{"id":14549,"date":"2014-09-12T10:34:21","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T18:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14549"},"modified":"2014-09-12T10:34:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T18:34:21","slug":"he-came-to-buy-atlantic-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/he-came-to-buy-atlantic-city\/","title":{"rendered":"He came to buy Atlantic City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when you thought Atlantic City<\/strong> had shed several casinos, they’re coming right back. Would-be Revel<\/strong> buyer Glenn Straub<\/strong> would include casino gambling in his larger strategy for the property<\/a> but make it incidental to other \"revel-resort-in-atlantic-city\"<\/a>“hobbies.”\u00a0\u201cWho in the hell wants to go where there\u2019s not something more than
\njust gambling? You can only gamble for so many hours, maybe eight hours a day. You\u2019ve still got 16 hours longer to eat, sleep and have fun,\u201d he groused to The Press of Atlantic City<\/em>.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re not going to let a building be dominated by a casino,\u201d he added, vowing to put the casino in the hands of a third-party operator. His focus, meanwhile, will be on converting Atlantic City into a sporting destination. (Womens’ basketball and skateboarding have been mentioned<\/a>.) He’s already thinking big, talking about high-speed rail<\/a> to New York<\/strong> and Philadelphia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Straub, whose Revel bid seems to have caught\u00a0Mayor Don Guardian<\/strong> off-guard, is just starting an Atlantic City white-tag-sale spree, expressing interest both in Showboat<\/strong> and Trump Taj Mahal<\/strong>. (Nobody wants Trump Plaza<\/strong>, do \"Straub\"<\/a>they?) Both a championship polo player and a hard-money lender, Straub is a colorful character whose trademark in business is to find distressed assets, downsize them and\u00a0generally cut costs with a vengeance. The Revel deal echoes Straub’s 2009 acquisition of the Tesoro<\/strong> golf course in Port St. Lucie<\/strong>, which he obtained at a 94% discount. He’s got nothing to lose in this deal, since Revel’s owners have to pay him $3 million<\/a> if it doesn’t go through.<\/p>\n

Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> would also like to have a talk with Straub, especially since he would reopen Showboat minus gambling. That dovetails with Caesars’ goal of removing competitors (including itself) from the board.\u00a0\u201cWe believe there\u2019s an oversupply of gaming positions in Atlantic City and that adding non-gaming amenities and attractions are the keys to recovery.\u00a0Our goal is to sell Showboat as a non-gaming property,\u201d said Caesars spokesman Gary Thompson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"chris-christie-new-jersey\"<\/a>Across the state, in Trenton, Gov. Chris Christie<\/strong> (R) is trying to add economic-development incentives of a non-gaming nature<\/a> to a tax-incentive bill that already passed the Legislature. Arguing that Atlantic City should be treated like any other Garden State metropolis, Christie is “recommending that non-gaming development projects and private-sector job growth in Atlantic City be eligible for the strongest possible incentives under New Jersey\u2019s successful (tax credit) programs.\u201d At the moment, though, he’s short on specifics.<\/p>\n

Christie’s proposal already has the approval of state Sen. Raymond Lesniak<\/strong> (D), who’s also characteristically euphoric over the prospective approval of PokerStars<\/strong> to operate in Atlantic City, in a matter of weeks<\/a>. Practically \"senlesniak\"<\/a>jumping up and down, Lesniak said,\u00a0\u201cIt’s going to be soon and it’s going to be huge.\u00a0PokerStars is going to make a huge investment in Atlantic City, not just in Internet gaming but in their brand and in bringing attractions to Atlantic City.\u201d This sudden influx of dollars seems slightly improbable (remember that Lesniak thinks Jersey City<\/strong> can crush Macao<\/strong>) but, for the Boardwalk’s sake, we’ll hope that Lesniak is right this time.<\/p>\n

The state senator is a busy man. He’s also trying again to legalize sports betting, this time by removing language in state law<\/a> that prohibits such wagering.\u00a0Lesniak says he hopes “the second time’s the charm.” We agree.\u00a0\u201cI’m going to place the first bet.\u00a0I’m highly confident of this one. I tweeted that I’d mortgage my house on it,\u201d says Lesniak. Whoa, there! Save something for your retirement years, senator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just when you thought Atlantic City had shed several casinos, they’re coming right back. Would-be Revel buyer Glenn Straub would include casino gambling in his larger strategy for the property but make it incidental to other “hobbies.”\u00a0\u201cWho in the hell … 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":[23,185,7,37,33,25,157,74,31,100,169],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14549"}],"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=14549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14551,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14549\/revisions\/14551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}