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 and successor Anthony Sanfilippo. Despite a player-sharing agreement with MGM Resorts International, Ameristar wasn’t able to draw MGM into a bidding war. Caesars Entertainment was too levered up and would have been duplicating assets (not that either consideration ever stopped CEO Gary Loveman before) and Penn National Gaming had taken itself out of the fray by going all REIT on us ahead of Pinnacle’s play for Ameristar. Pinnacle nabs a couple of lucrative assets in Missouri, two slightly less so in Indiana, a juicy one in Iowa and a loyal base of players. For Penn, meanwhile, this will be The One That Got Away. Back in St. Charles, Ameristar also received some good news …
Free Elaine! Few of us would argue with Elaine Wynn‘s prerogative to sell down her 10% position in Wynn Resorts. Although ex-husband Steve Wynn (who’s put her through a few indignities in recent years) controls the shares, at the end of the day they’re hers to sell. Now that Kazuo Okada appears to be well and truly out of the picture (but not out of hot water), the ex-Mrs. Wynn would sees no purpose to keeping her percentage of the company on ice and has filed suit in federal court to liberate her shares, which has sent Wynn Resorts into a bit of a tizzy. And not without reason.
Since Mr. Wynn holds voting rights to the couples’ shares (giving him nearly 20%), the company fears that a sell-down by his jettisoned wife would trip a series of dominoes, including a lower credit rating and a delayed or downsized Wynn Cotai. Or Steve could just dip into his not-inconsiderable personal wealth and buy Elaine out. That would be the preferable scenario but, with the Okada danger having passed, there seems no good reason not to liberate Elaine Wynn’s shares other than to prop up her ex-husband’s controlling position through a form of coercion.
Fed up. Having evidently sat through one Eagles tune too many while trying to ‘get the colored lights going,’ Eating Las Vegas co-author John Curtas lays down some rules for jukebox programming. The across-the-board ban on Pitbull seems an exceptionally good idea. He then sets out 66 alternatives from Benny Goodman to Warren Zevon. Curtas is never anything if not candid.
