Boyd to acquire Cannery?; Signs of movement in Atlantic City impasse

Sleeping giant Boyd Gaming is stirring to life, reportedly on the verge of a $225 million-$240 million buyout of Cannery Casino Resorts, according to Reuters. The latter’s Mike Stone says the deal would “give Boyd a strong foothold in the fast-growing north area of the city, which is emerging as a hub for technology start-ups, attracting affluent professionals with money to gamble.” Although Boyd has land in the north part of the valley, a deal with Cannery would relieve it of the obligation to build up there … a far costlier proposition. The mooted deal is somewhat of a curate’s egg because Eastside Cannery is only a couple of blocks south of Sam’s Town, mainly separated by a KOA RV park. True, Boyd has three casinos in close proximity in downtown Las Vegas, but they’re all popular with the Hawaiian crowd. What Boyd intends to do with this apparent redundancy on the Boulder Strip remains to be seen.

Among the parties that would be taken out of the Vegas picture by a Boyd purchase are Oaktree Capital Management, as well as James Packer‘s Crown Resorts, which owns a piece of the Cannery action and will take a bath on its $420 million investment. (In addition to its Cannery wipeout, Crown is making little headway raising funding for Alon.) Unfortunately for Boyd, the timing of the deal is a little off, Cannery having sold The Meadows Racetrack & Casino to Gaming & Leisure Properties last winter, for $440 million, depriving Boyd of an opportunity to get into the lucrative Pennsylvania market. However, two well-respected locals casinos for $120 million apiece is a bargain not to be sneezed at.

* New Jersey voters remain mostly averse to the idea of expanding casinos beyond Atlantic City. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the number of voters in favor of the change has crept up from 42% a few months back to 44% today — and that’s before what’s certain to be a hot and heavy referendum campaign, with one side arguing for the preservation of Atlantic City, and the other promising new jobs and revenue.

Fresh off a court victory against Gov. Chris Christie (R), Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian (R) is suing the state for $33.5 million in emergency funds that Christie vetoed earlier this year. The release of the funds is one of a string of broken promises that Christie has made to the resort town. Meanwhile state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D) have been doing a little phone chatting, trying to resolve their impasse over how best to fix Atlantic City. However, as Sweeney says, “there’s a third party that has to agree, and that’s the governor.” Christie has repeatedly insisted on a ‘clean’ (i.e., unamended) bill, although he said recently that his “door is always open,” leading to hope for a compromise.

* If you like improvisational comedy (I don’t), we have bad news for you: The Improv Comedy Club at Harrah’s Las Vegas is closing at the end of next month. The news isn’t official but is making the rounds of the comedy grapevine. One possible reason that the comedians are getting ousted is that Harrah’s wants to program more nights of X Country. If improvisation floats your boat, the Improv brand is still well-represented around the country, including one club in Reno and four in California.