New bosses at Hooters; Caesars: If it worked for Obama … ?

While nobody wants to buy or even lease the Hooters Hotel, current owners Canyon Capital Realty Advisors at least have found some new gaming expertise for the property. In this case, “new” is a relative term, as the familiar faces of Larry J. and Larry D. Woolf will be steering daily operations. The elder Woolf, who once ran MGM Grand, right across the street, says Hooters — which will soon be de-branded — has been performing better and has enough in the kitty to spend $3 million on renovations. That sounds like a patchwork solution but so is Navegante Gaming: an experienced manager of grind joints, shepherding Hooters along until maybe, someday, someone will actually want to buy the place. Given the lack of name-brand hotel affiliation for Hooters, it is a marvel that it continues to survive. It’s got tenacity, no question.

In one of the odder gaming stories of the year, Sunday’s New York Times Magazine will reveal that former Barack Obama campaign operatives — now toiling in the private sector — paid Las Vegas a visit last spring to try and sell their data-mining mastery to Caesars Entertainment. The latter “was looking for ways to induce semiregular visitors to show up more routinely at its other casinos around the country and to keep regulars from defecting to new competitors.” Guess that Total Rewards magic isn’t working as well as it once did. The visiting wonks from A.M.G. must not have gotten a Caesars sinecure because they sniff about the trip being “a small discomfort” and playing “the Devil’s advocate.” (It would never occur to me to liken Gary Loveman to Satan, no matter how badly he’s wrecked Caesars.)

One certainly hopes Caesars doesn’t cotton to A.M.G.’s intrusive methods which go well beyond plumbing your Facebook page and into snooping on the information transmitted by your cable- or satellite-TV box. But if Caesars ads start turning up during 1 a.m. reruns of Judge Joe Brown, you’ll know where Loveman’s people got the idea.

Slippery slope? As expected, Delaware lawmakers passed a one-time (?), $8 million subsidy to the state’s racinos. The money is to be used to cover an anticipated 12% increase in slot machine costs. Legislator Robert Venables (D) was probably much closer to the truth when he said, “We almost have to do the $8 million to let them hold on a while.” These events probably weren’t lost on casino operators in West Virginia, feeling the threefold pinch of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Citing staggering declines in revenue (including a 75% plunge at the tables), Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack GM Osi Imomoh (right) is pleading with visiting solons for relief from the state’s usurious 42% tax rate. His may be the first voice to be heard but it certainly won’t be the last.