A Mega-Deal Could Merge Eldorado Resorts with Caesars Entertainment for $17.3 Billion

LAS VEGAS — Reno-based Eldorado Resorts announced a cash-and-stock deal to buy Caesars Entertainment for an estimated $17.3 billion on Monday. Once complete in 2020, the merged company retains the Caesars Entertainment name. Caesars operates Caesars Palace, Harrah’s Las Vegas, Flamingo, Bally’s, The Linq Hotel, The Cromwell, Paris Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood, and the Rio in Las Vegas, while Eldorado owns Tropicana Laughlin in Southern Nevada. The merger, which will likely bring big changes to the Strip, includes “more than 51,000 hotel rooms, around 4 million square feet of casino space, 71,000 slot machines, 4,000 table games, and 300 food and beverage outlets,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Once complete, the merger creates the largest gaming operator in the United States with about 60 casino-resorts in 16 states under a single name. Activist investor Carl Icahn spearheaded the sale. While Eldorado plans to maintain its Reno headquarters, it will retain a significant corporate presence in Las Vegas. [LVRJ/LVS]

PALMS — More than 1,000 members of the Culinary Union plan to picket outside the resort on Wednesday from 5 to 6 p.m. “Station Casinos always said it would respect the rights of its employees to organize and vote for a union,” says Geoconda Arguello-Kline, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Union, in a press statement. “Yet after workers voted to unionize by 84 percent at Palms, the company tried to overturn the elections and are now illegally refusing to negotiate.” The National Labor Relations Board ruled recently that Station Casinos should cease and desist its refusal to bargain at the Palms. Workers at six Station Casinos’ Las Vegas properties are now unionized and fighting for a contract. They include Boulder Station (September 2016), Palace Station (March 2017), Green Valley Ranch (November 2017), Palms (April 2018), Sunset Station (June 2019), and Fiesta Rancho (June 2019). [EaterWire]

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