Despite having wrought havoc upon Caesars Entertainment, Chairman Gary Loveman — looking alarmingly puffy and ill — manages to still find himself taken seriously as a talking head. He gave CNBC a dosage of his usual spin-doctoring. This includes one of Loveman’s most remarkable traits: His ability to discuss disasters at least partly of his own making as though they were committed by someone else. Here, diagnosing the ills of Atlantic City, where he’s closed two casinos, he says “You had what was a regional monopoly in Atlantic County, New Jersey exposed to a tremendous influx of supply and locations that were proximate to where people had lived who had heretofore gone to Atlantic City.”
You mean an “influx of supply and locations” that would include Harrah’s Philadelphia and Horseshoe Baltimore? Naaaaaaah! To hear Loveman tell it, he’s never to blame.
Caesars does appear to be bringing more senior creditors into the fold of its planned restructuring. In a sweet deal, they would get cash, extended repayment guarantees and a 1:1 
exchange of newly issued securities. Junior creditors have to be broiling at the sweet courtship that senior ones are receiving.
Less intelligent — downright counterproductive, in fact — is Caesars’ heavyhanded treatment of advantage players like poker pro Joe Stiers. He was 86’d from Horseshoe Baltimore, setting off a chain of consequences that includes being barred from the World Series of Poker. Horseshoe has been particularly vigorous about trespassing advantage players from its properties. Stiers alleges that Horseshoe continued marketing to him after his banishment. Maryland Live is also accused of getting rough with card counters but the bulk of the accusations fall on Caesars, whose motto seems to be “Horseshoe: Where the house always wins — or else.”
* During a week in which he was accused of exerting undue pressure on behalf of SLS Las Vegas, Sen. Harry Reid (D) decided that 34 years on Capitol Hill were enough. 
American Gaming Association President Geoff Freeman went into something of a freak-out, calling for a plethora of pro-gaming candidates to rise up and run in the next election cycle. Here in Nevada, all the probable contenders — from both parties — are casino-friendly. Of course, one party or another could mess things up by nominating an anti-gambling dingbat, as the GOP did with Sharron Angle in 2010. It’s unlikely but it’s happened before.
* Fainthearted to the core, Japan‘s Liberal Democratic Party has delayed pro-casino legislation yet again and may not address it until August. Delay seems the only certainty in this constipated process.
