Sh*t You May Have Missed While Celebrating Casino Birthdays

It’s Sh*t You May Have Missed for the week ending August 5th, 2016

Hey all, BigAZMarty here with this week’s around the webs news…..

1. Boyd Gaming completes the sale of their half of the Borgata in Atlantic City to MGM Resorts International. So what does that have to do with Las Vegas? Well, you PAY for parking in Atlantic City, ever wonder where that idea came from?

2. Caesars Interactive Entertainment sells the Playtika division in Israel to a Chinese Consortium (Shanghai Giant Network Technology, Yunfeng Capital and others) for more than reported last week. By 200 million more to $4.4B. Read here. This will help Caesars restructuring efforts. Already more Jr Creditors have approved the restructuring but they need a little more (at 37% currently) to get it through the courts legally (need 50.1% to approve). There are some strong legal obstructions to that which may prevent it from getting all the way there. Read here. CZR is also reporting a loss of over $2 Billion at latest earnings report (over $14 a share lost) due to writing off the $2 Billion required for the CEOC restructuring. Motley Fool has a pretty decent article on how maybe CZR is now suddenly too successful to not pay 2nd Tier Bondholders holdouts. Read here.

3. Sam’s Town announced that The Killers will be playing at “The Sam’s Town Decennial Extravaganza” Sept 30th and Oct 1st. Read all the details here. Not cheap…Boyd Gaming has to make up for that lost Borgata revenue somehow.

4. Frankie Marino of Diva’s fame got a “little head” last week at the Golden Tiki read here…his words not mine. Kinda eerie if you ask me. For some reason it makes me think of Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black being pursued by a Zuni warrior doll.

5. Damn….so after reporting the LV Airport numbers were up for June and ranting last week about how could the  LV Strip be down….the gambling numbers came in for June and the LV Strip came up in a big way. So, I guess I get to eat that one. Read here….and then look at all the whole state percentage numbers. Laughlin went up almost the same percentage amount without all the cabana/$15 pools drinks/resort fee/parking fee fiascos.

6. Donny and Marie extend their stay at the Flamingo through to fall of 2017 per Robin Leach here. Good, another chance to see them in the next 18 months…we’ve missed them and Olivia Newton-John every time we’ve been in Las Vegas somehow (either we have tickets to something else or it’s a dark day). Or maybe just because it’s the Flamingo…and wife hates it in its currently minimal setup (btw worst Diamond Lounge on the strip…looks like an old banquet room was re-purposed).

7. After reporting upcoming new construction at the oldest running Nevada Casino, they had a birthday. Happy 85th Birthday Railroad Pass Casino!!! Read here and look at the gallery…and according to Boulder City Times they will be converting the old Banquet Room to a Classic Car Museum. The new owner sure is putting a lot of love into the old gal…nice to see that.

8. Even further south, another river casino resort celebrates 50 years of operation…The Riverside, Laughlin (this is the founder of the city’s casino). Fun to see that Don Laughlin is still working and enjoying doing what is needed to run a successful casino across from one of the largest retirement communities in Arizona (Bullhead City). You go Don!!! Keep up the good work!!! Read here. I remember when the existing road shortcuts and the bridge over the river didn’t exist. That was miserable to drive to the west side of Needles and drive up that two lane road to Laughlin. Much easier and safer to get to now.

9. The current owner of the Blue Elephant (Fontaineblue) of Las Vegas, Carl Icahn, is having further problems in Atlantic City and is writing off the Trump Taj Mahal casino, read here. Maybe Phil Ruffin can buy it from him since it was with similar issues that he got the “New Frontier” from the Elardi family. Atlantic City is just a mess boardwalk-wise with Borgata and the Marina area casinos pretty much having most of the new visitors while the old boardwalk area is just becoming a skeleton of its former self. Odd that at one time Las Vegas was worried about Atlantic City.

10. It looks like Las Vegas Review-Journal is grabbing the entire entertainment staff from LV Sun. John Katsilometes is moving to LVRJ. I’m not sure if it will still be the Kats Report or not, but it is another reporter that will be limited on what he can write about Las Vegas Sands and its owner. Read here.

11. Lots of 2nd Q 2016 earnings reports with mixed results: Wynn here. Las Vegas Sands here. Caesars here. Penn here. Boyd here. MGM here.

12. Vital Vegas twitter had an entry that pointed to this historical look at the “Classic Pools” of Las Vegas. I still miss that New Frontier pool it was huge….great read here…btw that Mint pool is still up there (now Binion’s tower) and accessible by anyone (i.e. default pool for Four Queens guests)…not sure if it still has the 8 ft deep end, though.

13. Vital Vegas has a good write up of 15 new things at the Linq Promenade. Fun read here. Now if that Flamingo renovation will get started since Caesar Palace’s 50th Anniversary is almost over.

14. Red Rock Resorts (i.e. Station’s Casino’s) is selling the land the old Showboat/Castaways casino sat on…empty lot now for $6M on Charleston and Fremont. Read LV Sun article here. It’s 25 acres, so it’s like a NewYork NewYork casino sized area of land.

15. Robin Leach is busy at LVRJ and reporting all kinds of stuff, Cherry Boom Boom soft opens Sept 8 with normal opening Sept 29 at the Trop. Read here.

16. Robin is also hearing rumblings about Derek Stevens possibly buying a close to the strip casino / hotel. The Hooters Casino!!! That would be interesting now! Read here.

That’s it for this week’s web news…and now to our editor-in-chief Michael Movestro for our stuff.

Thanks, Marty! And, hello to our readers. I don’t know about you, but I will be glued to Olympic coverage for a while! Anyways, let’s get started with the stories we brought you this week.

Our week started off earlier than normal, in fact, it was a Saturday! That never happens!

15. It all started when we broke the story on Riviera’s dual-building implosion scheduled for August 16th.

16. The Vegas Bright Podcast Episode 15 was a look back on the history of Vegas Bright, and details on the pending Riviera implosion.

17. Blonde4Ever Hits it Big and shared her Luckiest Vegas Trip from 2008 .

18. We celebrated our One Year Anniversary here at Vegas Bright!

19. There was this truly amazing 4k HD Vegas Video that I shared.

20. Sammasseur checks in…and checks out…ongoing renovations at Four Queens Hotel.

21. Michele Di Palma describes the rush of Vegas-bound flights.

22. Biker Greg Bennett rode his macho Harley out….to Sushi Roku and shared a review with great pics.

23. We check out the construction progress on Marriott’s Residence Inn Las Vegas Airport.

24. Chad Rodick wonders whatever happened to the “Shops at Tropicana”.

That was it for this week, and we’ll see you next week for more Vegas goodness, starting Monday.

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.