{"id":19004,"date":"2016-10-14T10:50:57","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T18:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=19004"},"modified":"2021-10-12T05:45:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T13:45:29","slug":"new-player-in-moulin-rouge-saga-jersey-casino-backers-try-to-save-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/new-player-in-moulin-rouge-saga-jersey-casino-backers-try-to-save-face\/","title":{"rendered":"New player in Moulin Rouge saga; Jersey casino backers try to save face"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s another entrant in the perpetual sweepstakes to redevelop the Moulin Rouge<\/strong> site. This time it’s British firm Psi Key Entertainment<\/strong>. It is proposing a 1,288-room hotel for \"moulin\"the acreage. However, Psi Key’s redevelopment plans have to be taken with several grains of salt<\/a>, as they are predicated upon an\u00a0\u201celevated transport system that will bring guests from the airport, through the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>, past the Downtown<\/strong> area to the Moulin Rouge.\u201d Anybody care to pencil out the cost of that, let alone its probability? Psi Key execs need to take some sanity pills. Though not as much of a jumble of ideas as the last idea pitched for a new Moulin Rouge, the British proposal would combine an African-American history museum\u00a0\u201cshowcasing figures of yesteryear throughout history in an artistic immersive and interactive 3-D and holographic experience,\u201d with a convention center, spa, multiple showrooms and a 60,000-square-foot casino floor.<\/p>\n

None of the big ideas floated for the Moulin Rouge site seems to take into account its relative isolation, away from both Downtown and the Strip, nor the need to craft a product that would appeal to locals, who would likely be its bread and butter. This is a job for Station Casinos<\/strong> or Boyd Gaming<\/strong> — and the fact that neither has been mentioned in connection with a Moulin Rouge revival ought to tell you something. Property receiver Kevin Hanchett<\/strong> said, \u201cThe level of sophistication of the buyers is increasing, and I believe that their financial wherewithal is also increasing,\u201d Their pragmatism, however, is not.<\/p>\n

* Facing the prospect of electoral wipeout in November, backers of New Jersey<\/strong>‘s gambling-expansion initiative have switched to damage-control mode<\/a> and are playing for 2018. After all, if their proposal loses in a landslide, as currently appears likely, it will dampen the prospects of getting it into the next election cycle, two years hence. The \"sarlo\"Garden State’s political leaders spent political capital on broadening casino gaming and wouldn’t want to be associated with rancid goods, should voters drop-kick the current initiative by an overwhelming margin. “If we get clocked, we’re not coming back,” said state Rep. Ralph Caputo<\/strong> (D). The goal is to keep the margin of defeat below 20 points. Talk about lowered expectations! State Sen. Paul Sarlo<\/strong> (D, left<\/em>) is already proposing a reboot of the initiative, whereby Meadowlands Racetrack<\/strong> owner Jeff Gural<\/strong> would be juiced into a single casino license and the tax rate would be stated clearly in the ballot language. (The current iteration has been much criticized for a lack of transparency.) Gural has offered to pay a usurious 55%, but that’s not a binding commitment. He blames Atlantic City<\/strong> (“They screwed it up”) for the imminent failure of the referendum but he can’t get around the simple fact that New Jersey voters, unlike those in other states, like having all their casinos in one spot. In other Garden State political news, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak<\/strong> (D) — champion of sports betting — has decided against running for governor, helping clear a path for state Sen. Steve Sweeney<\/strong> (D).<\/p>\n

* Navegante Group<\/strong> has lost another casino-management gaming to Paragon Gaming<\/strong>. First it was Westgate Las Vegas<\/strong>, now it’s Hooters Casino Hotel<\/strong>. Fans of the owl motif and “buxom brand,” as the Las Vegas Sun<\/em> calls it, needn’t worry that either is going anywhere<\/a>. While Hooters seemed like a shoo-in for Vegas it proved unexpectedly tame for Sin City — but nobody has been able to come up with anything more compelling, it would seem. The basic problem, according to William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration<\/strong> Professor of Casino Management Anthony Lucas<\/strong>, is \u201cIt\u2019s not a marquee property and not super fancy like nearby neighbors. It has to compete for a specific price point, and it has to have a pretty focused business plan and marketing plan to do that.” Enter Paragon.<\/p>\n

Adds LVA<\/em>‘s own Anthony Curtis<\/strong>, “when you think about Hooters, you think girls so it makes sense.\u201d It would help if it had a local monopoly on the restaurant brand, but you can find the world’s largest Hooters in Las Vegas … at the Palms<\/strong>. New owner Station Casinos seems pleased with the Palms status quo<\/em>, so you can bet the house that the owl is there to stay.<\/p>\n

* As its absorption by Eldorado Resorts<\/strong> moves forward, Isle of Capri Casinos<\/strong> continues to shed assets. The latest riverboat to go is Lady Lucky Casino Marquette<\/strong>, in Iowa<\/strong>. The $40 million sale is being made to Casino Queen<\/strong> parent QC Holdings Co<\/strong>. The transaction could until\u00a0sometime in fiscal year 2018<\/a> to close. Judging by the initial report, the driving impulse behind the sale is QC’s desire to diversify out of the St. Louis<\/strong> market. One wonders how the news is playing at Eldorado headquarters, where they’re getting less and less Isle of Capri for their money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s another entrant in the perpetual sweepstakes to redevelop the Moulin Rouge site. This time it’s British firm Psi Key Entertainment. It is proposing a 1,288-room hotel for the acreage. However, Psi Key’s redevelopment plans have to be taken with … 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":[23,60,18,51,199,26,153,86,85,53,39,210,159,33,57,9,184],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19004"}],"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=19004"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30169,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19004\/revisions\/30169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}