Author: David Mckee

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Casinos in clover nationwide; Mega-Jottings for a Monday

Masters Week has come and gone, and Augusta now sinks back into an 11-month torpor. Which also helps us return to standard-edition S&G. (Seen on the marquee of the church closest to Augusta National: “This is Amen Corner.”) Where to begin?

For all the talk of inflation, shortages and hardships these days, one thing is incontrovertibly plentiful: discretionary income as manifested in gambling revenue. Every state in the upper Midwest save one is reporting casino winnings higher than 2019. The lone loser is … Illinois. No surprise there. It’s 5.5% down on the surface and when temporary Hard Rock Rockford is subtracted, the declivity is 9.5%, for a total of $119 million (inclusive). For the glass-half-full perspective, revenue is 8% higher than March 2021, when casinos were still on the comeback trail. Nor was March 2022 helped by two fewer weekend days.

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Programming note

It’s Masters Week here in Augusta and the azaleas are in full bloom. Unfortunately, an encounter with a rescue cat has left my hands covered in bandages, hampering my ability to type. So I’m going to have to punt coverage of Siegel Group‘s Las Vegas Strip real estate play, an upgrade for MGM Resorts International and other issues into tomorrow. Meanwhile, stop and smell the flowers, friends.

“If you don’t know how to handle failure, then you’re going to have a tough time in your regular life.”—Georgia High School Association Assistant Executive Director Ernie Yarbrough on a riot at a youth basketball game that caused a referee to need 30 stitches.

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Optimism in Las Vegas; Bluhm bombs in Chicago

On his way home from Black Hawk, Colorado, gaming analyst Barry Jonas of Truist Securities popped into Las Vegas. He met with various and sundry publicly traded companies, even MGM Resorts International, for which he feels little love. He also sat down with executives from Caesars Entertainment, Station Casinos, Boyd Gaming, International Game Technology, Light & Wonder and Everi. His conclusion? “Start your engines.” What did Jonas mean by that? As he explained, “We left incrementally positive on Vegas’s outlook post-Omicron. The Strip and Locals markets appear healthy with each month since January seeing [sequential] improvement, and a full return of group/convention business pending but increasingly visible.” He also noted that slot manufacturers were seeing “increasing demand” due to “strong content,” ratifying other reports that game-buying is going to pick up well in advance of Global Gaming Expo, the normal starting gun for product purchases.

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Philadelphia Dead

Cordish Gaming, we have a problem. Not only does it turn out to have been a bad idea to site a casino in Philadelphia‘s stadium district, it was an even worse mistake by state regulators to saturate the greater City of Brotherly Love area with a fifth casino. Philadelphia Live‘s best days came at the beginning, as the inevitable curiosity factor drove business, mainly at the expense of Rivers Philadelphia. But Cordish has been steadily losing market share ever since and in February came in fourth in the market, behind even Harrah’s Philadelphia, hardly the ritziest casino in town (although the closest to a prison, we’ll give you that).

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Chicago tips its hand; Wynn loses; Thunder Down Under

Would somebody clue in Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) that Neil Bluhm‘s Rush Street Gaming is no longer the majority owner of Rivers Casino Des Plaines? That honor goes to Churchill Downs. But Lightfoot is using Des Plaines as a stick with which to beat Bluhm’s (admittedly underwhelming) Chicago casino proposal, Rivers 78. Although the Chicago Sun-Times argues that Bluhm “combines real estate development skills with knowledge of gambling, and his political and business contacts here are peerless,” Lightfoot has not-so-subtly let it be known that her preference is for Bally’s Corp., whose riverfront proposal is shown above.

Bluhm is penalized by his presence, however vestigial, in the suburbs and Hard Rock International is doubly dinged by A) Hard Rock Northern Indiana in Gary and B) the “complex” air-rights negotiations inherent in its proposal. That leaves Bally’s Tribune, as it is presently called, which has conveniently predicted the highest revenue numbers, music to Lightfoot’s ears. “Bally’s is the only bidder that does not already have a property in the Chicagoland market and, therefore, is more likely to operate with independence in maximizing revenues for the Chicago casino,” her minions said. It’s also the project whose temporary casino could go up the soonest (Bluhm’s would be last) and has sweetened the pot with the pledge of $25 million, maybe more, in upfront money. It also enjoys the support of Walter Burnett, its local alderman.

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Make theirs Manhattan: Hochul plays hardball

Representatives of New York City‘s ritziest borough have made it abundantly clear that they don’t want a casino in Manhattan. But it appears that Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is going to impose one on them, public appetite be damned. Perhaps the most in-your-face idea being floated is a casino atop Saks Fifth Avenue—directly opposite St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In what’s no April Fool’s joke, the state budget would be approved tomorrow and with it three downstate casinos at a license fee of $1 billion each. Big Gaming has spent $300,000 on lobbying Albany and it would appear that money talks loudly up thataway. Hochul is also indebted for election dollars to the Hotel & Gaming Trades Council, whose position on the issue you can guess.

