{"id":4612,"date":"2010-09-17T15:52:07","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T23:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=4612"},"modified":"2020-05-25T06:39:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T14:39:52","slug":"desperate-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/desperate-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Desperate times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"They call for desperate measures, it’s said. MGM Resorts International<\/strong> has just rolled out a heckuva bargain play. If you can afford a two-night stay<\/a> at Aria<\/strong> or Vdara<\/strong> between Sept. 24 and Dec. 23, and you can find a round-trip airfare to Vegas<\/a> that’s $350 or less, MGM will comp your airfare. This would appear to confirm scuttlebutt that MGM is having a hell of a time filling those rooms. By the way, does the odious spread of “resort fees” mean that Vegas hotels aren’t trying to upsell rooms<\/a> or just aren’t having any luck at it?<\/p>\n

Out in Connecticut<\/strong>, “Foxwoods needs more out of its MGM hotel and casino, [Foxwoods Resort Casino<\/strong> President Bill<\/strong>] Sherlock<\/strong> said. Foxwoods plans to jointly market with MGM to build up that property and use of MGM\u2019s presence in Las Vegas, especially to bring in conventions.” But if MGM is hinging upbeat Las Vegas Strip forecasts on convention business there, why promote Foxwoods as a de facto<\/em> rival?<\/p>\n

Mixed message<\/strong>: While acknowledging that the “age of gaming has passed” for the depleted Lake Tahoe<\/strong> market (down 13% last month<\/a>), the backers of Boulder Bay<\/strong> spa hotel plan to build a casino anywa<\/a>y. Best-case scenario, the prospect of new casino product in Tahoe brings some gamblers back to the area, though not enough to fully recoup steep revenue losses. With the Horizon<\/strong> slated for extinction, Boulder Bay will also absorb the lost jobs and then some, one hopes.<\/p>\n

\"\"The house loses … big<\/strong>. Neurotic, indicted, tantrum-prone, high-rolling Omar Siddiqui<\/strong> (left<\/em>) just took Mohegan Sun<\/strong> for $10 million in unpaid markers<\/a>. The fault isn’t Siddiqui’s but that of sloppy and\/or credulous casino bosses who handed out mega-markers “without so much as writing an IOU on a cocktail napkin,” according to the high-strung whale’s attorney. As the late Samuel Goldwyn<\/strong> sagely observed, a verbal contract isn’t worth paper on which it’s written.<\/p>\n

Doubtless some high-ranking Mohegan Sun exec will take the fall for this, especially at a time when the casino is on its uppers. (The botched markers cover an amount large enough to pay each of the 355 sacked workers $28,000 for a year.) If you’ll recall, then-Planet Hollywood<\/strong> President Michael Mecca<\/strong> made a precipitous exit shortly after the Siddiqui scandal broke, bringing Planet Ho bad publicity it didn’t need. (Mecca subsequently landed on his feet in Macao<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

Tamares keeps us guessing<\/strong>. The local dailies continue to hew to Tamares Group<\/strong>‘s official narrative about why it’s shutting down both Plaza Hotel<\/strong> towers simultaneously for renovation. However, a reliable source says that one hotel-renovation firm that’s done quite a lot of work in the locals-casino market, as well as on the Strip, hasn’t heard from Tamares about bidding for the job. Unless the remodel’s already been contracted elsewhere and the lucky winner is being kept under wraps, Tamares is cutting it pretty fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They call for desperate measures, it’s said. MGM Resorts International has just rolled out a heckuva bargain play. If you can afford a two-night stay at Aria or Vdara between Sept. 24 and Dec. 23, and you can find a … 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":[65,56,15,133,28,76,62,53,11,6,47,9,19,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612"}],"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=4612"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27139,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612\/revisions\/27139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}