
Caesars Entertainment is lacking a week that is good being hit with numerous crises; any resemblance of Nero here to company CEO Gary Loveman is solely coincidental.
Then Caesars Entertainment Corp. is doing just fantastically well if the old adage that bad publicity is better than no publicity holds true. By just about any measures, however: perhaps not so much.
As if being forced for PR reasons to cut ties with its Las Vegas Strip new hotel and casino project partner Gansevoort and bailing from a $1 billion Boston-area casino project with racetrack Suffolk Downs weren’t sufficient, the casino giant is now reportedly the topic of federal inquiry into potential violations of the lender Secrecy Act at Caesars Palace, their flagship Las Vegas home. Then add a bizarre and random shooting outside of Drai’s at Caesars-owned Bally’s in Las Vegas, a tragedy that left one patron dead who was trying to tackle the gunman, also two security guards wounded. And lastly, a baby that is newborn body reportedly found behind Planet Hollywood on the Strip in identical week might have made it seem like the Apocalypse had landed in Caesars’ backyard in front of schedule.
Problem After Problem for Caesars
Of course, the company’s industry-high $23.5 billion debtload that is long-term not also news anymore; it’s just become a huge yoke that Caesars now carries around wherever it goes these days. The real question is, which of these other disasters is going to hurt the company’s currently tattered image probably the most.
A 600-page Massachusetts Gaming Commission report can’t have helped, that’s for certain.
‘Caesars is currently meeting its debt covenant requirements,’ the report noted in its recently released summary. ‘However, should the economy fail to recover sufficiently or if another downturn occurs, it could be difficult for Caesars to meet up with its debt service and covenant requirements.’
The Massachusetts investigating team which has appeared to not merely Caesars, but also competitor-for-a-Massachusetts-casino-license Steve Wynn more probing compared to the FBI, CIA and NSA combined were critical of how the gaming company is managing both its financial obligation and cash flow these days, noting that interest payments are pulling almost all of Caesars’ money flow now.
But that is just the tip associated with iceberg that is titanic the publicity smacks coming their way.
The Rio, back in 2006 and 2007 among many other issues noted in the Massachusetts report was one termed a ‘significant issue’ that of gambling whale Terrance Watanabe, who reportedly lost more than $100 million in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace and the company’s World Series of Poker kingpin property. Watanabe ultimately sued Caesars in Clark County District Court, claiming the casino encouraged him to even drink and gamble more while inebriated.
Although that suit ended up being settled, Caesars got slapped with a fine from New Jersey regulators (the ongoing business has four casino properties in Atlantic City) for a quarter million bucks, just as a kind of ‘don’t do that material right here’ caution, we suppose. The gaming business has since apparently revised its compliance program, but the folks in Massachusetts who may or may not be aware they are working with gambling, perhaps not world hunger are not impressed.
‘The episode details on numerous concerns, including the lengths to which casino operators goes to focus on rollers that are high problem gaming,’ the report noted. Good catch, Sherlock.
Scathing Massachusetts Findings
Record of perceived transgressions proceeded and on into the Massachusetts report. Newly formed Caesars Acquisition Co. CEO Mitch Garber’s apparently past that is shady noted, as Garber who is also CEO for the company’s key online unit, Ceasars Interactive utilized to work for European Web gaming companies that took bets from Us citizens ahead of the 2006 passage of the Unlawful online Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). We’re maybe not sure the manner in which you burn someone at the stake for something that wasn’t even unlawful yet when it took place, but we are not the witch-burning Salem court, either, therefore there ya go.
CEO Gary Loveman is using the Steve Wynn approach with the Commission, and trying to make them look unreasonable; an objective that doesn’t take effort that is much. Speaking to The Boston world (he lives into the Boston area himself), Loveman echoed Wynn’s earlier sentiments when he said, ‘It’s likely to be extremely tough for advanced, multijurisdictional operators to tolerate the environment this payment has created.’
