{"id":11602,"date":"2013-09-25T12:58:50","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T20:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11602"},"modified":"2014-02-25T16:04:16","modified_gmt":"2014-02-26T00:04:16","slug":"massachusetts-victory-in-leonminster-mazer-makes-waves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/massachusetts-victory-in-leonminster-mazer-makes-waves\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts: Victory in Leominster; Mazer makes waves"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"massachusetts_flag\"<\/a>Cordish Gaming<\/strong> crushed the opposition in Leominster<\/strong> yesterday, winning approval for a slot parlor with 61% of the vote<\/a>. The campaign was notable for the personal participation of David Cordish<\/strong>, who went door-to-door to drum up support. The whippet-thin senior citizen pressed the flesh making his casino + Leominster = lower taxes<\/a> argument. The third time really was the charm for Cordish, having been rejected in two other Massachusetts<\/strong> towns. Opponents, having chased Rush Street Gaming<\/strong> out of Millbury<\/strong>, tried to recycle the same campaign for Leominster, without success.<\/p>\n

So now it’s down to Penn National Gaming<\/strong>, longtime adversary\u00a0Cordish and Parx Casino<\/strong> (in partnership with Raynham Park<\/strong>) for one slot parlor license. Plainridge<\/strong> is on the doorstep of the Providence<\/strong> market but Cordish is a stone’s throw from New Hampshire<\/strong>. Penn may also be too close to resort-contending Milford<\/strong> for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission<\/strong>‘s taste. Given its relative isolation from other casino-seeking cities, Leonminster may just have an ace up its sleeve.<\/p>\n

In an attention-getting<\/strong> speech, Harrah’s Atlantic City<\/strong> CEO Rick Mazer<\/strong> is \"Rick<\/a>preaching the virtues of coexistence. It’s a message that was long overdue. It’s past time that somebody said, \u201cI would encourage you all to … start working together to bring people to Atlantic City<\/strong> and bring it back to what I believe it could be \u2014 the dynamic environment, the dynamic town and the natural resources that don\u2019t exist anywhere else, including Las Vegas<\/strong><\/em>.” He’s been stumping the Boardwalk with that message and has at least one ally: Borgata<\/strong> Senior Vice President of Operations Joe Lupo<\/strong>. Mazer’s secondary message is for casinos to diversify their product offerings.\u00a0If Mazer speaks for Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> — and there’s no reason to believe he doesn’t — those four properties plus Borgata make an imposing group of potential collaborators. Whether still others will go along remains to be seen, with the Atlantic Club<\/strong> forever in flux and Tilman Fertitta<\/strong> pulling the chicken switch over at the Golden Nugget<\/strong>. For shame, Tilman, for shame.<\/p>\n

In what is described<\/strong> as its most significant gaming investment in a decade, Caesars\u00a0ordered up 7,000 video poker machines<\/a> from International Game Technology<\/strong>. It will take a lot more than new VP machines to repair the company’s evil reputation among players of the video sport. How about better paytables and faster point accruals?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cordish Gaming crushed the opposition in Leominster yesterday, winning approval for a slot parlor with 61% of the vote. The campaign was notable for the personal participation of David Cordish, who went door-to-door to drum up support. The whippet-thin senior … 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":[23,60,3,70,26,7,29,112,91,163,69,25,141,8,129],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602"}],"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=11602"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12859,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602\/revisions\/12859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}