You see this guy? That’s the dude who’s pissing on your head and telling you it’s just mild precipitation. He’s better known as Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg and, earlier this week, he made pronouncements that landed somewhere between insensitive and clueless. Both Caesars and MGM Resorts International, as well as their landlord, Vici Properties, sent their CEOs out to declare Everything Is Better Than Ever. Never mind that, on the Las Vegas Strip (where all three companies are bunched), gambling revenue has been down two months in a row—and seven of the last eight. Nope, it’s all copacetic, they say. Then again, these are the guys who brought you the biblical pestilence known as Formula One Weekend, so take that into account.
As David Danzis reported, Reeg was full of near-baseless optimism last week. “[W]e all live in a world where what’s happening in the stock market and on CNBC is the kind of the echo chamber we live in,” Reeg said, from inside an echo chamber of his own. “I think that the bulk of our customers, the bulk of U.S. consumers are not stock owners. What they see right now is gas prices are lower, people on CNBC are frightened, rich people are losing money. That is not a terrible combination for them.” Has this arrogant dweeb ever heard of something called a 401(k)? If his customers have retirement accounts (a key component of the Caesars business plan), then they’re hurting plenty. It’s not just Reeg’s coveted “rich people” who losing money and for John Q. Public this is not the laughing matter Reeg blithely thinks it is.
God forbid you should have any CZR shares in your portfolio. Since March 1, that stock has cratered from $40/share to $27.50/share at the end of Friday trading. That’s neither good for your stock holdings nor a vindication of Reeg’s denialism.
MGM CEO Bill Hornbuckle, fresh from blowing off the Nevada Gaming Commission, gave the plot away. “When I think about our business, it starts in Las Vegas, which remains on solid footing with our luxury offerings driving key results,” Hornbuckle offered and the critical word there is “luxury.” Those are the high-end customers best insulated from inflation, unemployment and economic hardship. As long as they’re coming, Hornbuckle seems not to care about anyone else. “We have market-leading operations in Las Vegas and the regions, and our resorts have received significant investment and care over most recent years,” Hornbuckle added and there’s the rub. He and Reeg (and their predecessors, more to the point) have backstopped their Vegas operations so heavily with regional casinos that they’re largely insulated from what happens to Sin City. After all, if players can’t come to Vegas, Big Gaming has brought Vegas to them—and at a relative bargain.
A good thing, though, that MGM pulled the plug on its efforts to sell MGM Northfield Park (below) and MGM Springfield. It’s going to need all the regional coin it can muster, we suspect. Interestingly, Station Casinos took a very different tack in its 1Q25 earnings call. For all the reason (which was considerable) it had to be bullish, it exuded realism. They’re evaluating contingencies in case of a recession. CFO Stephen Cootey is hardly being pessimistic but neither is he whistling past any graveyards. Station got caught with its pants down when the Great Recession hit, 17 years ago (it still feels like yesterday) and has shown time and again that it learned from the experience. MGM and Caesars, not so much.
Triumph of the (lack of) will. You have to hand it to the Lege in Hawaii. Online sports betting had bipartisan support and a governor waiting to sign it into law. Yet the whole thing sputtered to a disappointing end this week, showing what happens when there’s an absence of political willpower. Way to take a win and turn it into a loss, guys. At least gambling got closer to legality than ever before in the Aloha State. Just not close enough.
Blame the Sports Betting Alliance and Ironworks Stabilization Fund, both of whom gummed up the reconciliation process with their objections. Should the tax rate be 10%. 15? 20%? Solons couldn’t make up their minds nor reach a compromise. Now it’s done for the year and we’ll probably have to bide our patience until well into 2026 for concord. As Brooklyn Dodgers fans were fond of saying, Wait ’til next year. This was only a win-win situation for Boyd Gaming, which could have cashed in via FanDuel if the bill passed and still gets to ship sports bettors to Las Vegas since it didn’t. Lucky them.
Triumph of the witless. Now that Doug Burgum is on the East Coast, he’s left the North Dakota Lege without adult supervision. We just saw a potential money-spinner in the form of a Grand Forks-area tribal casino voted down for little good reason. So stupid are legislators that they nixed a sure-thing avenue of revenue-sharing for the state, due to objections that racist at worst, stunningly idiotic at best. Descending to the lowest form of white-man-speak-with-forked-tongue cliché, lawmakers busted out their dunce caps to see if they fit. They did. Is there some level of IQ you have to be below in order to run for North Dakota public office?
The main objection wasn’t to gambling (or potential social side effects) per se. As columnist Scott Port put it, cutting to the chase, “Apparently whitey’s casinos are OK.” No, what scared hinterlands solons was the skin color of the casino aspirants. How DARE those damned dirty redskins think they could make money just like us?!?! Knuckle-dragging state Rep. Lawrence Klemin (R) equated tribal gaming, in which the revenue is shared among the members, with Communist China, even insinuating that the ChiComms were somehow behind it.
But the champion troglodyte was state Sen. Diane Larson (R), who faux-naively said, “I never did get an answer for where the money is coming from. Cartels, or what? I don’t know where it’s coming from.” That’s a vile canard, as imbecilic as it is deliberately, racially poisonous. If that windbag doesn’t know how tribal casinos are financed, she should keep her damn fool mouth shut. First off, the Grand Forks casino is in the very early, exploratory stages. It’s way premature to talk about financing. Secondly, the money is probably going to come from that notorious Commie hangout, Wall Street. The scurrilous socialists running Gaming & Leisure Properties are bankrolling one tribal casino in California and last Wednesday, Vici Properties announced it had gotten in on the act too, underwriting another big tribal venture. Yup, real shady characters CEOs Peter Carlino and Ed Pitoniak. Better not let them and their money into North Dakota.
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa is owed an apology, if not several.