Banks and other lending institutions aren’t going to simply forebear while Caesars Entertainment ownership absconds with all the assets. No, they want equity if they’re going to forgive debt and drop 
lawsuits. And if those lawsuits drag the parent company into Chapter 11, so be it. Caesars’ attitude toward creditors has been at times disdainful, with advisor James E. Millstein telling a lawyer, “You’re deluding yourselves in thinking you’re getting that money anytime soon.” Millstein added that Caesars could lose whatever creditor support it has if litigation over potentially fraudulent asset transfers is permitted to go forward. (And, let’s face it, when Total Rewards is “sold” for $0.00, there’s something fishy happening.)
According to the Wall Street Journal, “a bondholder committee proposed a restructuring plan under which the company’s second-priority and unsecured bondholders would receive stock and convertible notes, bond-like securities that can be 
exchanged for stock under certain conditions.” That stock conversion would give junior creditors 52% ownership of Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., while a bondholder committee would get to choose a majority of the board. Sounds like a good deal. (It’s better than one that would give them only 10% ownership.) Junior creditors would recover 57.5 cents on the dollar by selling their securities.
Various funds, including ones controlled by John Paulson and George Soros, are trying to get everybody together to sing “Kumbaya.” But the Caesars mess looks as intractable as before, if not more so.
* Having missed out on the locals-player market, SLS Las Vegas is 
staging a Red Bull–sponsored contest in tandem with area convenience-store chain Green Valley Grocery. The winner gets a two-night stay, a cabana at Foxtail Pool and a table at Foxtail Nightclub. Well, you can’t saying the SLS dog can’t be taught new tricks.
* Nevada State Museum Executive Director Dennis McBride and his fascination with time capsules are the subject of a well-deserved Los Angeles Times profile. I won’t spoil it for you but I will say that many a “Question of the Day” has benefited from McBride’s vast arsenal of knowledge.
* Columnist Jim Armitage is urging Bwin.Party to stick with its sale to casino-focused 888 and not succumb to the blandishments of more speculative GVC Holdings. The latter says it doesn’t matter how much 888 bids, it’s going to keep raising the ante. (Sounds like the zany days of casino auctions in 2005-07.) “GVC is going it alone and says it will run the casino arm itself. Personally, I can’t see that happening. Far more likely is that GVC would break up the casino stuff and sell it for cash,” says Armitage.
* A referendum by the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head found the tribe split right down the middle, 110-110, over whether to build a Class II casino on Martha’s Vineyard. However, a two-thirds vote was needed to block the gaming hall, so it’s back to business as usual. Perhaps as an additional selling point, the tribe has released details of what it intends to build. The is the fifth time the tribe has voted to proceed — a 2014 plebiscite failed — with a casino, now called Aquinnah Cliffs. The 21-page promotional booklet also bristled with defiance toward the State of Massachusetts, saying, “The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) is a sovereign nation existing thousands of years before our Island was invaded.”
Voter turnout represented a puny 18% turnout of Aquinnah voters, but the votes that were cast are the only ones that count. Or, as former tribal chairwoman Beverly Wright put it, “I think the Island voters really came out to say what they wanted.” (Most of the tribe lives on the mainland.) Wright, an opponent, wants the tribe to focus on infrastructural and safety issues instead, noting the cluster of families living within 500 feet of the casino site.
Work on the casino — whose design was laid out in the booklet — has been temporarily stayed while Judge F. Dennis Saylor mulls over whether the Aquinnah band has the legal precedent to proceed. If built, the gambling hall would have 300 electronic-bingo machines. Tribal leadership projects an initial gross of $13 million and as many as 130 jobs, although casino expert Clyde Barrow took a skeptical view of the numbers, due to the high level of automation in Class II casinos.
One Vineyard Gazette reader asked, “How many customer visits will it take to gross anywhere close to $12.7 million in annual revenue? Where will these people come from and how will they get to Aquinnah? If they’re coming from off-island, will they come in the dead of winter or even in the shoulder seasons? Where will they stay? Indeed, if they’re coming from off-island, why should they bother, when there are gambling operations in New England that are easier to get to and offer more options?”
Good questions. We look forward to hearing the Wampanoag leadership’s answers.
