{"id":12697,"date":"2014-02-10T15:47:59","date_gmt":"2014-02-10T23:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=12697"},"modified":"2014-02-10T15:47:59","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T23:47:59","slug":"churchill-downs-gets-singed-casino-creditors-get-burnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/churchill-downs-gets-singed-casino-creditors-get-burnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Churchill Downs gets singed, casino creditors get burnt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Showboat<\/a>Nick Ribis<\/strong>, a contentious figure in the Atlantic City<\/strong> casino scene is at it again. Or so contends<\/a> a lawsuit by Churchill Downs<\/strong>. The racino company claims it paid Ribis $2.5 million “to develop and operate” Internet<\/strong> gambling on its behalf, that Ribis has acknowledged receiving the dough but refuses to pay it back. You see — and this is where things get interesting — Ribis was supposedly attempting to buy the Showboat<\/strong> casino from Caesars International<\/strong>. Churchill Downs contends that Ribis misled them on the progress of talks which, obviously, never came to fruition. Caesars supposedly broke off negotiations with Ribis, news it conveyed to Churchill Downs on Jan. 3, quoth the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The obvious point of interest is that Caesars would be willing to part with the Showboat while it bought the Atlantic Club Hotel<\/strong> (and closed it) and is now bidding for Revel Resort<\/strong>. Also, one would think Churchill Downs would be smarter than to get into business with Ribis, who ran the Resorts Atlantic City<\/strong> casino into the ground during the disastrous Colony Capital<\/strong> era. So Churchill Downs is out $2.5 million and Ribis is allegedly thumbing his nose. Good luck getting that money back.<\/p>\n

“Extremely hard-core<\/strong> predatory behavior.” That’s how one credit specialist describes the hardball collection taxes of Foxwoods Resort Casino<\/strong> and Mohegan Tribal Gaming<\/strong> \"Mohegan<\/a>authority. In one instance, the casinos extended $67,000 in markers on an aged pensioner, then put liens on his house when he couldn’t pay his losses. This takes accountability to a whole new level<\/a>. It’s routine practice (particularly in Massachusetts<\/strong>) for the two tribal casinos, although gaming-law expert I. Nelson Rose<\/strong> finds it “really extreme.” Mohegan Sun countered that it was no different than Nevada laws under which dishonored markets are treated as bad checks.\u00a0But one former casino manager say, “If we\u2019re going to argue to legislators and the public and to you guys in the press that we\u2019re an entertainment business, we can\u2019t at the same time be foreclosing on people\u2019s homes<\/em>.” Not unpredictably, Foxwoods’ and Mohegan Sun<\/strong>‘s rivals for Massachusetts casino licenses were quick to say they<\/em> didn’t do this sort of thing … or only once, in the case of Penn National Gaming<\/strong>. But if the two tribal casinos’ loan-reclamation practices haven’t tripped up their casino bids in Massachusetts by now, they’re unlikely to in the future.<\/p>\n

If joining the Massachusetts saga already in progress, here’s a quick catch-up primer<\/a> for you. You’re just in time for the plot twist in which Internet gambling is introduced<\/a> as an additional form of gaming.<\/p>\n

\"Senator-Richter\"<\/a>Stating \u201cThere\u2019s not a chance that this legislature will consider a bill that will provide for unlimited casinos statewide<\/em>,\u201d state Sen. Garrett Richter<\/strong> (R) rolled out a template for casino expansion<\/a> in the 2014 Florida<\/strong> legislative session. It would allow one megaresort each for Miami-Dade County<\/strong> and Broward County<\/strong>, awarded competitive, and would relieve dog- and horse-track owners from actually having to hold racinos in order to keep their slot machines. “If we\u2019re going to be at 300 pages we\u2019re going to need some serious jet-powered head of steam behind this thing to get it off the ground<\/em>,” said one skeptical solon of Richter’s bulky bill.<\/p>\n

Richter himself warns that undercutting certain exclusive rights enjoyed by the Seminole Tribe<\/strong> would cost the state more than previously estimated: $140 million. Nor is the horsey set likely to support the decoupling of live racing from slots and card games.<\/p>\n

SLS Las Vegas<\/strong> is a little six months from opening and we’re happy about that. But we don’t know what to make of this oddball press release<\/a> that ought to be called “Cool S**t That Didn’t Happen in Vegas.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nick Ribis, a contentious figure in the Atlantic City casino scene is at it again. Or so contends a lawsuit by Churchill Downs. The racino company claims it paid Ribis $2.5 million “to develop and operate” Internet gambling on its … 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":[23,176,3,36,166,7,67,37,112,167,111,157,162,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12697"}],"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=12697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12700,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12697\/revisions\/12700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}