Caesars and Gilbert, separate but together

Dan Gilbert‘s ThistleDown Racino has been losing business to Hard Rock Rocksino, so Gilbert is pushing back with $70 million in upgrades. “Our initial investment in ThistleDown thistledownhas been a tremendous success and now we’re ready to introduce a new level of entertainment and dining options to this area,” said General Manager Rick Skinner, putting an upbeat spin on the move. The racino’s only been open two years, so the flurry of changes comes as a bit of a surprise.

The myriad improvements will include 250 VLTs, bringing the total to 1,533. Also, a 1,000-vehicle garage will be added, as will a new restaurant and pasta bar. The renovation is projected to take a year.

* ThistleDown’s former co-owner, Caesars Entertainment, is encountering resistance to its plan to extend its bankruptcy by six months. It might be expected that junior bondholders caesarscasino_1would balk at having to wait another half-year to put forward their own plans but, problematically for Caesars, some first-tier creditors are also objecting. Then second-lien noteholders are also taking umbrage at Caesars’ proposal to convert parts of the company (the low-value ones) into a REIT, writing “The evidence will show that the debtors have conducted themselves in this case just as they did prior to bankruptcy – with the illicit objective of enriching their controlling shareholder at the expense of unsecured creditors.”

Caesars told the Wall Street Journal that the postponement was prompted by Judge Benjamin Goldgar‘s investigation into its bankruptcy-related shifting about of assets and that most creditors want to wait for investigator Richard Davis‘ report is completed. “These Chapter 11 cases are also among the largest and most complex ever filed,” Caesars added in a court filing. You can say that again.

* Caesars and Gilbert’s last remaining joint venture, Horseshoe Baltimore, will be making Maryland history by becoming the first Free State casino to provide betting on horse racing. Perhaps the reason no one has taken this seemingly inevitable (and natural to the Maryland market) step sooner is that it falls outside the remit of the Maryland Lottery & Gaming Control Commission. “However, it is in the casino, so we did our own level of due diligence,” said the MLGCC’s Charles LaBoy. “It was also something they worked out with the racing commission.”

* The initiation of the online-poker compact between Nevada and Delaware is having the Delaware leg-hallintended effect for the latter. Delaware’s rake rose 15% on a per-diem basis. And 306 new accounts were created, the most since November. On a sequential basis, it was a 26% basis (helped by having three more days in March). It was also the first month in which Delaware punters had round-the-clock access to Internet play. Racino action wasn’t such good news: revenue down 5%, despite huge increases in table drop and especially coin-in. Luck definitely was not with the casinos, with dramatically low hold percentages. Regardless of the financial burdens imposed on racinos by the state, they’re going to have to do better than that to make ends meet.

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