Steve Wynn & the Half-Blood Princes; Harrah’s thinks ahead; rough road for Revel

Count Wynn Las Vegas President Andrew Pascal among the casualties of Steve Wynn‘s divorce from ex-wife Elaine Wynn. As of Monday, former nephew-in-law Pascal joined the ranks of Nevada‘s unemployed, ceding authority to Marilyn Winn. Pun opportunities aside, Winn’s sudden departure from Harrah’s Entertainment leaves Planet Hollywood, The Rio and Paris-Las Vegas president-less. That may not be as big a problem as it sounds. Winn’s tenure at The Rio and Paris coincided with what might be termed an “accelerated depreciation” of both properties, with the physical appearance of each being permitted to go to seed in the wake of Harrah’s onerous buyout.

With Pascal out of the line of succession, eyes now turn upon Wynn Macau COO Linda Chen, whose name has been bruited about in connection with the void that will be left by the (hopefully distant) retirement of Wynn himself. New recruit Winn is a good corporate soldier but if Wynn Resorts were looking for a more dynamic property-level executive, it would surely have cast its eyes elsewhere. Marilyn Winn isn’t who you bring aboard to shake things up; she’s somebody you hire when your priority is to stretch every dollar until it screams — or so her track record would indicate. But does the acquisition of a Harrah’s executive portend a downmarket shift at Wynncore? Clearly not, seeing how Garth Brooks tickets just got jacked up $100 and Wynncore is maintaining higher ADRs than the competition.

Whether or not Winn figures into Wynn’s succession plans, we’re at least on far more reassuring ground than last May. At that time, in a bizarre and now-unavailable South China Morning Post profile, Wynn floated the eccentric notion of having girlfriend Andrea Hissom‘s teenage son inherit the empire. It was one of those occasions when Wynn’s propensity to think out loud did him a disservice, as he came off not unlike Henry VIII jettisoning Catherine of Aragon for failing to produce a male heir. Methinks there are enough capable and imaginative executives within the existing casino industry that it doesn’t have to start raiding the British public school system just yet.

P.S.: Memory is a tricky thing. Steve Wynn would have been 14 when The Red Balloon was released, so would that still have qualified him as “a little kid” at the time,? Happily, he’s not lost his adolescent sense of enthusiasm.

Following a prompt from gaming expert Jeff Simpson, I asked around and found out that, yes indeed, Station Casinos‘ association with Sacramento-area Thunder Valley Casino Resort ended quietly last June. Ironically, the Thunder Valley contract was one of the items frequently enumerated as a prize asset when Station (or much of it) was up for grabs in bankruptcy court. Unfortunately, being without the Thunder Valley revenue stream will make Vegas-centric Station’s upward climb a bit longer and more arduous, as it waits for Gun Lake Casino to come on line.

Kudos to Harrah’s for installing a massive, new nonsmoking section aboard its Maryland Heights riverboat, a 12X increase from what it offered nonsmokers previously. The HVAC system has also been augmented to try and suck that nasty cigarette odor out of the place. This was something that, thanks to an exemption in Missouri law, Harrah’s didn’t have to do but chose to all the same. That sort of enlightened attitude represents what’s best about Harrah’s.

Developers of Revel, the long-suffering Atlantic City megaresort-in-progress (left) have been shopping the project around Wall Street. Their task is being made more difficult as a two-casino package of small-scale properties grinds inexorably through the New Jersey Legislature. Revel‘s gonna be a tough sell if you could build something only one-third as big and one-fifth as expensive. Holy improved ROI, Batman! At least the present form of the “boutique casino” bill contains a tax penalty for developers who don’t expand their properties over time, throwing a sop to existing operators who  have no choice but to maintain much larger casino-hotels.

Case Bets: An incredibly byzantine legal dispute between Palms owner George Maloof and nightclub operator Michael Morton is going Morton’s way in the early innings … You can’t throw a stone in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan without hitting a Kewadin Casino. Congratulations to the tribal chain on its 25th anniversary … Vegas-based Full House Resorts went bargain-hunting in southern Indiana, picking up the struggling Grand Victoria riverboat for $43 million. To date, Grand Victoria revenues are down 12% from 2009. Full House gets to take the helm early next year.