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Maryland down, Illinois up; NFL hypocrisy; Bally’s biz

Gaming industry bears are going to latch onto a 4% drop in Maryland gambling earnings as evidence of an impending recession. Thankfully, J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff puts it in context by pointing out that the $174 million haul is 17% higher than July 2019, itself a high-water mark at the time. The Free State moves closer to a duopoly, with MGM National Harbor (41%) and Maryland Live (36%) capturing more than three-fourths of all business. That left woebegone Horseshoe Baltimore, the casino that Caesars Entertainment forgot, with just $16 million, 13% below last year and 17% down from 2019. MGM, meanwhile, raked in $72 million, a 6.5% slippage, while Maryland Live booked 63%, up 2%.

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Using Your Cell Phone in the Casino in Order to Look Up the Strategy

I’ve recently written some more-complicated-than-normal (for me) articles concerning playing strategies. Today won’t be one of those!

One of my regular posters, Boris from Switzerland, posted (paraphrasing): “This is fine for the advanced players. Recreational players can use a phone app to get the same information. And they’ll probably get away with it.”

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Big Apple dream; BetMGM welshes; Dekkers: Mom’s to blame

Developer Larry Silverstein‘s PR peeps released additional renderings of The Avenir over the weekend and they are certainly impressive. Few additional details of the proposed resort have been made available but the striking exterior is the work of veteran casino architect Paul Steelman, far outdoing his work for Resorts World New York. For our money, it’s pretty much a tossup between this and Sands Nassau for the most curb-appealing design statement and we hope that New York State authorities will have a hard time choosing between the two. If a casino simply must go into Manhattan, Silverstein gets our vote hands down. More pretty pictures after the jump.

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Wall Street: Station soft; DraftKings impresses, Bally’s doesn’t

“If you were surprised you haven’t been paying attention.” So wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli of yesterday’s Station Casinos earnings release. He added, “it should come as no surprise that RRR reported results that were softer than our forecasts,” which were in themselves pessimistic. Station execs pointed to tough 2022 comparisons, especially in April, as well as their sports books getting cleaned out by Las Vegas Golden Knights bettors. Almost a million dollars of incremental utility costs also accounted for the miss and the latter factor should be considerably worse next quarter. Summarized Santarelli, “if you paid attention to [Boyd Gaming], you got almost exactly what you would have expected from RRR this evening.”

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Bears and bulls at MGM; Uwazurike spells “idiot”

J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff was pretty blunt about MGM Resorts International‘s mixed bag of 2Q23 numbers. “Carried by Macau,” he headlined his report, adding that the Las Vegas Strip was in line with expectations but regional casinos came up short. Of $3.9 billion in net revenue, $2.1 billion came from Sin City but the biggest noise was heard out of Macao, where revenues shot up from $143 million last year to $741 million this year. The Las Vegas numbers were but a $9.5 million improvement on 2Q22 while regional casinos slipped 3.5% to $926 million. Inside the Vegas result were some interesting stats: MGM appears to making its nut off hotel occupancies (96%), where revenues nudged 2% higher while casino haul was 4% down. Slot coin-in rose 13%, barely outpacing house win that was up 12%. Table wagering was up 4% but win only 2% higher.

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Afterglow at Caesars; Trouble at Resorts World; Gridiron goof

Although Las Vegas numbers from Caesars Entertainment were modestly down in 2Q23, as people visit Sin City more but gamble less, analysts were largely pleased with the results. Why not? A robust, $64 million improvement in the digital sphere of the Roman Empire more than made up for any declivity on the Las Vegas Strip. Online operations even posted an $11 million positive ROI, a sign that Caesars has turned the corner on Internet wagering. True, Wall Street didn’t execute cartwheels in the aisles, indicating that the CZR numbers were in line with what was expected. But stock analysts seemed generally satisfied.

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Ohio up; Golden struggles; Bay State blunders

Continued strength in casinos was shown by Ohio, which posted $193.5 million in gambling revenue in June. That’s 2% higher than already-strong last year and a whopping 20% over 2o19, which was none too shabby either. Hollywood Columbus came out roaring, up 10% to $23 million, which still wasn’t enough to catch slots-only MGM Northfield Park, gaining 5% to almost reach $25 million. Churchill Downs‘ joint-venture Miami Valley Racing vaulted 12% and into second place among racinos with $19 million, besting Scioto Downs, down a point to $18.5 million. Other casinos not doing too shabbily were Jack Cleveland, flat at $22 million, and Hard Rock Cincinnati, off a point to $20 million. Hollywood Toledo was an also-ran with $18 million, minus 2.5%.

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The Use of “fp or worse” in Strategies

A few weeks ago, I discussed the taxonomy of 3-card straight flushes. The first comment after it was published was “Dork Alert!” I assumed that I was being called a dork by someone who didn’t like the column. I was such a dork that I didn’t even know the meaning of dork! By the time I figured out what it meant, a couple of other readers defended me by saying that I was certainly not a dork, but the jury was still out about whether or not I was a nerd.

I’m so glad we got that straightened out!

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