Boston Mayor Martin “McCheese” Walsh has Wynn Everett President Robert DeSalvio “baffled” with his schizoid approach to 
the hotel-casino. After having an apparently conciliatory meeting with Walsh, DeSalvio was bushwhacked by a McCheese-launched lawsuit to halt construction on Wynn Everett. “We were somewhat baffled by the resulting litigation that followed and I really can’t answer for it. I don’t know why that
action was taken,” DeSalvio told Boston Herald Radio.
Although he risks driving off $1.7 billion in development, Walsh’s rule-or-ruin approach is polling well in Boston, where it enjoys 57% approval. While one would think that Walsh would want to try and negotiate a more lucrative surrounding-community arrangement with Steve Wynn, his objective seems to be to drive the mogul out of Beantown altogether. He obviously figures that, should that happen, the state would have no choice but to bring back the Suffolk Downs/Mohegan Sun project, for which Walsh’s preference is no secret.
* Glenn Straub may not be able to get his hands on the ACR Energy Partners power plant for Revel after all. A pair of bondholders, Rosemawr Municipal Partners Fund and Rosemawr Capital I, are suing ACR. They assert that they have 
preemptive rights to the plant, ACR having allegedly lied to them about defaults on its bonds, which lost 70% of their value after Rosemawr’s purchase. “Defendants fraudulently misrepresented — indeed, flatly lied about — material matters and purposefully concealed information that they knew was material to plaintiffs and the other bondholders in order to enrich themselves,” reads the lawsuit. Whenever Straub seems to have the power plant securely in his grasp, some complication springs up to keep it away from him.
* Its coffers fattened with slot-machine lucre, Yonkers Raceway is bringing back harness racing, with an eye to the European simulcast 
market. Reviving the Sunday meets last fall, Yonkers’ handle often reached or exceeded $1 million a Sunday from overseas bettors, who are said to be mad for trotters. In cooperation with France‘s Pari Mutuel Urbain, Yonkers is now looking to revive the $1 million International Trot, which draws trotting horses from across the Western Hemisphere. While hardly chump change ($500,000) the U.S. handle for Yonkers’ trotting races pales next to the European action. The races, which average a $10,000 a purse, had been discontinued. And without casino gambling at Yonkers, I seriously doubt we’d be discussing international harness racing today.
* Another day, another restructuring plan at Caesars Entertainment. This one would see still split the company into a management unit and a REIT. Bank owners would trade in their 
$5.35 billion in existing debt for new debt plus $3.2 billion in cash, while senior bondholders, who are owed $6.3 billion, would get a slightly less “george” offer: Equity plus $1.45 billion in cash … and new debt. That’s still better than what junior bondholders are offered in a take-it-or-leave-it deal; 18% recovery and a 17.5% share of the REIT if they say yes, 5% recovery if they say no. Caesars says it has the senior creditors on board with this new debt, but it is still dogged by a junior-debtor lawsuit over allegedly fraudulent transfers of assets, such as the one that saw Total Rewards change hands for free.
* Troglodytes love to demonize tribal gaming but a recent analysis of Arizona shows the multi-dimensional benefits it has wrought.
