After playing hard to get, Pinnacle Entertainment management finally succumbed to the embrace of Gaming & Leisure Properties. 
It’s a great deal on Pinnacle’s part: It sells its real estate to GLPI for 12.5 times cash flow, an unheard-of multiple for regional casino properties. Since Pinnacle will still be managing the casinos, the onus remains on them to justify GLPI’s (over)payment. However, CEO Anthony Sanfilippo and his team extracted a sweet deal for their shareholders, who will receive 0.85 shares of GLPI stock for every share of Pinnacle they hold.
“We believe PNK management did a superb job maximizing value for shareholders, while leaving the OpCo on largely solid ground for the near to medium term. In short, PNK holders are getting a GLPI stock component with a present value of ~$30, with upside,” wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli. Were this an outright sale, one would fear for the future of the Pinnacle casinos, given GLPI CEO Peter Carlino‘s reputation at Penn National (grubby, second-rate properties that sweat comps) but, granted sufficient financial backing, Sanfilippo & Co. should be able to keep doing their heretofore excellent job, provided that GLPI doesn’t squeeze them for higher return on investment.
* Having ridden Cirque du Soleil about as far as it will go, MGM Resorts International is trying to promote kabuki theater … on an 
appropriately Vegas-big scale. (This wouldn’t have anything to do with trying to get into Japan, would it?) For three days in August, actor Ichikawa Somegoro will fight giant, evil carp projected onto the Bellagio fountains in the Koi Tsukami spectacular. And if you don’t think this is part of a full-press courtship of Japan, what’s that large-scale Japanese floral arrangement doing in the Bellagio Conservatory?
* “They are denying the way we exist.” So says Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation Chairman Mark Gould of Gov. Chris Christie‘s attempt to revoke state recognition of it and two other tribes. The tribes, which have not sought federally protected status, 
were recognized by the state in the early 1980s. Now, says Gould, Christie is trying to strip the tribes of their status according to what The Press of Atlantic City describes as “an irrational, stereotype-driven fear of an Indian casino. But the tribe’s charter and religious tenets expressly prohibit gaming.”
Although it won’t be deprived of gaming, the Lenni-Lenape stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal grants if Christie prevails. This includes scholarships and …
* $600,000 in federal health grants
* $260,000 from losing the right to label tribal products as “American Indian made”
* $650,000 in tribal wages
… and so on. Tribal attorney Greg Werkheiser charges that Christie “is pretending select minorities out of existence.” Since the Lenni-Lenape aren’t pursuing a casino — and what would be the harm if they did? — S&G urges the Christie administration to take a chill pill.
