Yep, Harrah's bought Imperial Palace for $370 mil, and now owns six major properties on the center strip. This is getting ri-goddamn-diculous, if you ask me! Someone stop them!
Bettie
Yep, Harrah's bought Imperial Palace for $370 mil, and now owns six major properties on the center strip. This is getting ri-goddamn-diculous, if you ask me! Someone stop them!
Bettie
Suppose that they change the blackjack rules on all tables in all their casinos to 8 deck, CSM, 6:5, h17, no resplitting, no das, no surrender and European no hole card. Will people still play this game? Will dealer takes pushes be too far away?
There was not much of a neighborhood to begin with but it just got worse.
My guess would be that they might now try to buy Barbary Coast from Coast. Guess it is another casino I am not supposed to enter.
Competition benefits the consumers whereas monopoly hurts the consumers. The future is not that great for APers.
Let's not forget our other friend... MGM/Mirage who owns Mandalay Corp. & Circus Corp. They are on the heels of Harrahs (who is definately bigger country wide). However, MGM has a stronger foothold in Nevada they own the whole west side of the stip from Mandalay Bay to Treasure Island with the ONE exception of Ceasars (which is owned by Harrahs). Harrahs currently owns 22% of the strip while MGM owns 30%. Soon enough the whole strip will be devided solely by these 2 corporations the whole west side will be MGM and the whole east side will be Harrahs. How this could happen... I don't know, but it is an outrage... 2 corporations owning just about everything is close enought to a monopoly to be sure that this is not a good thing for the consumer!
I could not happen without the rubber stamp of the so called gaming board. Those fine members of the board are just waiting till they leave and pick up a cushy job with either MGM or Harrah's.
I think the only way this will ever stop is if someone in the state legislature decides to put an end to the corruption and (the big if) can get backing.
We used to say that the casinos ran Nevada, now we can say two casino corporations run Nevada.
Victoria
Wynn, Venetian, Barbary, Tropicana (soon to be Hooters), Aladdin (soon to be Planet Hollywood), Frontier, Stardust, Westward Ho, Sahara, Riviera, Strotosphere ? all big Strip casinos not affiliated with either MGM or Mirage. Yeah, MGM and Mirage are giants, and the Stardust is owned by Boyd, another nationwide monster, but the Strip is hardly a two-company area. A quick count gives me 18 Strip properties between the 2 biggies and 11 Strip properties that aren't, plus there's the Palms and the Hard Rock, probably the biggest non-strip players.
Yeah, I'm unhappy with the Strip, which is why I rarely play there, but don't blame the NV Gaming Commission alone. The federal government (I don't recall which agency ? maybe FTC?) gave these companies the green light when it determined that there was no possibility of a monopoly with these purchases. Probably because of the 11 Strip casinos listed above. Unfortunately, it's going to have to get much worse before anyone in a position of power takes this issue seriously.
Bettie
Between MGM & Harrahs they own 52% of the strip. You are correct it is not only a two corp. strip, but they definately have (between the two) "controlling interest" in the industry on the strip!
I stated MGM owns all of the properties on the west side of the strip from Mandalay Bay to Treasure Island with the exception of Caesars (which is owned by Harrahs). All of the casinos you mentioned are either on the east side of the strip or past Treasure Island. I was overstating (or perhars just premature) when I said "two corp. own the stip." What I ment was MGM owns the majority of the west side and Harrahs owns a large percentage of the east side and with the two owning 52% of the total strip already it appears to be on it's way to becoming a two corp. strip (in my opinion). Not to mention, Nevada is only part of these monsters, they own many more properties across the country! I ment my statement as a forcast not as a stated fact. I hope this is clear. Oh, and I don't just blame the NGC (although I think they are a pretty corrupt and evil agency), I blame the state of Nevada as well as the Federal agencies responsible.
Good points Bettie but its San Remo becoming Hooters and the Trop is still the Trop in limbo for the future.
Victoria
There's a certain visionary resort developer that spends huge bucks building palaces, then turns around and sells them to one of the megaplayers for a massive profit. I have a feeling the MGM-Wynn is in the not-too-distant future.
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