{"id":15649,"date":"2015-03-04T13:58:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T21:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=15649"},"modified":"2020-06-03T06:27:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T14:27:42","slug":"fear-and-loathing-in-washington-new-goodies-at-borgata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/fear-and-loathing-in-washington-new-goodies-at-borgata\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear and loathing in Washington; New goodies at Borgata"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>\u00a0sock puppet Rep. Jason Chaffetz<\/strong>\u00a0(R)\u00a0would be\u00a0holding his much-ballyhooed hearin<\/a>g on Internet<\/strong> gambling today, had Mother Nature<\/strong> not intervened and forced a postponement<\/a>. When it \"Chaffetz\"<\/a>happens, it’ll be\u00a0pretty much the kangaroo court you’d expect. His star witness is rabid and troglodytic\u00a0University of Illinois<\/strong> boffin John Kindt<\/strong>, who has advocated for the federal seizure of all tribal casinos on the grounds of\u00a0\u201callegations of misuse, non-accounting, and even malfeasance involving gambling revenues in Native American operations.” Blithely ignoring tribal sovereignty, he would convert them to\u00a0\u201ceducational, cultural, and business facilities.”<\/p>\n

But Kindt doesn’t just reserve his wrath for aboriginals. Known for his dodgy research claims<\/a>, Kindt idolizes the anti-gambling policies<\/a> of Vladimir Putin<\/strong> and advocates the criminalization of gaming<\/a>. Compared to the despot-slurping Kindt, the other witnesses are practically civil libertarians. True, Stop Predatory Gambling<\/strong> boss Les Bernal<\/strong> is going to have a hard time squaring his opposition to all iterations\u00a0of gambling<\/a> with Restore America’s Wire Act<\/strong>‘s exemption for playing the ponies. Prof. Mike Fagan<\/strong>, of St. Louis<\/strong>‘ Washington University<\/strong>, has opposed online gaming in the past, but his consumer-protection concerns<\/a> don’t make him as problematic a witness as Kindt or Bernal, although he paradoxically prefers illegal Internet gambling, rife with abuses, to its legalized status quo.<\/p>\n

\"Aftab\"<\/a>In a grudging concession to evenhandedness, the witness list also includes cyber-expert Parry Aftab<\/strong>. Dr. Aftab has called for regulation of Internet gambling in the past and will presumably be the lone voice of reason in Chaffetz’s paranoia-driven\u00a0show trial. Significantly, no regulatory official from a state with legalized online gambling has been called as a witness. Rather that hear how un-problematic the rollout of i-gambling has been, Chaffetz would clearly prefer to reach foregone conclusions.<\/p>\n

* In keeping with Atlantic City<\/strong>‘s new mantra of diversification, Borgata<\/strong> has rolled out plans for two new amenities. One is a 5,000-person, standing-room-only (Ow, my aching \"Borgata\"<\/a>back!) concert venue, supplemented by\u00a0a nightclub. All but $1 million of the $15 \u00a0million tab is coming from the\u00a0Casino Reinvestment Development Authority<\/strong>. As Wayne Parry<\/strong> reports, this “lets the Borgata reclaim some of its investment alternative tax payments before they can be diverted to help the city’s struggling finances or to attract new development in the city under an Atlantic City rescue plan being considered by state officials.”<\/p>\n

Live Nation<\/strong> will run Borgata Festival Park<\/strong>, which opens June 13. The nightclub won’t be ready until year’s end<\/a>, but its designer has a prestigious Vegas<\/strong> credential to its name, in the form of Tao Restaurant & Nightclub<\/a> at the Venetian<\/strong>. By the time the wrangle over Revel<\/strong> is settled, Borgata will be even more firmly entrenched as Atlantic City’s primary party spot.<\/p>\n

* Times aren’t what they used to be. University of Nevada-Las Vegas<\/strong> English teacher Brittany Bronson<\/strong> has to double as a waitress to make ends meet. Like her, I am a resident of the Paradise<\/strong> neighborhood, former home to Liberace<\/strong> (whose mansion is being restored) and hard by UNLV. Conditions in Paradise are not paradisical but precisely as Ms. Bronson describes them. She draws an accurate picture<\/a> of the lopsided economic recovery in Las Vegas<\/strong>, in which all the money seems to be flooding to tony neighborhoods like Summerlin<\/strong> and leaving many of the rest of us behind. No surprise\u00a0that locals-casino revenue numbers are volatile and less upbeat than those on the Strip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sheldon Adelson\u00a0sock puppet Rep. Jason Chaffetz\u00a0(R)\u00a0would be\u00a0holding his much-ballyhooed hearing on Internet gambling today, had Mother Nature not intervened and forced a postponement. When it happens, it’ll be\u00a0pretty much the kangaroo court you’d expect. His star witness is rabid and … 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":[23,60,14,4,67,22,37,33,25,12,31,9,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15649"}],"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=15649"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27230,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15649\/revisions\/27230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}