{"id":2423,"date":"2010-03-02T12:42:09","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T20:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=2423"},"modified":"2019-02-05T08:59:26","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T16:59:26","slug":"chronicle-of-a-black-foretold-river-city-looking-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/chronicle-of-a-black-foretold-river-city-looking-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Chronicle of a Black foretold; River City looking good"},"content":{"rendered":"

Randy Black<\/strong>, that is. The CEO who ran the Mesquite<\/strong> market straight into the ground (with a sizable assist from the Nevada Gaming Control Board<\/strong> and Gaming Commission<\/strong>) and turned the former Si Redd’s Oasis<\/strong> into a slot route — a pathetic 16 machines — has kept his promise<\/a> to put Black Gaming into bankruptcy. Under the new arrangement, most of the heavy lifting will be done out of South Point, now that Michael Gaughan<\/strong> has emerged as the power behind Black’s tottering throne.<\/p>\n

Publicity ho Black makes a useful front man for the very media-shy Gaughan, who has also installed former Coast Casinos<\/strong> hand Anthony Toti<\/strong> at the levers of power (i.e., chief operating officer). Toti’s been around Black Gaming for a while<\/a> but Randy B. was pulling all the important strings at the time. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, debtors will take a scalding bath. By dint of an $18+ million cash infusion, Black’s debt will go from $200 million to $62.5 million — roughly a $120 million haircut. The knowledge that Black Gaming’s operations will now be in more competent hands is very small consolation by comparison.<\/p>\n

No trouble in River City<\/strong>. The new Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong> property got a rave today from J.P. Morgan<\/strong>, which used terms like “beautiful” and even invoked comparisons to Wynn Las Vegas<\/strong> and Encore<\/strong>. High praise indeed. The $357 million price tag indicates that you can<\/em> build a marquee regional property without blowing the bank (Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>, Frank Fertitta III<\/strong>, Don Barden<\/strong> take note) — albeit sans<\/em> hotel, one must acknowledge — and management appears to be shooting for a 14% ROI … hardly a preposterous goal at that cost. In Wynn-like fashion, River City<\/strong> features wide aisles. It has 2,100 slots and 55 table games, which is probably a judicious mix now that lifting of wager limits in Missouri<\/strong> has turned out to be a mild panacea.<\/p>\n

\"RiverIn terms of a Vegas analogy, one might say that River City is going to be Boulder Station to Lumiere Place<\/strong>‘s Red Rock Resort, or Sam’s Town to its Stardust (except we don’t have a Stardust<\/strong> anymore — sniff<\/em>!). WMS Gaming<\/strong> is the big winner on the slot floor, representing 30% of the inventory, with Konami<\/strong> (12% of the machines), emerging as Pinnacle’s fair-haired boy: “their games were performing extremely well across PNK\u2019s portfolio.” IGT<\/strong> was perceived as the loser in terms of market share.<\/p>\n

Rather more depressingly<\/strong> comes news that, while the CEO search is down to two or three finalists, the lucky [?] winner is expected to be “more of an operator than a developer.” Dan Lee<\/strong>-style big-idea guys (and gals) need not apply. Since the chairman and CEO positions will be severed, this confirms S&G<\/em>‘s suspicion that COB Richard Goeglein<\/strong> is looking for a flunky CEO and will continue to pull the strings. Considering that Goeglein’s signature achievement was the Aladdin<\/strong> 2.0, the New Coke<\/strong> of casinos, this is not a heartening turn of events.<\/p>\n

Former casino regulator<\/strong> and federal judge Brian Sandoval<\/strong> continues to pile up GOP endorsements<\/a> in his gubernatorial bid. Two of his key backers, Reno<\/strong> Mayor Bob Cashell<\/strong> and state Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio<\/strong> (as crusty a character as I’ve ever met), were on the receiving end of public screw-overs by Gov. Jim Gibbons<\/strong> — multiple ones, in Raggio’s case. Unfortunately for Midnight Jim, he’s finding that his fuck-you style of governance is coming back to bite him in the butt … within his own party.<\/p>\n

Having observed and dealt with Sandoval during his pre-judicial years, I’d have no qualms pulling the lever for him. Considering that Gibbons is in the process of dismantling Nevada<\/strong>‘s regulatory apparatus, one would hope and expect that Sandoval will lend a more sympathetic ear to the Nevada Gaming Control Board<\/strong>‘s staffing and funding crises.<\/p>\n

However, Jon Ralston<\/strong> spots a ray of hope<\/a> for Midnight Jim<\/strong>, based on his Gumby<\/strong>-like performance during the recent special session. Archon Corp<\/strong>.’s Sue Lowden<\/strong>, meanwhile, is starting to show up on that national radar — more bad news for Sen. Harry Reid<\/strong> (D-NV). Poor old Hapless Harry; all that water-carrying for Big Mining, Big Real Estate and Big Gaming down the drain.<\/p>\n

Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss<\/strong>. An S&G<\/em> reader reminds me that today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss<\/strong>. In his memory, here is a great Saturday Night Live<\/em> moment. Lorne Michaels<\/strong> had the inspiration to mark the great author’s passing by having Green Eggs & Ham<\/em> recited by the Rev. Jesse Jackson<\/strong> and the rest is comedic history<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Randy Black, that is. The CEO who ran the Mesquite market straight into the ground (with a sizable assist from the Nevada Gaming Control Board and Gaming Commission) and turned the former Si Redd’s Oasis into a slot route — … 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":[46,60,28,83,26,52,29,126,122,137,30,6,33,25,12,57,32,17,38,89],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423"}],"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=2423"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23474,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423\/revisions\/23474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}