Stiffs and Georges

That pesky Illinois Legislature writes up a new, gambling-expansion bill as fast as Gov. Pat Quinn (D, left) can veto the last one. Evidently worn down by long combat with lawmakers and facing a $100 million hole in the state’s education budget, Quinn has finally waved the surrender flag. This Christmas tree is garlanded not [...]

Yes, the comedy is finished in Springfield, at least for the moment. In an episode worthy of The Simpsons and after an epic amount of foot-dragging, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno was cajoled and ultimately browbeaten into actually taking a stand on which gambling company will get the city’s nod to build a resort downtown. And [...]

We’re at a point where we can finally say that Illinois‘ colossal slide in casino revenues has ended … at least until people get into the habit of playing video poker in bars. Reckless legislators like Rep. Lou Lang (D), who think “casino” and see a bottom less pile of money, ought to spend some [...]

Stephen Sweeney (D, right), president of the New Jersey state senate, has the honor of having been the first to call for ex-Revel CEO Kevin DeSanctis‘ head on a platter. Garden State regulators moved quickly to put Mohegan Sun veteran Jeffrey Hartmann in DeSanctis’ place, while the latter and colleague Michael Garrity sail away on [...]

A preview of Ameristar Casinos‘ 4Q12 report draws an about-what-we-expected reaction from Joseph Greff of J.P. Morgan. Ameristar narrowly missed most of Wall Street’s expectations, a result Greff partially attributes to “sluggish … regional gaming spend.” Hardest-hit by the competition was Ameristar’s Kansas City casino (left, -8%), which has been losing business to Penn National [...]

“[W]ell-connected developer” — but so not well financed — David Nunes (below) just got his casino-application fee across the transom, meaning that there are 11 contestants vying for two casino licenses and a slot parlor in Massachusetts. A couple of casino aspirants who couldn’t get their act together in time are pleading for extensions That [...]

For those of us who missed it this year, the best Christmas tradition of which I know.
First and most importantly …
To you, the reader, who makes this possible, a year of happiness, health and wealth, whether material, intellectual or spiritual.
Atlantic City: Good luck in a year that will end with ‘13.’
Boyd Gaming: New TV commercials.
Caesars [...]

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 [...]

Now we know why Steve Wynn was careful to mend fences with Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (below) in 2010 when negotiations to take over the doomed Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia project abruptly feel apart and Wynn skipped town. He’s back with “Wynn Philadelphia,” a 300-room, 100-table, 2,500-slot knockoff of Encore Macau, to be built in stages [...]

Anyone remember Gov. Steve Beshear (D)? For the five years, he’s been spinning his wheels, trying to get gambling expanded in Kentucky past horse racing. When Beshear ran for reelection last year, his GOP opponent, then-state Senate President David Williams claimed he’d support only slightly less gambling than Beshear. Turns out that Williams just funning [...]

Late last month, Bally Technologies landed a massive order of 4,000+ video poker terminals — VGTs in industry parlance — in Illinois. Y’all remember slot routes in the Land of Lincoln? They’ve taken so long to be put into place its legalization feels like an epoch ago. On top of those 4K worth of machines [...]

Except for a 4% slippage in July, the motto around Pennsylvania might be, “Cannibalization? What cannibalization?” The Keystone State has shrugged off new competition from Ohio, from New York City, from Revel in Atlantic City, and even from within the state itself. Once new Valley Forge Casino Resort (right) and its $6 million gross are [...]

As befits a proud papa, Penn National Gaming has been showing Wall Street analysts around its newest offspring: Hollywood Casino Toledo. The metrics are pretty awe-inspiring. Already the customer database is approaching 50,000 players and 47% of all slot play is rated — far more than at Penn’s Harrisburg racino in its early going. Good [...]

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over (and over) and expecting a different result, then we have outbreaks of it in both the Illinois Legislature and the Philadelphia casino market. In Pennsylvania, lawmakers have the disposition of the vacated Foxwoods project on their desks but its upper house won’t take action for [...]

So the big, official, grand, this-time-we-really-mean-it opening of Revel Resort & Casino came and went … and all the media has been talking about is Beyoncé and how bootylicious she looks so soon after giving birth. (Seven-plus pages of YouTube videos, too, and scarcely a clip of anything else on the Revel premises.) The good [...]

Looking like death warmed over, Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman took time from promoting the opening of Horseshoe Cleveland to try and spin the unloading of Harrah’s Maryland Heights as another brilliant masterstroke, rather than more evidence of the shambles into which he’s put a once-proud company. “Putting aside our status as a levered company,” [...]

In an attempt to shave a few months off their casino-approval timeline, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission is going to put the horse before the cart. (I guess you’d call it a “Massachusetts Miracle.”) Potential operators’ fiscal and ethical probity will be plumbed before applications are taken under consideration. This will hopefully spare the Bay State [...]

If state Rep. Lou Lang (D), the economic Rasputin of the upper Midwest, and his allies in the horsey set were actually conspiring to topple Illinois‘ casino industry in favor of quick-and-dirty racinos, they’ve done it cunningly. Frontal attacks on casino gambling almost never succeed, so why not water the gaming business down to the [...]

If you want a vexing test of one’s intellectual consistency, try the Maryland casino industry on for size. It’s not growing fast enough to suit the state Legislature, which is chafing at the constraints imposed upon it — with not a little legislative help — by Maryland voters when they approved five slot parlors in [...]

Although recent investor presentations by the major casino and game-making companies would leave one feeling pretty sanguine about the economy, “pallid” is the word for the industry’s performance in Illinois last month. Attendance at casinos rose 21% but spending was flat. Most of that increase was attributable to Rivers Casino ($35 million, right), which lifted [...]