It could yet have far-reaching effects at the worst possible time for their casino business; both the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency and the Ohio Casino Control Commission have said they will review the report’s findings and decide how it could impact potential transgressions for land casino projects going up in both states while it might seem to a casual observer that Caesars is well rid of the scarlet letter of Massachusetts. As well as Nevada regulators want, along side the huuuge mobile U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement system, understood as FinCen, to see if any laws that are money-laundering broken at the Palace, which could result in disciplinary action against Caesars.
Burning at the stake might be less painful than the whippings that are possible come.
Downtown Grand Opens in Las Vegas with Steve Wynn Betting Large
Steve Wynn (blue top, on right) was on hand to put the first craps bet at the new Downtown Grand, and it is not even his property. (Image supply: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Just picture being the craps dealer when gambling impresario and legend Steve Wynn is tilting over your table: not being a boss, but as a player. That has been one dealer’s nerve-wracking job when the Downtown Grand, the latest property that is new open up as component of Las Vegas’ ongoing and substantial downtown redevelopment efforts, officially exposed its doors this weekend to gamblers, hotel guests and looky loos.
Old Ties Bring Wynn to Craps Tables
Why on earth would Steve Wynn be slumming it downtown these times, and also at a competitor’s property, you ask? works out that Wynn and the Grand’s owner Seth Schorr get way, way back in the casino company, and Wynn was just being fully a guy that is really nice up during the opening.
The tale is that Wynn and Schorr’s father Marc worked together back in the day when downtown was first being recreated via Wynn’s Golden Nugget there; legend has it that the younger Schorr was given the honorary title of ‘vice president of kids’ marketing’ for the Nugget at the tender chronilogical age of nine years old. Don’t allow Nevada Gaming Commission hear about this one.
In honor of these many years of growing pains together, Wynn threw away the first $200 craps bet at the new Grand. It is unclear it was matched by his old buddy Marc’s and in a ‘here’s how you do it’ to any gamblers who might have been watching, they both blew through their chips inside of 15 minutes if he actually purchased, or was given, his initial $5,000 buy-in at the new casino, but. Here is how you do it to result in the homely house money, that is, of program.
‘There is so much going on here,’ Wynn said. ‘It’s really interesting. We are getting back once again to our origins when Fremont Street was available to guests that are( of any income level.’
Is the fact that a polite way of saying ‘what a dump,’ à la Bette Davis?
It probably isn’t quite on the Strip’s toney Wynn or Encore resorts (both owned by Wynn Resorts), however it is a step in a brand new direction for both downtown Las Vegas and gaming properties in general.
‘We took a different approach,’ the more youthful Schorr noted. ‘Guests don’t need to walk through the casino to obtain to a restaurant. There are interior and spaces that are outdoor. There was even outdoor gaming.’
Not sure how the latter will work in vegas’ scorching 110-degree summer heat that will last from July through September, but hey, it is an idea that is novel anyway.
New Casino Design in Play
Schorr added that he arrived up with the design to get away from conventional Strip casinos, where guests must walk through the casino to make the journey to such a thing, even restrooms. In contrast, the Downtown Grand makes it easy for guests to come and go and encourages them to check out Fremont Street in all its glory. There are even multiple how to get inside and out of the casino, not merely a front and side that is possibly, like a large Strip property would have.
Located at the corners of Stewart and Ogden avenues, the new property is considered an anchor for Downtown3rd, an entertainment district that encompasses restaurants and bars, in addition to other casinos like the D, the Mob Museum, and proximity to the swank Smith Center for the Performing Arts.
With two hotel towers one 18 stories and one 25 stories the Downtown Grand features brick and granite building façades around various storefronts, and even a novel sports gambling window for passersby, run by sportsbook giant William Hill.
The hotel that is new was constructed on the web site of the former Lady Luck, which had closed in 2006 and was purchased by Schorr’s CIM Group in 2007. CIM also has plans to utilize the town for a new shopping that is 100,000-square-foot convention complex next to the Mob Museum, which recently received unanimous approval from the nevada City Council to move ahead.
An official opening ribbon cutting ceremony for the Downtown Grand is slated for November 12; no word on whether Wynn will help hold the scissors for his old pal.