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22.05.12

Every time a new casino opens in a place like Cleveland, the ancient aura of a casino fades a little.</p><p> Just getting to a casino used to be a pilgrimage. To Las Vegas, certainly. And later, though with some diminishment, to Atlantic City. Or you had to cross borders, to polyglot places full of tuxedoed men and long-dressed women.</p><p> This was more than sitting around a table with a deck of cards; we're not talking about gambling movies per se but casino movies. Ones in places with the air of the exotic, whether from those European rounds of baccarat and roulette, or the lights of Vegas rising from the desert night.</p><p> In that air was danger in the form of spies, mobsters and ruthless casino bosses. There was the chance for outrageousness, not only financial but also sexual and just plain crazy. (See: "The Hangover" and the much darker "Very Bad Things.")</p><p> There was that sense of being in a place that had no relation to the rest of your existence - a playground for grownups, with the price paid in chips but not remorse.</p><p> These days, instead of hopping a plane to a land of dreams, you can hop in the car for a trip to West Virginia, Pennsylvania - or, now, a county up north. The magic is now as false as the sound of coins from an electronic slot machine.</p><p> Don't get me wrong. I have been to casinos in Vegas, but also to one in West Virginia. But the latter, as sprawling and bright as it may have been, did not seem the sort of place to add to the screen literature of casinos, a literature that is often entwined with adventure and with Vegas, still the spiritual Mecca of casino gambling.</p><p> The James Bond novel "Casino Royale" has been adapted for the screen three times (a TV production in 1954 and movies in 1967 and 2006), and there's a Casino Royale in the Bond film "Never Say Never Again."</p><p> TV has been drawn to Vegas again and again, including in the series "Vega$," "Las Vegas," "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (which has lasted more than a decade and will be back again in the fall) and "Crime Story."</p><p> The casinos onscreen often were monuments to wealth - yours sometimes, theirs more often. Time stopped inside their walls; they were a world apart from the real one - as long as you have the money to live there.</p><p> Once small, frontier outposts in the American West, they were turned into palaces - and, in the movie "Casino," Martin Scorsese made them look like temples. Legends walked through them, and through the movies about them. Elvis sang "Viva Las Vegas," you know.</p><p> The casino-heist adventure "Ocean's Eleven" was first the home for the Sinatra/ Martin/ Davis clan, then for Clooney/ Pitt/ Damon/ Cheadle/ and more (who went on to appear in two sequels). Bogart's "Casablanca" bistro had a casino in the back. Al Pacino, as "The Godfather's" Michael Corleone, moved his family to Vegas; years later, Pacino would be back in Vegas as the casino-owning villain in "Ocean's Thirteen."</p><p> The casino was a place for inspiration and salvation. Warren Beatty, as Bugsy Siegel, lost his life in pursuit of his vision of a casino. Pacino's Corleone thought it was a way to make his business legitimate, even though he built that business on bloodletting. In "Indecent Proposal," the couple played by Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore think the only way out of their financial troubles is to win in Vegas.</p><p> But they lose, setting up the film's proposal. Because casinos win more than they lose, often remorselessly.</p><p> "Croupier," a nicely nasty film set mainly in a small London casino, shows the perils of grifting and the pettiness of many dreams.</p><p> "The Cooler," a little gem, stars William H. Macy as a loser who can actually transfer his loser-ness to anyone he is near - making him a perfect way for a casino to "cool" hot streaks. So impenetrable do casinos seem, more than one movie has revolved around casino robberies - "Ocean's" again, but also the likes of "Reindeer Games" and the '50s film noir 5 "Against the House."</p><p> However bleak the outcome may be, casino movies can pay off as films. "The Godfather" I and II, for example, rank among the best movies of any type. And we take that art, and the mythology it has created, whenever we walk though any casino's doors.</p><p> And what is in my head? Some of those already mentioned, including the "Godfathers," "The Cooler," "Croupier," "Casino," both versions of "Ocean's Eleven" and the Daniel Craig "Casino Royale" from movies, and the ongoing examination of life in casino culture that is TV's "CSI." You might also want to try "Hard Eight," the Paul Thomas Anderson drama, with Philip Baker Hall. I could list more.</p><p> But I wouldn't want to cut too deep into your casino time.</p><p> Rich Heldenfels: rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com

Source: Kansas City Star 22.05.12

Boyd Gaming jumped 6 percent Thursday after the company announced it was buying Peninsula Gaming LLC. The deal expands Boyd's footprint in states like Iowa and Louisiana, where gambling competition is less fierce than on the coasts.

THE SPARK: The company, based in Las Vegas, said Wednesday it would pay for $1.45 billion for Peninsula Gaming.

The deal will add five casinos to Boyd's operations. One is in Kansas, two are in Iowa and two are in Louisiana. Those markets are far less saturated with casinos than Boyd Gaming's hometown of Las Vegas, or East Coast gambling hubs like Atlantic City.

Source: BusinessWeek

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