{"id":12575,"date":"2014-01-29T11:27:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T19:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=12575"},"modified":"2020-04-14T06:43:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T14:43:06","slug":"revel-has-loveman-gone-insane-east-st-louis-gets-the-shaft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/revel-has-loveman-gone-insane-east-st-louis-gets-the-shaft\/","title":{"rendered":"Revel: Has Loveman gone insane?; East St. Louis gets the shaft"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’d think Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> had its hands full with four active casinos in Atlantic City<\/strong> and the defunct Atlantic Club Hotel<\/strong>. But no, CEO Gary \"loveman\"<\/a>Loveman<\/strong> is reported to be considering a bid for $2.6 billion Revel Resort<\/strong>, which Caesars could get for a fraction of its face value. (It is unknown whether Loveman was also being fitted for a straitjacket.) Leave aside the fact that Revel has problems that Caesars could do very well without. New Jersey<\/strong> law bans “undue economic concentration” among casino operators. By adding mammoth Revel to its portfolio, to say nothing of mothballed Atlantic Club, how could Caesars not<\/em> be flouting that route?<\/p>\n

True, Total Rewards<\/strong> could be used to boost customer counts at Revel, but a lot of that business would be borrowed (or stolen, if you prefer) from Caesars’ existing casinos in Atlantic City, a contracting market. Hard Rock International<\/strong> is also in the hunt for Revel<\/a>, it’s not otherwise represented in the market and it’s wobbling under $24 billion in debt. But the power of shiny objects to distract to Loveman should never be discounted.<\/p>\n

Speaking of overloaded markets<\/strong>, officials of the City of East St. Louis<\/strong> got to make their case to state Rep. Bob Rita<\/strong> (D), who’s trying to jam them up with a nearby racino<\/a>. Some of you will recall that, before the opening of Casino Queen<\/em>, East St. Louis had fallen into anarchy. Now the casino supplies 42% of the state’s taxable revenue<\/a>. Said Mayor Alvin Parks Jr<\/strong>., “Without the Casino Queen, just from an operational standpoint, we don\u2019t know what the city of East St. Louis would do, quite frankly<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a>But we strongly suspect that Rita (right<\/em>) was more enchanted by the siren song warbled by Fairmount Park<\/strong>, which characterized casino gambling as essential to its survival. Track President Brian Zander<\/strong> said Fairmount Park had lost events, players and jobs to Missouri<\/strong>, where purses are fatter. It’s possible that Zander is right and that it would be a win-win situation for Casino Queen<\/em> and Fairmount Park alike, but I’ve not seen any evidence that would case me to share his optimism.<\/p>\n

Dr. David G. Schwartz<\/strong> explains why the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement<\/strong>‘s cutdown on casino information provided to the public is a A Bad Thing<\/a>. I wonder if it isn’t a budgetary measure — but that doesn’t make it any more laudable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’d think Caesars Entertainment had its hands full with four active casinos in Atlantic City and the defunct Atlantic Club Hotel. But no, CEO Gary Loveman is reported to be considering a bid for $2.6 billion Revel Resort, which Caesars … 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":[23,149,7,58,39,111,25,157],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12575"}],"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=12575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26748,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12575\/revisions\/26748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}