Sheldon Adelson, stiff?

Why would a man whose company shells out $2.5 million a year for a personal security detail balk at paying an extra hundred grand? (Las Vegas Sands has an interesting defense: We didn’t break the law … and, if we did, we didn’t mean it.) Sheldon Adelson‘s “george” private commando squad was among the piquant corporate perks recently disclosed in the Las Vegas Review Journal (whose gaming beat is firing on all cylinders now that it’s been properly re-staffed). Attention-grabbing items included a $500,000 “success fee” for then-Tropicana Entertainment CEO Scott Butera. (It would be nice if said fee was accompanied by some, y’know, actual success.)

Also, Station Casinos CEO Frank J. Fertitta III (left) was slated to get a raise to (a grossly excessive) $3.25 million last year but the company’s bankruptcy put the kibosh on that, forcing FF3 to eke out a living on a bare $2.6 million. There’s an ongoing and unamusing disconnect between where FF3 thinks he ranks among the pantheon of gaming executives (#1) and where he actually belongs. At just a hair under $3 million, Steve Wynn led the pack in take-home pay, an amount he nearly quintupled with a shower of bonuses and perks, including a $2 million gratuity for opening the doors of Wynn Macau (surely the R-J means Encore Macau, don’cha think?).

Caesars Entertainment CEO/President/Chairman/Pontifex Maximus & Supreme Grand Poobah Gary Loveman got the biggest bellyful the trough, scuttling away with $18 million-plus even as his Las Vegas properties sink deeper into decay and disrepute. (Rejected Caesars marketing slogan: “See O’Shea’s and die.”) And while I don’t mean to begrudge Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas CEO John Unwin his $1 million bonus, isn’t it a wee bit premature? Gambling revenue at the Cosmo has been anemic, IT troubles persist (evidently prompting the exit of the CIO) and just getting the Cosmo’s doors open hardly seems to justify an extra six zeroes in the paycheck. Perhaps owner Deutsche Bank should wait until the end of the resort’s first year of operation before throwing the bonus bucks around like Monopoly money.

I hear tell that there’s a Great Recession ravaging the land — and Nevada in particular. But you wouldn’t know it from the girth of some of the pay packets in Sin City. S&G doesn’t have a category tag for “Greed” or “Avarice” … but maybe it should.

Whoops! A former Marina Bay Sands pit boss is going to the slammer for cheating a patron. It looks like Sands dodged a bullet here. The Nevada Gaming Control Board would lay a severe fine on a casino where that occurred, even if it was the proverbial “rogue employee” whodunit.