What passes for entertainment at Bally’s Atlantic City continues to go over like a lead balloon with our man on the Boardwalk. Underwhelmed by the big second-quarter, tentpole event—a former Billy Joel backup singer—he notes acidly that nothing else is planned until October, five months distant. At that time, Bally’s will present two dates on the Gigi D’Alessio world tour. “You can’t imagine how long I have (not) been waiting for Gigi to take the boat from Italy to the U.S.A.,” he writes. “When Bally’s opens their casino in Chicago, perhaps they can offer tours of the Mob-related places led by Gianni Russo.” In between now and Gigi, the major events at Bally’s A.C. are last weekend’s host party and Wednesday-night dinners at Guy Fieri‘s restaurant.
For the older crowd, the Golden Nugget had a couple of sets by Frankie Avalon. It was a family affair, what with Avalon fils on drums and a former member of the Everly Brothers on guitar. The program consisted of some Avalon golden oldies, some a pair of Everly Bros. numbers and a bit of Elvis Presley. Less pleasing to our correspondent was the fate of the Nugget‘s Grotto restaurant: “Good thing Golden Nugget didn’t wait until the busy summer to come up with a ‘new concept.’ With 600 restaurants, Landry’s/Tilman has a lot of possible choices. Perhaps their new ‘concept’ is a place to store old slot machines.”
Upcoming events at the Golden Nugget drub Bally’s simply by virtue of (barely) having a pulse. They are Rock of Ages band, a set of Platters/Drifters/Coasters impostors—don’t get us started on the topic of “Iffters”—Herman’s Hermits with Peter Noone and the Righteous Brothers. Memorial Day weekend brings Dean Z: The Ultimate Elvis, moving down the food chain (way down) from Hard Rock Atlantic City. Word of mouth is good, however.
Sports betting handle in New York State last month was $1.5 million, which boiled down to $139 million of revenue before (heavy) taxes. That was a 33% improvement in casino winnings, encouragingly. FanDuel was way out front with $71 million, trailed by DraftKings’ $45 million and Caesars Sportsbook‘s $13 million. Others competing were BetMGM ($7 million), PointsBet ($2 million) and BetRivers ($1 million). Participation trophies went to WynnBet and Resorts World, which barely made a ripple, but not BallyBet, which didn’t make one thin dime. We’ll be intrigued to see who they spin that on tomorrow’s earnings call.
Speaking of DraftKings, Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli weighed in with a tail-end Charlie take on DKNG’s first-quarter earnings, which we gave somewhat short shrift last Friday. Santarelli began by noting that better-than-expected numbers drove DKNG up 16% right after their announcement. A longtime skeptic, he observed that “the volatility inherent in the shares is to be expected, much like many blue sky stocks where the narrative supersedes the financial results.” He added that the data “merely reinforced that DKNG can beat the bars it has set, and furthered management credibility around its under promise and over deliver strategy.”
He noted the considerable growth (80%) in revenue from mature markets but was relatively unmoved, writing, “we find these data points to be misleading, from a handle perspective, as they include iCasino handle, which skews the data materially.” He thought the biggest needle-mover was restraint in marketing expenditures, which could translate to a 35% reduction over time and a consequent improvement in ROI. “We remain Hold rated,” the Deutsche Bank boffin concluded, “as share price volatility, much of which has been based more on broader market risk appetite … than true fundamental changes in the business, makes it difficult to reconcile near term risk/reward.”
Claiming that all-you-can-eat buffets are back, CNN clearly hasn’t visited any casinos. No, we’re talking about Golden Corral, obscure Pizza Ranch and vile Cici’s Pizza. In other words, the places that give buffets a bad name. “Inflation has pushed more middle-class and lower-income customers to buffets,” the network asserts. They’re also shopping more at crappy stores like Dollar General, too. But they’re not cutting back on gambling, as we see from month to month. And casinos aren’t going to bring back buffets without serious provocations, such as customers staying home in droves. Probably not even then.
Jottings: All is not well in the Great White North. $272 million in suspicious transactions were flagged in Ontario casinos last year, with $4 million of that attributed to a single whale. Pre-pandemic money launderers were comparative pikers: $244 million in 2019. And if you see high roller Branavan Kanapathipillai coming, call the Mounties … The paint’s barely dry on Rivers Portsmouth and it’s racked up $275K in violations, including having unauthorized games on the premises. “According to the settlement agreement between the two parties, the alleged violations took place before and after the casino’s Jan. 23 grand opening. The violations, it said, came from the casino directly, and through its contractors and agents,” reports a local TV station. That’s more than usually alarming and suggests a lax corporate culture at Rush Street Gaming. The casino admitted no liability to the Virginia Lottery but you and I know better, don’t we? … Casino revenues in Macao last month were up 450% from last year, as the enclave’s recovery continues to surpass expectations.
Bally’s is replacing Grotto with Dos Caminos, expected to open before Memorial Day. Too bad, Grotto was underrated.
Holy hell, Gigi D’alessio ! Do us italians a big favor and lock him up. You can keep it, we don’t want it back, nobody cares about him anymore in Italy.