{"id":8312,"date":"2012-01-19T13:31:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T21:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=8312"},"modified":"2021-11-08T09:27:24","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T17:27:24","slug":"aquedud-trump-chump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/aquedud-trump-chump\/","title":{"rendered":"Aquedud?; Trump, chump"},"content":{"rendered":"

I apologize for feeding you some incorrect info earlier when I erroneously stated that the Philadelphia<\/strong> market lost business (apparently to Atlantic City<\/strong>) last month. Nope, Santa Claus<\/strong> was good to every casino<\/a> in the Keystone State<\/strong>, although he could have been a little more generous to Harrah’s Chester Downs<\/strong>, which “only” got an additional 2% in its stocking.<\/p>\n

\"\"If you knew nothing about table games, you could probably guess their volatility just by looking at the wacky variances across Pennsylvania<\/strong>, from Mount Airy<\/strong>‘s -6% to Sands Bethlehem<\/strong>‘s +72% (+88% for the quarter but up “merely” 21% for the entire year). Others who played exceptionally lucky were the dealers at Parx Casino<\/strong> (48%) and Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs<\/strong> (32%), although only Parx and a strong-finishing Sands topped the $100 million mark in table revenue ($116 million and $106 million in 2011, respectively), with everyone else far below. At the slots, teething newborn SugarHouse<\/strong> bit off big chunks of Parx’s business (-5% for the year) and Harrah’s, too (-10%). Does anybody still<\/em> think Philly needs a fifth casino?<\/p>\n

\"\"That ‘clang’ you hear is the sound of Resorts World New York<\/strong> artillery shells bouncing off the steel plates of Sands Bethlehem<\/strong>, which not only continues to withstand Aqueduct<\/strong>‘s barrage but wins the Most Improved category<\/a> for 2011, up 32%. Its $67 million in 4Q11 slot revenues came up microscopically short of Joseph Greff<\/strong>‘s estimate and exceeded Carlo Santarelli<\/strong>‘s, proving definitively that Genting<\/strong>‘s VLTs are no match for Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>‘s one-armed bandits (or those of the Mohegans<\/strong>, up 10% across the same time frame). Those numbers should improve further when the long-promised event center opens in May, a modest 36 months behind schedule. As for the history museum that Adelson rashly promised Bethlehem<\/strong> burghers, I’ve not seen it mentioned in years and it’s presumably safe to pencil in its completion date as “Never.”<\/p>\n

At least one Ohio<\/strong> TV station has taken a deep swig of the Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> Kool-Aid and regurgitated the same old Gary Loveman<\/strong> spin: carefully researched, methodical, empirically driven decision-making, blah blah blah. To those of us who have watched the Good Ship Caesars fishtailing hither and yon, often for no apparent reason, the myth of the Great Helmsman is now little more than an urban legend. If “running an experiment without a control group” is a firing offense at Caesars, why does Loveman still have a job? He presides over the biggest uncontrolled experiment in casino history. And if Loveman terminates employees for theft, taking credit for Jack Binion<\/strong>‘s legacy at Horseshoe<\/strong> ought to qualify as grand larceny.<\/p>\n

\"\"On the subject of hot air<\/strong>, it’s hardly a news flash that casino barker Donald Trump<\/strong> is an empty vessel. But, just to remind us, TheSmokingGun.com<\/strong> reports that Das Donald hasn’t donated one miserable penny<\/a> to the Donald Trump Foundation<\/strong> in two years. If it weren’t for World Wrestling Entertainment<\/strong>, that charity would be in pretty poor nick itself. $135K of the foundation’s 2010 disbursements went to other celebrity-led charities (if you can call Eric Trump<\/strong> a “celebrity”). Instead of supporting his eponymous nonprofit, the Trumpster was writing a $10,000 check to Miami<\/strong> golf charity ForLife<\/strong>, whose board of directors includes convicted sex offender Lawrence Taylor<\/strong>. Now<\/em> I wish Trump were running for president, if only so his dirty laundry could be aired on every TV channel and newspaper of the great country he has scammed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I apologize for feeding you some incorrect info earlier when I erroneously stated that the Philadelphia market lost business (apparently to Atlantic City) last month. Nope, Santa Claus was good to every casino in the Keystone State, although he could … 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":[23,24,28,42,14,26,120,7,121,91,101,95,12,74,20,17,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8312"}],"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=8312"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30298,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8312\/revisions\/30298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}