Category: Casino News

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Atlantic City and its discontents

More than the presidency is changing at Borgata (with Travis Lunn having left to head up Mandalay Bay). Out goes the carpeting, to be replaced with the cool tones shown at the top of the above photo. Our man in Atlantic City is not pleased with the flooring switcheroo: “When Ocean Casino replaced their carpet a few years ago, the carpet colors were bright and attractive. Last year, Bally’s replaced their carpet. The carpet colors are bright and attractive. Did Borgata’s new, blue-tone carpet come from a discount carpet store? Shame on MGM Resorts International for the choice.” (We confess we actually like it.)

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What are MGM, Bally’s thinking?

Gaming observers awoke yesterday to the news that MGM Resorts International wants to be shot of struggling MGM Springfield, a $960 million albatross. No great surprise there. CEO Bill Hornbuckle had washed his hands of it a year ago, literally shrugging and telling the Boston Globe, “It is what it is.” Plus, the property president left late last year under murky circumstances and replaced with Louis “Louie” Theros, former legal counsel of MGM Grand Detroit. A curious choice, on the face of it. MGM grossly overestimated the regional pull of a Springfield casino and those chickens have evidently come home to roost.

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Flat Chest in Louisiana

Thanks to saturation of casinos in the Keystone State, gambling revenues in Pennsylvania were up but 1%. That’s actually a 13% decline from 2019, to $279.5 million. A nice haul, to be sure. Smoke-free Parx Casino fell off 4.5% but led all comers with $45.5 million. The next-best competitor in the City of Brotherly Love market was Philadelphia Live, surging 16.5% to $22 million. Rivers Philadelphia continued to fade, down 5.5% to $18.5 million. Charmless Harrah’s Philadelphia (above) plunged 18% to $11 million, ceding fourth place to Valley Forge Resort with $11.5 million, up 10.5%.

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Sands sends the help; Atlantic City slips

While most companies who were presenting at the J.P. Morgan Gaming, Lodging, Restaurant & Leisure Management Access Forum sent their CEOs and CFOs, Las Vegas Sands couldn’t be bothered. It kicked the matter downstairs to Senior Vice President of Investor Relations Daniel Briggs. We can only presume that Rob Goldstein had a pressing tee time. After all, Sands had almost nothing but good news to present to Wall Street analysts. Leaving aside Goldstein’s discourtesy, you may be wondering if and when Sands is returning to the U.S. The answer would appear to be …

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Wall Street comes to Vegas; Trump wins?

Gaming executives showed the flag this week for the J.P. Morgan Gaming, Lodging, Restaurant & Leisure Management Access Forum, being held this week on the Las Vegas Strip. We’ve covered Caesars Entertainment and Boyd Gaming for CDC Gaming Reports, but will deal with a couple of the other majors here. MGM Resorts International sent CEO Bill Hornbuckle and CFO Jonathan Halkyard to impress the assembled investors and stock boffins. As summarized by Morgan’s Joseph Greff, Hornbuckle and Halkyard (henceforth H&H) said they didn’t see any consumer pullback on the Strip, although there had been some “modest degradation” in the lower price tiers. Excalibur, beware! So much the better that Marriott Hotels had arrived in force and its new alliance with MGM was showing “significant progress … performing well ahead of internal expectations.” Good for Marriott, good for MGM, not so good for online travel agencies, who stand to be displaced.

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Motown and more; Stiff of the Month

Since the Great Pandemic, gambling has never been quite the same for Detroit. Last month’s casino tally of $105 million was flat with 2023 and 9% down from the pre-pandemic pace of 2019, a recurrent theme in Motown. MotorCity beat the odds and posted a 1% increase, hitting $31.5 million for the month. Hollywood Greektown, which had been on a tear, was flat at $24 million, leaving $49 million (-1.5%) for MGM Grand Detroit. As J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff reminds us, this includes a Leap Day, which probably kept Detroit’s casinos revenue-neutral for February.

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The many moods of Dan Lee

If people who contradict themselves contain multitudes, it must be very crowded inside Full House Resorts CEO Dan Lee. Make no mistake: Big Gaming needs a lot more CEOs like him. He’s down to earth and a straight shooter. But Full House’s latest earnings call could have given you whiplash, given some of Lee’s back-and-forth comments about new resort Chamonix, in Cripple Creek, Colorado. One minute he was praising the property, the other making excuses for it. Some of this was understandable, seeing as the opening was botched, coming off a rough start for The Temporary at American Place, in Waukegan (birthplace of Jack Benny), which also had Full House going into spin-doctoring overdrive.

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A’s: Pretty pictures and B.S.; Glebocki’s back

Onward goes the fan dance that is the Oakland Athletics‘ long-running tease of the Las Vegas Strip. After spending months tantalizing Clark County officials with promises of a new stadium design, A’s brass finally dropped a veil in the form of a set of project renderings for a gull-winged ballpark that looks suspiciously like the Sydney Opera House. More of that anon. What’s of more interest to us is the sleight of hand being performed by A’s owner John Fisher to make this change be mistaken for progress. It’s becoming questionable whether Fisher has two nickels to rub together, as he’s been elaborately silent on whether he can pick up the $1.5 billion tab for the vanity park. A credible financing package would be more impressive than all the renderings in the world but we’re no closer to that. It gets worse …

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Oscar odds and fearless forecast

Thanks to the epic throwdown between Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie and Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer, bettors are out in force in seven states as the Academy Awards derby comes down to the wire. Bookies.com analyst Bill Speros bluntly told Reuters, “You have two movies that everybody’s seen.” FanDuel is even taking prop bets (color of dresses, etc.) in Canada. At the moment, though, it looks like Oppenheimer will virtually run the table while Barbie is struggling to not get shut out. Virtually the only significant suspense is whether Emma Stone (Poor Things, +125) pulls a narrow upset over Lily Gladstone for Best Actress, thereby validating the National Board of Review jinx. Meanwhile, Barbie is a lock for nothing except Best Original Song. Since the odds are pretty consistent at this point, we’ll go with Covers.com‘s set (plus some averaging by ourselves) and take it away …

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Golden gleams; Trump’s casinos revisited

What might have been a disappointing quarter for Golden Entertainment was redeemed in Wall Street‘s eyes by the initiation of stock dividends. Golden will be paying $0.25/share on a quarterly basis. This has been made possible by the wholly laudable reduction of the company’s debt to 2X cash flow. “We believe the decision to institute a dividend, more so than the dividend itself, speaks to the optionality and flexibility of the Company at this stage,” applauded Deutsche Bank boffin Carlo Santarelli.

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