{"id":19669,"date":"2017-04-27T05:42:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T13:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=19669"},"modified":"2017-04-27T06:00:08","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T14:00:08","slug":"freeman-sports-betting-is-coming-second-thoughts-on-paradise-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/freeman-sports-betting-is-coming-second-thoughts-on-paradise-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeman: Sports betting is coming; Second thoughts on Paradise Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

It could be a case of wishing that legalization of sports betting will make it so. Or maybe Geoff Freeman<\/strong> is privy to intelligence that he’s not shared with the rest of us. Either way, he thinks a sports-\"\"betting repeal could happen in the first term<\/a> of Donald Trump<\/strong>‘s administration.\u00a0\u201cI think we\u2019re closer than at any point in the past several decades to making that a reality. With that said, there\u2019s a process here. We\u2019re committed to that process, which means working with the leagues and other interested parties to ensure alignment on all the key issues,\u201d Freeman told Fox Business<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The major holdout against sports betting is no particular politician but NFL<\/strong> Commissioner Roger Goodell<\/strong>, who has said that the practice is a “major risk” to the league. (So you’re going to give back on that money people are betting on NFL-supported DFS, right Rog?) A Fairleigh Dickinson<\/strong> poll sides with Freeman, showing a plurality of Americans support legalized sports betting. Given the tenor of some of Trump’s remarks on the subject, Freeman’s heavy lifting is going to be on Capitol Hill<\/strong>, where the current status of support for keeping the Bradley Act<\/strong> in place has yet to be tested.<\/p>\n

* In light of yesterday’s announcement of a scaled-back Wynn Paradise Park<\/strong>, I wonder if the King Kong<\/strong> statue is still in the cards or whether I was overhasty in thinking it hadn’t been postponed, at minimum. For that matter, how many other amenities (like giant ziplines) are going to have to be sacrificed to keep the project within one-third of its original budget? Building the lake alone isn’t going to come cheap and Steve Wynn<\/strong> will want to have the best convention center possible. Those last two items are the essentials and Wynn’s current tack is ‘back to basics.’<\/p>\n

* “Off-seasons in most seaside resorts are subdued, but Atlantic City<\/strong> holds an especially sombre feel, a garishly decorated ghost town, \"\"where many of the grand casinos are empty, bankrupt and abandoned,” reads a guide to the sites immortalized in Monopoly<\/em>. I can never get my Mom to play the game because she thinks it glorifies capitalism but even she might find this walk down Memory Boardwalk<\/a> interesting. For instance, Hard Rock International<\/strong>‘s retooling of Trump Taj Mahal<\/strong> is going to require removing 72 minarets and nine (white?) elephants. However, I would disagree with the contention that “the race to buy up property and develop hotels has all but ruined Atlantic City.” Its saga is far more complicated than that.<\/p>\n

It’s about to get more agonizing still, now that Carl Icahn<\/strong> has filed 10 tax appeals<\/a> over levies on the Taj and the Tropicana Atlantic City<\/strong> dating back to 2014. We already know that if there’s one thing Carl Icahn hates, it’s paying people money. Neither Icahn nor the State of New Jersey<\/strong> would specify how much property-tax money Icahn is \"\"trying to claw back but Gov. Chris Christie<\/strong> (R) floated the idea of a Borgata<\/strong>-style compromise, adding, “what everyone needs to understand is there\u2019s not much money left here.\u201d\u00a0Christie is actually partly to blame for the impasse. Had he not vacillated\u00a0on enacting the PILOT bill, Icahn would have been unable to appeal his 2015-16 assessment. Oops, governor. The Trop was dunned\u00a0last year for\u00a0over $22 million while the Taj was assessed only $9 million and Trump Plaza<\/strong> was near-worthless, paying $1.5 million. The Plaza is appraised at $31 million. Good luck recouping that in a sale.<\/p>\n

* I wonder if this policy<\/a> will come to Goldman Sachs<\/strong>‘ four Nevada<\/strong> casinos (Stratosphere<\/strong>, Aquarius<\/strong> and both Arizona Charlie’s<\/strong>). The company will have to walk a fine line between being inclusive and intrusive. Would it even stand up in court?<\/p>\n

* The XTrain<\/strong>, with its in-transit seafood restaurant, will probably never get any closer to Las Vegas<\/strong> than some design renderings. Maybe casino buffets could install the sushi bullet train<\/a> instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It could be a case of wishing that legalization of sports betting will make it so. Or maybe Geoff Freeman is privy to intelligence that he’s not shared with the rest of us. Either way, he thinks a sports-betting repeal … 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":[23,88,82,18,42,174,81,140,49,33,74,32,8,9,100,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669"}],"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=19669"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19672,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions\/19672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}