{"id":16731,"date":"2015-09-11T11:51:01","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T19:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=16731"},"modified":"2015-09-11T11:51:01","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T19:51:01","slug":"gural-doubles-down-royal-brouhaha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/gural-doubles-down-royal-brouhaha\/","title":{"rendered":"Gural doubles down; Royal brouhaha"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/eplayer.clipsyndicate.com\/embed\/iframe?aspect_ratio=3x2&amp;auto_start=0&amp;pf_id=11648&amp;rel=3&amp;show_title=0&amp;va_id=5963317&amp;volume=8&amp;windows=1\" width=\"425\" height=\"330\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeffrey Gural<\/strong> wants a casino in <strong>New York State<\/strong> so bad he can taste it &#8212; or at least invest $82 million of his own money in it. It&#8217;s refreshing when a developer makes that kind of equity commitment. Gural&#8217;s upped the ante again, raising the budget for the conversion of <strong>Tioga Downs<\/strong> by $32 million, making it a $195 million proposition. <strong>Gaming Facility Location Board<\/strong> Chairman <strong>Kevin Law<\/strong> seemed impressed by Gural&#8217;s level of commitment, calling it &#8220;a step in the right direction,&#8221; and the man himself liked his chances:\u00a0\u201cThe fact that I\u2019m the only bidder helps.\u201d Referring to an earlier presentation that he called &#8220;lipstick on a pig,&#8221; Law said that this time\u00a0&#8220;It is certainly more than just lipstick.\u00a0It was some significant changes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So does rebalancing the construction budget so that it relies more on <!--more-->equity and less on debt financing, a concern of the GFLB. Gural <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wbng.com\/news\/local\/Tioga-Downs--326508941.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">also added more<\/a> hotel rooms, two extra restaurants and expanded a planned, <em>al fresco<\/em> concert center to make <strong>Tioga Downs Casino Resort<\/strong> less of a plain-vanilla gaming product. However, Gural&#8217;s also relying on blue-sky revenue projections <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/bidder-for-ny-state-casino-license-puts-more-of-his-cash-on-the-line-1441936462\" target=\"_blank\">that show 10 consecutive years of revenue increases<\/a>, a figure seemingly pulled from someone&#8217;s lower orifices. But Gural was unfazed when asked,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve been told that hasn\u2019t been achieved elsewhere. Does that give you pause?\u201d And if his bid is rejected again he says he&#8217;ll be back for a third bite of the apple, with an even higher equity commitment. Public comments on Tioga Downs will be taken next week and a decision is promised by late autumn.<\/p>\n<p>* If you like the ambience of off-Strip <strong>Royal Resort<\/strong>, you&#8217;ve got <strong>Authentic Entertainment Properties<\/strong> and a $3 million <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/RoyalResortHotel.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-16732\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/RoyalResortHotel-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"RoyalResortHotel\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/RoyalResortHotel.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/RoyalResortHotel-150x100.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>renovation\u00a0to thank for it. However, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reviewjournal.com\/business\/casinos-gaming\/prospective-developers-claim-royal-hotel-owners-broke-lease-agreement\" target=\"_blank\">AEP is hopping mad<\/a> at Royal Resort owners\u00a0<strong>Michael Pashaie<\/strong> and <strong>David Taban<\/strong> for putting the property (and two others) on the market, with a $160 million price tag attached. That drove a bulldozer through AEP&#8217;s plans to make the Royal and two adjacent properties into a boutique casino-hotel, bringing gambling back to <strong>Convention Center Drive<\/strong>. AEP has whopped Taban and Pashaie upside the head with a $100 million lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of Royal Resort, my wife and I were enjoying happy hour at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/referenceguide-diningdetail.cfm?DiningID=1344\" target=\"_blank\">The Barrymore<\/a> (highly recommended) when a hotel guest came plodding through the lobby clad in his bathing trunks and nothing else. It won&#8217;t be long before someone walks across a casino floor stark naked and nobody bats an eye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jeffrey Gural wants a casino in New York State so bad he can taste it &#8212; or at least invest $82 million of his own money in it. It&#8217;s refreshing when a developer makes that kind of equity commitment. Gural&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/gural-doubles-down-royal-brouhaha\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,18,101,111,25,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16731"}],"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=16731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16733,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16731\/revisions\/16733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}