{"id":4254,"date":"2010-08-04T13:03:29","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T21:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=4254"},"modified":"2020-03-18T07:08:48","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T15:08:48","slug":"the-tamares-shuffle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/the-tamares-shuffle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tamares shuffle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Musical chairs continue at Tamares Group<\/strong>‘s downtown Las Vegas<\/strong> collection of crumbling casinos. Bobby Ray Harris<\/strong> is out as casino manager and Anthony F. Santo<\/strong> is in. Otherwise, it was the same old song and dance<\/a>. $20 million worth of improvements are promised, including a redesign of the Vegas Club<\/strong>, and a makeover and name change of the Plaza<\/strong>. The dreaded Western<\/strong> may get — this may cause fainting spells — slot machines actually built in the 21st century!<\/p>\n

Tamares is still characterized as the properties’ landlord although its unsubtle role in thwarting and\/or delaying casino improvements isn’t just an open secret but even a matter of legal record (in the ultimately pointless “Plaza vs. Plaza” lawsuit against El Ad Properties<\/strong>). Tamares is “passive” in downtown like the erstwhile Soviet Union<\/strong> was toward Czechoslovakia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Santo actually had to ensure the Nevada Gaming Control Board<\/strong> that he’d tell Tamares to bugger off if it tried to meddle in casino affairs. What’s really needed is for the Control Board to cowboy up and license Tamares rather than continuing this untenable “passive landlord” fiction. (And this is the model to which New Jersey<\/strong> Gov. Chris Christie<\/strong> thinks his state should aspire?)<\/p>\n

It’s a bit of a comedown for Santo, who once rode herd<\/a> on a dozen Park Place Entertainment<\/strong>‘s casino properties and was a senior VP of operations at Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong> before falling victim to “a strategic redesign<\/a>” that coincided with Harrah’s ill-advised LBO. He’s also sat on the board<\/a> of the bankrupt Las Vegas Monorail<\/strong>. The fact that bottom feeders like Tamares were able to scoop him up testifies to the amount of casino-exec talent that’s un- or underemployed these days — another dubious legacy of consolidation and privatization in the industry.<\/p>\n

\"\"While we’re on the subject<\/strong> of executive talent lying fallow, former Station Casinos<\/strong> CFO Glenn Christenson<\/strong> quietly pulled back his application to be a director at Carl Icahn<\/strong>‘s newest trophy, Tropicana Entertainment<\/strong>. “Withdrew” is usually a NGCB euphemism for “fell on his sword,” so I wonder what the backstory on the distinguished Christenson’s about-face is.<\/p>\n

Remember Baha Mar?<\/strong> One of Gary Loveman<\/strong>‘s many abortive overseas joint ventures, it’s back in “on” mode — tentatively and without Harrah’s or any apparent casino component. In what could be a precursor of future U.S. resort developments, the big bucks are coming from China<\/strong><\/a>. It’s worth noting that Harrah’s balked at slowness of Baha Mar’s genesis but the Chinese were willing to wait two-plus years. Tortoise 1, Hare 0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musical chairs continue at Tamares Group‘s downtown Las Vegas collection of crumbling casinos. Bobby Ray Harris is out as casino manager and Anthony F. Santo is in. Otherwise, it was the same old song and dance. $20 million worth of … 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":[23,82,28,51,7,140,22,25,57,47,100,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254"}],"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=4254"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26450,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions\/26450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}