Why are Black Women so Broke?

This is a good reminder....

Why are Black Women so Broke?

Caesars was salivating to invade the Massachusetts market at Suffolks Downs.

When questions were raised, mostly about the wrong issues, Caesars was dumped and subsequently filed a lawsuit that Massachusetts taxpayers will be forced to fund.

$23 BILLION in debt?

Casino News

Peter Amsel

Caesars asset shell game has analysts warning investors to tread carefully

April 4, 2014

The asset shell game being played by debt-laden casino operator Caesars Entertainment is coming under fire from some of its creditors. Late last month, Caesars announced that certain “unidentified note holders” had hired lawyers in a bid to force Caesars to undo moves to transfer its more profitable assets away from the heavily indebted mother ship Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. (CEOC) to its Caesars Growth Partners (CGP) escape pod.

Having failed (until very recently) to establish any presence in the lucrative Asian market, Caesars carries an industry-high debt load of around $23b. In 2013, Caesars created CGP, into which it transferred its Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) online gaming division, the Planet Hollywood casino in Las Vegas and the under-construction Horseshoe Baltimore. Last month, Caesars announced it was ‘selling’ four more brick and mortar casino properties to CGP for $2.2b, a deal that required CGP to borrow around $1.3b to finance.

The unidentified bondholders want to reverse this and every previous transfer to CGP because Caesars has breached its “fiduciary duties” to creditors. The complaint accuse Caesars of attempting to shield profitable assets from what most observers view as a more or less inevitable bankruptcy filing, which would leave note-holders unable to make claims on the portions of Caesars that actually make money.

Caesars insists these claims have no merit, but New Albion Partners analyst Anish Vora believes Caesars investors are “getting sliced and diced right now. A judge might deem these illegal transfers of assets.” Over three-quarters of Caesars’ debt is held by CEOC, which now consists of just one property in Vegas (Caesars Palace), four Atlantic City casinos and Caesars’ numerous regional casinos, which are among its worst performing properties. Late last month, Caesars announced it was closing its Harrah’s casino in Tunica, Mississippi due to poor performance.

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Meanwhile, Caesars is looking to raise a quick packet by selling an additional 7m shares – plus an extra 1m if the first batch sells out – to the public. Assuming P.T. Barnum was right and the entire allotment sells out, Caesars stands to earn around $170m. Caesars says it will use the proceeds to pay down debt, but Caesars has already announced plans to give away $100m in what amounts to a bribe for anyone foolish enough to lend the company more money.

In order to allow CGP to raise the money to pay for those four casinos, Caesars is offering to pay 1.3 percentage points above market rates if someone will bite on $1.18b of seven-year term loans.

CreditSights Inc. analyst Chris Snow told Bloomberg the extra $100m or so amounted to a “Caesars premium,” i.e. “there is a risk of [the casinos] being clawed back in case of a bankruptcy at the operating-company level.” Snow said lenders also needed to be aware that “the sponsors would move to protect their interest over that of the creditors if operating trends go the other way.”




http://calvinayre.com/2014/04/04/casino/analysts-wary-of-caesars-asset-shell-game/

Caesars Entertainment closes Harrah's in Tunica

Caesars withdrew from its attempts to invade Massachusetts at Suffolk Downs and subsequently filed suit against individuals at the Massachusetts Gam[bl]ing Commission.


Caesars Entertainment closes Harrah's in Tunica • 7:12 AM

• Caesars Entertainment (CZR) closes a casino in Tunica, Mississippi due to slow sales.
• A company exec says the region has too many casinos to support solid growth.
• Caesars will work with local officials to find a use for the property after no buyer emerged to pick up the casino.

Read comments

Focus Articles on CZR

• Caesars: All Earnings To Interest Payments by Woodfield Consulting Group
• Caesars Entertainment Corporation - All Bets Are Off by AlphaStreetResearch
• Understanding The Implications Of Debt Guarantees For Caesars Entertainment by Cap Stack Guru

More News on CZR

• Caesars Entertainment higher on South Korea enthusiasm Mar 18, 10:38 AM ET (Seeking Alpha)
• Can South Korea become the next Vegas or Macau? Mar 19, 7:08 PM ET (CNBC)
• Real estate buying like 'Monopoly': Celine Dion Mar 12, 7:43 AM ET (CNBC)

Press Releases on CZR

• Caesars Entertainment to Close Harrah's Tunica (PR Newswire)
• Caesars Consortium Receives Preliminary Approval for First Internationally Branded Casino-Integrated Resort in South Korea (PR Newswire)
• Caesars Entertainment Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2013 Results (PR Newswire)

 

 

 

Mississippi: 15 year low, They just stopped coming

Mississippi casino revenues on pace for 15-year low

May 21, 2013

Business, Tourism

JACKSON, Mississippi – Mississippi casinos could be headed to a 15-year low in gross gaming revenues, if the trend from the first four months continues the rest of the year.

