Trump bookmarks Chapter 11; Christie’s canny moves

Trump Entertainment Resorts is back in familiar territory: Chapter 11. It is the fourth time that minority owner Donald Trump‘s casinos have gone insolvent. He may try to wash his hands of the mess, but he gets equity for the use of his face and moniker, so you could say that the market has blown him a big raspberry. Nothing says “failure” in Atlantic City like the Trump name.

TER has as much as a half-billion dollars in debt against a paltry $50,000 asset base and it’s pleading poverty in bankruptcy court. Betfair and other Internet-casino partners are reported to be abandoning ship, too. Betfair has until Trump Plaza surrenders its gaming license to find a new home. TER’s underwhelming management is threatening a Nov. 13 closure of Trump Taj Mahal unless Unite-Here makes outrageous concessions, surrendering its benefit and pension plans, according to union prexy Robert McDevitt.

The latter is no stranger to hyperbole but there’s a lot of truth in his contention, “If our members were to work for minimum wage with no benefits, it wouldn’t be enough to keep this property in the hands of its current owners for a year.” Unite-Here already absorbed one round of give-backs in 2011 and doesn’t appear to be in the mood for more belt-tightening. It could be said that the choice is between lousy-paying jobs and no jobs, but TER is running into the ground at lightning speed. It has been picking up a few million here and there from asset sales, including Steel Pier and the previous corporate headquarters. At Trump Entertainment, if it’s not nailed down then it’s up for grabs.

* Doing a 180, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has approved unregulated sports betting in the state. As long as Garden State teams or events are involved (no betting on New York Jets home games!), it’s hunky-dory. Christie’s office contends that a federal appeals court “made clear that New Jersey was free to remove prohibitions against sports wagering.” (Monmouth Park was quick to react.)

Christie put the credit — or onus — for the decision on acting Attorney General John Hoffman, but not much happens in Jersey that doesn’t have Christie’s fingerprints on it. (*cough*bridge closures*cough*) To make their argument, lawyers for the state are arguing that if it’s not “state sponsored” then it lacks the “label of legitimacy” to which sports leagues objected. “[I]t simply states that the activity is no longer prohibited in those settings,” said the state, arguing that observation of existing restrictions on who can gamble and when doesn’t constitute state authorization.

It’s a somewhat tortuous argument but it just might do the trick. Losing his dignity, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D) yelped “Victory at last! People should book their hotel rooms in Atlantic City for the Super Bowl now because there won’t be any available in February.” Let’s hope there are still casinos in Atlantic City come February.

* To that end, Christie promised a mix of “short-term fixes and long-term action items” when his casino task force reconvenes in a month to six weeks. Also attending — and impervious to irony — was Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman. He blamed Atlantic City’s decline to the rise of gambling in Pennsylvania and Maryland (where Caesars has casinos) and New York (where it has been pursuing one). Everyone has to realize you can’t hold onto a system built for 1979 in 2014 when gaming is all around you,” he pontificated. “It’s going to take all of us to consider how we will guide its future.”

Christie’s much-ballyhooed summit produced some concrete results. The governor says he got a ‘commitment’ from Tilman Fertitta, presumably to stay put in Atlantic City and not sell the Golden Nugget, as had been rumored. Loveman also made an unspecified promise. All will be revealed in the fullness of time, I am sure.