CEO's
NFL Ties Would Affect Wagers
When sports bettors place
professional football wagers at the two Golden
Nugget properties in Southern Nevada, they won't
be able to bet on the Houston Texans.
That's because Tilman Fertitta --
the chief executive of Landry's Restaurants
Inc. who is one vote away from getting a Nevada
gaming license -- is a minority owner of the
National Football League team.
Just as the sports book at the Palms can't
put Sacramento Kings games on the board because
the Maloof family owns the National Basketball
Association team, both the Golden Nugget in
downtown Las Vegas and its sister property in
Laughlin won't take bets on the Texans for the
same reason.
The restriction was one of the conditions placed
on the licensing of executives of the new owner
of the Golden Nugget, which was recommended
for approval in a unanimous state Gaming Control
Board vote on Thursday. The Nevada Gaming Commission
will take up the licensing issue at its Sept.
28 meeting.
The stipulation wasn't unexpected and was one
of the only issues raised at the meeting for
Landry's. Fertitta, a cousin of Station Casinos
Inc. executives Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta,
charmed regulators with his Texas witticisms
and gave the board hope that downtown Las Vegas
would benefit from an upswing as a result of
Landry's planned investments in the area and
improvements promised by another downtown applicant
at the meeting from the Lady Luck Casino.
While Fertitta was praised as a savvy businessman
with a healthy balance sheet, Andrew Donner,
a trustee for the Donner Investment Trust, which
also was recommended for licensing Thursday,
was credited for developing a plan to expand
the Lady Luck.
Donner and business partner Keith Grossman
acquired the 758-room property in May for $24
million fromlandlord Steadfast AMX, Newport
Beach, Calif., which converted some of the property's
rooms to timeshare units.
Donner and Grossman bought 23,000 square feet
at the former Trolley Stop Casino across the
street from the Lady Luck last year and rejuvenated
it into a hip night spot that includes the Hogs
and Heifers bar and the Triple George Grill.
While Donner told regulators he felt he had
made some mistakes along the way, board member
Bobby Siller said Donner overcame a number of
challenges.
"I think you're being a little hard on
yourself," Siller said at the meeting.
"It's good to see you and Mr. Fertitta
in the downtown area. It's a sharp, tough business.
It's not on-the-job training and it's not a
Tupperware party."
Siller said someday, Donner and Fertitta may
be looked upon as the "third wave"
of creative downtown developers behind the likes
of Steve Wynn, Tim Poster and Tom Breitling.
Donner, whose Henry Brent Co. is the majority
owner of the Timbers Bar and Grill chain in
Southern Nevada, and his partners hope to add
20,000 square feet to the casino floor and eventually
build up to 1,000 hotel rooms at the site of
two old towers on the property -- one two stories
and another four stories high.
Meanwhile at the Golden Nugget, Fertitta is
in the preliminary stages of planning a new
tower and wants to place a uniform gold and
white facade on all of the Golden Nugget structures
to make it look like one resort. Fertitta said
Thursday that he doesn't know how many rooms
the tower would have or how much it would cost,
but that he hopes to convince city fathers to
abandon Carson Street and make it available
for the tower construction.
He also said he plans to build two new upscale
restaurants, a 1,200-seat showroom and a swimming
pool adjacent to an aquarium so that swimmers
can be within inches of sharks. Landry's owns
a host of restaurant chains and is the second-largest
aquarium developer in the nation behind Sea
World.
Fertitta said that he was encouraged by the
spark in interest generated downtown by the
opening of the World Market Center and that
he hopes the continued development of that center
would result in all downtown properties prospering.
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