Politics, gaming getting hopelessly muddled

Primary day in Nevada is less than a week away and that’s far too long for my taste. If I had a dollar for every robo-call I’ve received and every expensive-looking flier that’s found its way into my mailbox (and thence straight to the trash), I could take a month off. Archon Corp.’s Sue Lowden was observed by a conservative Washington Post blogger persuading a mobile-billboard owner to replace strip-club ads with ones of her smiling visage. (In typically furtive Archon style, she called a press conference today with 15 minutes advance warning. You can take the girl out of Archon but you can’t take the Archon out of the girl.)

Update via @RalstonFlash: “Funniest part of Lowden conf call w/15 mins notice: 3 media types covering race were on [KNPR-FM‘s State of Nevada] at the time of notice.” Perhaps Archon can start holding investor calls in comparable “ambush” fashion. That’ll cut down on the pesky questions from D.E. Shaw and other long-suffering shareholders.

Lowden’s lone supporter of consequence in the casino industry, Sheldon Adelson, played the Fox News circuit, his ostensible subject being “Saving Las Vegas.” Considering that Adelson has basically turned his back on Vegas — and on his unfinished St(ump) Regis tower — we’re wondering if Fox couldn’t find anybody less likely to have the answer to “What ails Vegas?” and settled upon Sheldon. I’d have gladly put up with another of Steve Wynn‘s anti-Washington, D.C. rants instead, if only because he’s the lone mogul on the Strip who didn’t run into the embrace of Disaster with arms wide open … which gives him some moral authority on the topic of where the Strip went off course.

Warning: Fox don’t need no stinking RealPlayer, so if you don’t have the latest iteration of Adobe Flash (a horrid, memory-devouring spawn of Satan), you’re S.O.L. A friend summarized the Adelson colloquy thusly: “Softball questions and a home crowd.” Guess I didn’t miss anything.

Speaking of Wynn … with the International Union of Gaming Employees no nearly to a contract with Wynn Resorts than a year ago, when they claimed they werejustthisclose to a deal (those folks had better strike if they don’t want to become the punchline to a joke), IUGE member Kenny Blackman has flung a personal endorsement in the direction of Jacob Hafter, who’s running for Nevada attorney general. Blackman’s rationale runs thusly:

“One glaring example we are all familiar with is the Gaming Control Board complaint filed by the International Union of Gaming Employees (IUGE) that was also sent to everyone in key authoritative positions including Catherine Cortez Masto the foremost legal representative of the State to expose the Wynn Casino [sic] blatant misrepresentation under oath of Casino Service Team Leads (CSTL’s) supervisory authority or non-authority by changing their job description as a function of which legal proceeding they are attending and the numerous violations of Gaming Control Board Minimum Internal Control Standards for Table games. The principal legal authority of the State, Catherine Cortez Masto, was the only non-respondent of everyone the complaint was sent to.”

Whatever. If the Control Board didn’t act on it, Cortez Masto isn’t going to usurp its jurisdiction. By the time the Wynn vs. dealers conflict is definitively adjudicated, we’ll all be dead anyway and Las Vegas will look like it did in the third Resident Evil movie.