Stiffs and Georges

Heading into the weekend, Trump Entertainment Resorts continued its reorganization by sacking six top executives. They were preceded by Trump Plaza General Manager Jim Rigot, who wasn’t pushed but gave his notice a fortnight ago. One of the Trump Six, Trump Taj Mahal GM Rosalind Krause said she was quitting due to burn-out: “I worked [...]

If nothing else gets recalcitrant legislators off their duffs and behind Gov. Chris Christie’s intervention on behalf of Atlantic City, maybe these numbers will. In the last quarter, only four casinos turned a profit. Harrah’s Entertainment’s Showboat and Harrah’s Marina properties were slightly ahead of break-even, Tropicana Atlantic City booked a nice, $4.5 million profit [...]

You wouldn’t know if from the wrap on Luxor’s west side, but Angelica Bridges is out as Fantasy headliner, replaced by Lorena Peril (late of Sin City Bad Girls at the Las Vegas Hilton). This alone is sufficient to bump Fantasy to the top of the topless heap in Las Vegas. While Bridges sang tolerably, [...]

Atlantic City can just plain go to hell. That’s the message from several prominent — or simply loud — Democratic lawmakers who say Gov. Chris Christie’s rescue plan for the city is spinach and to heck with it. Noisiest of the bunch is sports-betting fixated state Sen. Raymond Lesniak. Challenging the federal sports-wagering ban isn’t [...]

“You’re the hub right now, kid.” Thus spake a Los Angeles-based private investigator who’s hot on the trail of some possible malfeasance in the real estate world. It involves a couple of characters who were persons of interest in a caper I covered four years ago for the Las Vegas Business Press– not to be [...]

Considering that table games were up and running in Delaware and gradually rolling out in Pennsylvania, it comes as a pleasant surprise to see that Atlantic City was only down 5% in July. Frankly, I was expecting much worse, especially after a massive power outage hit two casinos. As in much, much worse. As in, [...]

Garden State Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) may have excluded sports betting as a new revenue source for the state’s besieged casino industry. As expected, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D, left) tuned the governor out and continues to pursue legalization of game wagers, federal law notwithstanding. Companies are lining up pro (Trump Entertainment Resorts) and con [...]

Treasure Island owner Phil Ruffin and his beloved mechanical bull made a guest appearance on CNBC and, characteristically, pulled no punches. (Ruffin, that is. The bull had no comment.) Even as MGM Resorts International, Harrah’s Entertainment and Las Vegas Sands talk “recovery,” Ruffin sees continued softening of demand on the Strip and no turnaround until [...]

In true Colony Capital fashion, the Las Vegas Hilton continues to shed parts like a rattletrap car. Our LVA research team reports that Shimmer Cabaret fixtures Voices (“Starring the beautiful and talented Lani Misalucha“) and Sin City Bad Girls have been pink-slipped. Bad Girls, the best topless show on the Strip, runs through Sunday. Misfortune-beset [...]

Last week, I tried to work up a piece entitled, “Atlantic City, R.I.P.” After all, the Boardwalk had just come off a catastrophic June, impacted by table games in Delaware. Since table games were in process of sweeping Pennsylvania, from west to east, the demise of Atlantic City as a major casino capitol seemed a [...]

Paul Shanahan writes (in part): I think Fontainebleau would have looked much better if it was around 500 feet high instead of being close to 730 feet. It looks bulky and just kind of bizarre down there at the north end of the Strip.
Agreed. And if you think F-bleau looks bad from the [...]

Long-serving — and long-suffering — Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway has lost patience with Harrah’s Entertainment. He is convinced that the metamorphosis of Grand Casino Biloxi into Margaritaville Casino is kaput and that Harrah’s will tear down what little it has built. The fact that Harrah’s is obtaining new casinos from the Las Vegas Strip to [...]

That $67 million note Harrah’s Entertainment holds on the site of the Foxwoods Wynn Resorts [your casino here] site in Philadelphia is turning out to be mighty valuable. The gambling giant is looking to roll that I.O.U. into an equity position, which also breathes new life into the comatose Ed Snider-led consortium. As for Pennsylvania’s [...]

Reckless rhetoric. Last week, S&G called B.S. on senatorial aspirant Sharron Angle’s faux solicitude for the unfinished casinos along the Strip. Turns out, if she had her way, there’d be at least one more: Aria, plus all the other components of $8.8 billion CityCenter. Taking up a meme from Religious Right dirty tricksters Floyd Brown [...]

Even though the Massachusetts state Senate has opted to go with destination casinos, Suffolk Downs racetrack is putting its chips on a racino-centric bill currently before the assembly. The track has three things going for it: proximity to Boston plus the good offices of House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Beantown Mayor Thomas M. Menino.
S&G almost [...]

That’s what a correspondent wrote after seeing a ginormous photo of the sadly faded Paris-Las Vegas “balloon” marquee. For the grisly details click here. Planet Hollywood, this could be you. Just give it a few years.
On the subject of upkeep, isn’t amazing that when the economy goes south, housekeepers get the chop but there’s always [...]

It may already be time to stick a fork in the so-called X Train, which would use existing rail lines to carry gamblers from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. According to The Associated Press, X Train is being sued by an adversary that says it had the idea first, even if it’s farther down the [...]

Today’s a hectic one: four bylines due and not much time for S&G. However, I am the beneficiary of some number-crunching conducted by a reader, who’s been following the decline and fall of Colony Capital’s two Atlantic City casinos under the captaincy of Nicholas Ribis, a former casino boss for Donald Trump. In a parable [...]

While Atlantic City burns, Gov. Chris Christie fiddles. After coming into office saying the right things about helping the state’s casino industry, Christie has spent most of first months in office dithering uselessly. Having waited until A) the Revel project is comatose and B) a local referendum on Revel-only tax breaks is moot and C) [...]

Long-suffering Atlantic City is going to stuck with one of the heaviest albatrosses around its neck — Donald J. Trump — for the foreseeable future. Das Donald’s $225 million cash offer for what’s left of Trump Entertainment Resorts trumped a $486 million credit bid by archrival Carl Icahn.
Aside from the fact that he’s not Donald [...]