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What is going on with Eastside Cannery and Sam's Town? It seems that the Cannery is trying to discourage players there in favor of pushing them over to nearby Sam's Town. What is Boyd's plan? Will they close the Cannery or expand Sam's Town to include the Cannery (just across the street)? Or what?
And
Eastside Cannery doomed? Since Boyd took over the Eastside Cannery, the Starbucks coffee stand was closed, the steakhouse was closed, the sports book was closed, the Deli was closed, heck, even the bingo room has been closed. There is nothing left there, except the halfway decent café with terrible coffee. What gives?
Any thinning out of Eastside Cannery amenities would seem to give a thumbs-down to the idea of owning two locals casinos that are side by side and trying to compete with yourself. You can get away with this sort of thing on the Las Vegas Strip (think of MGM’s Mandalay Mile or Caesars' from Harrah's to Planet Hollywood ), and even in downtown, but on the Boulder Strip, it doesn't work quite as well.
Says VitalVegas.com blogger Scott Roeben, “They definitely overshot on that one. It was aspirational, I think. Sort of like Beau Rivage in Biloxi. If you build it, they don't always come.”
Roeben believes it’s a cost-cutting measure en route to making Eastside Cannery a slot joint. Boyd “can't really sell it, because they don't want another competitor in the neighborhood. I suspect they saw the success of the other Cannery and thought this one might perform the same. No such luck.”
Representing the opposite perspective, Boyd Gaming communications director David Strow says, in essence, there’s no news here. “We made these adjustments some time back (May or June of 2018, as I recall). The idea is to operate the two properties in a complementary way (and as complementary offerings), rather than duplicating amenities at both properties. As a result, we have consolidated some amenities between the two properties.
“Most of the consolidation to date has been at Sam’s Town, due to the property’s larger parking capacity and stronger business volumes. So rather than operating two bingo rooms, two sports books, two buffets, and two steakhouses between these properties, we consolidated into one operation at Sam’s Town. On the other side, Eastside still offers a traditional casino café (Snaps), an amenity we don't have at Sam’s Town.”
Strow continues, “While the offerings are different at Eastside than they used to be, the property still offers a full range of amenities, including slots and tables, hotel, meeting space, and the café. As we’ve noted on our quarterly conference calls over the past couple of years, we're quite pleased with the results of the Cannery acquisition and have seen consistently strong growth from this acquisition (and the Aliante) since we added these properties in late 2016.”
Still, we can help but wonder if the expansion into North Las Vegas (original Cannery, Aliante Casino) hasn’t come at the price of some redundancy along the Boulder Strip.
I have a question I can't find a clear answer to. As a foreigner, what's the easiest way to deposit cash in Vegas? I'm not talking about big amounts, but what if I want to deposit $500? Or $5,000? Can I open a bank account in Vegas? Can the casino wire it for you? Do they charge for this service? What if it's table game or poker money? Will the casino still perform a wire if you have the chips on you? I've only heard about this with slot jackpot. It seems like getting cash is easy enough by using an ATM or depositing front money, but I never hear about getting money back home. Not that I pretend I'm going to win, but I wonder what happens to people who do and are foreigners.