Goldman Sachs has had enough of the casino business. Either that or the price was right. Whatever the case, Golden Entertainment has just executed the greatest coup of its brief existence. It has purchased Las Vegas icon the Stratosphere. In the package it also gets both Arizona 
Charlie’s and the Aquarius in Laughlin. Golden CEO Blake Sartini gets all this for the bargain price of $850 million, a steep discount from the $1.3 billion Goldman paid Carl Icahn for the ACEP foursome a decade ago. Golden also goes from being a successful but fringe company in casinos (but a major player in slot routes) to the big leagues. Golden has long since been ubiquitous in the Vegas Valley with its PT’s Gold, PT’s Brewing, PT’s Ranch, Sean Patrick’s Pub & Grill, Sierra Gold and SG Bar brands, where chicken wings and video poker go hand-in-hand. Now it has a casino presence of comparable weight. ACEP had a rough time of making the casinos profitable after Icahn sold them but, in Sartini’s hands, we predict nothing but success.
* Congratulate the NFL Players Association for perspicacity. While the major leagues have been latecomers to the sports-betting discussion, the union has been talking about it for the last year and a half. “Yes, the sports unions have been discussing the issue, in particular around the integrity of our respective games,” said the NFLPA’s George Atallah, adding, “but before we get to the revenue aspect of it, do we have the infrastructure in place to prevent any sort of shenanigans? That’s the 
issue.” Unfortunately for Atallah, he’s up against the biggest sports-betting obstructionist: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who’s also for ‘protecting the shield’ against anything that might reflect badly upon him. The NBA is already in the pro-betting camp and Major League Baseball is sounding like the Sheik of Araby (“At night/while you’re asleep/into your tent/I’ll creep”), but without the NFL’s support the issue is unlikely to advance in any meaningful way.
* A significant gambling expansion — 700 pages’ worth of legislation — with slipped through the Pennsylvania House of Representatives with only six hours advance notice. Reconciling it with the version passed in the state Senate may not be so easy. According to Newsworks, “in one afternoon, the House gutted it and inserted new language to include nearly every major gaming expansion proposed in the last several years.”
This Christmas tree not only legalizes DFS, it allows VLTs in such unlikely places as nursing homes (40,000 machines statewide) and airport lounges. Rep. Scott Petri (R) decried it as “a complicated, 
convoluted regulatory scheme that we have no idea whether it’ll be effective.” Another Republican, Sheldon Adelson, was quick to react, whipping up $31 million of advertising against the bill. The placement of VLTs in nursing homes is particularly ironic because the bill stands accused of potentially cannibalizing existing casino revenue, much of which goes toward elder care.
* Faster than you can say “satellite casino,” and without waiting for Gov. Dannel Malloy‘s signature, Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort Casino announced an early autumn goal for starting construction, adding that they would begin by New Year’s Eve at the latest. “We’re off and running,” said Mohegan Tribal Council Chairman Kevin Brown, to which MGM Resorts International is certain to respond, “Not so fast.” 
Schaghticoke Tribal Nation (probably bankrolled by MGM) is likely to want its day in court, too. At the moment, the biggest potential obstacle is getting the assent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which might object to the alteration of the state’s gaming compact to allow for the East Windsor project. Meanwhile, the prospect of a negative outcome of litigation was simply begged. Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council Chairman Rodney Butler said, “We’re fully committed to this project, and we’ve always anticipated that there would be some form of legal action in addition to the current one.”
