Sh*t You May Have Missed While Back-To-School Shopping

It’s Sh*t You May Have Missed for the week ending August 26th, 2016

Hey, all…BigAZMarty back from vacation and ready with this week’s edition of…well you know (it’s a Debbie Downer-type of week for some reason..guess that lady from Hawaii was the good news):

The Olympics are over, but Wynn Las Vegas and that special Wynn Megabucks-designed penny slot paid big, to the tune of $10,777,270.51. Read the People article here. If you were from Oahu, Hawaii…would you leave? She was playing the $3 bets on the penny machine. Congrats!!!

1. Caesars is now getting down to the nitty-gritty in its bankruptcy (Aug 29 is the day the holds on lawsuits are supposed to end). CEOC has asked for another extension…read all about it here. The funny thing is that the private equity holders are not going to help out, it seems. Read the details on that here. The judge may not extend any holds, and well…it will be a mess. But as the judge says, isn’t it already? Another funny thing is that the private equity holders have made a ton of money out of Caesars already…to the tune of $370M. The breakdown is here.

2. Affinity Gaming, which we reported last week to be using some interesting language in their 2nd Quarter results (sounding like Caesars), is being taken private, as told here. The company that is buying it for $580m had previously been active in deciding CEO and board positions for the last couple of years. More detailed info here.

3. If they survive, Caesars may be in the process of buying a Toronto casino. Not sure how many hipsters and tech-heads would be willing to drive through the border check just to gamble in Toronto. Could be a lot of Toronto folks are willing to place a bet, eh?  Read here.

4. DraftKings and FanDuel proposals for daily fantasy legal betting in Nevada panned by just about every casino/sportsbook owner in Vegas. Read here.

5. MGM issuing $500M in new bonds at a lower interest rate than what they are going to pay off in 2017…read here. Seems like kicking the can…at a lower rate but the can still exist. Also, MGM is planning for the worst in Cotai…read here. It sounds a lot like what we reported on Wynn Palace last week. Macau/Cotai are not improving the bottom line. Luckily, MGM has the China Holdings in a different international division, so that shouldn’t cause any issues…could it?

6. Ouch….and the hits keep coming. Former business partner to Gordon Ramsay and owner of Serendipity 3 at Caesars Palace is going to be in jail for a while as reported by Eater Vegas…not good. Read here. No word on if this will be an issue for the Vegas location at the corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas Blvd. near the Absinthe Spiegeltent.

7. Pawn Plaza has had a rough week…several venues closing up shop a la Downtown Container Park’s growing pains a couple of years back. Some of the former tenants blamed the owner…and here is the owner’s reply from Eater Vegas exclusive.

8. White Sands property at airport end of the strip is up for sale at $25M as reported from LV Sun‘s “Vegas Inc.”. Read here. I don’t think anything will happen, but you never know.

9. Las Vegas Unzipped has the Labor Day weekend pool party and day club DJ schedules up here. For you early planners…you know who you are.

10. Tony and Tina’s Wedding is divorcing Bally’s Windows Theater as of Sept 21, according to LVRJ..read here. Almost saw it last July 4th weekend. It included an Italian buffet dinner. Wonder if they are talking to Penn Gaming, as I believe they used to be at the old Tropicana when Aztar owned it (before the Columbia Sussex buyout).

11. Holy Snikees…are Hakkasan and Omnia about to be seized by authorities? It seems a massive international fraud has been uncovered and will possibly affect some of the biggest Oontz Oontz Oontz joints in Las Vegas. Read here.

12. Do you like Billy Idol? Raffles for free tickets? Las Vegas Weekly has the form for you to fill out here for the Sept. 9th showing at House of Blues.  Entries end on Aug 28th. I don’t usually enter these when they start asking for personal info for a news site. Up to you, though…and if you do win, sign up for the Author Page and tell us all how the show was!!!!

13. Penn Jillette‘s The Slammer is going to be torn down soon and replaced by a housing development. If you are in the area this weekend, you might be able to pick up some awesome celebrity yard-sale items. Read about it here.

14. The NFL Raiders have applied for trademarks for Las Vegas Raiders. So they are starting to spend money on it now. Read here.

15. Paul Zerdin‘s puppet show is closing up Sept. 4th…read here. It seems like Caesars is having a problem keeping shows/filling seats at the PH Showroom. I guess it’s hard to have three headliner puppet shows in Las Vegas (Venetian and Mirage have made it work). Just a personal observation from spending time there at PH…perhaps they need to bring back Peepshow (or something similar) as that seems to be the only one that worked in that showroom. You need to match your targeted audience for the hotel/casinos with shows of interest to that same demographic. Move the puppet shows to Harrah’s or Rio where you have more of a family vibe. Maybe move Crazy Girls down to the PH Showroom permanently.

That’s it for their news, and now to our regularly scheduled editor-in-chief, Michael Movestro for our news.

Thanks, BigAzMarty! You know, it’s always good to be regularly scheduled. The key is bran muffins. Hi, folks! First, I would like to thank all the VB podcast listeners for your overwhelming support and questions about when the podcast is coming back, and if I’m ok, and all that stuff! The podcast will be back this Sunday :) Here are the stories we brought you this week:

16. Blonde4ever busts a riverboat myth concerning our favorite Vegas cowboy.

17. Sammasseur brought us Hidden Vegas: Aladdin’s Desert Passage Shops.

18. Michael James looks back on his most memorable…yet lucrative…Sin City excursion.

19. Matty Ice Shares 10 reasons why he likes SLS Las Vegas.

20. Fisherman shares his Eiffel Tower Experience.

21. I brought the story on how Meizhou Dongpo not quite coming to Palazzo, apparently.

22. I also shared the news that Chandelier Bar’s Level 1 has reopened. Was it worth the $960,000 renovation cost?

23. Sammasseur reviews Puppet Up – Uncensored at The Venetian!

That’s it for this week, and I’ll see you Sunday for the podcast! -Michael Movestro

Photos:[Vevo, UnitedChurchOfBacon.com, Sammasseur, Caesars.com]

BigAzMarty

A computer professional who has worked at several types of positions with several different businesses and still learning and changing.
Introduced properly to Las Vegas and Laughlin by the spouse and have been going ever since 1990.
A frequent visitor from not to far away where it’s almost always 10 degrees warmer than Vegas.