Casino News: Harrah's Entertainment and MGM Resorts Will Be Closed for Renovations Nationwide Until November 2016

Las Vegas (RNN) - Citing concerns with a series of threatened national boycotts, Harrah’s vice president of public policy and communications Marybel Batjer announced that all casino facilities would be shuttered immediately for "major renovations" to be completed by November 2016.

"We recognize that we basically stole the election for Harry Reid, but we also didn't anticipate that the proof of our collusion with his campaign would circulate all over the Internet in about six seconds flat," she said in a prepared statement, "And we did not predict the sort of national backlash we are now facing."

"In order to avoid an economically catastrophic boycott by players across the land, we have instead decided to close all of our facilities until November 2016 for 'renovations'."

Joining Harrah's in the self-enforced six-year renovation effort is MGM Entertainment, which also reportedly violated state and federal election laws by compelling employees to vote for Reid and a straight Democrat ticket.

"We understand what we did wrong -- namely accompanying each employee into the voting booth and pressing the buttons for them -- and will do everything in our power to rectify the situation next time around," said Harvey Frizzle, director of vote fraud, "If, in fact, we do violate election laws in the future, we will be certain not to communicate our plans in such a way that we get caught."

Former New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer, in town for a 'convention', said he had not witnessed any untoward activities at the polls from his honeymoon suite at the Venetian.