Maryland droops; Boardwalk bulletin; Barstool blunder

Mr. & Mrs. America’s torrid, post-pandemic love affair with casino gambling is finally cooling. It’s not cause for alarm, as we knew this was coming—in fact, it was expected to happen much sooner. And while players are dropping less at regional casinos, the picture is still quite roseate. Maryland gaming receipts slipped 5% last month, reaching $169.5 million, 11% better than 2019. MGM National Harbor was off 5.5% to $72 million. Reliable runner-up Maryland Live was good for $59 million, albeit down 6%. Horseshoe Baltimore turned in its usual $17.5 million, flat over last year, while Hollywood Perryville grossed $7.5 million for a 7.5% tumble. Ocean Downs plunged 8% but brought home $8.5 million while Rocky Gap Resort also fell 8% to $5 million. Given the circumstances, we’d say the relative stability of Horseshoe counts as a doggone moral victory. Thanks to strong slot play, West Virginia was actually 1% up last month, despite weak table play (-7%). Hollywood Charles Town outperformed the state, +4%, again buoyed by a good month (+6%) at the one-armed bandits.

Casinos in Illinois enjoyed a somewhat illusory boost, up 5% to $122 million. However, when adjusted for the impact of new product, it was -1%. Casino growth in the Land of Lincoln threatens to dissipate the wealth, such as it is. One newbie, the Golden Nugget, barely registered, with far less than $1 million in the kitty—but it was only open for four days. Another newcomer, The Temporary at American Place in Waukegan, grossed $6.5 million. Its immediate rivals were dominated by Rivers Des Plaines, flat at a robust $46.5 million. Grand Victoria took a 10% hit but still clocked $12 million in the hoppers. Hollywood Joliet slipped 3% to $7 million and sister property Hollywood Aurora fell 11% to $8 million. Harrah’s Joliet slid 7% to $10.5 million. So Full House Resorts is taking a bite out of the competition while remaining an also-ran.

Elsewhere, Hard Rock Rockford continues to blossom, jumping 20% to $5.5 million. Good months were also enjoyed by Par-A-Dice, up 5.5% to $5.5 million, and Bally’s Quad Cities, up 6% to $5 million, although one still wonders if the cash flow justifies the princely sum Bally’s Corp. paid to have it. Having a breakout month was Harrah’s Metropolis (pictured), hopping 10% to $5.5 million. DraftKings Casino Queen dipped 2% to $8 million and Argosy Belle slipped 5% to $3 million.

Cigarette smoke isn’t the only kind befogging Atlantic City‘s casinos. Noxious fumes from the wildfires in Canada are also beclouding the issue. For the sake of employees’ and players’ health, let’s hope the New Jersey Lege strikes down the one kind of smoke they can control: the tobacco kind. As for wacky tebaccy, it’s not welcome at Borgata any longer. Neither are firearms or coolers, the latter used to subvert on-property F&B prices thanks to smuggled goodies. On the whole, we think the threefold new policy is sound.

So much ink has been spilled over the Isaiah Rodgers gambling investigation by the NFL that we’ve not bothered to cover it herein. Indeed it has generated so much heat, if not light (ditto the deepening Detroit Lions fiasco) that another sports betting scandal has flown almost completely under the radar. Barstool Sports has been called on the carpet in Massachusetts for a very dicey promo labeled the “Can’t-Lose Parlay.” Except of course that you can and such language is disingenuous at best. And it might violate Bay State regulations to boot. In its defense, Barstool offered a flimsy tissue of excuses that didn’t quite reach to “the dog ate my homework.” They could also try the Lions’ all-purpose “I didn’t know it was against the rules.” The salient points of that defense were …

Although 90% of Can’t Miss bettors missed, “no reasonable person” would take the promo at face value. (Many apparently did.)

Buffalo wings don’t contain buffalo meat. (Nor do bison have wings.)

Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries contains no actual berries. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

It was a joke.

Barstool’s Dan Katz, who surfaced the promo, has an allegedly “terrible reputation” as a gambler that supposedly everybody knows.

This completely barefaced excuse for a pushback was offered by Penn Entertainment‘s aptly named Jonathan Albino. The pallor of his arguments didn’t wash with some Massachusetts Gaming Commission members. “The majority knows it’s satire, but what about the 10% who are young, or who have mental health issues, or have responsible gaming issues,” said the MGC’s Brad Hill, rather generously. Leaving the 10% aside, the 90% loss rate implies that there are a lot of very gullible Barstool patrons who could stand to be protected from their own naivete. Penn hopes that by withdrawing the parlay—rather like closing the barn door long after the horse has fled—it can undo the damage. However, a severe spanking would appear to be in order, making that barstool a little less comfy for a while. Clearly, Barstool is going to keep pushing its luck until somebody smacks it down, hard.

Another potential Bay State brouhaha involves the beta testing of Fanatics‘ OSB system. As described by Global Gaming Business, “existing customers of Fanatics ecommerce site are eligible to place bets … The beta product customers will receive a bonus of $200 in bonus bets after placing a bet of $5 or more.” What could wrong with hawking OSB to sports apparel customers? Well, a lot. That’s presumably what the beta testing is for. Kudos to the MGC for not rushing this dubious business model to market.

Finally, after the Oakland Athletics/Tropicana Las Vegas stadium deal was pronounced “dead” in the waning hours of the Nevada Lege, Gov. Joe Lombardo (R)—who really has a burr under his saddle on this issue—brought it back from the grave by dint of calling a second special session (an extra-special session?) to get that damn vanity park funded. Although it looks as though the majority of solons will ultimately roll over and play dead for the worst team in Major League Baseball (historically bad), opponents are not going down without a fight. A’s team President Dave Kaval was called on the carpet and couldn’t even muster a straight answer to a yes-or-no question. Sore points of debate are that funds will be siphoned away from needed services to grease the A’s palm and that the Lege couldn’t fund summer schools but seems to be finding the money to subsidize a stadium. The best proponents can do when faced with the dismal facts of publicly funded ballparks (including Allegiant Stadium) is to say “Las Vegas will be different” because tourism. Oh, and the handful of A’s fans who travel to Sin City will shore up summer resort business.

Kudos to fed-up state Sen. Ira Hansen (R), who said “the small business community basically is being used to subsidize a form of corporate welfare for some exceptionally big people that, honestly, should be able to finance their own projects without the need of a Nevada tax.” Ditto Democratic colleague Rochelle Nguyen, who queried, “Can you explain to me why we need to provide hundreds of millions of dollars for a billionaire team to come to the Las Vegas Strip on some of the most valuable property in the world if we can’t provide funding for critical resources like summer school and health care?” It might be added that while Lombardo can come up with a $380 million sweetheart deal for the A’s, lawmakers consigned to oblivion a bill that would have put exactly half that amount toward incentivizing film production, a much safer long-term investment.

The blue-sky award has to go to Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority CEO Steve Shill, er, Hill, who proclaimed airily that “we know that the state will have more money” from Kaval’s field of dreams. Ergo, school kids and sick people can just suck it. Don’t they always have to? Hill is, not too coincidentally, chairman of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority. So no conflict of interest there. Whew. Had us worried.