{"id":17991,"date":"2016-03-25T09:44:28","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T17:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=17991"},"modified":"2021-06-11T06:15:33","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T14:15:33","slug":"trump-the-art-of-failure-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/trump-the-art-of-failure-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump: The art of failure, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/strong>‘s\u00a0current ubiquity is causing the spotlight to fall upon his many setbacks\u00a0in the gaming industry. “If you look at anything that guy has done in this industry, he has a \"trumplead thumb \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s the opposite of a golden touch,\u201d says blogger par excellence<\/em> Victor Rocha<\/strong>. One instance of this is the former Spotlight 29<\/strong>, a California<\/strong> bingo parlor run by a 12-member tribe,\u00a0the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians<\/strong>. Trump talked his way into a management contract<\/a>, built Spotlight 29 into a Class III casino and rebranded it Trump 29<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The deal was announced a day after California voters passed Proposition 1A<\/strong> in 2000, legitimizing tribal casinos in the Golden State. The Twenty-Nine Palms Band would build a $60 million casino, partly financed by Trump. In return for the Trump brand, the mogul would get a 30% cut of the proceeds. At the ribbon cutting, Trump delivered a typically empty threat:\u00a0“I think Las Vegas<\/strong> is in serious trouble because of what is happening in California.” (To be fair, a few Las Vegas casino execs fearfully shared the same sentiment.)<\/p>\n

Three years later, he was out, two years early, his contract terminated in return for $6 million, negotiated down from a contracted $11 million. (An Indiana<\/strong> riverboat contract was similarly short-lived.) At least — unlike his dealings in Atlantic City<\/strong> — he had cut a good bargain for himself this time, his company collecting $13.5 million in management fees in three years, if well short of the $21 million projected.<\/p>\n

The tribe ignored warnings from the California Nations Indian Gaming<\/strong> Association<\/strong>\u00a0that Trump was looking to exploit them. But when the Trump brand delivered lower-than-expected financial results, The Donald was out and the casino \"Donald-Trump-Apprentice-2011\"reverted to being Spotlight 29. Current tribal chairman Darrell Mike<\/strong> concedes that at least the tribe got a good casino facility out of “a marriage that didn’t work out” (a subject on which Trump is something of an expert). More to the point, once the tribe had learned the ropes of running a casino, they wanted Trump gone. Period.\u00a0\u201cThey didn\u2019t really appreciate that Trump had put up money, had put in slots, and had helped get the money to rejuvenate the place. That was done, the casino was up and making money, and they didn\u2019t think they needed him anymore,\u201d says a Trump defender.<\/p>\n

Trump’s 2004 bankruptcy provided Twenty-Nine Palms with the opportunity to\u00a0buy Trump out of Trump\u00a029. Casino revenues there were ramping up sufficiently that, had he
\n\"Trumpbeen able to sustain the contract, he’d have eventually collected $20 million, not $6 million. In typical Trump fashion, he even took a bath on the buyout. Other than a nightclub and a Trump bobble-head \u00a0in Darrell Mike’s office, you won’t find many souvenirs of the Trump era. The tribe, meanwhile, expanded and prospered, opening a second casino, near Joshua Tree National Park<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cThey figured out pretty quickly that this guy was not what he said he was,” concludes Rocha, “and they could do a better job. And they have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that it wasn’t in Trump’s nature to smear Native Americans when it served his purposes. His habitual, ill-concealed racism surfaced at a hearing of the House Native American Affairs<\/strong> subcommittee when he said of the Mashantucket Pequots<\/strong>, owners of Foxwoods Resort Casino<\/strong>, “they don’t look like Indians to me.” The latter’s sin? They had the temerity to compete against Trump in the casino business. Not content with impugning the tribe’s ancestry, Trump insinuated that tribal gaming was rife with Mafia ties — an accusation more accurately aimed at Trump’s own construction ventures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He would later use similar tactics against the St. Regis Mohawks<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cHe has always been hostile to tribal gaming because he considers any competition a personal affront,\u201d says Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio<\/strong><\/p>\n

The projection of Trump as a successful Atlantic City casino operator is also being revealed as so much smoke and mirrors.<\/a> He built Trump Taj Mahal<\/strong> on a shaky \"trumpfoundation of high-interest junk bonds, which soon had him deeply in hock to his creditors. Detractors also point out that Trump’s successful is mainly as a promoter — of Donald Trump.\u00a0\u201cPurely on his track record as a real estate developer and casino operator, Trump hasn\u2019t demonstrated that he\u2019s a particularly good dealmaker,\u201d says TrumpNation<\/em> author Timothy L. O’Brien<\/strong>, who adds,\u00a0\u201cHe never really buckled down and learned the nuts and bolts of running a casino.”<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people got stuck holding the bag, and he didn\u2019t. So people resented him for that and felt serious financial pain,\u201d adds Temple University<\/strong> historian Bryant Simon<\/strong>. The pain was serious indeed: redemption of debt at less than a penny on the dollar if you were an unsecured creditor.\u00a0\u201cIt was a joke among all the subs that you\u2019d tack on an extra 10% onto your bids.\u00a0He was slow pay, everybody knew,\u201d says United States Roofing Corp<\/strong>. President Dave Farragut<\/strong>. At least Trump enjoyed good relations with labor union Unite-Here Local 54. Says former Trump Plaza<\/strong> cocktail waitress Theresa Volpe<\/strong>,\u00a0\u201cHe was very receptive to our union and our benefits and pension plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Whelan\"Still, former Atlantic City mayor and current state Sen. James Whelan<\/strong> (D) says,\u00a0\u201cI think his personality that people are experiencing on the campaign trail.\u00a0is something that we experienced here …\u00a0I experienced it firsthand. He can be obnoxious.\u201d He downplays Trump’s role as a Boardwalk casino magnate, noting that all three Trump casinos were begun by other companies, including Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong> and Resorts Atlantic City<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it’s a good thing the casino industry is at least temporarily rid of Trump, considering the putrid excuse for a human being<\/a> that he is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump‘s\u00a0current ubiquity is causing the spotlight to fall upon his many setbacks\u00a0in the gaming industry. “If you look at anything that guy has done in this industry, he has a lead thumb \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s the opposite of a golden touch,\u201d … 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":[23,34,42,166,7,140,68,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17991"}],"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=17991"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29688,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17991\/revisions\/29688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}