{"id":18543,"date":"2016-07-22T08:39:25","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T16:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=18543"},"modified":"2016-07-22T10:20:08","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T18:20:08","slug":"pinnacle-dominates-louisiana-trump-settles-vegas-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/pinnacle-dominates-louisiana-trump-settles-vegas-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinnacle dominates Louisiana; Trump settles Vegas case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pulled under\u00a0by the Shreveport\/Bossier City<\/strong> market (-6%), June gaming numbers in Louisiana<\/strong> came in 3% off last year’s. Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>‘s Boomtown Bossier<\/strong> ($5 million) far \"samsoutperformed the competition, up 11%. Hardest hit were the Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> properties, with usually reliable Horseshoe Bossier City<\/strong> plunging 16% ($14 million) and Louisiana Downs<\/strong> 9% off the pace, at $3 million. Eldorado Shreveport<\/strong> also had an aberrantly bad month, down 8% and grossing $10 million. Except for Sam’s Town<\/strong> (-1%, $6 million, above<\/em>), all other casinos were essentially flat for June. In fact, Boyd Gaming<\/strong> had a rough month of it across the market. Delta Downs<\/strong> was down indeed (-5.5%, $14 million), Amelia Belle<\/strong> swooned 7% ($4 million, below<\/em>) and Evangeline Downs<\/strong> was 6% off, to $7 million. Only old reliable, Treasure Chest<\/strong>, had a good month. It grossed $9 million, a 3% gain.<\/p>\n

Considering that Pinnacle’s Boomtown New Orleans<\/strong> (-1%, $9 million) wasn’t up for the month, it isn’t necessarily a case of the smoking casinos besting the non-smoking ones in the New Orleans<\/strong> area. That being said, both Harrah’s New Orleans<\/strong> and Churchill Downs<\/strong>‘ Fair Grounds<\/strong> racino had \"ameliasymmetrical, 6% declivities. The former grossed $19.5 million, the latter $3 million. As big as the Harrah’s gross was, it was absolutely dwarfed by the $30 million haul in Lake Charles<\/strong> made by Pinnacle’s L’Auberge du Lac<\/strong>. L’Auberge put a hurt on all its rivals, with Golden Nugget<\/strong> down 3% to $21 million and Isle of Capri<\/strong> falling 11% to $10 million.<\/p>\n

L’Auberge Baton Rouge<\/strong>, it scarcely needs saying, continues to own the Baton Rouge<\/strong> area, up 6.5% to $13 million. Second place went to Gaming & Leisure Properties<\/strong>‘ Casino Rouge<\/strong>, up 1% to $5.5. million. Tropicana Entertainment<\/strong> lost ground at Belle of Baton Rouge<\/strong>, down 7% to $5 million. GLPI’s transformation of Penn National Gaming<\/strong> left it with a very mixed bag of properties but its acquisition of Pinnacle is pure gold.<\/p>\n

* In non-political news, Donald Trump<\/strong> settled a National Labor Relations Board<\/strong> complaint with two Trump International<\/strong> workers whose support for unionization got them penalized. As is usual with Trump-owned properties, The Donald is contesting an \"trumpNLRB-certified election to unionize the hotel, which has been sporadically picketed<\/a>, as recently as Wednesday. Trump’s $11,200 payout is quite a turnaround<\/a> from calling the case “completely without merit.” The Culinary Union<\/strong> took a victory lap, with Secretary\u00a0Geoconda Arguello-Kline<\/strong> saying,\u00a0\u201cWhile we were eager to go to trial to prove that Donald Trump\u2019s hotel broke the law, this settlement is a great victory for his employees whom we contend suffered discrimination because of their union activity and support.\u201d We’ll believe Trump represents\u00a0the little guy when he gives his Las Vegas<\/strong> workers wage parity with those at other Strip hotels. (Trump friend Carl Icahn<\/strong> has stirred up some heavyweight opposition<\/a> in his battle with strikers at Trump Taj Mahal<\/strong> in Atlantic City<\/strong>, a bout that shows no signs of pacification<\/a>. But if it’s a war of attrition<\/a>, Icahn is favored to win.)<\/p>\n

* In other Culinary news, the union is having trouble taking “yes” for an answer when it asks whether Station Casinos<\/strong> will respect Palms Resort<\/strong> employees’ job security and benefits. The company not only made a verbal commitment at the time of its purchase of the Palms, it reiterated it in an open letter to workers<\/a>. Said Station spokeswoman Lori Nelson<\/strong>, “we reconfirmed our commitment that hourly team members will not have to reapply for their jobs. They will retain their original hire date and seniority date, wage rate, title and job.\u201d However, the Culinary wants that commitment to extend to third-party contractor Sodexo<\/strong>. This seems to be taking matters a bit far. It’s not Station’s fault that previous owners farmed out food-service jobs to Sodexo and the former ought to be free to choose which independent contractors it wants to retain. The Culinary will have a difficult enough task unionizing regular Palms employees, so maybe it should pick and choose its battles more judiciously.<\/p>\n

* The Michael Gaughan<\/strong>-run slots at McCarran International Airport<\/strong> are usually a mug’s game but not for an Ohio visitor. “Randall” was playing Wheel of Fortune<\/em> when a $478,836 jackpot hit<\/a>. Bon voyage and congratulations, sir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pulled under\u00a0by the Shreveport\/Bossier City market (-6%), June gaming numbers in Louisiana came in 3% off last year’s. Pinnacle Entertainment‘s Boomtown Bossier ($5 million) far outperformed the competition, up 11%. Hardest hit were the Caesars Entertainment properties, with usually reliable … 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":[23,60,82,176,151,42,190,7,85,84,159,69,30,111,92,57,129,21,196],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18543"}],"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=18543"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18552,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18543\/revisions\/18552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}