{"id":28672,"date":"2020-10-22T08:25:53","date_gmt":"2020-10-22T16:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=28672"},"modified":"2020-10-27T06:06:50","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T14:06:50","slug":"first-amendment-1-sahara-0-pennsylvania-sets-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/first-amendment-1-sahara-0-pennsylvania-sets-record\/","title":{"rendered":"First Amendment 1, Sahara 0; Pennsylvania sets record"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Loser.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In what must have been an easy call for jurisprudence, a Clark County<\/strong> judge has ash canned<\/a> the Sahara<\/strong>‘s frivolous lawsuit against Vital Vegas<\/em> author Scott Roeben<\/strong>. “Ill-considered” was about the nicest thing Judge Trevor Atkin<\/strong> had to say in granting Roeben’s anti-SLAPP motion<\/a>, leaving Alex Meruelo<\/strong> free to appeal, if he’s a glutton for punishment. He’s already on the hook for Roeben’s legal fees\u2014and Lord knows how much PR to repair the Sahara’s battered reputation. Roeben’s counter motion\u2014crafted by Nevada<\/strong> treasure Marc Randazza<\/strong>\u2014disclosed many damning details about the casino’s operations, dirty linen we’re sure Meruelo would have preferred to keep in the bag. As Roeben recapitulates, “We had a source for our Sahara story, a representative of a liquidation company asked to bid for the removal and sale of all the physical assets at Sahara. The liquidation bids were set to expire at the end of September, according to the source, hence his belief the resort might close at that time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

While Meruelo might yet appeal, his immediate response seems to have been to have Roeben ‘trespassed’ from the Sahara, a petty move that says more about him than Roeben. Among his unrealistic demands while his lawsuit limped forward was that the Sahara would be given prior approval of anything Vital Vegas<\/em> was to print about it. Who does Meruelo think he is? Owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/em>? As Roeben says, “The only real bright spot in this mess is Sahara has probably stayed open just to spite us. That\u2019s great for the employees, and while we won\u2019t be able to tell them our feelings in person, they know we love them and miss them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. It’s warm and smelly, and gets relieved on your legs but a drug-addled North Carolina<\/strong> pastor on a red-eye flight home from sowing his wild oats in Sin City. The man of the cloth apparently couldn’t make it to the bathroom so he simply whipped out his John Thomas and urinated on the woman next to him<\/a>. “I jump up and I seen his private area out and I screamed and that woke everybody up,” said understandably traumatized Alicia Beverly<\/strong>. “By that time I actually looked at him and I see him shake himself off and I’m like this man just peed on me! I looked and there was a puddle of pee in the seats!” Beverly had to spend the rest of the flight in urine-soaked clothing. The man was taken into custody, presumably booked as Exhibit #3,849 of people who think that being in Las Vegas <\/strong>entitles them to act like a pig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hard Rock Atlantic City<\/strong> is trying that reinvent-the-buffet thing. It flopped at Wynncore<\/strong> but we wish Hard Rock better luck with it. Your requests will be delivered to your table and the whole thing costs $29.99, a good deal as buffets go. Maybe Atlantic City<\/strong> gamblers won’t be so persnickety as Las Vegas ones and won’t turn up their noses at the idea of being able to belly up to the buffet, sans social distancing, and load their plates to the limit (and beyond).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst still on the Boardwalk, we note that Konami Gaming<\/strong> is coming to town this week<\/a> with its traveling roadshow of new slots. Virtual demonstrations of gaming product have become the order of the day but there’s no substitute for trying a new game in person. Global Gaming Business<\/em> describes Konami’s caravan as “a Winnebago Winnovation<\/strong> RV emblazoned with Konami\u2019s logo and colors that has been crisscrossing the country since midsummer, parking at key customer locations and inviting clients from across each region for demonstrations.” Potential buyers from as far away as Pittsburgh<\/strong> have been flocking to Ocean Casino Resort<\/strong> to sample Konami’s 16 slot wares. Said COO Thomas Jingoli<\/strong>, “Ocean really stepped up and gave us a good location. You can do demos, and you have an ocean view. You don\u2019t get that too often.\u201d Next, Konami heads for Covid-crazy Florida<\/strong>. Stay well, guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, after some A.C. uncertainty\u2014including a New Jersey Casino Control Commission<\/strong> hearing scrapped at the 11th hour\u2014it’s a done deal for Bally’s Atlantic City<\/strong>. The property passes to Twin River Holdings<\/strong> for a paltry $25 million and Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> gets out of having to invest another $125 million in Atlantic City<\/strong> capex. Twin River plurality owner Soo Kim<\/strong>, now stepping to the forefront, said, \u201cThis is an opportunity for us to revive a brand that is synonymous with American gaming.\u201d To that effect, almost all Twin River brands are out and Bally’s is in as the new company moniker of choice<\/a>. It’s sure an improvement on “Casino Kansas City” (can you get any more generic)? The one exception is Bally’s Las Vegas<\/strong>, to whose name Caesars retains the rights. Twin Rivers still covets a Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> casino, so don’t carve anything in stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pennsylvania<\/strong> has joined the sports betting elite, along with Nevada<\/strong> and New Jersey<\/strong>, registering $463 million in handle last month, thanks to the highly unusual confluence of NFL<\/strong>, NBA<\/strong>, MLB<\/strong> and NHL<\/strong> seasons. (Who says the pandemic is bad for business?) Betting in August was a healthy $365 million but September’s numbers were truly a moonshot. “The question now becomes whether\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0can sustain this level once the sports calendar returns to normal,” remarked analyst Valerie Cross<\/strong>. “Pennsylvania\u00a0has etched a place in the top tier of gaming markets and could possibly pass\u00a0Nevada\u00a0as the nation’s No. 2 market before the end of the year.” However, the record amount of betting flowed through to just over $6 million in taxable revenue. Unsurprisingly, online betting dominated with 89.5% of the action, much of that ($168 million) was generated by FanDuel Sportsbook<\/strong> at Valley Forge Casino Resort<\/strong>. Much-vaunted Barstool Sports<\/strong> got off to an inauspicious start, losing $3 million on $29 million in wagers. Looking at the bright side, analyst Dustin Gouker<\/strong> said, “On the surface it seems like it has the potential to eat into the dominant market shares of FanDuel<\/strong> and DraftKings<\/strong>. But that is no easy task considering how entrenched both have become in the\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0market.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retail wagering ($49 million) was most lucrative for the books, which won $5 million, led by Rivers Casino Philadelphia<\/strong> with $5 million. Another bright spot was Internet gambling, which produced $57 million in win. That’s $16 million for the state coffers, identical to the haul made by state-leading Rivers Philadelphia. As Cross noted, “Pennsylvania’s\u00a0online casinos generate nearly five times as much in bets as sports betting, and revenue doesn’t fluctuate nearly as much. That has quickly made online gambling a dependable and significant tax revenue driver for the state, accomplishing the main goal of regulation.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In what must have been an easy call for jurisprudence, a Clark County judge has ash canned the Sahara‘s frivolous lawsuit against Vital Vegas author Scott Roeben. “Ill-considered” was about the nicest thing Judge Trevor Atkin had to say in … 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":[235,23,291,60,244,133,18,277,278,165,257,95,242,54,243,8,9,100,269],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28672"}],"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=28672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28677,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28672\/revisions\/28677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}