Scratch one more casino company from the checkerboard. This morning it was announced that Eldorado Resorts was buying Isle of Capri Casinos (long mooted as a takeover target. 
Eldorado will pay $1.7 billion for Isle — or $23 a share (and including $929 million in long-term debt). Isle stock shot up from $17 to $22 a share over the weekend, plateauing at the latter figure. Wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli, “we view the transaction as an obvious win for ISLE shareholders and a net positive for broader regional gaming operators.” It’s also a David-and-Goliath situation, with Eldorado — owner of seven casinos — swallowing the much larger Isle of Capri network. Eldorado already has experience working in large markets like Reno, Shreveport and Columbus, Ohio. Now it will get to test its experience on podunk Isle facilities in places like Boonville, Missouri, and Nemacolin, Pennsylvania.
“Despite ISLE’s more challenged regional asset portfolio,” Santarelli wrote, Eldorado wanted Isle badly enough to pay an above-average 8.4X cash flow for its assets, “a healthy premium” as Santarelli called it. Eldorado expects to see benefits within the first year, including the elimination of $35 million in redundancies. “Eldorado is in possession of committed financing for the transaction and we do not expect a competing bid given we think the process was diligent and methodical. Importantly, key shareholders representing 24% of the Eldorado outstanding stock and 35% of the ISLE outstanding stock have already signed agreements to approve the transaction,” Santarelli writes, expecting the transaction to close sometime next spring. When it’s done, the deal will give Eldorado 20,800 slot machines, 6,500 hotel rooms and 560 table games. If there were any doubt that Eldorado is a serious player in the contemporary casino industry, today’s news puts paid to that notion.
* Competition for MGM Springfield from Connecticut is fading into the hazy yon as Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort Casino have push the ‘restart’ button on their search for a site for a (dubiously constitutional) satellite casino. “Even with those 
candidates that we’ve had from the beginning, we’ve had this recognition by some of those communities that perhaps there are other alternatives within those communities,” said Mohegan Tribal Authority Chairman Kevin Brown, vaguely. “There are amended sites. There are couple of new sites as well.We just want to be clear and transparent on this and make sure we check all the boxes,” said a rather-more-helpful Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council Chairman Rodney Butler. Brown did concede that, thanks to this latest delay, the Mohegan/Foxwoods joint venture might well be beaten to the market by MGM.
According to Global Gaming Business, a potential civic bankruptcy in Hartford has pushed the capital city into the running. Silver Lane Partners also hopes to get into the action with an East Hartford pitch that would twin a casino with an existing Radission Hotel. Requests for proposals are due Oct. 13. Calling his plan a “game-changer,” Silver Lane’s Anthony Ravosa said,“we are not daunted in our strong belief that East Hartford alone presents the single-most compelling opportunity to develop a transformative entertainment and gaming destination anywhere in greater Hartford.” Once the delay was revealed. MGM Resorts International‘s Alan Feldman was quick to pounce. “This isn’t a process – 
it’s a sham,” he blasted. “Deadlines are set, then they’re missed. Towns are added, then subtracted. Unrealistic job numbers are created out of thin air, then thrown around with impunity. We’re told this is a ‘satellite casino,’ then when information is pried loose we see renderings of a casino larger than anything in Las Vegas. A ‘process’ like this is exactly how you end up with a baseball stadium that is unfinished, empty, and tens of millions of dollars over budget.” Could that be a forecast of what Vegas can expect with its own stadium project? (MGM hasn’t been rah-rah about that whole process, either.)
MGM ally Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Chief Richard Velky called the new turn of events “the latest bizarre twist in a process that seems rigged to benefit a group of insiders rather than the people of Connecticut.” “Public policy run by a private entity, made in secret, behind closed doors is a recipe for disaster,” Feldman prophesied and — the way things are going — he may be right. One thing is almost for certain. The State of Connecticut will have to wait until 2019 for those casino revenues (25% of slot win) it was banking on for 2018.
* Bad news for Sheldon Adelson: He may be hankering to expanding into Vietnam but Finance Minister Dinh Tien Dung says that company’s ban on casino gambling by locals will remain in place.
* The American Gaming Association has added nine new members to its board. I won’t go into every detail but it’s worth noting that three of the newcomers represents tribal interests: Foxwoods Resort Casino, the Chickasaw Nation (Oklahoma) and Wind Creek Hospitality (Alabama, with offshoots in Florida and Nevada). Also, daily fantasy sports now has a voice in the AGA, with the addition of Vic Salerno‘s USFantasy Sports. We don’t know how the DFS biggies would feel about being classified as gambling interests, but there you have it. Geoff Freeman continues to put a distinctive stamp on the gaming industry’s lobbying arm.
* Mobbed-up old casino boss Clifford Perlman has died at age 90. In a valedictory tribute, Caesars Palace President Gary Selesner said, “Clifford Perlman was a visionary who took Caesars Palace to a new level. He recognized the potential of Las Vegas with that expansion. During his 13 years running the property, he pushed it forward in so many ways and many of those strategies with the movies and expanding all started with him. He did do much for the Caesars Palace brand but a lot of these things were key for Las Vegas becoming the international destination and place where you went for luxury and to have fun.” Maybe so, but we’ll never forget that he was run out of New Jersey for having taken money from Meyer Lansky. After all, you’re known by the company you keep.
