{"id":23220,"date":"2019-01-07T08:34:55","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T16:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=23220"},"modified":"2019-01-07T08:34:55","modified_gmt":"2019-01-07T16:34:55","slug":"frissora-postpones-departure-oscar-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/frissora-postpones-departure-oscar-forecast\/","title":{"rendered":"Frissora postpones departure; Oscar forecast"},"content":{"rendered":"

That game of musical chairs known as industry consolidation has left a lot of fine ladies and gentlemen standing when the melody stopped, included Anthony Sanfilippo<\/strong>, a favorite of ours. However, Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> apparently hasn’t heard of any of \"\"these people, as it has prevailed upon CEO Mark Frissora<\/strong> to extend his tenure through April, despite reports of tension<\/a> between Frissora and shareholders. If you’re of a conspiratorial mindset, perhaps Caesars is vamping for time as it positions itself seductively for an MGM Resorts International<\/strong> takeover, which would render the CEO question moot. But Caesars has taken the succession issue seriously enough to hire an outside executive-search firm but, in a typical Caesars blunder, engaged one that has been incapable of locating a replacement for Frissora, despite a target-rich environment. Frissora, meanwhile, was enticed to stay on with a $7 million compensation package. That will buy a lot of Excedrin to make those shareholder headaches go away. Whoever Mr. or Ms. Right turns out to be, one hopes they have a gaming background and won’t repeat such Frissora faux pas<\/em> as imposing parking fees.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0There’s a chicken-and-egg quality to Gavin Isaacs<\/strong>‘ having left Scientific Games<\/strong> and having almost immediately popped up at SB Tech<\/strong>. It looks like Isaacs left the former for the latter. However, Isaacs says he decided to join SB Tech only after<\/em> departing Scientific, which implies a whirlwind courtship. SB Tech is ramping up its U.S. \"\"presence<\/a>, so one easily sees where Isaacs comes into the picture as non-executive chairman. Even were the company not doing so well, he immediately gives it street cred. Isaacs says,\u00a0\u201cI was approached by a number of companies since leaving Scientific Games. \u00a0However, I chose to join SBTech due to its superior technology, high standards across every discipline, entrepreneurial approach and incredible ambition and potential to grow further across a wide variety of regulated markets including the U.S. … The business has already made significant inroads into the newly regulated U.S. sports betting market, and I am extremely excited to be able to help and advise the senior management team to expand that even further across 2019 and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said SB Tech CEO Richard Carter<\/strong>, “This is a huge coup for the business,\u201d and he’s not exaggerating. Having held leadership roles at Scientific, SHFL Entertainment<\/strong>, Bally Technologies<\/strong> and Aristocrat Technologies<\/strong>, Isaacs knows the manufacturing side of the industry like the back of his hand. (He’s a really nice guy, too.)<\/p>\n

* Despite one less weekend day in which to conduct business, Illinois<\/strong> casinos were up almost 1% last month. Revenue leader Rivers Casino<\/strong> ($38 million) was flat, as was Harrah’s Joliet<\/strong> ($15.5 million), while Empress Joliet<\/strong> rode a 3.5% gain to $10 \"\"million. Eldorado Resorts<\/strong> continued turning Grand Victoria<\/strong> around (up 1.5%, $13 million), while Penn National Gaming<\/strong> made a dramatic 9% gain at Hollywood Aurora<\/strong> ($10.5 million). Mid-state, Boyd Gaming<\/strong> made a surprising, 3% comeback at Par-A-Dice<\/strong> ($6 million) and Jumer’s Casino Rock Island<\/strong> was up 6% to $6 million. In the St. Louis<\/strong> market, Argosy Belle<\/strong> shot up 12% to $4 million and Casino Queen<\/strong> fell 6% to $8 million. Elsewhere, Harrah’s Metropolis<\/strong> logged $6 million, a 10.5% decline.<\/p>\n

* Where is Johnny Avello<\/strong> when we need him? Last night’s Golden Globes<\/strong> narrowed the Oscar<\/strong> race down to a contest between Green Book<\/em> and Roma<\/em> (despite Tinseltown aversion to Roma<\/em> backer Netflix<\/strong>). Best actor and actress contests were complicated by wild cards<\/a> Rami Malek<\/strong>, Olivia Colman<\/strong> and Glenn Close<\/strong>, the latter forever an Oscar bridesmaid, never a bride. In the meantime, the Academy might as well engrave statuettes for Regina King<\/strong> (If Beale Street Could Talk<\/em>) and especially Mahershala Ali<\/strong> (Green Book<\/em>), and put them in the mail. It’s a done deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That game of musical chairs known as industry consolidation has left a lot of fine ladies and gentlemen standing when the melody stopped, included Anthony Sanfilippo, a favorite of ours. However, Caesars Entertainment apparently hasn’t heard of any of these … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106,77,60,244,199,58,10,69,242,160,107,243,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23220"}],"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=23220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23221,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23220\/revisions\/23221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}