Indy Gaming: Silver Sevens hits pause on plans to bring back original ‘Continental’ name
Channeling my best John L. Smith. When Silver Sevens was known as the Continental, the FBI busted a skimming operation run by assistant slot manager Michael DiBari that involved associates of the Gambino crime family. DeBari ended up on Nevada’s List of Excluded Persons, commonly referred to as the Black Book.
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The off-Strip Silver Sevens is not returning to its original name — at least for now.
A year after Affinity Interactive, which owns the resort, announced the 44-year-old hotel-casino would be remodeled and rebranded as the Continental, new CEO Scott Butera said the idea has been put on the back burner.
“We have a great product that we’ve invested in over time,” said Butera, who became Affinity’s CEO in April. “The Continental approach is very appealing. But in considering the idea, we want to make sure we’re doing it correctly.”
Silver Sevens opened in 1980 as the Continental and operated under that name until it was acquired by slot route operator Herbst Gaming, which was owned by the family that controlled the Terrible Herbst Oil Co. The Continental was rebranded as Terrible’s Hotel Casino following a yearlong closure and a $65 million renovation and reopened in 2000.
Butera views the 370-room Silver Sevens, which is situated on the southeast corner of East Flamingo and Paradise roads, as being in the center of an active tourist hub, saying the property is “at the center point” between the Las Vegas Convention Center and Harry Reid International Airport.
He said he also expects Silver Sevens to benefit from the development of a 33,000-capacity Major League Baseball stadium that is less than 3 miles away.
Butera knows a thing or two about trends in the gaming industry. His career has taken him to executive-level positions at properties operated by MGM Resorts International, Foxwoods Resort in Connecticut and Atlantic City casinos. He also had a short stint as commissioner of the Arena Football League.
“Given all that's going on in that area, we wanted to do a little more homework and figure out what's the right way to maximize the value,” he said.
While the rebrand is off the table, Affinity is making changes on the casino floor.
Earlier this year, the company removed the live table games pit and replaced the space with electronic versions of the games developed by Interblock Gaming. Live dealers remain part of the action, but the games’ chips and cards are all electronic.
Butera, who had been overseeing Affinity’s digital division, which includes The Daily Racing Forum, since March 2023 before being named CEO, said the electronic table games became part of the plan to look at Silver Sevens with “a fresh set of eyes.”
Interblock Senior Vice President of Innovation Jeff Kowalchuk said the transformation to electronic tables is similar to how slot machines went coinless. He also compared casinos to other industries, such as grocery stores with self-service checkout and the airline industry where customers use kiosks to print boarding passes.
“We are introducing technology onto traditional table games so that [a casino] can make their labor more effective,” Kowalchuk said. The games still require dealers to oversee the gaming activity.
In a 2023 interview with The Nevada Independent, Interblock CEO John Connelly said electronic table games give casino customers more choices.
“A casino floor has 1,000 different slots with 100 different variations designed for hundreds of different types of players,” he said. “We have over 50 different products with hundreds of different features and functionality designed to attract different types of players on a casino floor. It’s very similar to what you would find in the slot machine segment.”
Butera said electronic table games could become a companywide effort for Affinity, which owns seven casinos. The company converted the pits at its three casinos at Primm to electronic table games and is considering a similar conversion at its two casinos in Missouri and a property in Iowa.
“We have certain strategies for Primm that are different than what we're doing at Silver Sevens,” Butera said. “The rooms at Silver Sevens are in great shape and we invested a lot of money in the pool area. “We're looking at some new food and beverage options.”
The property, which has a 60,000-square-foot casino, operated as the Continental until 1999 when slot machine route operator Herbst Gaming acquired the property after its bankruptcy foreclosure.
Illinois-based Z Capital Group acquired the property after the bankruptcy of Herbst Gaming in 2013. Affinity licensed the Terrible’s name starting in 2013 before deciding to rebrand the casino as Silver Sevens a few months later.
Billionaire Golden Nugget owner Tilman Fertitta increases his Wynn ownership to 9.9 percent
Texas billionaire Tilman Fertitta gave the investment community a jolt last week when he became the largest shareholder in Wynn Resorts, surpassing even Elaine Wynn.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Fertitta, through his Houston-based privately held Fertitta Entertainment, said he added almost 4 million shares to his holdings in Wynn. Fertitta now has a 9.9 percent stake in the casino company, controlling almost 11 million shares. His initial investment came in October 2022 when he acquired a 6.1 percent stake, which, at the time, he termed as a passive investment.
Analysts don’t believe he is making a run at the company, which controls Wynn Las Vegas and Encore in Las Vegas, a hotel-casino in Boston, three resorts in Macau and is developing a $5.1 billion resort in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
“Wynn would be a more complicated (and expensive) endeavor given its sizable enterprise value and international gaming licenses in Macau and the UAE,” CBRE Research analyst John DeCree wrote in a research note Friday.
Fertitta owns eight Golden Nugget-branded resorts, including properties in Las Vegas, Laughlin and Lake Tahoe, and a 6-acre plot at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue where he plans to build a yet-to-be-named 43-story, 2,420-room hotel-casino that was first announced in 2022. He also owns the NBA’s Houston Rockets.
Elaine Wynn, who co-founded Wynn Resorts with her then-husband Steve Wynn, is the company’s second-largest shareholder with an 8 percent stake.
Fertitta is a cousin of Frank Fertitta III and Lorenzo Fertitta, who are the largest shareholders in Red Rock Resorts.
What I'm reading
✈️ Discount airline Spirit files for bankruptcy — Alexander Gladstone and Allison Sider, The Wall Street Journal
Spirit is the No. 2 air carrier that services Harry Reid International Airport, with more than 6.2 million passengers this year through September. An airport spokeswoman said there is currently no change to Spirit’s service in Las Vegas.
⭐ Texas casino legalization lacks support from Senate Republicans, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — Matthew Kredell, PlayUSA
Miriam Adelson’s money and lobbying efforts by Las Vegas Sands may not be enough to sway gaming legalization in the Lone Star State.
🏠 Ras Al Khaimah homeowners see house prices surge as emirate's popularity grows — Katy Gillet, The National
Wynn Resort’s $5.1 billion project has fueled a housing construction boom.
News, notes and quotes
🗣️ Red Rock spokesman has terse words for Culinary leader
In response to remarks last week by Culinary Workers Union Local 226 Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge on Red Rock Resorts' support for no taxes on tips (Pappageorge accused the company of “milking off the great union contracts” and refusing to pass proceeds on to workers), senior vice president Michael Britt said the labor leader should not be attacking the company and said he was suggesting “incorrectly” that employees “would somehow not benefit from no tax on tips.” He said the union has been “litigating endlessly to overturn the rejection of the Culinary Union by our [employees] and playing political games. Mr. Pappageorge should join [the company] in working to get no tax on tips passed for the benefit of all hospitality workers, union and non-union.”
🎰 Reno slot machine operator acquired by J&J Gaming
Illinois-based J&J Gaming received initial approval from state gaming regulators to acquire 10 slot machine-only operations in Northern Nevada. J&J, which acquired Golden Entertainment’s slot route business in Nevada and Montana this year for a combined $322.5 million, bought Reno-based Leisure Gaming for an undisclosed price. The deal involves 10 properties primarily along Interstate 80 with more than 640 slot machines, including locations in Fernley, Carlin, Elko, Ely and Wells. The Nevada Gaming Commission is expected to provide a final decision Thursday.