April figures released by the Mississippi Gaming Commission this week show another month of revenue decreases as casinos attempt to reverse the trend of out-of-state gamblers staying out of state.


“People are more cautious with their money now and they tend to stay closer to home,” said Godfrey.

He added that out-of-state visitors decreased dramatically from 2008 to 2012, falling from 36.5 million to just under 25 million.

“They just stopped coming,” he said. “And we have to come up with the amenities to bring them back.”

Casino revenues in the state have been dropping since 2007, because of the recession and increased competition. Casino analysts point to the need for more amenities in the Tunica area and along the coast to reverse the downward spiral.

In an effort to stop the trend, some Tunica casinos have instituted a $1 million giveaway every Saturday night and are planning a new advertising campaign to counter negative-stereotype ads from a greyhound park and casino in Arkansas. The search is also on for new amenities on the coast. The latest effort came last week when the Biloxi City Council added its support to an effort to build a stadium and bring a Double-A baseball team to the city.

[Stadiums don't create economic development.]

http://msbusiness.com/businessblog/2013/05/21/mississippi-casino-revenues-on-pace-for-15-year-low/

 

Tim Owen nearly lost his life

Special Report: Gambling addiction nearly cost a man his life

Proposal for more Ark. casinos could affect those struggling with addiction

Jul 25, 2012

Tim Owen, a former gambling addict, lost his family, his money and nearly lost his life. He shares his story with 40/29.

VIDEO: http://www.4029tv.com/news/arkansas/northwest/Special-Report-Gambling-addiction-nearly-cost-a-man-his-life/-/8897460/15708026/-/ky5to1z/-/index.html#ixzz21pmbdagx

(illustration: unknown)

Gambling Nation

By Charles Pierce, Esquire Magazine

12 June 12

Wall Street is the most obvious example of our risk-for-risk's-sake culture, but the entire political and economic system is lurching toward a situation in which it hits on 19 and hopes for the best.

could have used a better revelation at the window on Saturday, when the laughing gods of chance - those scrimey bastids - suggested that I drop a little dough on Optimizer at the Belmont Stakes. As it happens, the laughing gods of chance combine the obvious tactical clairvoyance of Mark Penn with the sense of humor of a tackhammer, and Optimizer may well still be running, as far as I know, but, as it turns out, he wasn't the real revelation. This is what the real revelation was:

The United States of America is now nothing more than a place where you gamble.

Consider: Most every state in the Union, including the Commonwealth (God save it!) here, would rather build 20 casinos than risk raising taxes a dime, as though gambling itself were not a brutal tax. (How do I know this? Because once, long ago, on the night Mark McGwire and his pharmacist went past Roger Maris and his bartender for the single-season home run record, I sat in a casino in Tunica, Mississippi, and watched a 300-pound woman with oxygen tubes up her nose feed quarters into a slot machine while wearing a T-shirt that said, "Jesus Is The Answer." This was the same trip on which I saw a billboard outside Vicksburg that suggested, "Sell Your Car For Cash.") The entire Republican economic plan is one long gamble on a bunch of economic theories that already have failed twice in my lifetime. Ask even earnest young liberals how you manage to get a middle class without a manufacturing base, an active government, and strong unions, and you get the same kind of shrug you get along the rail when you ask someone why they bet the 5-horse when the creature plainly has hooves the size of a country ham. Ask Willard Romney the same thing, and he makes even less sense.

Get a hunch, bet a bunch.

Whaddaya say we put that on the money?

I saw it in Wisconsin, where the voters actually took seriously (twice!) the arguments made by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's editorial board that Scott Walker was worth having as governor because at least he would do something, and that made him entirely worth the risk. It's like people took all that Neustadt that we were taught in political-science after JFK got waxed and turned it into The Racing Form. It is always better to do something than to do nothing. This is how we got to President C-Plus Augustus going with his "gut," which was, admittedly, brighter than his head, but not by much.

Seriously now, does anyone really know what comes next? We are treating people like zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan, and Senator Aqua Buddha down in Kentucky, like serious people while they flirt lustily with a dystopic and Dickensian future, and we do it because we've been trained to believe that taking a chance on anything is better than standing still. People who know how to run casinos - which is to say, everyone who's run a casino except Donald Trump - got reach by demonstrating to the rubes that it was better to leave the showroom and come onto the floor, and to leave the money on the table instead of wandering to the cashier's window and thence to the noodle bar. In a country where every convenience store is now a Keno parlor, where it takes 10 minutes to buy a banana because the elderly pensioner in front of you is scratching 200 tickets in a desperate search for a $20 payday, is it any surprise that Social Security has fallen out of favor? Social Security was a sure thing, and sure things are boring, if everybody's in on them.

Wall Street's only the most obvious example of this, and the most crooked example, besides. But it seems like the entire system is lurching toward a situation in which it hits on 19 and hopes for the best. Listening to Willard Romney talk about his economic plan is like listening to one of those in-house infomercials on craps or roulette that the casino pipes into the guest rooms upstairs. He is going to "revive" the private sector and "create jobs." Now, all sentient beings who have lived through the past 20 years know that the "private sector" in this country is primarily concerned with gaming profits for the investor class. In short, the "private sector" is all about gambling with other people's money. That's how Willard got rich, after all.

