Despite the efforts at damage control by Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Kirk Hendrick, damaging information about the cyber-raid on Caesars Entertainment continues to surface. The latest droplet of damnation comes from the attorney general of the great state of Maine. That office was informed by Caesars that 41,397 Ocean State residents had their personal data plundered by cyber bandits. That’s only Maine, not exactly the most thickly populated state. 49 other states plus God only knows how many overseas jurisdictions have yet to get the bad news. The class-action lawsuits we’ve seen to date are surely just the tip of the iceberg.
You’re really screwed if you’re a member of Caesars Rewards. That database was a prime target. Caesars told the local dead tree of record that “it’s working to make sure the stolen data is deleted, but did not make any promises that it would happen.” Well, isn’t that reassuring? “That information may include loyalty members’ names, social security [sic] numbers, ID numbers and dates of birth, but there was no evidence that account PIN numbers or passwords, payment card numbers or bank account information was taken in the attack,” said Caesars, as paraphrased by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The drip-drip-drip of unpleasant disclosures continues on an almost-daily basis. Shame on Caesars for having been caught with its pants down and for trying to cover it up.
On a happier note, the casino industry came through big-time for the economy. Commercial and tribal casinos chipped in $328.6 billion, according to an Oxford Economics survey commissioned by the American Gaming Association. That includes 1.8 million jobs supported and $104 billion in wages (and executive salaries) paid. Would that the effects of the Las Vegas Grand Prix were so well quantified. (The projected $1.3 billion impact of Formula One on Sin City is, as best we could determine, bullshit.) Most gratifying to The Man, surely, is the over $52.5 billion paid in taxes to all levels of guvmint.
The direct employment created by the casino industry is ‘only’ 700K jobs but, per the AGA, that’s more than the postal service, the airline industry or the motion-picture industry. (You could go a day without visiting a casino, true—but without mail or the latest episode of Family Guy?) That’s also one out of every 33 jobs in the burgeoning hospitality-and-leisure sector. “The U.S. gaming industry delivers long-term growth and impact to communities, generating significant tax revenue, creating strong jobs, supporting local small businesses, and funding critical community priorities,” AGA CEO Bill Miller told attendees at this week’s Global Gaming Expo. It’s not curing cancer but Big Gaming is an important economic engine that shouldn’t have to apologize for itself, even if many politicians and do-gooders want it to.
Surely it’s just a big coincidence that the week of G2E coincides with active picketing of 18 casinos by the Culinary Union? Not! In a high-profile act of political theatre, the Culinary has dispatched battalions of members to walk picket lines up and down the Las Vegas Strip and implores visitors not to cross them. Which is definitely a great inconvenience to anyone staying at Wynncore, Caesars Palace, the Flamingo, Harrah’s Las Vegas, Horseshoe, Paris-Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood, The Cromwell, Linq, Aria, Bellagio, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, New York-New York, and Park MGM. If you’re staying at any of these hotels you’re in for a struggle with your conscience. Luckily for G2E attendees (at least the ones not billeted on the Strip), the convention is being held at Venetian Expo Center, well away from the picketing.
To ratchet up the pressure on Big Gaming, the Culinary has been inviting members of news organizations to sit in on talks with Caesars and with Wynn Resorts. How representatives of those companies reacted to the resultant media circus is not known. It can’t have gone over well or sped up negotiations that the Culinary claims are at or near a standstill. Either way, the deployment of strikers during a major convention week is one of the most militant actions the union has taken in a long while. Since it represents 42,000 casino workers, the Culinary is in a position to turn out in force this week. Union underboss Ted Papageorge is deigning to make himself available to be interviewed at Park MGM and Paris-Las Vegas picketing sites. “Interviews will not be facilitated at other picket lines,” we are icily informed.
It was an uneventful September for casinos in Missouri. They grossed an aggregate $158.5 million, flat with the year previous. Visitation was microscopically higher, as visitors spent about as much as they did in 2022. The takings were still well above—+13%—those of September 2019. Ameristar St. Charles sat pretty at the top of the Show-Me State, flat at $24.5 million, while hard-charging Hollywood St. Louis faded 3% to $20.5 million. River City leapfrogged sister property Hollywood, up 6% to $21.5 million, while Horseshoe St. Louis held steady at $13.5 million. In Kansas City, market share continues to flow dramatically to Bally’s Kansas City, jumping 19.5% to $12 million. Much of that came at the expense of Argosy Riverside, down 8% to $13 million. Flat were Ameristar Kansas City ($17 million) and Harrah’s North Kansas City ($14 million). In the boonies, Isle of Capri Boonville did $7 million, dropping 7.5%, while Century Casinos grossed $4 million in Caruthersville (up 12%) and $5 million in Cape Girardeau (-3%).
It wouldn’t be a week without some marketing buffoonery from Bally’s Corp. Yes, they’re still hopeful/delusional that East Coast customers are going to drop everything and fly to Bally’s Vicksburg to partake of $9.99 pepperoni pizza and chicken wings. The company also claims that the second-tier riverboat has been named “#1 casino where you feel luckiest” in the 2023 Best of Gaming Awards, a seemingly meaningless accolade. Our man on the Eastern seaboard takes a jaundiced view, asking, “Doesn’t the pizza and wings make you want to drive to Vicksburg (or save time and throw up at home?”
Lastly, congratulations are in order to Apollo Global Management, owner of Venelazzo. This morning, The Lever revealed that Apollo has a fungible asset on Capitol Hill in the form of Speaker of the House Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R). The latter is the recipient of $37,600 in Apollo largesse and, given his tireless shilling on behalf of the financial services industry, it was money well invested.