Category: Las Vegas Advisor

Last week, Vegas Message Board hosted a lengthy, detailed and impassioned screed from a self-professed Seven Stars member about a recent trip to Las Vegas and stay with Caesars Entertainment. First, the good news: the player host was extremely obliging, guest service was friendly and great, and the food was very good. The bad news was … almost everything else. The guest rooms at Harrah’s Las Vegas (our source’s hotel of choice) “were all recently remodeled, were nice enough, and had a low comp rate.” But mention the magic word “Eldorado” to an employee and, boy, did they spill! This started as soon as the party arrived, being informed that valet parking was closed from noon on Tuesdays until the weekend. The valet parking attendant “told me they are always hiring but that they have plenty of parkers and plenty of business to have valet open 24/7 like it used to be. He said it’s all Eldorado being cheap and not caring about providing the customer the proper service they are entitled to and have come to expect.”

“This became a theme of the trip; mention Eldorado to an employee and they knew YOU knew what was going on and felt they could talk candidly about how far and how quickly Eldorado is bringing the company down and treating not just guests, but also employees, with disdain.” The hits just kept on coming: The Seven Stars/Diamond lounge was closed, ostensibly on a temporary basis. Our source was told it has been defunct since the Great Reopening and they don’t expect it ever to resume hosting players. Upon check-in (understaffed), the visitors witnessed a line like the one seen below—by a friend of S&G—at 4 p.m. on a Sunday over at the Flamingo.

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In a benchmark development, three of the four major Las Vegas Strip operators posted higher midweek rates for the July 4-July 10 period than in 2019. Caesars Entertainment was flat, probably due to its sheer proliferation of hotel rooms. MGM Resorts International inched up 2%, Wynncore was +22% and Venelazzo rose 9%. And we’re not even into convention season yet. Weekend rates tended to be stellar: MGM leapt 41%, Caesars hopped 19%, Wynn Resorts vaulted 54% and Las Vegas Sands was up 28%. Obviously the holiday weekend is a big contributor to this phenomenon but who would have thought the Strip would be outperforming 2019 so soon?

Perhaps visitors got a sneak peek at WalletHub‘s finding that Nevada is the third-most-fun state in our great country. It’s tops (like, duh) in access to casino and fourth in arts, entertainment and recreational venues. Surprisingly, the Silver State is 15th in access per capita to amusement parks and 17th in performing-arts theaters (all those casino showrooms, you know … although Las Vegas boasts a remarkably vigorous theatre scene). We could do better in access to national parks, ranking only 24th. Only California and Florida outdid Nevada (we blame Disney), while Mississippi and West Virginia are the least-fun places to be. Nevada has the fifth-fewest marinas per capita but, with the way Lake Mead is shrinking, can you blame us?

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A “tortured artifice.” That’s what Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber (D) calls the new Florida gaming compact in a letter to the Interior Department. He urged them to reject the deal, not because of any issues with the Seminole Tribe, but on account of various baubles appended to the compact to placate private interests. Or, as Gelber put it in a nine-page missive Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, “It was simply a vehicle hijacked by non-tribal casino interests who fully corrupted the legislative and executive process in order to obtain advantages outside of tribal land and in direct contravention to the interests of Floridians.” Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ agenda, Gelber argues, was not to cut a deal with the Seminoles but to appease political donors and “his most important political patron,” Donald Trump. Incidentally, the latter is reportedly planning to flip his Doral resort to a gaming-centric corporation, should it get a casino license, which we didn’t expect.

Gelber accuses DeSantis of accepting free airplane rides and partying on yachts owned by his patrons, then rewarding them with gaming entitlements. “Indeed, their efforts paid off, as Governor DeSantis included provisions in the Florida Compact that set the groundwork for casino expansion for a prime campaign donor at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach and for his major political patron at the Trump Doral.”

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Casinos in Atlantic City grossed $189.5 million last month, 9% behind their 2019 pace. Slots were off 5% and tables 17%. Regular top-grosser Borgata had a terrible month, falling 28%, spurring by lackluster table-game winnings (-34%), with slots tumbling 25%. The Caesars Entertainment threesome fared almost as poorly, sliding 20% as table win plunged 40% and slots were down 11%. Borgata’s $38.5 million gross put it within striking distance of hard-charging Hard Rock Atlantic City, which won 35% for a 51% leap in revenue. Also soaring was Ocean Casino, vaulting 45% to $22 million and elbowing aside Harrah’s Resort ($21 million, -24%) for third place. Caesars’ much-vaunted $400 million capex may not be enough to prevent a permanent change in the pecking order.

Caesars Atlantic City, despite its reputation for volatility, was a relatively stable -14.5%, grossing $19 million, while Tropicana Atlantic City closed out the portfolio, slipping 20% to $19 million. There was a surprise among the grind joints, with Resorts Atlantic City up a percentage point to $13 million. Little Golden Nugget won $11 million but that was a 29% plummet, while Bally’s Atlantic City also grossed $11 million, down 22.5%.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) succeeded where predecessor Rick Scott failed, inking a pact with the Seminole Tribe that would unlock the $35o million a year that the Seminoles have been holding in escrow. In return, the tribe gets a pretty ‘george’ gambling expansion: three new casinos, craps and roulette (Take that, blackjack-offering racinos!), Internet gambling, and both retail and online sports betting. For his part, DeSantis was able to get the Seminoles to up their annual ante to the state to as much as $600 million a year over a period of 30 years, with $2.5 billion guaranteed by 2026 and $6 billion by 2031. So everybody wins.

Or do they? The Seminoles could yet be hoist on their own petard, having teamed with Disney to pass a constitutional amendment that puts any expansion of gambling in the hands of the voters. Which means the new compact is certain to face a court challenge. Then there’s the butter-fingered Lege, which has managed to fumble every significant piece of gaming legislation within memory. When last seen, lawmakers were trying to sneak through a sports-betting bill on the excuse that it wasn’t ‘casino gambling.’ Excuse us while we fall down laughing. At worst, however, legislators could disapprove or try to f-up the DeSantis compact with add-ons of their own.

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