Suffolk Downs fights back; Scrum in New Jersey Lege

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh may well have thrown in the towel in his lawsuit against Wynn Everett (technically against the Massachusetts Gaming Commission) but a quartet of Suffolk Downs workers aren’t letting Judge Janet Sanders‘ dismissal of aforesaid lawsuit go down without a fight. They’re suing to have the litigation reinstated. After all, state Attorney General Maura Healey had ruled that 100 hours of MGC deliberations violated Massachusetts open-meeting laws by being held behind closed doors. Judge Sanders ruled that the suit against the MGC lacked “sufficient factual allegations.” Aye, there’s the rub. Without knowing the content of the meetings, how could the litigants make substantive allegations? The Suffolk Downs foursome hopes that conundrum is enough to bring their lawsuit back from the dead.

* Let’s hope Glenn Straub is serious about his proposed water park for Revel (Straub tends to pinball from one idea to another). He’s the only game in town now that TJM Properties has scrapped its rival water park and put the woebegone Atlantic Club up for sale. Park developer and lessee Endeavor AC “was not able to generate the additional deposit funds needed.” This will be the third time the Atlantic Club has changed hands in a year and a half. The place could use some luck, badly.

Further north, Triple Five, which has operated a successful casino in Alberta and failed as a casino developer on the Las Vegas Strip, has entered the lists for a north-New Jersey casino. Triple Five salvaged the American Dream Meadowlands shopping center (a Colony Capital disaster) and wants to put a casino at the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Maybe they’ll unearth Jimmy Hoffa while they’re at it. Meadowlands Racetrack owner Jeff Gural has already dibbed the site for himself, and Reebok ex-CEO Paul Fireman has a site in Jersey City and is raring to go. Nobody thinks the bidding is going to stop there.

All of the interested parties may have to take a cold shower if state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) doesn’t reach a compromise with state Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D) in the lame-duck session. The latter has aligned Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Paterson Mayor Joey Torres with his bill, which sends less tax money to Atlantic City — 35% to Sweeney’s 49%. They complained that Sweeney’s projected monies were “disproportionately given to Sweeney’s South Jersey constituents, saddling northern municipalities with additional burdens and less resources to address those burdens.” Unless both houses vote on a bill, any bill, the new Legislature will have to pass either one by a supermajority, a high hurdle that would buy some time for Atlantic City.

* If you’re in Las Vegas and wondering about that big, ochre gaming chip wrapped on the front of Luxor, all has been revealed. It’s a Snapchat logo, put in place for the Consumer Electronics Show. It’s a pricey, high-profile gambit for the financially challenged company, so the choice of gaming iconography seems apt.

* Stanley Ho‘s Greek Mythology casino (where Roman centurions anachronistically stand guard) is closed “for renovation.” Since all the table games are being kept on-property instead of being dispersed to other SJM Holdings properties, the explanation may be on the level. However, other factors point to a row between Greek Mythology and junketeer Amax International Holdings, which alleges the former “has since refused to provide the company with its valid financial information to enable the company to prepare its financial results.”