{"id":19969,"date":"2017-07-24T07:14:07","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T15:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=19969"},"modified":"2017-07-24T07:35:47","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T15:35:47","slug":"play-dirty-ayre-beats-the-rap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/play-dirty-ayre-beats-the-rap\/","title":{"rendered":"Play dirty; Ayre beats the rap"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the great things about Nevada<\/strong>‘s gambling industry is that it’s a free market. If you’ve got the capitalization and qualify for a license, any number can play. (Actually, some have gotten licensed only to be \"\"exposed as empty suits, but we won’t belabor the point.) In a bit of dirty pool, three Carson City<\/strong> casinos went to court to try and impede competition. The owners of\u00a0Carson City Nugget<\/strong>, Gold Dust West<\/strong> and Casino Fandango<\/strong> asked the courts to block the\u00a0licensure of Michael Pegram<\/strong> to reopen the defunct Horseshoe Club<\/strong>. What gave the plaintiffs conniption fits <\/a>was that regulators had not revoked the Horseshoe Club’s exemption from needing to have 100 hotel rooms, grandfathering Pegram into this status. Horrors! The plaintiffs had already had their bite of the apple when Pegram was going through the licensing process and deserved the verdict they received. Chalk up a victory for the Carson City economy.<\/p>\n

* Calvin Ayre<\/strong> got off really easy. The Internet<\/strong>-gambling mogul saw all felony charges against him dropped by the Justice Department<\/strong> in return for a guilty plea to one misdemeanor. In one of the most lopsided plea bargains ever (emphasis on “bargain”), Ayre got unsupervised probation and will have to peel off $500,000 in cash to Uncle Sam. Despite the one “guilty” plea, we’d say Ayre is the winner in this match with The Man.<\/p>\n

* James Packer<\/strong> is evidently trying to buy out rival Star Entertainment<\/strong>, using fund Ellerston Capital<\/strong> as his stalking horse. The latter has been gobbling up Star stock<\/a> in the aftermath of Genting Group<\/strong>‘s liquidation of its position in Star, which controls multiple \"\"Australian casino-resorts and has more in train. Packer, meanwhile, is reeling from a series of reversals at debt-plagued Crown Entertainment<\/strong>. It sold its portion of Melco Crown Entertainment, got kicked out of Sri Lanka<\/strong> and gave up on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>. Packer has been mum but Ellerston issued a statement, saying, \u201cWe see solid growth prospects for Star, driven by its capital investment program and growth strategy.\u201d That sounds like the talk of a predator on the hunt.<\/p>\n

* Worried about\u00a0a massive banishment of its members, the Culinary Union<\/strong> is petitioning the Trump administration to extend Temporary Protected Status to workers from El Salvador<\/strong>, Haiti<\/strong>, Honduras<\/strong>, Nepal<\/strong>, Nicaragua<\/strong>, Somalia<\/strong>, Sudan<\/strong>, South Sudan<\/strong>, Syria<\/strong>, and Yemen<\/strong>, among others. \u201cApproximately 2,800 immigrants with TPS designations call Nevada<\/strong> home and have lived in the United States<\/strong> for nearly 10 years. They pay taxes, raise their children who are U.S. citizens, and contribute to our economy. If TPS were to expire, it would criminalize thousands of current legal workers in major cities and industries overnight,” argued Geogonda Arg\u00fcello-Kline<\/strong> of the Culinary.<\/p>\n

For his part, Culinary member Mauricio Valdez<\/strong> fears a forced return<\/a> to his homeland. \u201cI fled El Salvador 16 years ago,” he says, “because of \"\"all the violence \u2013- it wasn\u2019t safe for me there. I\u2019ve lived in the U.S. since 2001, I met and married the love of my life, had a son that I\u2019m so proud of, and I even bought a house with my wife. America is my home and I wouldn\u2019t be able to stay in this country with my family if I didn\u2019t have TPS.” The status is intended for citizens of war-torn countries, and they’ve already been vetted and received security clearance. TPS-nonrenewal would deal a severe blow to the casino industry but, given the xenophobic tenor of Donald Trump<\/strong> and his administration, we should brace ourselves for the worst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the great things about Nevada‘s gambling industry is that it’s a free market. If you’ve got the capitalization and qualify for a license, any number can play. (Actually, some have gotten licensed only to be exposed as empty … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[103,219,151,42,120,22,37,96,189,207,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19969"}],"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=19969"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19973,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19969\/revisions\/19973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}