{"id":4393,"date":"2010-08-18T15:11:27","date_gmt":"2010-08-18T23:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=4393"},"modified":"2019-05-20T09:05:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T17:05:34","slug":"suicidal-in-new-jersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/suicidal-in-new-jersey\/","title":{"rendered":"Suicidal in New Jersey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Atlantic City<\/strong> can just plain go to hell. That’s the message from several prominent — or simply loud — Democratic lawmakers who say Gov. Chris Christie<\/strong>‘s rescue plan for the city is spinach and to heck with it. Noisiest of the bunch is sports-betting fixated state Sen. Raymond Lesniak<\/strong>. Challenging the federal sports-wagering ban isn’t tilting at windmills, in our opinion, though Christie will have none of it.<\/p>\n

It’s downright brilliant compared to Lesniak’s newest brainwave: a casino megaresort at Meadowlands<\/strong>, to be built by that most successful of gaming operators, Donald Trump<\/strong>. (To his credit, Trump isn’t having any of that either.) Lesniak makes the empty promise of donating $600 million in casino profits in Year One to Atlantic City and $100 million each year thereafter.<\/p>\n

Earth to Lesniak<\/strong>: Unless you build that casino in Singapore<\/strong>, you’re not going to make a $600 million profit this year, next year or any<\/em> year. Even $100 million on the casino-crowded Eastern Seaboard looks like quite a stretch. Fellow Sen. Paul Sarlo<\/strong> (D) is on board with the general concept but doesn’t appear to share Lesniak’s pie-in-the-sky visions. But even Sarlo’s more limited concept runs headlong into the reality that Genting Malaysia<\/strong> is in the fast lane to build a $350 million slot house<\/a> and $650 million more in amenities at Resorts World New York<\/strong>, er, Aqueduct Racetrack<\/strong>. Think of it as a Gotham casino with race horses in lieu of showgirls. (The American Gaming Association<\/strong>‘s “Smart [sic<\/em>] Brief” tastelessly refers to the Malaysian company’s project as a “gambling mecca.” Xenophobic much?)<\/p>\n

Speaking of Meadowlands<\/strong>, the Hanson Commission<\/strong>‘s proposed public bailout of Colony Capital<\/strong>‘s Xanadu<\/strong> (above<\/em>) came with a list of conditions as long as your arm. A good thing, too: Xanadu just got repossessed<\/a> and (according to the Wall Street Journal<\/em>), “some industry experts say the development was ill-conceived from the beginning.” That’d make it a prototypical Colony investment play. Having lost patience with Colony CEO Tom Barrack<\/strong>, lenders are now shopping the project around to other developers<\/a> — it would appear to be right up the alley of Mall of America<\/strong> creator Triple Five<\/strong> (currently lumbered with some bad Las Vegas<\/strong> investments of its own) — while Christie’s office takes a position of strict neutrality<\/a> as the mess gets sorted.<\/p>\n


\nHarrah’s Entertainment<\/strong> is taking its lumps, as New Jersey<\/strong> solons understandably look askance at CEO Gary Loveman<\/strong>‘s dickering for a share of the ex-Foxwoods<\/strong> casino project in Philadelphia<\/strong>. It’s a bit of a poser from a business standpoint, too, as it threatens to cannibalize revenues not only from Harrah’s four Atlantic City casinos — which own the preponderance of market share — but Harrah’s Chester<\/strong>, too. Whoever adopts this orphaned casino-to-be might steal some of that action anyway, so Harrah’s presumably thinks it better to gnaw off its own femur than let someone else do it. Which (sort of) makes sense.<\/p>\n

For those Garden State politicos<\/strong> moping over the slow demise of the horseracing biz, consider this: Five-sixths<\/em> of the purses at Penn National Gaming<\/strong>‘s Charles Town Race Track<\/strong> come right out of slot revenues. Add the money generated by the smash-hit addition of table games<\/a> and race-derived revenue dwindles toward chump change. The sport of kings isn’t an “industry” anymore, just an aesthetically pleasing but expensive amenity.<\/p>\n

Further up the coast<\/strong>, slot revenues at Mohegan Sun<\/strong> were up 2% last month and Foxwoods<\/strong>‘ rose 1%. This may be an anomaly due to what Wall Street<\/strong> calls “favorable comps” (in this case, one additional Sunday in July 2010). But let’s enjoy the moment, shall we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atlantic City can just plain go to hell. That’s the message from several prominent — or simply loud — Democratic lawmakers who say Gov. Chris Christie‘s rescue plan for the city is spinach and to heck with it. Noisiest 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":[23,3,28,42,14,4,120,7,67,37,53,72,43,101,95,33,111,108,9,19,20,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4393"}],"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=4393"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24196,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4393\/revisions\/24196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}