{"id":10672,"date":"2013-04-23T13:21:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T21:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10672"},"modified":"2018-06-25T09:49:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T17:49:20","slug":"icahn-nixes-trump-deal-steve-wynns-fugitive-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/icahn-nixes-trump-deal-steve-wynns-fugitive-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Icahn nixes Trump deal; Steve Wynn’s fugitive friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"If Carl Icahn<\/strong> holds the note on your life<\/a>, you are in a world of hurt, my friend. Just ask Trump Entertainment Resorts<\/strong>, whose $20 million sale of wretchedly performing Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino<\/strong> suddenly looks very shaky. What’s Uncle Carl’s reasoning? That the casino is “worth more,” although how much more is conveniently left unspecified. Lead investor Marc Lasry<\/strong> would have to hit the pavements again in order to find another mug to relieve him of a casino that does about $5 million in revenue a month. You might get by in rural riverboat company on performance like that … but in Atlantic City<\/strong>??? Seems that Icahn’s spent the last quarter trying to thwart TER from consummating its Meruelo Group<\/strong> deal but finally decided to negotiate via the media. That alone speaks volumes when you know how media-averse Icahn is.<\/p>\n

Icahn’s expectations may have<\/strong> been unreasonably swollen by the much higher bid that PokerStars<\/strong> has put on the Atlantic Club<\/strong>. Mind you, the latter is on an upswing and PokerStars would only put $40 million into fixing the place up. Meruelo, in return for a lower purchase price, proposes $100 million in capex improvements, bringing Trump Plaza into the 21st century. Icahn is hinting that something in the neighborhood of $40 million for the place would get his approval … but he likes to keep people guessing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Meanwhile, an interesting figure<\/strong> has turned up in PokerStars’ dickering with the State of New Jersey<\/strong>: none other than Steve Wynn<\/strong>, with whom the company has held (literally) offshore meetings on a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea<\/strong> — a relationship that supposedly ended two years ago. Sure, maybe they were just hanging out, but that’s a long way to go in order to converse. PokerStars’ murky past and present continue to trouble<\/a> other industry figures, although the chattering classes in Trenton<\/strong> have been dumbstruck. You get the feeling that people like state Sen. Raymond Lesniak<\/strong> (D) really need<\/em> this deal to happen.<\/p>\n

\"\"I certainly never thought<\/strong> I’d live to see the day that men who — according to former Poker Stars money man Nelson Burtnick<\/strong> — knowingly circumvented the law, would be taken seriously as casino applicants. Shareholder and fugitive former CEO Isai Scheinberg<\/strong> (right<\/em>) remains under indictment. While New Jersey and Missouri<\/strong> used to be the toughest regulatory jurisdictions in the U.S., if this PokerStars deal were proposed in Nevada<\/strong>, the Gaming Control Board<\/strong> would laugh it out of the room.<\/p>\n

In case you recall<\/strong> the tragic bus crash that killed several gamblers bound from Texas<\/strong> to Oklahoma<\/strong>, it appears we can rule out mechanical failure. However, neither the company nor driver Loyd Reyve<\/strong> may be in the clear. Cardinal Coach Line<\/strong> continued to employ Reyve, who had a 1998 fatality on his conscience, if not on his rap sheet. Three lawsuits have already been filed, so these latest deaths are sure to cost Cardinal plenty, even if it’s just a matter of making them go quietly away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Carl Icahn holds the note on your life, you are in a world of hurt, my friend. Just ask Trump Entertainment Resorts, whose $20 million sale of wretchedly performing Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino suddenly looks very shaky. What’s … 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":[23,82,3,28,42,37,115,33,25,32,114,100],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10672"}],"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=10672"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21960,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10672\/revisions\/21960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}