Stiffs and Georges

Score one for Colony Capital: It took Rational Group to the cleaners to  the tune of $11 million and there’s nothing Rational can do about it. A New Jersey court ruled that the PokerStars parent company had no one to blame for itself, having agreed to the surrender in black and white: If Rational wasn’t [...]

Found by Vintage Vegas Valley, a Facebook page you really should “like.” As in, right this minute.

Even if you’re making money on a daily basis, sometimes a casino-resort can be a bad investment. Take Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, which finally posted a profitable quarter. However, at $3.9 billion in construction costs (now at or very near the $4 billion mark with expansions and revisions of the property), it’s doubtful that Deutsche [...]

So, as Ohio marks the first full year of casino play, is the glass half-full or half-empty. Currently, much is being made of Horseshoe Cleveland having brought in less than half of greatly over-ambitious expectations (and 12% less than what Moody’s Investor Service anticipated). And that isn’t even the fault of Rock Gaming Caesars but [...]

… starring our old friend Jonathan Galaviz, expert on gaming affairs along the Pacific Rim. But a life-sized Shrek in a casino? WTF?

Media previews are a double-edged sword. They can be a cheap way of drumming up advance press but can also betray a project in trouble: Surf the Musical was obviously going to be dead on arrival. And it was. Given its arid recent history in Las Vegas, the directorate of Cirque du Soleil would be [...]

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 [...]

We saw Claire Sinclair’s new show at Stratosphere the other night … or rather, ’saw as much as we could withstand.’ Our attention and sitzfleisch gave out around the one-hour mark, with at least another 30 minutes stretching before us. Speaking of stretch, the corps de danse looks very well-toned and amazonian but some of [...]

All but a very few Ameristar Casinos shareholders voted to approve the company’s takeover by Pinnacle Entertainment, in one of the fastest M&A deals in industry memory. Regulatory approvals are still pending in Nevada and other states but Ameristar always kept its nose clean and Pinnacle has generally behaved itself under previous CEO Dan Lee [...]

Uh-oh. This is not good. Tamares Group is going to cease taking room bookings at the Vegas Club. In an ominous phrase, it’s “evaluating its options” for the hotel-casino, whose gambling floor and other amenities are but a pallid shadow of what competing properties, even Tamares’ own Plaza, have to offer. It’s basically dead without [...]

Yeah, Beyoncé is a hard act to follow but who knew that Revel would fall so far, so fast? So enjoy this brief moment when things looked so very promising* …  in the meantime, I’m running down leads on some oldies but goodies: the

Although East Coast-based Gansevoort Hotel Group isn’t a household name around Las Vegas, it soon could be, if a planned collaboration with Caesars Entertainment comes to fruition. The latter had briefly planned to re-do Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon as a clubber-oriented hotel/nightclub in collaboration with Victor Drai. Called “Caesars Drai’s,” the new theme — [...]

One of the things keeping me away from the S&G desk of late has been a trifle called Betrayal by Harold Pinter, which I’ve been staging for Las Vegas Little Theatre Studio and which opened last Friday (it runs through March 31). This is a love child I’d been incubating since last September and now [...]

… week, month, year! We don’t have Stew Man Group here in Las Vegas — but we should!

A reader in Arizona asks the question that was on my mind yesterday and probably yours, too: “Is it just me … or does this look like just a copper/gold-colored version of CityCenter?”
Agreed! (With a large helping of Mandalay Bay slopped around the front and sides. Look, if you want originality, you don’t phone up [...]

In the most inevitable headline of 2013, Revel has — brace yourselves — filed for bankruptcy. It will become the latest in a long string of casinos that are owned and run by banks: Two-thirds of outstanding debt will be converted to equity in the property, although I doubt that two-thirds of Revel is worth [...]

Ixnay those Binion’s Gambling Hall-closure rumors. Owner Terry Caudill rang up Anthony Curtis to say that it’s (mostly) business as usual at the Downtown fixture. “Neither the casino nor the steakhouse is closing,” he told Curtis. “We have minor projects slated for the summer, but they’re all positive improvements and there will be no [...]

Photo by Susannah Smitherman
As though S&G correspondence hasn’t been spotty enough of late, thanks to “Maloof Flu,” a number of other external factors will be impinging on your weekly flow of ephemera and arcana. Deadlines for USA Today, Las Vegas CityLife, Casino Life and Desert Companion are bearing down upon me like the Four  Horsemen [...]

What’s an Atlantic City casino worth? Not too bloody much, especially if the name of Donald Trump is emblazoned across the façade. Trump Entertainment Resorts has parted with unloved, unremunerative Trump Plaza and truly for a pittance — $20 million. This is the most rock-bottom resale price yet recorded for an Atlantic City gambling hall. [...]

Our question for the day is, “Who benefits?” Taking the long view of Caesars Entertainment to bundle a mixed bag of Planet Hollywood, its-casino-to-be in Baltimore and Caesars Interactive, in whose interest is it to purchase minority stakes, since CEO Gary Loveman intends to maintain majority control. Or, in the case of his Maryland casino, [...]