Flamingo Las Vegas ran before we got the design renderings from Caesars Entertainment. So, for those of you for whom the verbal descriptions of the sub-casino were inadequate, these pictures will hopefully be worth a couple thousand words.
A shootout at John Ascuaga’s Nugget has left two people wounded and one dead. Hostility between biker gangs is the probable cause. Perhaps the casino took the appropriate security measures but I suspect otherwise. If biker gangs are known to be in the area, a beefed-up and highly visible “prowl” is the only appropriate response. In Nevada, the “playing” favored by the Hell’s Angels and others is gun play on the casino floor. If a customer or two gets mowed down it the crossfire, well, them’s the breaks.
You read that right: El Bombastico has developed a sudden concern that adding 9,000 slots to Florida‘s existing inventory of 15,000 “will saturate the market with too many games,” in the words of the Miami Herald. In other words, 
It’s amazing what you can do when you simply punt your debt burden a few years down the road. In the case of Caesars Entertainment, it means you’ve got 
“A-list celebrity entertainment and production shows featured in two uniquely distinct Colosseum entertainment venues are planned. Caesars Palace Longmu Bay will host 36 holes of 
Yes, there’s all manner of excitement and intrigue going on in the gaming world — like Las Vegas Sands issuing a dividend to shareholders — but I’ve not had much time for the S&G beat. With everyone at LVA HQ coming down to the wire on the second edition of Eating Las Vegas, I’ve been detailed as a one-man “Question of the Day” task force. Which means you’ve either read about or will soon read 
“But land-based operators, particularly casinos, have one enormous disadvantage: They have all the expenses connected with massive real estate holdings and tens of thousands of employees. Online casinos are cheaper to set up and cost less to maintain, even including the costs of acquiring and keeping patrons.” — I. Nelson Rose, indirectly rebutting Gary Loveman‘s claim that legalized Internet gambling would generate 50,000 jobs in Las Vegas.
Increased funding for education is always the big selling point whenever gambling laws in Missouri are liberalized. This week, schools are finding out 
Pinnacle Entertainment made out like a bandit, getting the tax assessment on its fast-rising River City (+11.5% last month) lopped from $284 million to $139 million. But that was peanuts compared to the markdown Caesars Entertainment got for Harrah’s Maryland Heights, depreciated from $440 million to a mere $152 million.
Last weekend, my wife and I were subjected treated to what is undoubtedly — without any question — the worst hotel stay of our lives. So-called Affinity Gaming wanted to show off its $8 million retrofit of Primm Valley Resort & Casino. Most of the money has, understandably, gone into the casino floor (we’d seen some new PTZ domes being hung over the table pit earlier this summer), with whatever largesse was left sprinkled around the remainder of the property. Hotel-corridor carpeting and wallpaper are new, for instance, although you could have fooled me. Some ancient-looking video poker machines were parked in the long, mostly empty passageway between the casino and the adjacent outlet mall, so an extension of the casino floor may be in the works.
Guess which city