{"id":14372,"date":"2014-08-21T11:12:17","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T19:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14372"},"modified":"2022-12-25T04:17:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-25T12:17:52","slug":"revels-21-grand-goof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/revels-21-grand-goof\/","title":{"rendered":"Revel’s 21 grand goof"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"revel_0594\"<\/a>Revel<\/strong>‘s high-speed shutdown is descending into farce. Its armored-car contractor, GardaWorld<\/strong>, managed to lose $21,000 of long green. How? They — no kidding — left a cash bag on top of the truck. Security footage shows the cash still precariously in place by the time the truck reaches Resorts Atlantic City<\/strong>. Then the truck heads out on Pennsylvania Avenue and the money\u00a0is never seen again.<\/p>\n

Revel has private investigators working on the matter. We’ve all made similar goofs in our lives. But they usually involve a cup of coffee, not 21 grand.<\/p>\n

On a more serious level, Atlantic City<\/strong> is facing an identity crisis as a third of its casino-floor space is scheduled to be taken out of circulation<\/a>, following an impending round of closings, plus the Atlantic Club<\/strong> shutdown.\u00a0\u201cThe one-size-fits-all gaming-floor model is not working,\u201d says developer Curtis Bashaw<\/strong>, in something of an understatement. Alternate uses ranging from timeshares, resort hotels and university campuses have been mooted for failing Boardwalk casinos. Gov. Chris Christie<\/strong> (R) advocates reinventing Atlantic City<\/a> as a resort — easier said than done.<\/p>\n

Well-traveled casino architect Paul Steelman<\/strong> is skeptical.\u00a0\u201cCasinos are not great conversions to other uses.\u00a0They are custom-designed \"Showboat_Atlantic_City\"<\/a>buildings that are very expensive to operate and maintain,\u201d he told the New York Times<\/em>. Like others, he advocates the wrecking ball for\u00a0Trump Plaza<\/strong>, but sees a gaming future for Showboat<\/strong> and Revel (where the check-in desk is on the — whew! — 11th floor). The latter’s failure is at least partly attributable to its lack of a poker room. Borgata<\/strong> has made poker one of its signature offerings and for Revel to have unilaterally disarmed was sheer madness.<\/p>\n

In other news, Showboat has been cleared to close<\/a>. One school of \"pennacchio-large\"<\/a>opinion holds that Caesars Entertainment<\/strong>‘s determination to shut down on Aug. 31 belies claims of a willingness to sell<\/a>. The inevitable call for racinos has been made<\/a> by state Sen. Joe Pennacchio <\/strong>(R, right<\/em>), who would have the slots run by Atlantic City casinos, not the tracks. (Good luck getting the horsey set to sign off\u00a0on that.) The racinos would be taxed at 60%, with 10% going to Atlantic City infrastructure improvements<\/a>, while the bulk of the money funds pensions.<\/p>\n

Plans, meanwhile, gather speed for casino-hotel additions to the Meadowlands<\/strong>. So far the NFL<\/strong> has kept mum but, with its public aversion to gambling, it’d be interesting to know what it thinks about the prospect of multiple, themed casinos<\/a> sprinkled near Met Life Stadium<\/strong> or of private, VIP casinos.<\/p>\n

If it didn’t have enough problems, Caesars has at least one case of tuberculosis<\/a> on its hands in Tunica<\/strong>. Closer to home, CEO Gary Loveman<\/strong> shaved $548 million off the company’s $24.2 billion debt load, in yet another of his signature restructurings. Wall Street<\/strong> analysts, however, were generally unimpressed, and there were rumblings of more closures and asset sales<\/a>. (With the regional gaming markets saturated, it’s a devil of a time to go to market.) To put Caesars’ debt in context, Detroit<\/strong> ‘only’ owed $18 billion when it went into bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

What am I thinking? Only $24 billion? Deleveraging ought to be a cinch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revel‘s high-speed shutdown is descending into farce. Its armored-car contractor, GardaWorld, managed to lose $21,000 of long green. How? They — no kidding — left a cash bag on top of the truck. Security footage shows the cash still precariously … 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":[65,23,60,3,7,35,111,157,169,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372"}],"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=14372"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32106,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14372\/revisions\/32106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}