Booming Bananas

About Booming Bananas

New financial disclosures from the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office show that VGW gave the campaign another $100,000, bringing the firm’s total contributions to $130,000. The latest check, dated Aug. 31, came from the Chumba Casino, Global Poker, and LuckyLand Casino operator.

Tuberville, the famed former football coach of the Auburn Tigers, has served in the US Senate since 2021. Tuberville has expressed a willingness to consider gambling expansion in the Cotton State, one of the most restricted gambling states in the union.

VGW’s $100,000 contribution to Tuberville brings its total campaign contributions in Alabama this year to more than $351,000. The bulk of the funds—$170,000—went to North Alabama PAC, a political action committee managed by operative Steve Ruby.

About Booming Bananas

The bitter, longstanding feud between Station Casinos and the Culinary Union in Las Vegas took another turn this month, this time to Washington, DC and the US Supreme Court.

On 4 September, Chief Justice John Roberts denied Station’s emergency request for a stay of a federal appeals court decision that ordered the company’s Red Rock Casino Resort Spa in Summerlin to comply with a National Labor Relations Board mandate and bargain in good faith with the union following a failed labour vote in late 2019. Roberts gave no explanation for the denial.

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.

What is Booming Bananas?

One of Europe’s best-known casino operators, Holland Casino runs 13 locations in the country, offering a mix of table games and slots. Amsterdam carries two casinos, while the rest are scattered around, with a slight emphasis in the south, near the Netherlands’ border with Germany.

The operator has no international locations. Well, it’s a state monopoly, after all. Holland Casino was also one of the first operators to launch online when the market legalised in 2021, with Petra de Ruiter joining the company as CEO the following year.

Petra’s journey to the role started in a hotel management school where she learned the ropes of hospitality, followed by a job at Transavia Airlines, a subsidiary of renowned Dutch operator KLM. This led to 24 years in the aviation industry, in a host of different roles: sales, marketing, operations – all aspects of the business that would later become useful in the casino industry.