{"id":10601,"date":"2013-03-22T15:08:43","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T23:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10601"},"modified":"2022-11-13T06:20:18","modified_gmt":"2022-11-13T14:20:18","slug":"revel-whats-2-billion-among-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/revel-whats-2-billion-among-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Revel: What’s -$2 billion among friends?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Stephen Sweeney<\/strong> (D, right<\/em>), president of the New Jersey<\/strong> state senate, has the honor of having been the first<\/a> to call for ex-Revel<\/strong> CEO Kevin DeSanctis<\/strong>‘ head on a platter. Garden State regulators moved quickly to put Mohegan Sun<\/strong> veteran Jeffrey Hartmann<\/strong> in DeSanctis’ place, while the latter and colleague Michael Garrity<\/strong> sail away on $7.2 million worth of golden parachutes<\/a>. Failure is lucrative, at least if you’re a suit at Revel Group<\/strong>. The latter remains tethered to the casino, despite its haplessness, so that the resort can keep the Revel name. However, given how low the $2.4 billion megaresort has fallen<\/a>, now worth only $450 million, if ever there was a time to re-brand<\/a>, this is it. If the prospective, Reno<\/strong>-based owners of Trump Plaza<\/strong> can do it …<\/a><\/p>\n

Hartmann’s got his work cut out: Revel is looking at no profits until 2017<\/a> and its 2014 ROI will be one quarter of one percent (yes, 0.25%). A DeSanctis proteg\u00e9 and number cruncher par excellence<\/em>, he’ll act as a glorified chief restructuring officer, worrying over matters as small as literally saving money on toilet paper<\/a>. He doesn’t sound like Mr. Long-Term Solution and his new position is a provisional one. After Revel emerges from bankruptcy, Hartmann’s role will be re-evaluated by the creditors to whom he reports. (Ironically, that makes him not unlike those Revel rank and file who were term-limited in their jobs by DeSanctis.) Since the previous regime is blamed for alienating even its target customers<\/a>, Hartmann’s team will have to do nothing short of reintroduce Revel to the market and erase most of its previous impressions. Easy as pie, right? I don’t envy these guys.<\/p>\n

\"\"Revel will have company<\/strong> in its misery, as neglect continues to erode business at Bally’s Wild Wild West<\/strong>. A mooted retheming has been on hold for over a year, as customers drift away<\/a>. It might not make financial sense to redo Bally’s at this time, but did it a year ago either? The cobbled-together casino is a metaphor for Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> CEO Gary Loveman<\/strong>‘s history of hatching an idea, pursuing it partway to fruition, then haring off in another direction. Just think: He could have renamed the made-over property “Boardwalq<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

Slots in a mall<\/strong> turned out to be a succes d’estime<\/em> for the Tropicana Atlantic City<\/strong>, popular on weekends and in warm weather, but otherwise ignored. (One of these days, somebody’s going to try and put slots out on the Boardwalk itself, I swear.) So the one-armed bandits in The Quarter<\/strong> are going to be operated on a diminished basis<\/a>. Hey, give CEO Anthony Rodio<\/strong> credit for trying something different, as many others in the Garden State are doing. It didn’t work entirely according to plan but it yielded half a loaf, always better than none.<\/p>\n

I was wrong<\/strong>. Instead of going up against other industry heavyweights for a casino license in Massachusetts<\/strong>, developer Neil Bluhm<\/strong> is opting to bid on the lower-cost, higher-taxed slot parlor instead<\/a>. In light of recent — and expensive — Bluhm projects, a grind joint didn’t seem like a move that would be his style. But he’s got a host city (Worcester<\/strong>) and a string of East Coast casinos that makes his Bay State competition look puny. It’s hardly a done deal but Bluhm’s wallet, casino portfolio and political connections move him to ‘prohibitive favorite’ status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Sweeney (D, right), president of the New Jersey state senate, has the honor of having been the first to call for ex-Revel CEO Kevin DeSanctis‘ head on a platter. Garden State regulators moved quickly to put Mohegan Sun veteran … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,28,42,14,7,112,91,157,8,21,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10601"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31917,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601\/revisions\/31917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}