Author: David Mckee

It just so happens that I share my birthday with the notorious World War I double agent Mata Hari. Hopefully I will come to a better end than she did. I’ve been enmeshed in a huge project for CDC Gaming Reports that’s kept my hands full lately. Also, today is my birthday, so I’m taking it slightly easy. Tomorrow will bring dispatches from Atlantic City and Massachusetts, as well as a ranking of the best movies set in casinos. See you then.

Like bad sex, the connubial bliss between Penn Entertainment and Barstool Sports ended abruptly. Cretinous Dave Portnoy becomes someone else’s problem child following the second-quarter-earnings revelation that Barstool was being sold back to its founder, jilted in favor of much comelier ESPN. Considering Penn’s down-market image, ESPN is doing the company a favor by lending its prestige to a company that has dragged its own name through the mud in pursuit of a sadomasochistic marriage to Portnoy.

“Well, it was fun while it lasted, but, in our view, the handwriting has been on the wall for some time,” wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli. “The Barstool partnership was not working, the risks were too significant, and PENN was at a crossroads.” Penn chose to “double down with a new strategy,” opined the pundit. He explained that Penn’s reversal “likely speaks to what is presumably a tough road for its core [brick-and-mortar] business on the horizon, as regional gaming rationalizes from post pandemic peaks and competition hampers performance at core PENN assets.” Barstool Sportsbook will become ESPN Bet. Santarelli believes this is in itself a positive, as the Barstool brand wasn’t what it was cracked up to be as a customer-acquisition tool. (Just a bunch of tools.)

Developer Larry Silverstein‘s PR peeps released additional renderings of The Avenir over the weekend and they are certainly impressive. Few additional details of the proposed resort have been made available but the striking exterior is the work of veteran casino architect Paul Steelman, far outdoing his work for Resorts World New York. For our money, it’s pretty much a tossup between this and Sands Nassau for the most curb-appealing design statement and we hope that New York State authorities will have a hard time choosing between the two. If a casino simply must go into Manhattan, Silverstein gets our vote hands down. More pretty pictures after the jump.

Continued strength in casinos was shown by Ohio, which posted $193.5 million in gambling revenue in June. That’s 2% higher than already-strong last year and a whopping 20% over 2o19, which was none too shabby either. Hollywood Columbus came out roaring, up 10% to $23 million, which still wasn’t enough to catch slots-only MGM Northfield Park, gaining 5% to almost reach $25 million. Churchill Downs‘ joint-venture Miami Valley Racing vaulted 12% and into second place among racinos with $19 million, besting Scioto Downs, down a point to $18.5 million. Other casinos not doing too shabbily were Jack Cleveland, flat at $22 million, and Hard Rock Cincinnati, off a point to $20 million. Hollywood Toledo was an also-ran with $18 million, minus 2.5%.