Trump, Trump, pants on fire; Tensions in California

Did Donald Trump lie to casino regulators when he put his net worth at $3.6 million? He told one of his biographers that “I try” to be honest but added that his value “goes up and down with markets, and with attitudes, and with feelings, even my own feelings …  affect my value to myself.” Isn’t it nice knowing that subjective feelings now impact net worth. How valuable are you feeling today? In the past few weeks, Trump’s self-proclaimed net worth has fluctuated between $8.7 billion and $10 billion. He must have been feeling very good about himself.

(Incidentally, Trump is a piker compared to Sheldon Adelson, whose net worth is pegged around $28 billion.)

* Tempers are fraying between California tribal casinos and the state’s card rooms, which are skirting the edge of what’s permissible by offering blackjack and other banked games. Complicating the picture is an opinion by outgoing Department of Justice enforcer Bob Lytle, weighing in on behalf of the cardrooms — for which he now faces conflict-of-interest charges, having made a beeline from state office to the card-room industry. “It may be wrong to make the assumption the Lytle memo is the policy of the bureau,” a source told reporter Dave Palermo.

Lax oversight by Attorney General Kamala Harris and Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is also blamed for blurring the lines between what is permissible for card rooms and what isn’t. Yocha Dehe Wintum Nation Chairman Leland Kintner told Palermo, “The state simply cannot enforce the laws on the books now to stop illegal activity rampant in California card rooms.”

The problem isn’t just a dearth of state supervision but lax internal controls within the cardrooms themselves, especially the more low-end ones. They evoke terms like “wild wild West” and “Galapagos Islands.” At least six card rooms are under investigation for skimming. An anonymous regulator says, “There’ve been more raids on California card rooms than all the tribal and commercial casinos in the country, combined.” Can the California model be fixed or is it broken beyond repair?

* Although the casinos in Atlantic City are mostly alive and well, that’s not preventing a cautionary postmortem of the city’s gaming crisis. However, bringing in Trump Entertainment Resorts CEO Bob Griffin to deliver an expert opinion is like calling a quack to the stand in an inquest.