Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

Here's my thoughts on the 40/40 Club.

LVS knew it wouldn't work. They let Jay-Z do the build out and then toss him out. They then get the space plushed out to turn into a sports book.

My 2 cents

Posted by mike_ch

Sorry for posting this here, but it's been a long time since we've had an open thread and these shows cover so many topics they kind of double as open to discussion.

With the way things are going right now, it looks like the next show's topic is going to be whether Beau Rivage & friends over in Biloxi are about to get trashed again. The weather report for that city doesn't look good right now.

This one may even be stronger than Katrina, but the destruction to the casinos shouldn't be as bad as it was before since a lot of them are more heavily locked down and the worst off ones were simply scrapped entirely.

Seems likely to cause another dent in the MGM quarterly, but if they're prepared for the Monte Carlo unexpectedly bursting flames, they have to have a policy for Beau 2.0.

Mike, I've only been to Beau Rivage once since it reopened, but I bumped into Beau's chief engineer when I was there, and he took great pride in how well it was built in the first place by Steve and then improved when MGM rebuilt after Katrina.
It looks like Gustav is heading west of New Orleans and probably won't be a disaster in the Biloxi/Glufport area. Pinnacle's L'Auberge in Lake Charles, LA may have more to worry about. Until I moved to South Florida, I never thought about hurricanes much, but I do now. Here's a good site I check all the time. The computer models show what they think Gustav will do, but we'll know more tomorrow morning.
Track according to computer models:
http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200807_model.html
Dr. Jeff Masters' blog:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1054&tstamp=200808

My theory is so far fetched, it probably isn't worthy of the discussion it's gotten, but, I'll try to flesh some of it out.
Dallas is 190 miles from Shreverport, and 210 miles from Oklahoma City. It is another 150 miles from Oklahoma City to Wichita. My idea is based upon Harrah's buying Remington Park in Oklahoma City. Remington Park is a 20 year old Racino located at the corner of I-35 and I-44. It has has had slot machines for 3 years. It currently has 750 slot machines, and should add 50 in a few months. Currently, there are no table games. It is currently the most (Only?) profitable of the 10 Horse Tracks/Racinos belonging to its parent company, the cash strapped Magna Entertainment.
Magna Entertainment is primarily owned by Frank Stronach, auto parts magnate from Canada. My take is that he fell in love with Horse Racing, then tried to corner much of the Racino market by buying over 10 tracks in the late 1990's, when the business was dying. They have not been successful in getting them converted into Racinos as quickly as anticipated, resulting in serious cash flow issues. Remington Park is currently for sale. Table games are a pretty good possibility in the near future, as the contract between Remington Park and the State of Oklahoma is 3-5 years in duration, and the Horse Industry is very powerful in Oklahoma. Remington Park is the only non-Tribal Gaming of any size in Oklahoma, and will continue to remain so.
Regarding Tribal Gaming: Oklahoma City and the northwest 1/4 of Oklahoma are not, and will never be, Tribal land (Quibbles here and there, but I'm right). There are only 2 real cities in Oklahoma (Oklahoma City and Tulsa), Tulsa being the only Tribal area. For our purposes, we will focus on I-35 between Dallas and Oklahoma City. It is controlled by the Chickasaw Nation, approximately 20 miles either side of I-35, and 20 miles South of Oklahoma City. They have 4 Casinos along I-35. The most important being at the State line (Winstar, at Thackerville, home of Terry Bradshaw), and the south Canadian River/State Highway 9 (Riverwind), which is on the South edge of Norman OK. Norman is 20 miles South of Oklahoma City, and is home to the University of Oklahoma, the winningest College Football program since WWII (Not that we're proud of it). The Winstar is much like Circus-Circus, only not as classy. It is , however, just 60 miles North of Dallas. Riverwind is more like South Point. They both have Microtel Motels, which are about 200 rooms, on site. Slots are class 2 (Bingo machines), and Class 3 (Las Vegas style). Table games are Blackjack, with a $.50 per hand, non recoverable, payment to the Tribe (Or someone, the explanation is another 2 pages), and Poker.
In summation: The 4th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. (Dallas-Fort Worth) has no casino gaming, is about 200 mile from either stinky Shreveport (127th largest) or "Most recession proof city in America" Oklahoma City (NBA City, 44th largest). Which is why Harrah's should buy Remington Park in Oklahoma City and continue on their path of World Dominion.