Wynn hearts Pinnacle; Harrah’s demands aesthetic restraint

Now that former Mirage Resorts CFO Dan Lee is long gone from Pinnacle Entertainment, too, former Lee boss Steve Wynn seems to have changed his opinion about Pinnacle. While I (erroneously) thought that Pinnacle CEO Anthony Sanfilippo‘s erstwhile ties to Harrah’s Entertainment and the sheer megatonnage of Total Rewards itself made Caesars Entertainment a shoo-in for Pinnacle’s hinted-at marketing alliance, turns out I was quite wrong. Wynn’s casinos will now cross-market to the top 2% of Pinnacle’s million-player database.

Where some riverboat casino operators are concerned, mooring oneself to Wynn Resorts would seem a very incongruous fit. (Can anyone seriously imagine Wynn dropping anchor with Isle of Capri Casinos or Penn National Gaming?) But Pinnacle is not only a company on the rise, its St. Louis and Lake Charles properties, as well as Belterra in southern Indiana, cultivate an upscale image — one that is now further enhanced by being associated with the near-magical Wynn name. Execs at Wynn say they like the size of Pinnacle players’ wallets and the well-regarded Sanfilippo scores by far the biggest coup of his young regime.

Now he has to tap a replacement for CFO Stephen Capp (left), whose resignation takes effect at month’s end. Wall Street is spinning it as “nothing to see here, keep moving,” but eight years isn’t a Methusaleh-like tenure for a CFO and, combined with a recent shakeup in St. Louis, this looks like another sign of Sanfilippo refashioning Pinnacle in a way that’s more to his liking.

It’s been our view that the Silver State has long underfunded the Nevada Gaming Control Board. However, it doesn’t help the cause to learn that the NGCB has been pretty careless with the cash it does have.

Even though Caesars swung from a 2009 profit to a 2010 loss, that put barely a dent in the pay packets of CEO, President, Chairman & Grand Vizier Gary Loveman and his executive team. Loveman and his boys took home roughly $14 million. That may sound like real money but it’s wooden nickels compared to the tens of billions of debt they strapped onto the company, guaranteeing their jobs by creating the largest “too big to fail” scenario in gaming. If the private-equity casino dilettanttes who signed on for this mess, and with whom the Caesars board is packed, actually had the gumption to turn Loveman & Co. out of office, could they find capable replacements — or even know where to look?

Pot, meet kettle. So Caesars execs think a flashing Walgreen’s mega-sign next to its Planet Hollywood would be “gaudy”? Have they seen the jumble of retina-searing jumbotrons that nightly do battle for your attention across the architecturally muddled Planet Ho façade? And what about the big-ass “Harrah’s” logo that’s planned for the Project Linq Ferris wheel? Not exactly subtle, is it?

Veto upheld. The nixing of intrastate Internet betting by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) finds widespread support within the state’s casino industry. The reason — fear of protracted litigation — is considerably more pragmatic than the objections that Caesars has been advancing. You know, federal approval being just around the corner … next to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.