{"id":11761,"date":"2013-10-10T09:30:51","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T17:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11761"},"modified":"2019-10-24T06:20:03","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T14:20:03","slug":"and-the-winner-is-borgata-black-eased-out-kudos-to-sands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/and-the-winner-is-borgata-black-eased-out-kudos-to-sands\/","title":{"rendered":"And the winner is … Borgata; Black eased out; Kudos to Sands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leading the field, Borgata<\/strong> received New Jersey<\/strong>‘s first Internet<\/strong>-gambling license and will begin test play on Nov. 21<\/a>. Congratulations to Boyd Gaming<\/strong> and partner bwin.party<\/strong> for having their ducks in a row. Understated Borgata prexy Tom Ballance<\/strong>, “It\u2019s always nice to be first in the queue.” Now it’s a question of leveraging Borgata’s stellar brand equity into the digital domain. Just because you have a great casino floor, there’s no guarantee that’s going to translate into a comparable online experience.
\nHe’s outta here<\/strong>. The face of Mesquite’s gaming industry, Randy Black<\/strong>, has — what’s the term? — “retired” from Mesquite Gaming<\/strong>, which is controlled by Michael Gaughan<\/strong>. There were the usual euphemisms about “looking forward to putting his considerable energies in new directions<\/a>” and spending more time with the Black family — not that old Randy appears to have much choice in the matter. Despite some pro forma tut-tutting<\/a>\u00a0Nevada<\/strong> from regulators about giving Black a virtually monopoly on the Mesquite market, they did so — and he ran it into the ground. I doubt he’ll be missed and at least this will get him off our television sets. He was never quite the celebrity he thought he was.<\/p>\n

The aspirations<\/strong> of the Mashpee Wampanoags<\/strong> took another step \"deval-patrick\"forward<\/a> this week, as the Massachusetts House of Representatives<\/strong> overwhelmingly approved a new compact with the state<\/a>. The complex web of tax rates, depending on various scenarios<\/a> — like the proximity of competition — may raise some eyebrows in Washington<\/strong>, but Gov. Deval Patrick<\/strong> (D, pictured<\/em>) thinks he’s got this thing in the bag. However, given the unlikelihood of federal recognition for the tribe — which has little going for it except a lot of hot air from Chairman Cedric Cromwell<\/strong> — especially in the near term, it’s difficult not to sympathize with lawmakers who want to see the state pursue other operators instead.<\/p>\n

Bringing a bit<\/strong> of Macao<\/strong> to Pennsylvania<\/strong>, the workforce at Sands Bethlehem<\/strong> is of 20% Asian extraction (far more than any other casino in the Keystone State). This predominantly Chinese influx means that you can expect to hear a lot of Mandarin spoken at Sands these days. This state-leading diversity jibes well with Sands’ customer base, which is 50% Asian-American, and the company was very proactive in searching out potential workers who fit that customer demographic. These employees are also enriching Bethlehem<\/strong>‘s ethnic mix and renewing the neighborhoods immediately surrounding Sands Bethlehem. Again, we ask why is Sands bent on dumping a property that, after several years’ struggle, has finally found its niche?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leading the field, Borgata received New Jersey‘s first Internet-gambling license and will begin test play on Nov. 21. Congratulations to Boyd Gaming and partner bwin.party for having their ducks in a row. Understated Borgata prexy Tom Ballance, “It\u2019s always nice … 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":[23,60,28,37,112,126,122,95,12,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11761"}],"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=11761"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25178,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11761\/revisions\/25178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}