Category: Casino News

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Gloom, Doom & Atlantic City

Today’s S&G is written with a heavy heart, as we have little good news to impart. At least there was a mixed signal from New Jersey. Gamblers went to Atlantic City less … but played online more. Terrestrial casinos were down 3.5% to $231 million, whilst iGaming was up 23.5% to $244 million, outgrossing Atlantic City for the second straight month, as the Garden City casino industry consumes its own tail. Mind you, traditional casinos got left out of much of the iGaming action, dominated as it was by DraftKings (25%) and FanDuel (21.5%) with BetMGM (22%) sandwiched in between. Good news for Bally’s Corp.: It garnered 2.5% of the action, giving them something to crow about at the impending earnings call, still TBA.

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A Class Act; Atlantic City Mailbox

Las Vegas just lost a lot of class. Elaine Wynn died yesterday and, with her, a golden age in Sin City. She tempered then-husband Steve Wynn‘s worst impulses (albeit not enough of them) as the ministering angel of Wynn Resorts and its precursor, Mirage Resorts. We feel unqualified to write Ms. Wynn’s obituary but will hasten to note that the tributes have come flowing in from far and wide, including from competing casino companies, which is quite unusual. (Try to imagine Frank & Lorenzo Fertitta penning a verbal bouquet to Tilman Fertitta. You can’t.) Ms. Wynn consistently strove to make Las Vegas a better place and we thank her for that. We’d love to be remembered so fondly when we shuffle off this mortal coil … but we’re no Elaine Wynn.

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A Mild March Thaw

After a pretty bad February, casino performances rebounded slightly in March, at least sufficiently to probably salvage the quarter. The headline item was Illinois, where grosses seemed to pogo-spring 12%. However, on closer inspection (i.e., a same-store basis) they were just 1% higher. In other words, everybody except the newcomers was treading water.

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Guppy Swallows Whale

Congratulations, Bally’s Corp. You’re the tiny dog that caught the enormous car. What do propose to do with it? In case you missed it, Star Entertainment was so desperate for financial relief that it accepted a teensy, $180 million buyout offer from Bally’s for 57% of the company. An infusion of capital from Down Under publishing baron Bruce Mathieson subsequently lowered Bally’s upfront cost to $120 million. That’s $40 million per megaresort, which sounds pretty sweet on the face of it.

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Money for Nothing

Churchill Downs under fire; MGM, Caesars sued

Big Gaming was liberated from hundreds of millions of dollars in market capitalization yesterday, as the stock market went into shock. So burdensome, all that money. The Dow Jones average plunged nearly 1,680 points before hitting bottom and gaming stocks suffered disproportionately from tariff-related woes on Wall Street. Kudos to the oft-lamentable Las Vegas Review-Journal for covering a story which the legacy media has otherwise done its best to ignore.

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A Boy Named Soo

Say what you like about Bally’s Corp. Chairman Soo Kim. He’s bipartisan when it comes to greasing the gears of power with cash. One never forgets how the then-mayor of Chicago, a certain Lori Lightfoot (D), short-circuited her own selection process for a Second City casino the moment Kim crossed her palm with $40 million. Bally’s got the nod hor concours in what was corruption plan and simple. Now Kim has his eyes on a bigger prize: the White House.

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The Big Chill

We warned you. Last week we predicted February’s casino numbers in Las Vegas (and indeed in Nevada) wouldn’t be pretty. And they’re not. The Las Vegas Strip plummeted 14% and the Silver State overall was down 9%. Mind you, the plunge had more than a little to with February 2024 seeing a Super Bowl in Las Vegas while February of this year had no such drawing card. Indeed, Super Bowl Weekend in Sin City this year was reported to be pretty weak. In case you’re wondering, when compared to 2023, the Strip was still down—albeit just 3%.

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Send in the Clowns

Grease paint and putty noses were on full display yesterday at the Nevada Gaming Commission‘s charade of pretending to discipline Resorts World Las Vegas for consorting with criminals and laundering their money. In reality, the purpose of the hearing was to sweep the whole inconvenient mess under the nearest rug. The NGC rubber-stamped a paltry, $10.5 million fine, one which veteran casino executive and regulator Richard Schuetz termed not even a wrist slap.

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The biggest loser … and other dirty linen

Ancient casino vizier Steve Wynn finally ran out of luck. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court to have libel laws reinterpreted in his favor because … well, because he’s special, we guess. Wynn used to fancy himself “the most powerful man in Nevada” and all that absolute power corrupted him absolutely. He got to the point of thinking that he could play hide the salami with Wynn Resorts employees and get away with it. He couldn’t and that was the end of a hitherto spectacular career in casinos.

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The fix was in

That $10K which Resorts World Las Vegas donated to Joe Lombardo‘s gubernatorial campaign in 2022 was money well spent. It might be the best investment Resorts World LV ever made. How else to explain the incredibly lenient penalty handed down to Resorts World after it got caught laundering money and consorting with criminals? If the Lombardo administration wanted to go easy on Genting Group, the Nevada Gaming Control Board sure obliged.

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