Casino speculator Shawn Scott is skulking out of Maine, his attorney having withdrawn an appeal of Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy’s ruling on the 
(in)validity of petitions filed by Scott and his sister Lisa, who was bankrolling the referendum drive. Shawn Scott had craftily worded the petitions so that only he would qualify for a casino under the wording of the referendum, but his petition-gathering drive was not so careful about dotting its i’s and crossing its its it’s. Anyway, the fall election can proceed without any Scott-related hanky-panky. In other Maine news, Churchill Downs is spending $25 million to add a 100-room hotel and expand the gaming floor at Oxford Casino. The renovations will also include connecting Oxford Casino to the town’s new sewer system, “providing a significant source of revenue for the sewer project,” according to the Portland Press Herald.
* The current ownership of the Normandie Card Club having been convicted of money laundering, the California card room will have to be closed and the Miller family will have 120 days to find a buyer. Already, Larry Flynt has been tipped as the frontrunner. Said former would-be buyer Robert Turner, “he has a parking problem at the Hustler, and the Normandie sits on 17 acres if you include the corner. If they build a hotel and convention area with a larger casino, they could give Hollywood Park Casino some competition … He might turn his current Hustler location into a strip club or a Hustler store. It also might be a waste of money on his part.” With the Los Angeles Rams coming to the area, Gardena‘s card clubs are generally looking to upscale their images, led by the Bicycle Casino and the Commerce Casino. Hollywood Park will see a hotel-and-retail mall grow up around it. Gardens Casino opened a new, 300-table gaming floor, with the ambition of being the world’s largest card club. In this atmosphere, it’s ante up for perish for the Normandie.
Business has been getting better at Mohegan Sun, with slot revenue up 7% last quarter and tables grossing 11% more over the same period. So it only makes sense that management has been feeling optimistic enough to add another 400 hotel rooms. The $130 million expansion, long in abeyance, will be called the Earth Tower, to go with the existing Sky Tower. Mohegan Sun also landed a casino-management contract with Paragon Casino Resort, in Marksville, Louisiana. The pact calls for Mohegan Sun to run the casino for five years and act as consultant for one year more.
* For sheer nerve, you’ve got to hand it to the Cherokee County Commission. Three times it has lost in its attempts to appeal the Kansas Racing & Gaming Commission award of a casino license to Kansas Crossing Casino & Hotel instead of Castle Rock Casino. The ‘gimme, gimme’ nature of the latest includes the right to be given the development contract for Kansas Crossing. The Castle Rock team has also sought to have the state intervene, halt construction on Kansas Crossing and re-do the bidding process. As sore losers go, the Castle Rock bunch goes right up there.
* Can’t choose between a high-end nightclub a sports bar or a VIP gaming salon? At Encore, the one and only Steve Wynn has made the choice for you. In addition to a DJ, Encore Players Club will be studded with 23 HDTV sets and frou-frou drinks that will 
set you back many a pretty penny. One of these is “Blueberry Tea, which pairs Firefly Sweet Tea vodka with blueberry flavored Redbull, along with St, Germaine elderflower liquor and a simple syrup for an energetic drink that will keep you awake at the tables.” As a rival casino executive once said, the great thing about mixing Redbull and vodka is it ensures that your gamblers are awake, drunk and crazy — just the way you want them.
Elsewhere in the Wynn cosmos, Charles Lightbody and two co-defendants were acquitted of fraud charges stemming from the land sale of Wynn Boston Harbor. If anybody got their image bruised by the tribal it was Wynn Resorts, whose due diligence was alleged by multiple witnesses to have been far from airtight.
* Macao‘s casino industry hasn’t hit bottom yet but the ocean floor is in sight. Gross gaming revenues were down only 9.5% last month.
