Stiffs and Georges

Steve Wynn is engaging a multi-pronged effort to clinch the favor of voters in Everett. Of course, if the Massachusetts Gaming Commission takes time off from generating paperwork to stop and be impressed by Wynn’s campaign, so much the better. Wynn’s Everett United lobbying arm is going door to door while Wynn Resorts rolled out a [...]

Foxwoods Resort Casino CEO Scott “Woody” Butera didn’t close the sale with Milford voters earlier this week, but they didn’t slam the door on him either. Rather than prejudice the issue with a town-meeting vote, local sentiment favors a city-wide referendum. Although casino opponents have dominated the argument so far, hearing from Foxwoods-in-Milford supporters seems [...]

Say what you like about MGM Resorts International’s plans for Monte Carlo and New York-York, the company isn’t letting any grass grow under its feet: As of 9 a.m. this morning, the Monte Carlo facade was merely walled off with naked cyclone fencing. By 3:30 p.m. — voila! — a logo-festooned banner had wrapped the [...]

Penn National Gaming has filed paperwork with the SEC for an IPO that would enable you to buy into 19 Penn casinos, including flop Hollywood Perryville (shown). This Penn stalking horse would go by the incredibly generic name of Gaming & Leisure Properties (ticker symbol GLPI), a moniker so dull it must have been conceived [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Gone and soon to be forgotten is the fugly NASCAR Cafe (site of terrible customer service), one of Bill Bennett’s dubious ‘enhancements’ to the Sahara during his ownership. Current owner Sam Nazarian is ripping the Sahara apart in earnest, although this story implies that two of the hotel towers will get just a light makeover. [...]

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 [...]

“Slot machines and blackjack tables have no power at all. What we are not building is a box of slots. We’re building a beautiful hotel that just happens to have a gaming room in the back.”– Steve Wynn, repositioning himself as an urban hotelier in the course of unveiling a $1.2 billion, proposed casino [...]

If you have been waiting for the moment to sell your Caesars Entertainment stock and get out unscathed, even making a tidy profit, that moment is now. Actually, it was March 20 this year, when CZR hit an all-time high of $17.54, gently sloping off thereafter. That continued an impressive comeback for a stock that’s [...]

Break out a flagon of whatever Derek Stevens is drinking and put it on my tab, lads. To commemorate the first leg of the Triple Crown, he’s holding a May 3-4 Sigma Derby tournament. Buy-in starts at $50, so starting emptying your piggy banks for some of the best time-on-device action in Las Vegas. To [...]

One doesn’t really think of going to shore in March, so it’s no surprise that Atlantic City casino revenues were — excluding Revel — down 14% last month. The latter grossed $10 million, pulling it almost dead even with the Golden Nugget and a bit further behind the Atlantic Club. The surprise bulletin of the [...]

Since Colliers International hasn’t been able to move Gary Goett’s 100 gaming-enabled acres on St. Rose Parkway and I-15, at $1.25 million per acre, he’s still got time to rethink his decision not to build his Southern Highlands megaresort (left), complete with a mini-ripoff of Wynn Las Vegas, architecturally speaking. But Penn National Gaming continues [...]

Continuing a very occasional series, here are some casino-related ephemera that have washed up on the shores of cyberspace. For instance …

… only about 25% of the rooms at the newly announced Gansevoort Las Vegas will enjoy this particular Strip view. Guess which ones will command the premium price points? And how many Strip hotels [...]

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 — [...]

S&G contributor JeffInOKC returns from a too-long absence with some thoughts on one of our favorite topics, the North Strip …

It is common for us to hear the term “Too Big to Fail,” but I think the true story of Fountainebleau is “Too Big to Succeed.” The original plan for the property [...]

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 [...]

If you’ll pardon my vulgarity, shit got real while I was tied up with other projects. Last week’s sale of excess baggage Dania Jai-Alai in Florida was just a tiny prelude to this morning’s blockbuster: Echelon is kaput. Instead, Boyd Gaming will liquidate it to Genting Berhad for $350 million. This closes the book on Boyd’s [...]

Today’s top story is the rumor, first aired on LasVegasAdvisor.com that Binion’s Gambling Hall & Hotel will close in July, lock, stock and million-dollar display. This dovetails with an earlier report that a detailed makeover is in the works. So Binion’s could follow the lead of the Plaza and go the short-term-closure route, rather than [...]

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 [...]