{"id":14142,"date":"2014-07-22T14:25:44","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T22:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14142"},"modified":"2019-07-11T08:58:51","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T16:58:51","slug":"caesars-gains-a-hot-tub-biloxi-loses-a-casino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/caesars-gains-a-hot-tub-biloxi-loses-a-casino\/","title":{"rendered":"Caesars gains a hot tub, Biloxi loses a casino"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"7_21_14_d_nobu_tub_kabik-116\"<\/a>You live in Las Vegas<\/strong> long enough, you think you’ve seen everything. Then somebody uses a helicopter to airlift a big-ass\u00a0jacuzzi (technically an “onsen tub”) onto the terrace of the\u00a0Nobu Tower at Caesars Palace<\/strong>, where it will grace the high-roller Nobu Villa<\/strong>. The tub was evidently too cumbrous for a crane — or maybe Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> just wanted to make a statement. No expense spared! Color me impresssed<\/p>\n

* In what we’re assured is not the start of a trend, Biloxi<\/strong>‘s newest casino, Margaritaville<\/strong>, is taking a night train to the Big Adios. Mississippi Gaming Commission<\/strong> Executive Director Allen Godfrey<\/strong> was in PR damage-control mode.\u00a0“I think it probably was more of an instance that, coming out of the gate, they struggled a little bit to find their niche.\u00a0All along the Gulf Coast, there are hotels going up, hotel renovations,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Margaritaville<\/a>Godfrey happens to be right. He also enumerated some pretty damning assertions about Margaritaville, such as the tardy introduction of a players’ club, a 35% employee reduction and high turnover among the managerial ranks. None of that ever bodes well. Also, opening a hotel-less casino seems to have been a major setback. The stay-and-play habit seems to be as ingrained in Biloxi<\/a> as in Vegas.<\/p>\n

A refusal by Margaritaville’s landlord to renegotiate the lease seems to have been the final straw in this drink<\/a>. CEO Doug Shipley<\/strong> also blamed his casino’s relative isolation and its lack of rooms.\u00a0“The story here is without a hotel, we cannot operate in a competitive market.” Not even the offer to invest another $64 million<\/a> to add 250 hotels was enough to win the landlord’s sympathies.<\/p>\n

Gaming Commissioner John Harrison<\/strong> displayed unusual candor about the $62 million, little casino that couldn’t: “The commission was concerned from Day 1, but found ourselves in a difficult situation given the operation satisfied regulations at that time.\u00a0We began discussing a change in regulation requiring larger scale, amenities, and hotels shortly thereafter, culminating in the regulation put in place in 2014.”<\/p>\n

Margaritaville management is being pretty george. Employees who are loyal to the end, whether it comes on Sept. 19 or earlier, will get paid two months’ salary. As to the region’s economy, Godfrey pointed to an impressive slew of upgrades, including Tilman Fertitta<\/strong>‘s makeover of the Golden Nugget<\/strong>, as well as a new D’Ibreville<\/strong> project, the Scarlet Pearl<\/strong>. Sometimes the free market just weeds out the weak players, as was clearly the case here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You live in Las Vegas long enough, you think you’ve seen everything. Then somebody uses a helicopter to airlift a big-ass\u00a0jacuzzi (technically an “onsen tub”) onto the terrace of the\u00a0Nobu Tower at Caesars Palace, where it will grace the high-roller … 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":[7,35,25,9,129],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14142"}],"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=14142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24499,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14142\/revisions\/24499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}