Las Vegas Sands reported their earnings today, and I listened in on the conference call. (I'm a stockholder as well as a player). During the Q&A session, the subject of comps at V/P came up. The following are the EXACT words taken directly from the conference call this afternoon-
Q: (By analyst) "It looks like like you guys have done some work on the promotional side, guessing it's the comp room side. Can you tell us anything there"?
A: (Sheldon Adelson) "We know the subject of comps has been played out all across Las Vegas, but we've taken a different position- We've essentially cut out all our comps with the exception of our most highly rated players. No more are we packaging deals to try to be competitive with others. There's no more comped rooms given out, there's no more RFB, no more food and beverage. There's no shopping credits. There's no restaurant credits. There's no showroom credits.... We're selling rooms, and we see that it's resulting in a substantial increase in cash income".
So we were looking for an update, and that was straight from the horse's mouth. While it sucks for us as players (unless your one of the "highly rated players" he talks about), The numbers are bearing out what he said. I saw the income statement. Since all the comps got cut and people had to pay for the rooms, the V/P is actually more profitable than when they were giving out all the comps. (Just as it is with every publicly traded company, it's all about maximizing profit). That room money goes to the bottom line. They also talked about how the promos were attracting "lower rollers" and how the net income rose when the comps were taken away, and they're targeting more conventions and " higher level" players. So all the talk of people leaving to play elsewhere apparently isn't hurting them. (For now anyway).Doesn't look like they'll be changing the comp policy anytime soon.
