{"id":2256,"date":"2010-02-12T13:25:53","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T21:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=2256"},"modified":"2021-08-11T06:04:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T14:04:31","slug":"aqueduct-penn-got-hosed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/aqueduct-penn-got-hosed\/","title":{"rendered":"Aqueduct: Penn got hosed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite its runaway hyperbole, this Empire State editorial makes a good point: The Aqueduct<\/strong> racino deal smells like a week-old fish and ought to be investigated. (It isn’t<\/a> — but it should be<\/a>.) Since all bids involved multiple players<\/a>, sorting out the “best” candidate involves delving into a lot of companies with which S&G<\/em> is unfamiliar. However …<\/p>\n

A common denominator to all would-be ownership groups was the presence of a casino operator. The winner, Navegante Group<\/strong> is hardly a newbie to the business, having helped Galaxy Entertainment<\/strong> find its feet in Macao<\/strong>. But right now it’s mostly associated with rural Nevada<\/strong> casinos, and with trying to make a go of underfunded operations in downtown Las Vegas<\/strong> and at the Sahara<\/strong>. In both cases, tightwad owners Tamares Group<\/strong> and Sam Nazarian<\/strong> have locked their casinos into a slow death spiral and there’s not much Navegante can do but manage the ensuing decline.<\/p>\n

More germane to Aqueduct<\/strong>, Navegante has no racino experience. Neither did rival MGM Mirage<\/strong> (nor did Steve Wynn<\/strong>, who realized that the fix was in and withdrew). Nor did the Seminole Tribe<\/strong>, which was bidding under the rubric of Hard Rock Entertainment<\/strong>. That leaves Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong> and Penn National<\/strong>. Both run racinos and Harrah’s could install a much larger marketing engine. However, Harrah’s also has an oversupply of Atlantic City<\/strong> casinos (four) and a parimutuel in Chester<\/strong>, Pa., so Eastern Division President Don Marrandino<\/strong> might not promote the property as aggressively as Penn.<\/p>\n

Besides, Harrah’s has developed a bad habit of toying with projects, then abandoning them for the next shiny object that comes along. Finally, Penn is better capitalized than Harrah’s — and who thought the day would ever come that one would type that<\/em> statement? Heck, it was the only candidate to pledge $300 million in upfront money. (Navegante’s partners did, but only after some strong-arming from Albany<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

So if all other considerations<\/strong> are put aside and it’s purely a question of which operator’s resum\u00e9 most closely measures up with the job at hand, the winner ought to be Penn and it shouldn’t even have been close. Peter Carlino<\/strong>, you got screwed and you have S&G<\/em>‘s sympathies.<\/p>\n

A bit to the south<\/strong>, both racino operators and lawmakers in Delaware<\/strong> are hustling to get table games into play ASAP. A significant motivator is the desire to siphon off players from the Philadelphia<\/strong> market. Enjoy your honeymoon, Delaware, because it’s going to be short<\/a>. You’ve got a beautiful state but Pennsylvanians aren’t going to drive there once they can play 21 closer to home.<\/p>\n

It’s a nippy day in Hell<\/strong> when S&G<\/em> sees an anti-gambling editorial it likes. But Mike Hollis<\/strong> not only acknowledges his moral\/societal objections to gambling in Alabama<\/strong>, he then sets them aside. What Hollis proceeds to do is make a very thorough takedown<\/a> of legislation pending in Alabama that would legitimize the state’s non-tribal bingo parlors. He raises serious free-market questions, as well as others regarding how the potential tax revenues would be disbursed. Finally, showing that he’s a man of his word, Hollis proposes putting the whole kit ‘n kaboodle to Cotton State voters, in the form of a constitutional amendment.<\/p>\n

Hollis makes substantive points I’ve not seen addressed elsewhere. And, given the crazy-quilt of laws that makes electronic legal in some Alabama counties (except when it isn’t), a constitutional amendment looks like the cutting instrument this Gordian knot requires.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Hell …<\/strong> the increasingly infernal Fontainebleau<\/strong> saga now pits one bankrupt entity versus another<\/a>. By the way, it’s become accepted wisdom that F-bleau is 70% finished. What evidence do we have of this? Neither the on-site photographs or video I’ve seen supports that claim. Also, in a KLAS-TV<\/strong> report on Carl Icahn<\/strong>‘s takeover of the property, completion time for F-bleau was estimated at 18 months … on a megaresort that was supposedly only six months from opening last April. Penn National projected that $1.5 billion was required to finish a property on which at least $2 billion has already been spent. None of this sounds like “almost there,” does it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite its runaway hyperbole, this Empire State editorial makes a good point: The Aqueduct racino deal smells like a week-old fish and ought to be investigated. (It isn’t — but it should be.) Since all bids involved multiple players, sorting … 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":[135,23,82,51,59,7,62,11,101,69,95,33,111,54,32,47,9,20,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256"}],"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=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29941,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions\/29941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}