“The bottom line is you have a casino. Instead of downplaying that, let’s celebrate it.” That’s Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas CEO Bill McBeath outlining the besetting sin of his predecessors, ignoring the central role 
of gambling as the Cosmo’s revenue driver. His changes ran the gamut from moving the sports book to welcoming higher-limit play, $200,000 a hand, with $5 million lines of credit and bigger slot jackpots, ending risk-averse Deutsche Bank policies. The Cosmo isn’t out of the woods yet, lacking a hotel-loyalty affiliation while trying to compete in the $300/night tier among other problems, the big difference between the Cosmo’s Deutsche Bank era and the new Blackstone Group is that the latter is actually turning a profit.
Investment banker William Newby describes the Cosmo’s original, back-asswards market positioning thusly: “The joke was you’d go there later at night, you’d notice the slot-machine seats were filled with people waiting in line to go to the clubs.” A Vegas casino designed for Manhattan, “It takes away from the synergy of the whole thing when you’ve got to go up escalators,” says consultant Steve Norton of the stacked-casino layout. McBeath continues to reposition the property. He’s banished John Unwin‘s go-go dancers, said farewell to pricey DJs and deemphasized concerts, putting one of the Cosmo’s costlier amenities, The Chelsea, on the back burner. “We’re a unique luxury brand with a twist, and there wasn’t anything luxury about that experience for me,” McBeath says, unmoved. It’s not the Cosmo as Ian Bruce Eichner envisioned it, but it’s working a heckuva lot better.
* As Atlantic City teeters on the precipice of municipal insolvency, Borgata just might give it the shove that sends the Boardwalk over the edge. The Boyd Gaming/MGM Resorts International megaresort 
is demanding the immediate repayment of $62.5 million in property tax refunds (out of a grand total of $170 million). Trouble is, the city may have only half that amount on hand. Borgata can stop making current tax payments for the time being but has to give the city 45 days to negotiate a settlement before it can start seizing Atlantic City assets. (A casino foreclosing on a city? Now there’s a new one.)
“We did not come to this decision lightly … But after years of delays
and unsuccessful appeals by the city, we can wait no longer. We have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders of our parent companies to pursue collection of the amount we are owed,” said Borgata general counsel Joe Corbo. “To date, [Atlantic City officials] have not made a serious offer, leaving us no choice but to exercise our rights as a taxpayer.” Although Mayor Don Guardian (R) has said in the past that Borgata’s demands could tip A.C. into bankruptcy, for the moment he’s keeping his counsel.
* If you eat at Macho Taco, in Justice, Illinois, you can play slots and video poker — as well as at two other slot-route locations on either side of it in the same mall. But, in a similar scenario in Hometown, the Illinois Gaming Board nixed a trio of slot routes in one mall. Critics of the board saying it’s going against its own rhetoric opposing “backdoor casinos” like the one in Justice. The board doesn’t have much of an argument to defend its rather subjective decisions. “The distinction is: If we know there’s a plan to create what we consider a mini-casino, there’s not going to be support for it,” was the best that Chairman Donald Tracy could do.
Holding the line for Illinois’ besieged riverboat casinos is board member Thomas Dunn, who says that with 5,200 slots already deployed in storefronts, “Pretty soon, we’ll have one in every bathroom.” The 48 slots in Justice have been a windfall for the city, which has seen $145,000 in taxes from them. Obviously, they’re not going anyplace soon. Hometown initially thought even bigger: nine slot routes in one mall. Nor is it giving up easily. It’s next step is to take the Gaming Board to court.
