{"id":15568,"date":"2015-02-20T12:34:41","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T20:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=15568"},"modified":"2020-05-07T06:27:40","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T14:27:40","slug":"revel-sale-dead-indiana-does-the-right-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/revel-sale-dead-indiana-does-the-right-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Revel sale dead; Indiana does the right thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe history of this case is long and tortured,\u201d said U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Gloria Burns<\/strong>, in a major understatement regarding the several and various attempts to sell Revel<\/strong>. \"revel_0469\"<\/a>With the bang of a gavel, she crushed<\/a> Glenn Straub<\/strong>‘s $95 million attempt to purchase the megaresort out of bankruptcy. Burns ruled that Straub’s inability to close the sale by Feb. 9 put him in breach of the purchase agreement. Burns’ one concession to Straub was to order that his $10 million deposit be placed in escrow, although she ruled against refunding it. Nevertheless, Revel attorney John Cunningham<\/strong> promised,\u00a0“We are going to seek to be allowed to spend that money.” (The property is getting by on credit from Wells Fargo<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

Straub had wanted to wait out the appeals process of the sundry Revel tenants who are suing to stay put. Burns replied that the terms of Straub’s agreement with Revel didn’t allow for that contingency.<\/p>\n

Straub’s attorney, the voluble Stuart Moskowitz<\/strong>, vowed to appeal Burns’ verdict, saying “No game ends in the first quarter.” Meanwhile, Revel Chief Restructuring Officer Shaun Martin<\/strong> said the casino owners were receiving “a lot of inquiries” but that liquidation would be imperative were a new buyer not to be found in the next three to five months. Good luck with that. Judging by the scant number of serious bids and the logistical challenges of mastodonic Revel, ownership may wish it had renegotiated its deal with Straub.<\/p>\n

* An expedient procedure used by banks\u00a0— cashing uncleared business checks — came back to bite Atlantic City<\/strong> casinos\u00a0in the ass, courtesy of Global Cash Access<\/strong> machines intended for VIP players. A dozen Bangladesh<\/strong> conspirators discovered and exploited this quirk to the tune of $9 million. (See the scam in action<\/a>.) Their rubber checks from\u00a0nonexistent businesses were deposited at the end of business Friday and cash advances were taken upon them. To add insult to injury, the withdrawals were called in to the cage on the casino house phone. Amazingly, it took six years to detect and prosecute the scam, despite evidence that shows the thieves red-handed.<\/p>\n

* It’s just a start but it’s a step in the right direction. The House Ways & Means Committee<\/strong> of the Indiana Legislature<\/strong> voted to cut taxes on Hoosier State riverboats, to give them an incentive to move ashore. The 18% cut, set to begin in 2017, is understandably <\/a>\"Indiana\"<\/a>not playing to rave reviews<\/a> from localities that are dependent on casino revenue, such as the $4 million received by LaPorte County<\/strong> each year. (The bill also sanctions the use of live dealers at Indiana<\/strong>‘s two racinos.) The reduction is achieved by eliminating the admission tax<\/a> that casinos now pay on behalf of their customers. Majestic Star<\/strong> would lose one of its licenses, the two riverboats being folded instead into one land-based casino. The repossessed license might be put out for bid a few years down the road.<\/p>\n

Indiana may need to wean itself off casino taxes anyway, as they have declined 28% in the last five years and another 12% falloff is expected by 2017.\u00a0LaPorte County Commissioner Dave Decker<\/strong> was so flummoxed by the bill, he suggested eliminating casinos instead, saying,\u00a0‘It’s a sin tax. That’s what it boils down to. If you want to do business, that’s part of it.” LaPorte is host to Boyd Gaming<\/strong>‘s Blue Chip<\/strong> riverboat and Boyd spokesman David Strow<\/strong> was understandably happy with the vote.\u00a0”We\u2019re grateful that the state legislature is looking at ways to help the Indiana gaming industry stay competitive, especially in light of growing competition in neighboring states,” he said.<\/p>\n

The bill still has a long way to go and faces a serious obstacle in the form of Gov. Mike Pence<\/strong> (R). The latter is myopically convinced that putting a casino on dry land is an “expansion” of gambling. He’s going to be have to be sweet-talked out of the mindset before meaningful change becomes possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe history of this case is long and tortured,\u201d said U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Gloria Burns, in a major understatement regarding the several and various attempts to sell Revel. With the bang of a gavel, she crushed Glenn Straub‘s $95 … 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":[23,60,185,186,68,33,111,157],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15568"}],"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=15568"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26991,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15568\/revisions\/26991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}