So long, Sammy; DFS gets a wakeup call

As predicted here, Sam Nazarian has liquidated his 10% stake in SLS Las Vegas to majority owner Stockbridge Capital Group. He’ll still get some extra cash out of the deal, which licenses his SLS brand to Stockbridge (although you could call the place Sam’s Shack snazas have as much brand equity). With the departure of Sam The Sham, we will hopefully have an end to newspaper mentions of Nazarian as a “visionary.” After all, unlike SLS, CityCenter actually produces a return on investment but nobody has ever lobbed the V-word around in reference to Jim Murren. By getting The Naz out of the picture Stockbridge “says it allows the SLS Las Vegas more flexibility to switch out brands and restaurants,” says the Las Vegas Sun.

That would seem to portend drastic changes at the property, which has already severed ties with retailer Fred Segal and may have many more surprises in store. Considering that SLS Las Vegas is sinking fast, any extra flexibility for Stockbridge could be counted as a positive development. Thus ends one of the briefest, most inglorious tenures of any casino figurehead. Nazarian knows nightclubs, so in future we expect he’ll stick to his knitting. He’s also free to snort coke again, if he so wishes. Is that what Stockbridge’s Terry Fancher meant when called the deal a “win-win”?

* Daily fantasy sports purveyors got a reality check in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, where high-rolling DFS pro Cory Albertson called for regulation of the sports-wagering demimonde. “Most people will lose money playing daily fantasy games,” he writes, countering the persistent messaging of FanDuel and DraftKings. He says that the two companies have blown off his urgings that they self-police, “choosing instead to pursue breakneck growth.”

Cutting to the chase, Albertson says, “the sites need to empower independent auditing and oversight of their operations—unless they want U.S. congressmen to do it for them.” With investigative movements afoot in several states, plus on Capitol Hill, the DFS industry can either listen to Albertson or risk letting events overtake it.

Gaming-law expert I. Nelson Rose, meanwhile, questioned the motives of the NFL and other leagues in buying into DFS: “Fantasy players will continue to watch a game to the end, even if one team is wiping out the other, because they want to know how their individual fantasy team players do.  More viewers mean more advertising revenue.” Also, all the more incentive to run up the score in ‘garbage time.’

* You know slot theming has gotten out hand when Aristocrat rolls forth a Downton Abbey game. What would Maggie Smith‘s dowager duchess say?

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