Wall Street was in a sunny mood this week after Las Vegas Sands‘ 4Q22 earnings presentation. As Credit Suisse analyst Ben Chaiken summarized, “two large takeaways in our view were strength in Singapore and what we felt was a positive tone from [management] concerning the trajectory of Macau, due to pent-up demand potential.” Normally we bristle at the overused phrase “pent-up demand” but early indicators from Red China are that gamblers are champing at the bit to get into Macao.

Cash flow at Marina Bay Sands was well ahead of The Street’s expectation, hitting $386 million at gambling monies reached an all-time high. Chaiken said Macanese trends have “accelerated” heading into Chinese New Year—in which visitation is at 40% of 2019 numbers—and that Sands is on course to post positive ROI again. But, wrote Chaiken, “the Singapore rebound (faster than we expected) could provide insight into what a Macau recovery could look like,” especially when achieved with air travel into Singapore that is still constrained at two-thirds of pre-Covid levels.

Since the Roman Empire is not given to pre-announcing earnings (it leaves that to MGM Resorts International), its tribunes must have had some pretty good end-of-year numbers to trot out, which they did this morning. The headline, at least as far as J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff was concerned was that the results were pretty much as expected and Caesars Entertainment is reducing its digital losses. That’s all favorable news for investors, so let’s read on, shall we? The Las Vegas Strip continued to boom but, due to “harsh December weather” (tell us about it), regional revenues were a trifle squishy, negatively impacting cash flow by as much as $15 million. Caesars Sportsbook would have posted positive ROI—were it not for a $30 million bad beat delivered by John “Mattress Mack” McIngvale. Win some, lose some.

Having experienced buyer’s remorse on DFS site Monkey Knife Fight, and now trying to re-sell it, Bally’s Corp. finds itself with a ton of Monkey Knife Fight-branded merchandise that it must unload. After all, if it finds a pigeon, er, purchaser for the DFS brand, all rights will revert to said pigeon, leaving Bally’s with a bunch of junk it can’t move. Hence the scene above in the Bally’s Atlantic City gift shop. You can practically hear the sales pitch: “Prices like these? I must be crazy! Sale ends Sunday (maybe)!” Seriously, the acquisition of Monkey Knife Fight was symptomatic of Bally’s swing-at-everything business strategy. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

Then again, Bally’s was late to the DFS party and the purchase always seemed to us like an afterthought. Now the company is hurting in the digital sphere, having expanded too much too soon, and Monkey Knife Fight is being flung overboard to trim the ship. Good luck finding takers. Maybe Bally’s Chairman Soo Kim can drop by Bally’sAtlantic City (the casino that quality forgot) and pick up sportswear that reads, “I bought Monkey Knife Fight and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”