{"id":11075,"date":"2013-07-05T11:41:19","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T19:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11075"},"modified":"2013-07-05T11:41:19","modified_gmt":"2013-07-05T19:41:19","slug":"accord-in-kentucky-atlantic-city-on-the-move-james-packers-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/accord-in-kentucky-atlantic-city-on-the-move-james-packers-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"Accord in Kentucky; Atlantic City on the move; James Packer’s comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"But there are still some stirrings of activity on the casino front. For starters, Bwin.Party<\/strong> has agreed to fork over $15 million<\/a> to Kentucky<\/strong>. According to the company the payment “resolves the only remaining litigation … that stems from our pre-UIGEA<\/strong> U.S. activities<\/em>.” Although he’s been a failure at bringing terrestrial casinos to Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear<\/strong> (D, right<\/em>) has a good track record of extracting settlements from Internet<\/strong> casinos. More significantly, this settlement is expected to clear the path for Bwin.Party to start offering online gambling in Nevada<\/strong> and New Jersey<\/strong>. That’s pretty significant since its partners are a couple of little outfits called MGM Resorts International<\/strong> and Boyd Gaming<\/strong>. You may have heard of them. Earlier this week, PokerStars<\/strong> ditched the Atlantic Club<\/strong> in favor of Resorts Atlantic City<\/strong>, although it might continue its quixotic quest<\/a> to wrest the Atlantic Club from Colony Capital<\/strong>, no matter how badly Colony suddenly doesn’t want to sell.<\/p>\n

Nevada has “Trailer Stations”<\/strong> but now Atlantic City<\/strong> has a “pop-up” casino. Coming soon to a city near you (if you live on the East Coast), it’s a 40′ by 14′ by 10′, 6.5-ton, two-story, mock casino where you can play simulated table games<\/a>, get a brief massage, spin platters and see replications of various Boardwalk amenities. Atlantic City Alliance<\/strong> President Liz Cartmell<\/strong> told The Press of Atlantic City<\/em> that the casino-on-wheels “was needed to generate a huge buzz and stand out from the clutter.” Well, I think they’ve accomplished that.<\/p>\n

Clean slate<\/strong>. Safety procedures at Cirque du Soleil<\/strong>‘s Ka<\/em> have been above \"\"and beyond the call of duty<\/a> (unlike those of Criss Angel<\/strong> vehicle Believe<\/em>). This makes last weekend’s death of aerialist Sarah Guillot-Gayard<\/strong> all the more puzzling. If anything, Cirque was “overly cautious.” On the other side of town, violence has marred the El Super Classico<\/strong> football tournament at Sam Boyd Stadium<\/strong>. Both Las Vegas Metro<\/strong> and multiple other constabularies had to scramble 120 officers to contain 400 soccer hooligans. The latter, fans of both Chivas Guadalajara<\/strong> and Club America<\/strong> exchanged fusilades of bottles and rocks before the game<\/a> and stormed the field after it ended in a 1-0 blowout by Chivas. Soccer? Rioting? In Las Vegas<\/strong>? Color me shocked.<\/p>\n

A decade of patience<\/strong> on the part of Station Casinos<\/strong> paid off when\"\"California<\/strong> Gov. Jerry Brown<\/strong> affixed his signature to a bill<\/a> approving the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians<\/strong>‘ off-reservation casino. It’s a process Station has been shepherding since 2003. The North Fork band slipped through a loophole in federal law and we should expect other California tribes to attempt to follow suit.<\/p>\n

\"\"Remember James Packer?<\/strong> Well, after a thoroughly disastrous attempt to crack the U.S. casino market he’s pulled back to the territories he knowsbest: Australia<\/strong> and the Pacific Rim. At the moment, he’s cleared the first two hurdles in a New South Wales<\/strong> approval process for a Sydney casino. Opening of $1.2 billion\u00a0Crown Sydney Hotel Resort<\/strong> would probably take place in 2019, when Echo Entertainment<\/strong>‘s monopoly expires. At the same time, casino tax rates in NSW will fall from 50% to 29%. Since Packer’s casino is projected to create more revenue for the state, it was understandably preferred to Echo’s proposal to double down: Creating an ‘open market’ of two casinos, of which it would own both<\/a>. You might say the company was offering Sydney not a choice but an Echo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But there are still some stirrings of activity on the casino front. For starters, Bwin.Party has agreed to fork over $15 million to Kentucky. According to the company the payment “resolves the only remaining litigation … that stems from our … 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":[23,60,34,80,3,28,4,22,37,96,116,11,25,57,31,9,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11075"}],"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=11075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11076,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11075\/revisions\/11076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}