Most people wouldn’t spend Christmas Day in a casino or two but our East Coast correspondent did. He reports, “At the Golden Nugget on Christmas, Chart House, Lillie’s Asian, the Grotto (Italian), Michael Patrick’s coffee shop, Bean & Bread for breakfast sandwiches and light bites, and the Chairman’s Club lounge were open. At Bally’s, the valet parking closed to the intake of vehicles at noon, rather than the usual 5 p.m. Sunday. Their (alleged) VIP lounge was closed all of the weekend. The three restaurants on their sixth floor were closed. The pizza place was closed. If you want Dunkin Donuts or a simple sandwich, you’re in luck, otherwise go somewhere else for food.

“We had our ‘strange’ Christmas this year,” our reporter explains. “For the first time, we stayed in Atlantic City for Xmas, starting Friday for three nights. Friday started off with rain and strong wind, then our first snow of the season, followed by a ‘flash freeze’ in the afternoon (good reasons to not live in New Jersey). When we got to Golden Nugget, the valet intake was like a wind tunnel. A visit to Hard Rock included early dinner at their lounge. We went back to Golden Nugget and went to their Chairman’s Lounge at 10 p.m. as it was open until 11 p.m. on Friday. It was almost completely empty, as the photo shows, and it was so very cold due to to all of the windows.

Continue reading A Boardwalk Christmas; Mega-Jottings

It’s time to reward those who have been nice and offer appropriate gifts to the naughty. So, without further ado, we play Santa Claus to the casino industry …

Continue reading Christmas wishes

Regulators in Massachusetts struck an unsatisfactory compromise with Penn Entertainment. The latter’s Plainridge Park was granted a sports book license, conditional upon a suitability investigation of Barstool Sports founder—and the new face of Penn—Dave Portnoy. “We are very comfortable with there being an investigation,” Penn CEO Jay Snowden told regulators, somehow managing to keep a straight face. Snowden probably left his Barstool T-shirt, which he wears around the office (it’s a fact), in the dungeon where he plays submissive to Portnoy’s dominatrix. Why the Massachusetts Gaming Commission should need to probe into Portnoy is a mystery to us. His unsuitability is out in the open for everyone to see. How is it that Steve Wynn could not get a Bay State gaming license but Portnoy might? We sense a double standard at work. A license, once issued to Penn, will be very hard to claw back.

Continue reading Penn problems; Maryland sports bets boffo; Oscar pix

Heaven be praised for the coming of 2023, not because 2022 was bad (quite the contrary) but because Wall Street is addicted to measuring this year against 2019, not 2021 … which can be quite crazy-making. By that yardstick, Pennsylvania casinos would appear to be staggering, -15%. But when measured against last year, they’re languishing only mildly, down 3% last month. Newcomers tended to grow (more of that later) and incumbents lost market share. Even after a 6% slippage, Parx Casino impressed with $46 million and Wind Creek Bethlehem notched $40.5 million, -2.5%. The cutthroat Philadelphia market is owned by Parx while the best of the rest was Philadelphia Live with $19 million, up a resurgent 19% and a few hundred thousand clams in front of Rivers Philadelphia, which is 7% off last year’s pace. Harrah’s Philadelphia plunged 16% to $12 million and little Valley Forge Resort tumbled 16.5% to $9.5 million.

Continue reading Pennsylvania, Michigan cool; Cuban covets Texas casino