{"id":11253,"date":"2013-08-05T16:12:57","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T00:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11253"},"modified":"2013-08-05T16:12:57","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T00:12:57","slug":"tilmans-golden-touch-dottys-gets-respectable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/tilmans-golden-touch-dottys-gets-respectable\/","title":{"rendered":"Tilman’s Golden touch; Dotty’s gets respectable"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tilman Fertitta<\/strong> forked over $45 million to purchase Isle of Capri Biloxi<\/strong>. He is currently putting another $100 million into expansions and upgrades<\/a>. From the look of things, he shouldn’t have any trouble making his \"\"money back. (Interestingly, parts of the casino floor resemble Planet Hollywood<\/strong>.) Like Las Vegas<\/strong>, casinos in Mississippi<\/strong> are experiencing the dismal epiphany that “Gaming isn\u2019t unique anymore \u2014 it\u2019s everywhere.” Tack on the triple whammy of Hurricane Katrina<\/strong>, the Great Recession<\/strong> and Deepwater Horizon<\/strong>, and life’s not been too good for the Gulf Coast<\/strong>, which has fallen to eighth place in American gambling markets — quite a comedown.<\/p>\n

It’s unlikely<\/strong> that legislators will embrace Internet<\/strong> gaming but at least the Bayou State has rescinded its Dark Ages mentality that prevented collegians from studying for careers in the Mississippi<\/strong> casino industry in<\/em> Mississippi. Said one University of Southern Mississippi<\/strong> don, “We were finding that a lot of top-level jobs at the state\u2019s casinos were going to out-of-state applicants<\/em>.” No shit, Sherlock.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Fertitta can<\/strong> bring the “wow” factor to the Gulf Coast. He’s a “george” owner who puts his money where his mouth is. He may have gotten \"\"taken to the cleaners for Las Vegas<\/strong> and Laughlin<\/strong> iterations of the Golden Nugget<\/strong> but it was a teaching moment. Fertitta has been a canny acquirer ever since, while not being afraid to then spend money in order to make money.He once thought of buying the Riviera<\/strong> and decided against it. I wish I didn’t know that. The Riviera that might have been, under Fertitta, would be a very different and more successful story, I’m sure.<\/p>\n

If you can’t beat ’em<\/strong> … so the hole-in-the-wall Dotty’s<\/strong> chain, which was basically like 80 downmarket Starbucks<\/strong> with slots, is having to go legit. Fine, says Dotty’s, two can play that game. To which end it is purchasing a casino-hotel<\/a> outside Boulder City<\/strong>. Dotty’s will be buying out Michael Ensign<\/strong> and William Richardson<\/strong>, two relics of Mandalay Resort \"\"Group<\/strong> who have kept their hand in the game at the Hacienda<\/strong>. Dotty’s gets a relatively new (1998) property for an undisclosed sum of money. The route operator is hardly on its uppers but the Hacienda would give Dotty’s a new income source while it rejiggers the rest of its business model to accommodate new (and more expensive) Nevada<\/strong> regulatory requirements. The Dotty’s chain existed in a penumbral market — and snapped up the carcasses of many a defunct bar while doing so — and now the Hacienda buy gives the company a chance to go ‘legit.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tilman Fertitta forked over $45 million to purchase Isle of Capri Biloxi. He is currently putting another $100 million into expansions and upgrades. From the look of things, he shouldn’t have any trouble making his money back. (Interestingly, parts of … 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":[65,88,28,51,14,117,37,85,49,35,6,55,129],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11253"}],"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=11253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11255,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11253\/revisions\/11255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}