Jumbo Stampede

What is Jumbo Stampede?

In second-quarter results posted last month, Encore Boston Harbor saw $209 million in revenue for the period, which was a 3% drop year-over-year. A 12% YoY drop in table games win led to a 6% decline in overall casino revenue, although Wynn CEO Craig Billings said the property delivered second-quarter records for both hotel revenue and revenue per available room. Demand in Boston “has remained healthy, with slot handle running slightly ahead of last year”, Billings said.

 “When a company refuses to respect the workers who make its profits possible, we shut it down,” Thomas G Mari, president of Local 25, said in a statement. “The teamsters don’t cross picket lines and won’t be intimidated.”

Union deals have been a pressing topic for casino operators in recent years. Workers have pressed for increased benefits and job security provisions in the wake of macroeconomic uncertainty and the advent of potentially disruptive technologies like AI.

What is Jumbo Stampede?

Cleopatra’s Barge opened in September 1970 in what is now the Nobu Hotel tower, replacing the earlier Nero’s Nook lounge. The 180-seat lounge featured as its centerpiece a “floating” stage designed as a replica of the vessel aboard which the Egyptian queen is said to have bewitched Mark Antony.

The pleasure craft, installed in a shallow lagoon, featured a gold-painted, topless figurehead that extended far into the public walkway. Guests quickly turned rubbing the statue’s golden breasts for luck into a classic Vegas tradition; staff regularly repainted the most-touched areas.

Vital Vegas ranked the display No. 4 on his 2014 list of “10 Things You Can Rub for Good Luck in Las Vegas Without Getting Arrested,” a list that featured three other Caesars Palace entries: the hand of the Caesars statue (No. 1); Joe Louis’s boxing gloves (No. 8); and the toe of Michelangelo’s David replica (No. 9).

The barge itself never actually floated, by the way. That was just a myth. It sat on a fixed platform that created a mild rocking motion. That piece of Vegas engineering, like the statue’s original perch, is now history.

How to play Jumbo Stampede

The NLRB ruled after the election that Red Rock took steps to prevent a fair union vote, and Red Rock sued in response, although the ruling was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last month. After the court denied a rehearing request on 6 August, it also subsequently denied Station’s request for a stay pending SCOTUS relief on 24 August.

Red Rock may still petition SCOTUS to hear the case, and the court could still choose to do so, but in the meantime the casino must comply with the NLRB ruling. The ruling requires the casino to recognise and bargain with the union upon request, post employee rights notices and other measures.

“The NLRB decision overturned the clear vote of Red Rock team members rejecting the Culinary Union,” Station said in a statement. “The decision prevents any company from granting benefits to its employees if it is aware of union interest in unionising the company’s employees and nullifies the Red Rock team members’ vote to be union-free, all because Station Casinos treated its team members too well.”