{"id":18101,"date":"2016-04-14T11:06:22","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T19:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=18101"},"modified":"2016-04-14T11:07:09","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T19:07:09","slug":"smoke-gets-in-their-eyes-tax-breaks-all-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/smoke-gets-in-their-eyes-tax-breaks-all-around\/","title":{"rendered":"Smoke gets in their eyes; Tax breaks all around"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning, it looked like Baton Rouge<\/strong> casinos were going to have to brace themselves for a smoking ban. Today, they’re lighting up celebratory cigars in relief: While \"Aubergeproponents of the smoking ban on the city council had six votes, the expected seventh, swing vote failed to materialize and the ban went down, 6-6. This is good news for area casino operators, Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong> (whose L’Auberge Baton Rouge<\/strong> is pictured), Gaming & Leisure Properties Inc<\/strong>. and Tropicana Entertainment<\/strong>. Perhaps the city councilors were thinking about the fate of Harrah’s New Orleans<\/strong>, which has seen a 10% revenue decline since succumbing to a Big Easy smoking ban, while revenue at Boomtown New Orleans<\/strong> and Treasure Chest<\/strong>, in neighboring Jefferson Parish, is up 6% over the same time frame. “To be fair, Harrah\u2019s New Orleans had been losing share and underperforming prior to the implementation of the smoking restriction as well,” writes Deutsche Bank<\/strong> analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong>. Still, it’s a rare victory for smokers, and for those who believe that smoking and gambling go hand in glove.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Casinos in Reno<\/strong> dodged a $5 million bullet when the Washoe County Commission<\/strong> decided not to charge for back taxes which had been underestimated because the county had been “significantly miscalculating a portion of their gaming tax for seven years.” They’ll have to pay the full tab —\u00a0$994,696 — but commissioners decided to heck with it, it’s too much work<\/a> to try and collect the arrearage:\u00a0“During the seven-year period that gaming taxes were under-billed, many of these operators have ceased operating, changed ownership (sometimes more than once), and the basis for their bill may have changed many times.” There was also the consideration that trying to collect the money could result in lawsuits.<\/p>\n

Things have been on the upswing for the Reno gaming market lately and this is a nice little bonus. How the cities of Reno and Sparks<\/strong> feel about the discovery that they’ve been losing out on $100,000 and $50,000 a year respectively remains to be seen. The casinos still have to negotiate that issue with the municipalities in question. One of the affected casinos, the Sparks Nugget<\/strong>, will have to pay out $1 million<\/a> to the Treasury Department<\/strong>, due to a\u00a0“willful disregard for anti-money laundering laws.”<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the fact that it hosted convicted embezzlers and had been repeatedly alerted to suspicious transactions by its own compliance manager, Sparks saw no need to re-think its defenses,\u201d blasted FinCEN<\/strong>\u00a0Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery<\/strong>. It appears that the penalty will be paid by current ownership, Wolfhound Holdings<\/strong>, not the Ascuaga family, on whose watch the malfeasance occurred. Wolfhound also reached an undisclosed settlement with the Ascuagas over the purchase price of the Nugget. The two parties had each accused the other of owing them money on the transaction.<\/p>\n

* Speaking of tax deals, New York State<\/strong>‘s Legislature has agreed overwhelmingly<\/a> to cut Madison County<\/strong> in for a share of the 25% of slot revenue the state receives from Yellow Brick Road Casino<\/strong>. Having passed with veto-proof majorities, the bill now heads to Gov. Andrew Cuomo<\/strong> (D) for his signature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning, it looked like Baton Rouge casinos were going to have to brace themselves for a smoking ban. Today, they’re lighting up celebratory cigars in relief: While proponents of the smoking ban on the city council had six votes, … 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":[60,117,190,7,84,101,30,25,79,31,20,21,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18101"}],"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=18101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18103,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18101\/revisions\/18103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}