“These are jobs that pay $36 an hour, have free family health care and have a pension plan. So they are in dire straits because many of them have been out of work for two years without any immediate prospect of comparable employment,” said union President Richard Maroko. Other receptive ears include New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), who’s on board with the casino-in-Manhattan concept and has been dickering with Las Vegas Sands. (Adams is no stranger to Monaco, by the way.) The high-roller pitch for Saks flipped the allegiance of state Sen. Liz Krueger (D), who says a casino is now okey-dokey with her as long as it’s soaking the upper class rather than the working man. “There may be support in some parts of the city for siting a casino,” she backpedaled. “I’m not so sure that my district in Manhattan [the Upper East Side] would be open to one.”

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Baccarat constrains Strip; Sports betting tsunami ahead

Withered baccarat numbers meant that the Las Vegas Strip had a muted February, only a percentage point above 2019. Players dropped $599 million (-44.5%) of which the house won just $62 million (-52%). That offset a bonny month at the slots, where Strip casinos kept $336.5 million (+26.5%) on coin-in of $4.3 billion (up 32%). Non-baccarat table games gained only modestly (3.5%) to $200.5 million on 25% more wagering. By contrast with this near-stagnation, albeit at high levels of play, on the Strip, locals casinos shot 19.5% past their 2019 mark to $223 million. Downtown hopped 19% to $69 million (remember, this is a comparison to a pre-Circa era) and Reno leapt 37% to $62 million. Passenger loads into and out of Las Vegas, by the way, finally caught up with pre-Covid demand, hitting 107% of last year’s mark. While barely 100,000 of them were international travelers, that latter metric was an exponential increase.

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Up and down the Boardwalk

Since we’re heavily engaged bringing the next issue of Casino Life Magazine into safely harbor, we’re reaching out to our East Coast bureau for another Atlantic City photo essay. Above, business looks pretty good at Hard Rock Atlantic City. Note the distinctive “guitar pick” inlay on the tiling.

Despite very pleasant weather outside, Ocean Casino Resort evidently had no trouble luring players to its gaming floor.

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Barley’s leaves a bad taste; Woe is Star; Mega-Jottings

When a casino is named Barley’s Brewing Co. you’d expect to get a decent glass of suds there. Not so. Las Vegan Lon Enwright is $8 million richer—but physically damaged beyond price—after being served cleaning fluids instead of beer (the taps were in the process of being flushed and the facts are not in dispute; there is even a hint of employee malice). The former Strip wine steward has lost his sense of taste, suffers from stomach and esophageal ulcers, and is at increased of risk of cancer as a result. Literally adding insult to injury, Barley’s owner Station Casinos offered Enwright a piddling $300,000 settlement. A Las Vegas jury thought differently and awarded the plaintiff $8 million in damages. Station hasn’t said what it will do but if it’s got any decency it will pay up. However, given its “contumacious” character, we’re not hopeful but appeal to the better angels of CEO Frank Fertitta III‘s nature.

Star Entertainment is feeling the heat Down Under. CEO Matt Bekier has resigned as the government continues to investigate alleged breaches of anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorism laws. Australia has had somewhat of an anything-goes approach to the casino biz, so Bekier falling on his sword represents an inevitable reaction to this over-lenience. Last week, Crown Resorts was deemed “unfit” to operate Crown Perth (shown) but allowed to run it for the next two years under state oversight. As always, Aussie regulators know how to send a mixed message to offending casinos.

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Chicago: Then there were three … ; Leaner, meaner Boyd

Enjoy these images of Rivers McCormick while you can because you’ll never see them again. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has nixed McCormick Place as a potential site for a casino, setting Bally’s Corp. and especially Rush Street Gaming down a peg but not out of the game entirely. At the same time, Lightfoot kicked the casino-selection deadline into “early summer,” which flies in the face of her stated goal of having a Windy City casino up and running by 2025. “We have spent countless hours analyzing each proposal for Chicago’s casino license and have determined Bally’s Tribune, Hard Rock Chicago, and Rivers 78 best fit the core goals we want to achieve for the City’s first integrated casino-resort,” said Lightfoot, giving the short-answer version of her decision.

“Each proposal offers economic, employment, and equity-focused opportunities for Chicago, while simultaneously enhancing the City’s cultural, entertainment and architectural scenes with world-class amenities and design. Our teams look forward to heading into discussions with the finalists and getting one step closer to bringing this decades-long project to fruition.”

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