Inside gaming column: Now you play it, now you don't

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Trailer Station has competition.

Slot route operator United Coin Machine received preliminary approval last week from state gaming regulators to operate a temporary 16-slot machine casino inside a closed strip mall at the northeast corner of the Strip and Sahara Avenue.

The casino will be open for just eight hours in March, pending final approval from the Nevada Gaming Commission. The action allows the location to retain its gaming rights for at least two years.

The building once housed the Holy Cow casino and was previously known as Foxy's Firehouse Casino.

In January, United Coin helped Station Casinos with a temporary casino on the Boulder Highway inside a trailer at the site of the imploded Castaways-Showboat.

Unlike the so-dubbed "Trailer Station," the Holy Cow is still a free-standing building. United Coin Vice President Rob Woodson said that may help the location have a better handle from gamblers than the Showboat site, where Woodson said Trailer Station took in "less than $10."

"We'll probably have more people walking by on the Strip who will stop in," Woodson said.

Woodson said United Coin operated six temporary casinos in the last five years to help locations keep their gaming entitlements.

Accusations that Culinary Local 226 members and Tropicana workers are calling the police to increase crime statistics at the Tropicana are false, Culinary Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor said.

He said any activity by workers aimed at undermining the Tropicana business operations will not be tolerated.

"We've told (the Tropicana) across the table if they know of any union members or anybody that works for the union doing anything illegal, please let us know," he said.

New contracts for approximately 750 workers at the property are being negotiated between the Tropicana and the Culinary and Bartenders Local 165.

In New Jersey, where Tropicana owner Columbia Sussex Corp. lost its operating license for the Tropicana Atlantic City, workers from the Culinary's affiliate union were accused of pouring sand in toilets and preventing workers from cleaning the casino area.

Columbia Sussex spokesman Hud Englehart said the company stands by its accusations.

Former Harrah's Entertainment Chief Operating Officer Tim Wilmott was named the president and COO of Penn National Gaming last week, a year after he left Harrah's.

The appointment of the 49-year-old Wilmott had long been speculated. Gambling analysts said a noncompete clause in his Harrah's agreement held up the deal.

The Inside Gaming column is compiled by Review-Journal gaming and tourism writers Howard Stutz, Benjamin Spillman and Arnold M. Knightly.