“From the looks on your faces, you don’t like ‘Kumbaya’ moments. I’m sorry for that. It’s time for some tough decisions and some pain as we 
move forward.” So said Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian (R) as he acceded to a state takeover that will effectively render him the puppet monarch of the Boardwalk. Although the length of the new regime has been curbed from 15 years to five, the state is still granted sweeping powers. One that unions are certain to hate is the ability to dissolve collective bargaining agreements … along with municipal departments and such, and to consolidate public services. It also gives state Sen. Stephen Sweeney (D) his much-coveted right to sell off Atlantic City’s water authority, seen as a giveaway to New Jersey American Water Co. (Its magnate, George Norcross, is a Sweeney crony.)
City-owned land and other assets are up for grabs, and Atlantic City’s debt will be restructured. The unilateral state power to terminate or change union contracts drew the concern of Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D), who warned that the lower house wasn’t necessarily on board with the new status quo, brokered by Gov. Chris 
Christie (R). “If the Assembly is not involved, then there is no agreement,” Prieto cautioned. In the end, when it came to solving the problems of Atlantic City, Christie came down on the side of governmental solutions over market forces. Or, as he put it, “What we’ve been trying to do all along is come up with private sector solutions to these problems, by empowering people in Atlantic City to invest in Atlantic City, to help Atlantic City grow. But you cannot have a nongovernmental solution to a governmental problem. This is a governmental problem.”
On the upside, Caesars Entertainment is hiring (although having a difficult time of it). And Glenn Straub made the news again, when his 150-foot yacht broke loose during a storm. At least no windows at Revel were broken by the foul weather.
* Sheldon Adelson‘s commitment to a new stadium adjacent to UNLV is more rhetorical than substantive. Private investors would only be required to pony up $420 million of the $1.2 billion cost. The remainder
would be borne by taxpayers. More specifically, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority would be at least partially defunded to pay for Sheldon’s Palace. This is his latest attempt to bushwhack the LVCVA and it’s predicated on the 65,000-seat arena being able to draw what Las Vegas Sands lobbyist Andy Abboud “enumerated as conference championships, bowl games, NFL exhibition football, boxing, soccer, neutral-site games, and music festivals. There is an entire segment out there.” Meanwhile, MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren, whose T-Mobile Arena would have to compete with Adelson’s colosseum, threw his support to the LVCVA. A Sands mouthpiece said Sheldon’s Stadium “far outweighs the need for additional convention facilities.”
* Anywhere else but Macao, a 21% decline in January would be bad news. But, as Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli put it, it “was broadly better than expected and came in modestly better than historical average sequential trends had implied.” While the above-expectation result was “likely to bode well for stocks in the near term, looming supply additions and stagnant sequential [gaming revenue] leave plenty for the bear case, in our view.” He forecasts future Macao declines to be in the low teens. which is bad but not as terrible as 2015 was.
