The reels are always spinning in the gambling industry, and “The Double Down” is here every Friday to catch you up on all of the week’s biggest news. Sports Handle’s “Get a Grip” rounds up everything on the sports betting side, and US Bets provides the best of the rest: brick-and-mortar happenings, online casino developments, poker headlines, horse wagering, and more. So pull up a chair, crunch the numbers, and slide forward another stack of chips.

Turn on the Fontaine

What were you doing in May 2005? I know what was going on in my life — I’d just started a job two months earlier as the editor-in-chief of All In magazine, my first gig in the gambling industry, and the month of May fell in between a Vegas trip to cover my first World Poker Tour event in April and a Vegas trip to cover my first World Series of Poker in July.

Some 18½ years and several gambling industry jobs later, I have May 2005 on my mind again because that is when a casino resort project on the Vegas Strip from developer Fontainebleau Resorts was first proposed.

In the years that followed, construction began, that construction was aborted once due to financial failure and once due to COVID, and the property changed hands three times. Finally, on Wednesday, back under its original owner and with its originally planned name, The Fontainebleau opened, adding one more high-end resort to the Strip — while the hotel tower established itself as the tallest occupiable (in other words, not counting the Strat) building in Nevada.

One important note: While the name “Fontainebleau” would be pronounced in France like a combination of Johnny Fontaine’s surname and what the wind does, in America, the property is pronounced as “fountain blue.” Try to keep it straight.

The local media outlets covered the opening of the $3.7 billion casino on the Strip’s northern end attentively, from 8 News Now to the Las Vegas Review-Journal to The Nevada Independent. ThePointsGuy.com even offered a detailed breakdown of Fontainebleau’s rewards program.

The Fontainebleau features a 173,000-square-foot casino floor (with 1,300 slot machines, 128 table games, and a sportsbook) and 3,644 hotel rooms. Also contained within are high-end retailers, 550,000 square feet of meeting and convention space, and the 3,800-seat BleauLive Theater.

Will the second most expensive resort in Las Vegas (behind only the $4.3 billion Resorts World) prove worth the investment?

Opening week is perhaps a wee bit soon to say. But presumably, we won’t have to wait another 18½ years to determine if Fontainebleau is a success.

This week on Gamble On …

Every Thursday, US Bets drops a new episode of the Gamble On podcast, and this week’s welcomed World Poker Tour President and CEO Adam Pliska to share his thoughts on the state of poker in 2023, the tour schedule for 2024, and how much he’s sweating the overlay potential for this week’s $40 million guaranteed championship event:

Today is the final day of registration for the @WPT World Championship, and the tournament is tracking toward hitting its record $40 million guarantee. On the latest episode of #GambleOn, @pliska007 explains — complete with Godfather II reference — this "big bet" the WPT made: https://t.co/OpXsm0oYx7 pic.twitter.com/gjYc0CogQD

— US Bets (@US_Bets) December 15, 2023

Horse sense

Legendary Horse Racing Journalists Wary Of Messing With Tradition

One man’s trash

Michigan Man’s ‘Losing’ Lottery Ticket Turns Out To Be Big Winner

Beyond the beta

A Closer Look At Fanatics Casino, Launching In A Second State In January

Give me one good reason

Has The Time Come To Incentivize Gamblers To Use Responsible Gambling Tools?

Digging in

PENN, Joliet Thinking Bigger At Groundbreaking For Illinois Casino Move

Old school vs. new school

Is Computer-Assisted Horse Wagering Getting Out Of Hand?

Downward trend … about to end?

Michigan Casino Revenue Plunges To $76 Million In November, Showing Impact Of Workers’ Strikes

Garden State becomes Land O’ Loot

Tipico Online Casino Player In New Jersey Wins Over $200K On One Tap

Workers strike possible at Harrah’s Philadelphia

Since the Pennsylvania casino industry opened in 2006, no property has ever suffered a strike by workers, but one is threatened now at Harrah’s Philadelphia.

Two unionized employees of the racetrack-casino in Chester, Delaware County appeared at a public comment period of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board this week to share that a strike authorization vote had overwhelmingly been approved on Nov. 17.

The Harrah’s property has some 600 employees, with at least one-fourth of those being members of Unite Here 54, Laborers Local 413, and Teamsters Local 107 who have been working without a contract since June 30. They are not dealers directly involved in gaming, but are employed as cooks, servers, bartenders, doormen, and other hospitality workers.

The workers told the gaming board they do not want to strike and have no date to do so, but their leadership is authorized to call one if no progress is made in current negotiations focused on wage increases. US Bets reached out to Harrah’s operator Caesars Entertainment but received no response.

— Gary Rotstein

New Jersey casino smoking ban backsliding

A few months ago, it looked like New Jersey lawmakers were going to put an end to smoking inside Atlantic City casinos. There was a bipartisan majority of members of the Assembly and Senate that co-sponsored the bill. Gov. Phil Murphy said he would sign it once it reached his desk.

Alas, the proposal has gone up in smoke, as one key member of the committee that had to move the bill along, Sen. Vince Polistina — who represents people from the Atlantic City area and who previously rallied with anti-smoking forces — claimed there weren’t enough votes to pass the legislation.

Instead, Polistina is planning on crafting a new bill that would ban smoking at table games, reduce smoking at slot machines over an 18-month period, and give the casinos the same 18 months to build rooms where gamblers could smoke and that would be staffed by employees who choose to work in those rooms.

As might be expected, these developments did not go over well with the casino workers and their unions, who have fought for nearly 20 years to get a bill passed. On Thursday, members of the United Auto Workers union — the group that represents dealers at three New Jersey casinos — walked into the committee meeting and promptly lit up cigarettes and blew smoke in the direction of the politicians.

“We’re not allowed to smoke in your workplace, but you’re allowed to smoke in ours,” Daniel Vicente, a regional director of the union, said as he was blowing smoke at the lawmakers, according to an AP report.

— Jeff Edelstein

More from around the gambling biz

ON THE MOVE: Belmont Stakes will be held at Saratoga Race Course in 2024, Triple Crown finale will be 1¼ miles [Associated Press]

FORK OVER THE CASH: Seminole Tribe to resume payments to state amid new gambling games at Hard Rock [CBS News Miami]

BUCKLE UP: MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle’s view from the top [iGB]

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: Historic signs from Strip’s oldest property to be restored [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

BOSSIER MOVE: Cordish guarantees Louisiana Live! Casino will rival destination properties in Vegas [Shreveport Times]

SHORT-TERM DEAL: Tropicana and Culinary Union agree on a new contract, but for how long? [The Nevada Independent]

EVERYTHING’S BIGGER … : Texas Live developer calls resort casino concept a ‘winning formula’ as Mark Cuban pitches one for Dallas [Dallas Business Journal]

Image: Blundell Design