What Will Happen to the Gaming Licenses for Texas and the Fiestas?

What will happen to the three gaming licenses that Station has on Texas Station and the two Fiestas?

Station Casinos has long made it clear that it doesn’t want other gambling entities moving onto those sites. Hence, the drastic decision to raze all three casinos, then sell off the land.

North Las Vegas John Lee wants to replace the old casinos with new casinos. Henderson Mayor Debra March doesn’t care what goes on the Fiesta Henderson site, or so she says. (For its part, Station President Scott Kreeger let it be known that “these were our worst-performing properties.”)

How then, does one keep competition out? The land is zoned for gambling, but Station can impose a deed restriction on the buyer that the land is to be used for anything except a casino. It’s done this before, when it sold some Henderson acreage across from Sunset Station.

That said, in Nevada, only under extraordinary circumstances, gaming licenses aren't portable. Rather, they're for specific locations. That's why the one portable license Station bought a while back (and still hasn't deployed) is so valuable. In the case of Texas Station and the Fiestas, if Station sells those properties with deed restrictions on them, it will be as though the licenses never existed.

The bigger question about selling the vacant acreage, at least to us, is: Who will buy it? Three vacant lots that used to be casinos could prove to be a tough sell. Station has a large and much-vaunted “land bank,” but despite periodic announcements that this or that real estate is available, takers have been few.

The company is now trying to turn that to advantage, removing land from the sale block and repurposing it for future casino development. The most recent instance of this has been the announcement of a Wildfire-branded locals casino, presently under construction at the Castaways (originally the Showboat) site, which they shopped for years without any luck.

Station also owns land up on Losee Road and the north Beltway, acquired when it intended to backstop Aliante Station (now Aliante Casino and owned by Boyd Gaming) with “Losee Station.” That plan, in cold storage ever since the Great Recession, is being dusted off and reexamined, with Lee’s support, as a reinvestment in North Las Vegas.

At any rate, Station probably won’t score a huge payday for its 107.5 soon-to-be-vacant acres. Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli pegged their value at $38.5 million, hardly a breakout number in the current Las Vegas Valley real estate market. But it would go nicely toward paying for in-progress Durango Casino & Hotel, or so goes the thinking on Wall Street, which is applauding Station’s demolish-and-sell strategy.

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Comments

Kevin Lewis Jul-28-2022

No recreation for the peasantry

These three properties were all about $5 blackjack and cheap buffets and a good slot club and low-limit video poker. They were places for the locals to hang out on a Friday night without breaking the bank.

Now, not only has Stations crumpled up that business model and wiped their corporate ass with it, they want to make sure no one else can bring it back. Thus these latest in a string of questionable decisions that have been all about stifling competition rather than serving the market. Stations has obviously decided that catering to the proletariat is no longer acceptable. They want the pension fund types who don't mind playing $25 craps and eating $100 dinners.

Reno Faoro Jul-28-2022

pension type

$25 craps and $100  dinners , these are today's 'yutes' ,spending their inheritance  moolah , i want at 80 years of age , a .99 cent shrimp cocktail at the old GOLDEN GATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or a $2 steak at BINIONS HORSESHOE, after 11pm , ty ,tyvm .  ,

JCCoryell Jul-28-2022

endless greed

I never could understand how a company that has an existing functioning building sitting on valuable land with a gaming license sitting in their back pocket, can just throw it away to stifle competition.  It is to "build shareholder value" which is code for short sighted greed.  The decision to spend millions to bulldoze perfectly good buildings and sell off land for pennies on the dollar is celebrated by investors?!  
This is similar to what Caesars did in AC.  They shuttered profitable Showboat casino, sold the prime Oceanfront property for almost nothing with the promise that the land would never again see a gaming license.  Now, the building sits there running at 40% capacity with an arcade on its old gaming floor

Jeff Jul-28-2022

@Kevin Lewis

One of my earliest and enduring memories of the Palace Station Casino and other locals casinos near the Strip was their friendly, helpful "Let us cash your paycheck!" signage. 

While they may have had low limit games and cheap food to entice working class wage earners, the locals casinos' "business plan" was even more predatory than the upscale Strip casinos you rail against for their endless greed. At least, those affluent tourists on the Strip can afford to be gouged.

The locals casinos that you are now eulogizing had no compunctions about doing their best to relieve the weekly earnings of hard working stiffs at the exact moment when they were most vulnerable to blowing their family's rent and food money. One upside to the closing of the casinos you celebrate for their catering to the working class is that fewer families will go hungry or be evicted.

Question of the Day - 28 July 2022

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