Horseshoe May be Sold to Harrah's

Dante · Jan 12, 2004

LAS VEGAS -- Binion's Horseshoe owner Becky Behnen was in serious negotiations this morning to sell the closed downtown hotel-casino to Harrah's Entertainment Inc., sources close to the negotiations told the Las Vegas Sun.

A deal could come as early as today but would not necessarily mean the casino would reopen, the sources said.

The talks intensified Friday after U.S. marshals forced the casino's sudden closure when they seized nearly $1 million in cash from the casino, which was founded by Behnen's legendary father, gaming pioneer Benny Binion, more than 50 years ago. Link to entire article

GreenDoberman · Jan 12, 2004

I had reported this a couple of days ago, in the other Horseshoe link.

wilheim · Jan 12, 2004

MVBski's (Green Doberman post included) Horseshoe link.

http://therxforum.com/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=100090022&f=988094022&m=67210979

wil.

soccerbob · Jan 12, 2004

KVBC Channel 3, the NBC affiliate here in Las Vegas has just received a phone call from the president of Harrah's and it is official. Harrah's has purchased Binion's Horsheshoe.

GreenDoberman · Jan 12, 2004

Thx Wil,
good info bob.
Knew it was a matter of time, I'm betting Harrah's got it at a heck of a bargain.

Angelle · Jan 12, 2004

I wonder if they are going to make it look like a harrah's

i hope not

theswami · Jan 12, 2004

Did Harrah's purchase the brand or the casino? Purchasing the brand would be a much better structure IMHO.

Anyone have an idea of what happens to the contents of the players' deposit boxes at the cage?

It would suck to have a large amount of Horseshoe chips and basically have them basically be worthless at this point (unless Harrah's is going to assume all liabilities as well).

EverFresh · Jan 12, 2004

Ive had alot of drunken nights on cheap well drinks playing low limit blackjack in the Horseshoe. I for one hope they don't change a damned thing about the place!

Dante · Jan 12, 2004

sorry doberman saw the article was dated today when I cut and pasted it..did not know it was a repeat article at there website

JackStraw+ · Jan 12, 2004

Even if the property was indeed sold to Harrahs it will take months for the casino to reopen. All the chips will have to be changed. Harrahs would have to bring in their own chips even if it is still called the Horseshoe. Transfers of ownership and casino license's take time. All the employees would have to reapply for jobs. Harrahs has different requirements than the Horseshoe. There maybe some that are questionable or are not up to Harrahs standards.

Maybe they would let Becky operate the Shoe until the transfer took place. I still don't understand in that she said she would never give the property up. We will see what happens.

soccerbob · Jan 12, 2004

swami- Even though The Nevada Gaming Commission is run by people that don't know the first thing about gambling, they do have some policies that protect people holding current sports betting tickets and sports futures as well as money in a reserve fund to cover any gaming chips and tokens in circulation.

When a casino closes or recalls any current gaming chips or tokens, there is a 90 day period in which the hotel has to pay on those. Sports tickets will be honored as long as they are presented within the number of days as specified on the back of the ticket. Futures bets will be paid the same way as long as they are presented within the guidelines on the back of the ticket after the event has been completed. As far as the many safe deposit boxes that the Horseshoe maintained, those can be accessed right now by the holders and are being secured by Binion's Horseshoe. I imagine there will be a point that The Nevada Gaming Commission will take possession of the safe deposit boxes to ensure the rightful holders get their contents of those boxes.

As I said, The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't have a clue but they are very careful to make sure that people don't get stiffed which would create a lot of bad publicity.

theswami · Jan 12, 2004

Bob-

Thanks for the information. You mentioned that the NGC has policies in place to protect the players but what about MONEY?!?!?!? Are the casinos required to hold some amount in reserve (that wasn't taken by the Feds) for situations like this?

If Binions is busted then in theory they do not have the funds to pay.

(In reality, I bet any LARGE player there was well aware of the $$$ problems and kept few if any of Becky's chips in their boxes.)

WildBill · Jan 12, 2004

I just talked to someone that works at Harrahs and he said they may not even open the place ever. They really have an interest in the name only for now, the hotel and facility would need many months of work to get it even close to the type of facility they would be willing to offer to guests. When you have a consistent experience that a company like Harrahs does, you definitely don't want to waste away that goodwill by having a very substandard offering. From what I can gather, they probably paid next to nothing for it since they already held a note on the place that clearly wasn't going to get paid.

As for Becky, ADIOS! In the infamous words of Andy Garcia in Oceans 11: Run and hide...run and hide. She and her husband have to be two of the most useless people ever to try to run anything in Vegas. No one will miss them, that is for certain.

soccerbob · Jan 12, 2004

swami- I covered the money part in the first paragraph of my last post. Every establishment in the state of Nevada has to have a bond posted to cover all chips and tokens in circulation and that covers all sports tickets and futures tickets as well. At this point, it appears that the only group of people that will get stiffed is anyone that had accumulated any type of cash or comp points in any type of slot club or by playing poker or table games. Those are considered unsecured and anyone wanting to go through the useless battle to try to recoup those would have to use legal means but they wouldn't have much of a shot.

It is very important that people realize that technically all gaming chips and tokens are property of each individual casino and are not supposed to be removed from the premises. If a casino closes, changes ownership or recalls their chips or tokens for any reason, they only have to honor the outstanding chips and tokens for 90 days. They post legal notices in the Las Vegas Review Journal but if you took say $100 dollars in chips from a given casino and visit again in six months, there is a possibility that those chips or tokens may not be honored. Remote chance of that happening
but a possibility.

Go to www.larrygrossman.com and listen to the very good guest he had on today. It was a gaming reporter from one of the local papers. The guy had a lot of good information about the closure of Binion's Horseshoe.

Horseshoe May be Sold to Harrah's

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