Stiffs and Georges

That’s what it could come to in Boston, if mayoral candidate — and current Suffolk County D.A. — Daniel Conley gets his wish. Rather than simply letting East Boston vote up or down on Caesars Entertainment’s proposed conversion of Suffolk Downs into a $1 billion racino, Conley would require it to get both citywide and [...]

It’s a longstanding tradition in Iowa that voters, once they’ve voted to approve a casino in their county, never have second thoughts. Selling non-gaming counties on new casinos, however, is a different story. Take Norwalk County, for instance, where a casino proposal only mustered 39% support. One opponent is perfectly accurate: The Wild Rose-sponsored project [...]

America’s casino officially emerged from the doldrums with the release of the American Gaming Association’s yearly survey, showing a 5% increase in private-sector casino revenue, just $200 million shy of 2007’s record amount. Mind you, we have quite a few more casinos now than we did in ‘07, so the pie much be sliced more [...]

Yes, the recovery in Las Vegas could be said to be a chastened and limping one. The national press will leap at just about anything to restart the “Vegas is back” narrative. And yes, CityCenter ROI improved exponentially … to 4%. But all that being the case, nothing seen in recent numbers — like a [...]

MGM Resorts International has a 50% stake in Borgata that nobody wants … except MGM. In bolstering move that Atlantic City sorely needs, MGM may get to reclaim its half of the resort (with the support of partner Boyd Gaming), not to mention all the revenue that the State of New Jersey has been holding [...]

That idyllic scene above is not Massachusetts but Vermont. However, the Green Mountain State is not only shaped like a funnel, it is one, an untapped market just waiting to be drained by whichever casino lands the coveted western Massachusetts concession, even it might have to wait until 2016 or even 2018. (A couple of [...]

Penn National Gaming trimmed its 2013 revenue projections today by 3% — not surprising, given the “headwinds” represented by recent tax changes that will eat into Americans’ discretionary income. Sluggish early slot performance in the Columbus and Toledo markets was blamed on a lack of marketing and comping “into underpenetrated submarkets,” as Joseph Greff of [...]

In addition to presiding over the most grotesquely indebted company — by far — in the casino industry, Caesars Entertainment CEO/President/Chairman/Pontifex Maximus/Generalissimo Gary Loveman also wants to dictate the manner in which we eke out our “golden years.” Amazingly, somebody actually put this buffoon in charge of the “health and retirement committee” of a club [...]

After a long, abyssal plunge, Las Vegas‘ real estate market has bottomed out — or so knowledgeable people tell me. Seems that the banks ’round here ignored Mitt Romney’s (bad) advice to dump the “shadow inventory” en masse into the marketplace, which would have sent housing prices into an incredible downward spiral. No, they’re keeping [...]

We’ve learned two important things today. One, that the Mayan calendar is not the most reliable predictor of events. Two, that Ameristar Casinos‘ on-again/off-again talk about putting itself up for sale was back in “on” mode. Before hardly anybody got wind of what was happening, Ameristar cut a deal to be purchased by Pinnacle Entertainment. [...]

Despite several months of doom-and-gloom economic predictions from Steve Wynn, the mogul has decided to “buy American” again, not only returning to the site of previous skirmishes (Philadelphia) but also taking a second run at Massachusetts. S&G was no fan of Wynn’s decision to call it quits after being essentially voted out of Foxborough by [...]

If Sheldon Adelson played the ponies as he does politics, he’d enter a Shetland in the Kentucky Derby and put all his money on it to win. What could be better than knowing the Las Vegas Sands CEO blew $100 million trying to buy the White House and a sizable tranche of Capitol Hill in [...]

Caught between the twin hazards of prospective higher taxes on investment income and the looming fiscal cliff, Steve Wynn made headlines today with his $750 million Thanksgiving special dividend, which ought to help pay for all those Black Friday purchases on Wynn Resorts‘ investors to-do list. The New York Times also speculated that there might [...]

Casino revenues in the Pelican State were up 2% last month, entirely upon the strength of Pinnacle Entertainment’s L’Auberge Baton Rouge (above). It propelled the Baton Rouge market 58% upward, grossing $11 million at the expense of Argosy Baton Rouge (-10%) and especially Penn National Gaming’s Hollywood Baton Rouge (-25%). Still, Pinnacle is growing the [...]

This just in: It’s another winning strategy from those gaming-industry masterminds at Colony Capital. God forbid you’re playing at the Atlantic Club and work up an appetite. Or did Tom Barrack hear about “Stiff of the Year” and wants to get in the race?
There’s no point in revisiting Midwestern casino misery month in, month out. [...]

But first, because it will never, ever get old …

Also this, from @daveweigel: “[Florida] exit poll: Obama winning Jewish vote by 40 points. 40 points. Nice work, Sheldon Adelson.” We’ll tap dance on Sheldon’s head some more further down, but let’s roll out the barrel for gaming’s winners last night. There were five ballot questions, [...]

Sorry, Sheldon Adelson, but American democracy is not for sale to the highest bidder. Now go back to doing what you do best: opening overseas casino markets … far overseas, preferably.

That’s the question posed today by Esquire’s Jason Whited, who tries to find the Blofeld-like mastermind. “Anyplace other than Las Vegas,” seems to be the answer. “Political types here and across the country speak of him in almost hushed tones,” writes Whited, “trading rumors and tidbits of his last known whereabouts.” None of the Venelazzo [...]

While the voters have not yet spoken (although they’re getting an early start here), the betting markets are feeling less restraint. While the amount wagered online on the results of today’s presidential election — $16 million, according to one source — may seem frivolous, if not excessive, it’s a droplet compared to the obscene amounts [...]

“America might be better off it it dropped bombshells on Gloria Allred and Donald Trump, rather than the other way around.” — Charles C. W. Cooke, on the mercifully almost-over election cycle.