Just when Sam Nazarian‘s mooted reinvention of the defunct Sahara as SLS Las Vegas looked dead and gone, The Naz slipped in under the wire with all the offshore money he required and a bit more: Sahara Sam needs $115 million from overseas sources to hang onto $300 million that’s sitting in escrow. He told the Wall Street Journal he and his partners “believe they are close to coming up with $215 million.” That’s considerably more circumspect phraseology than was employed to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where The Naz presented the financial situation as a done deal. Rather wishfully, Nazarian added, “We’re close to Downtown” and all its newfound hipness. Sorry, Sam, but you’re nowhere near the El Cortez, which helped kick-start the Fremont East action. “We also want to be a place for locals to visit,” added Nazarian, who needs every customer he can get.
Per the WSJ, Sahara Sam and partner Terry Fancher “insist the SLS Las Vegas will draw new visitors who are already fans of Mr. Nazarian’s night life and hotel empire in other parts of the country.” Well, the “hotel empire” part of that equation is more fanciful than true. Yes, Nazarian has a hotel in Beverly Hills, plus one in Miami that’s less than a year old. He’s rustled up the money to build one in Seattle, too. But it’s a drawing-board empire. Las Vegas already pulls heavily from SoCal and is Miami really a gold mine that we’ve hitherto failed to tap?
The new investment comes at a cost: According to the WSJ, “Mr. Nazarian’s SBE Entertainment Group says it already has $150 million in commitments from Chinese and Thai citizens and other would-be immigrants who each 
agreed to make $500,000 debt investments in the project in exchange for a green card.” (Mind you, if the visas don’t come through, neither does the dough.) So, for every million that Smilin’ Sammy Naz raises in EB-5 dollars — a program that’s taken off during the Obama administration — two of the projected 2,500 permanent jobs go overseas. While it’s possible that someone would pay a half-million dollars to work as a maid on the Strip, it’s likelier that skill positions will be the ones farmed out, exacerbating the ‘brain drain’ in Sin City. It may be no more than 2% of the Sahara workforce but it’s still a slap in the face to unemployed casino workers — many of whom Nazarian put out on the street. At least the deal has a few redeeming features, including putting 5,000 construction workers back on the job and having a project cost ($415 million) that Nazarian actually stands a chance of recouping. So SLS Las Vegas will be a jolt to the local economy, albeit a diluted jolt.
In more of a formality than anything else, the Ohio Casino Control Commission approved Caesars Entertainment to open Horseshoe Cleveland by Feb. 28. “We will sell Cincinnati,” said General Manager Kevin 
Kline, employing an unfortunate turn of phrase, given that Caesars CEO Gary Loveman is currently trying to sell anything that isn’t nailed down … even stakes in a Baltimore casino that has yet to be built. The highlight of the procedure was the disclosure that Caesars can’t cover its interest payments and may have to file bankruptcy. (Like we didn’t see that coming.) It’s a bit late for Ohio to be having scruples about Caesars now: The $400 million has been spent, the infrastructure improvements have been made, the company’s financial plight is hardly recent news — and crime has fallen drastically around Horseshoe. Since partner Dan Gilbert is good for his 80% of the project, there’s no reason not to vote “aye” on keeping Caesars’ managerial talent in place. As for racino development, Rock Caesars Gaming and its competitors really ought to look at heretofore disappointing Buckeye State casino revenues, tug on the reins and say, “Whoa!”