Risk can be a good thing. I wish the president took more of them. But risk for risk's sake - what my grandmother assuredly would have called "throwing good money after bad" - is no way to run a republic. Democracy can tolerate a lot of things, but it cannot tolerate an economy based on the 10-minute banana.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/11887-gambling-nation

How casinos can be a boon-or bust-for local economies

June 13, 2011

Listen live

(Getty/Joe Raedle)

 

A bill that would expand gambling in Illinois is currently awaiting Gov. Pat Quinn's signature.

 

A bill to expand gambling in Illinois awaits Governor Pat Quinn’s signature. If passed, the state would see five new casinos, an expansion of riverboat gaming and more slot machines, at racetracks, the Illinois State Fair and even airports.

Legislators who support the move are after the revenue that more gambling would supposedly create. That could be a boon to economically depressed areas like Rockford, Illinois.

But does gambling always invigorate the local economy? To find out, Eight Forty-Eight turned to Father Richard McGowan. McGowan teaches economics at Boston College and is the author of Dividing the Spoils: States and the Gambling Industry.

Tenn. woman slain at Hollywood's Tunica, Miss. casino was pregnant

Tenn. woman slain at Miss. casino was pregnant
By: HOLBROOK MOHR Associated Press
Published: April 06, 2012

JACKSON, Miss. --
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) A Tennessee woman who appears to have been killed with a sharp object at a Mississippi casino hotel was five- to six-months pregnant, authorities said Friday.

Brandi Nicole Floyd, 25, was found early Thursday on the floor of room 139 at Hollywood Casino's hotel in Tunica County, Miss. Nathaniel Yates III, believed to be Floyd's boyfriend, was arrested on suspicion of murder.

Floyd and Yates are from Collierville, Tenn. Casino officials said they were together when checking in to the hotel.

Deputies went to the hotel after receiving a report about a disturbance at 5:52 a.m., Chief Deputy Randy Stewart said.

Yates, 34, allegedly tried to escape by jumping through the glass of the first-floor window and was subdued with a stun gun. He remained hospitalized Friday at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Desoto Hospital with cuts and bruises from jumping through the glass. His injuries are not considered life threatening, Stewart said.

Yates was being guarded at the hospital and will be taken into custody when he's released, authorities said.

Stewart said an autopsy was being performed Friday and investigators will discuss those findings with county prosecutors and decide which charge or charges Yates will face. It's possible he could be charged with the deaths of Floyd and her fetus.

Steward said it appears a sharp object was used to kill the woman. A knife found at the scene was sent to the state crime lab for forensic testing to help determine if it was the weapon used in the slaying.

Stewart said Floyd's body was found on the floor of the room after Yates jumped out the window. Medical responders were called to the scene, but the coroner later declared her dead.

Tunica County, about 30 miles south of Memphis, Tenn., has nine casinos on the Mississippi River. Hollywood Casino has a 54,000-square-foot gambling hall and a 494-room hotel.

Casino spokesman Jeff Strang has said gambling operations continued and that no other patrons were in danger due to the situation.

Hollywood Casino is owned by Wyomissing, Pa.-based Penn National Gaming Inc.

Cheating Casinos

Calif. woman pleads guilty to attempting to cheat 29 casinos, including two in Tunica

WASHINGTON — A California woman pleaded guilty today in San Diego to conspiring with others to cheat 29 casinos, including two in Tunica and three others elsewhere in Mississippi, with a card-counting scheme.

Van Thu Tran, 45, pleaded guilty and could face 20 years in prison when sentenced in May. An investigation into the casino-cheating conspiracy dating back to 2007 has resulted in 42 defendants pleading guilty.

The Justice Department announced the plea this afternoon and described the elaborate method used to obtain up to $7 million:

“(The conspirators allegedly) executed a ‘false shuffle’ cheating scheme at casinos in the United States and Canada during blackjack and mini-baccarat games. The indictments allege that members of the criminal organization bribed casino card dealers and supervisors to perform false shuffles during card games, thereby creating ‘slugs’ or groups of unshuffled cards.

“The indictments also allege that after tracking the order of cards dealt in a card game, a member of the organization would signal to the card dealer to perform a ‘false shuffle,’ and members of the group would then bet on the known order of cards when the slug appeared on the table. By doing so, members of the conspiracy repeatedly won thousands of dollars during card games, including winning several hundred thousand dollars on one occasion.”

Among the casinos targeted were Gold Strike Casino and Horseshoe Casino in Tunica, the Beau Rivage and Imperial Palace casinos in Biloxi and the Golden Moon Casino in Choctaw, Miss. FBI field offices around the country, as well as local police, the IRS and the Mississippi Gaming Commission were among the law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation.