{"id":25776,"date":"2020-01-07T09:23:49","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T17:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=25776"},"modified":"2020-01-07T09:23:49","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T17:23:49","slug":"maryland-maxed-out-adelsons-40-million-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/maryland-maxed-out-adelsons-40-million-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryland maxed out; Adelson’s $40 million lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Casino revenues in the Free State continue to be flat. Maryland<\/strong> gambling houses grossed $149 million last month. MGM National Harbor<\/strong>‘s $62.5 \"\"million\u2014a 4.5% gain\u2014led the state. Slots were down 2% at MGM but table win up 12%, a development that will thrill management, since table games are taxed far more conservatively. MGM had 42% of market share to Maryland Live<\/strong>‘s 35%. The latter was up 3.5% to $52 million. Horseshoe Baltimore<\/strong>, which has become an authority on alienating players\u2014as we saw yesterday<\/a>\u2014dove 16% to $19 million. Maybe Eldorado Resorts<\/strong> CEO Tom Reeg<\/strong> should sell the place to somebody who knows how to run a casino.<\/p>\n

Windmilling Hollywood Perryville<\/strong> had one of its down months, off 3.5% to $6 million. Ocean Downs<\/strong> rose 4% to $5.5 million, despite being in off-season, and Rocky Gap Resort<\/strong> slipped 4.5% to $4 million. Wait for warm weather, Rocky Gap.<\/p>\n

* Iran<\/strong>‘s response to the Suleimani affair may be something far more insidious than blowing stuff\u00a0up. Why do we mention this? Because we can take a page from the history books, namely the cyber attack<\/a> on Sheldon \"\"Adelson<\/strong>, conducted via the soft underbelly of Sands Bethlehem<\/strong>‘s Web site. Adelson’s provocation was merely verbal, calling for preemptive nuclear strikes on Iran. That didn’t spare him from devastating computer terrorism. The cyber-strike infected 75% of Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>‘ Sin City servers, costing the company $40 million. After bringing Sands to its knees<\/a>, Iranian hackers have had five years to practice for something much bigger and worse. One can hope that other companies don’t share Adelson’s disdain for the Internet and his then-puny (five people for the entire company=one staff per 5,000 computers) cyber-protection force.\u00a0\u201cThis isn\u2019t the kind of business you can get into in Iran without the government knowing,\u201d James Lewis<\/strong>,\u00a0senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies<\/strong> told Bloomberg<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Would a repeat strike spur a U.S. counterattack? “Las Vegas<\/strong> casinos don\u2019t deliver essential services to the U.S. population, apart from Cirque du Soleil<\/strong> addicts,” drily noted Bloomberg<\/em>. But other industries and infrastructure providers may have more cause for worry. As former CIA<\/strong> director Michael Hayden<\/strong> put it,\u00a0\u201cIf there is a cyber Chinese attack coming up the fiber-optic cable in the Houston Ship Channel<\/strong>, what does U.S. law say the U.S. government should do? I think what we\u2019re finding is there isn\u2019t a real robust answer.\u201d And Adelson? He’s become considerably more circumspect in his public comments following the 2014 cyber-strike, suggesting he’s learnt to let sleeping attack dogs lie.<\/p>\n

* If you’re driving from Las Vegas<\/strong> to Reno<\/strong> you may see the billion-dollar corpse of Crescent Dunes<\/strong>, an Obama administration solar-energy project that couldn’t keep up with the times<\/a>. Says one Tonopah<\/strong> \"\"resident, \u201cIt\u2019s dead. But real pretty, though. You can see it for miles.\u201d Solar-power technology evolved faster than Crescent Dunes could be built. Harry Reid<\/strong> has this boondoggle on his conscience, although we doubt he’s contrite. NV Energy<\/strong> has quit buying power from Crescent Dunes, which knocks the props out from under it. Any lone-wolf energy buyers in the casino industry who want to throw this white elephant a lifeline?<\/p>\n

* Binion’s Gambling Hall<\/strong> took to Facebook<\/strong> to promise “We’re making an out of this world announcement in 10 Days. Any guesses what it is? Watch the announcement on our Facebook & Instagram<\/strong> pages January 16 at 10:30 a.m. PST” Reader Bud Sicks Jr<\/strong>. was not impressed, asking “You are finally going to fix the elevator for the parking structure” Given the relative lack of major developments at Binion’s that would<\/em> qualify as “out of this world.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casino revenues in the Free State continue to be flat. Maryland gambling houses grossed $149 million last month. MGM National Harbor‘s $62.5 million\u2014a 4.5% gain\u2014led the state. Slots were down 2% at MGM but table win up 12%, a development … 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":[244,176,70,51,117,97,52,241,189,72,245,69,12,8,161],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25776"}],"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=25776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25777,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25776\/revisions\/25777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}