{"id":3977,"date":"2010-07-07T14:26:29","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T22:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=3977"},"modified":"2020-03-15T09:37:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-15T17:37:07","slug":"aqueduct-penn-screws-the-pooch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/aqueduct-penn-screws-the-pooch\/","title":{"rendered":"Aqueduct: Penn screws the pooch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3978\" title=\"Aqueduct concourse\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Aqueduct-concourse.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"193\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Aqueduct-concourse.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Aqueduct-concourse-150x96.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Since <em>tout\u00a0 le monde<\/em> is fixated upon where <strong>LeBron James<\/strong> will play next season (is it OK for me to say I don&#8217;t care?), this seems like the moment to observe that <strong>Penn National Gaming<\/strong> bricked an easy layup. That&#8217;s right, Penn is suddenly out of the running for the <strong>Aqueduct Race Track<\/strong> racino contract.<\/p>\n<p>To switch sports metaphors, both Penn and competitor <strong>Hard Rock International<\/strong> kicked the ball onto the fairway. Reviewing the memoranda of understanding submitted by Aqueduct suitors, New York State officials discovered that both<!--more--> Penn and the Hard Rock consortium had rewritten theirs <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/BT-CO-20100706-713676.html?mod=dist_smartbrief\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to insert sweetheart provisions for themselves<\/a>. That&#8217;s just not cricket in the Empire State and both competitors will be penalized by being barred from future consideration with regard to Aqueduct.<\/p>\n<p>Although <strong>Genting Bhd<\/strong> was the sole competitor left standing, that doesn&#8217;t make it the winner, even by default. The Malaysian conglomerate will now be poked, prodded and probed by the <strong>New York Lottery<\/strong>. Should Genting be found unsuitable, New York will put the Aqueduct contract up for bid a third time. Since it got cute this time &#8217;round, Penn will be watching any future Aqueduct steeplechases purely as a spectator.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Penn also may be<\/strong> behaving rather disingenuously toward <strong>Toledo<\/strong>, or at least playing fast and loose with its non-compete commitment to that city&#8217;s hotel industry. Here&#8217;s an early look at the in-the-works <strong>Hollywood Casino<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>I feel kinda bad for the old guy who&#8217;s going to have Penn&#8217;s casino just a stone&#8217;s throw from his house. So much for quiet residential life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recession, meet Pennsylvania<\/strong>. The novelty factor of <strong>Pennsylvania<\/strong>&#8216;s slot parlors didn&#8217;t take long to wear off, with June manifesting a 3% drop in revenue. Hardest hit were <strong>Millennium Gaming<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>Meadows Racetrack &amp; Casino<\/strong> (-23%) and independently owned <strong>Mount Airy Casino Resort<\/strong> (-14%). Instead of acting as a stimulant, this month&#8217;s introduction of table games will have to stanch the bleeding.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Over in Atlantic City<\/strong>, they&#8217;re still getting that &#8220;nightlife&#8221; thing down, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pressofatlanticcity.com\/news\/top_three\/article_74b2122a-8865-11df-9cfc-001cc4c03286.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">from the looks of this<\/a>. The Strip hasn&#8217;t seen a nightclub debacle on the scale of what went down at <strong>Harrah&#8217;s Marina<\/strong> last weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since tout\u00a0 le monde is fixated upon where LeBron James will play next season (is it OK for me to say I don&#8217;t care?), this seems like the moment to observe that Penn National Gaming bricked an easy layup. That&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/aqueduct-penn-screws-the-pooch\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,73,28,14,4,120,7,67,22,101,71,69,95,111,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977"}],"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=3977"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26395,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions\/26395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}