If Glenn Straub can’t have Revel, he’s determined to see that no one else can … including Glenn Straub. The sole remaining bidder for Atlantic City‘s $2.4 billion white elephant, 
Straub’s $95.4 million bid for it was accepted by bankruptcy court Judge Gloria Burns. However, she wouldn’t let Straub knock the price down to $87 million (his original offer, minus the mandatory breakup fee). This prompted a hissy fit from Straub, who signaled — through lawyer Stuart Moskowitz — that he wanted the sale to himself blocked. (You read that right.)
Revel attorney John Cunningham was suitably gobsmacked, saying, “I think in my 23 years of practicing bankruptcy law this is my first time to see that.” Adding to the general air of ambivalence, Straub was heard to mutter something about being more interested in country clubs and vineyards. Focus, Glenn!
Perhaps Straub’s best hope lies in a technicality: Lawyers who represent Revel did unrelated work for failed rival bidder Brookfield Asset Management. Perhaps he can leverage that to prove, as he claims, that the whole bankruptcy-auction process was tainted. In the meantime, Burns is holding firm, evidently unimpressed by the bluster coming from the Straub camp.
Straub doesn’t intend to buy Revel’s freestanding power plant, incidentally. When asked how he planned to operate an unheated building, the zany millionaire surrealistically proclaimed, “We can do anything.”
* Maryland continues to defy the general casino malaise afflicting the East Coast. Its 
gambling halls raked in 31% more revenue this December than last. Horseshoe Casino Baltimore ($23 million) continued to be dwarfed by Maryland Live‘s $50 million (-4%). Ocean Downs was flat, grossing $3 million, while slippage continued at Hollywood Casino Perryville, off 7% at $6 million. While Rocky Gap Resort raked in only $3 million, it was a banner month for the casino, up 17%. So confiscatory are the tax rates in Maryland (the “Free State,” ha!), that although casinos grossed $624 million they only got to keep $264 million.
* In a craven act of prostration before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), the Menominee Kenosha Gaming Authority severed a longstanding accord with the United Food & Commercial Workers. The pact would have allowed the latter to unionize workers at the planned Hard Rock Hotel & Casino through the simpler card-check method. Now, should the casino be approved, the UFCW would have jump the higher hurdle of a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election — and maybe not even that. Walker’s animus toward labor unions is notorious and there’s no telling who the Menominee will push under the bus in order to get that doggone casino.
