Wynn delivers

Surprising as ever, Steve Wynn showed up in Philadelphia yesterday bearing a sheaf of renderings for his proposed casinos — three weeks ahead of schedule. Wynn’s final design looks a mite grander than the one he let Steve Friess photograph, seen at left.

The new rendering shows what would still be a handsome adornment to the city’s riverfront. Other statements by Wynn, though, indicate some rethinking of earlier positions. Evidently the idea of a downscale “SW” brand played no better with Philadelphians than it did at S&G HQ. It’s off the table, with Wynn saying, “We only have one brand. We don’t have a down-market brand.”

He’s also backed away from his no-hotel position to allow for the possibility of buying some nearby buildings for possible hotel conversion. At least that’s what reporter Jennifer Lin’s phrasing implies; Wynn’s proposed budget also wouldn’t allow for starting a hotel from scratch.

Giving Wynn the benefit of the doubt, he appears to learnt from some early tactical errors, promising to be a low-maintenance operator and to reach out to civic leaders. He started with Mayor Michael Nutter, whose message boiled down to telling Wynn he needed to be more engaged and to understand his role in a “vision of making the waterfront more accessible to the public and integrated into neighborhoods.” (Translation: “Please read the Penn-Praxis report, Mr. Wynn.”)

Now that the mayor’s on board, more or less, it’s a question of whether Wynn can sell the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on his vision of a casino, compared to Foxwoods‘ discarded pie-in-the-sky concept. A good thing he’s sticking with the “Wynn” brand because it will be the biggest asset he has. New findings show …

Pennsylvania racinos are clobbering their stand-alone competitors. Expensive urban slot barns like Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh and Sands Bethlehem were expected to outperform racinos but official estimates have been stood on their head by reality. The practical application of this knowledge may be to sell Pennsylvania regulators on a reduced budget for Wynn Philadelphia.

It also might have its uses up in Massachusetts, giving Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo a potent, quantitative argument in favor of a racino-heavy proposal that’s moving right along. Gov. Deval Patrick favors scattering a few cost-intensive casino resorts across the Bay State but it’s increasingly clear that he’s lost the battle.

Isle expands. Getting back to its knitting, Isle of Capri Casinos snapped up the Rainbow riverboat from Bally Technologies for a 7X cash flow price of $80 million. That may be merely the wagging tail, though, the dog being a 10-casino contract to install Bally software in a fleet of Isle properties. Does the Rainbow seem like a throw-in to anybody else? Whatever the case, it wasn’t all good for Bally, which expects to lose $1 million thanks to Gov. Bob Riley‘s jihad against electronic bingo in Alabama. Bally took a gamble on a “gray” market and its balance sheet will be singed accordingly.