The 1987 film Can’t Buy Me Love was one of the greatest gambling movies of all time. Millennial APs probably haven’t seen it, so here’s the IMDB summary: “An outcast secretly pays the most popular girl in school one thousand dollars to pretend to be his girlfriend for a month.” Maybe the allegory is too subtle. Replace “An outcast” with “A card-counter”; replace “girl in school” with “dealer at the casino”; replace “his girlfriend” with “impressed by his bankroll.”
If they can scrape together $500 million (which shouldn’t be a problem in this investment climate), developers David Daneshforooz and Bill Shopoff have the Clark County Commission‘s blessing to move forward with the Dream casino-hotel. Despite a raft of security concerns that the Las Vegas Review-Journal summarized as “potential illegal drone flying, laser lights, shooting attacks and even bombs hidden in garbage trucks,” commissioners approved it 6-1. The project will have 527 hotel rooms but at present seems to lack a target audience, with Shopoff rather wishfully stating Dream “will find our following” among Las Vegas tourists put off by multi-thousand-room resorts. Dream will be good news for the Pinball Hall of Fame, which will be its next-door neighbor and might be close enough to Allegiant Stadium to give Raider Nation a place to crash.
Shopoff and Daneshforooz will spend an extra $10 million to allay the worries of the TSA and a coalition of major airlines, none of whom is clearly on board with the new, improved Dream. The proposed security wall with McCarran International Airport will be reinforced and the hotel tower itself will be moved further away from the airport and closer to Las Vegas Boulevard. A security checkpoint and other deterrents will be added. There won’t be any guest-room balconies anymore, the pool will be ringed with a high fence and the parking garage will be fully enclosed. Oh, and if you break a window, security will automatically be alerted. It may be Fort Dream, but it’s also several reassuring steps in the right direction.
Exhibitors are folding their tents and weary journalists are packing it in as another Global Gaming Expo draws to a close, having kicked off inauspiciously with an anti-vaccine riot by “Covidiots” at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Looking back on the show, Truist Securities analyst Barry Jonas reported that attendance was less than 50% of previous expos (the absence of the international cohort didn’t help). Still, he saw enthusiasm, particularly from Las Vegas hoteliers, whose rooms and gambling floors were “packed.” Manufacturers had cause for optimism, too, as upward trends in gross gaming revenue gave them hope that casinos would loosen their purse strings and buy new machines next year. Interest in interactive gaming was described as a “feeding frenzy.” Revenue comparisons will get tougher next year, Jonas continued, and labor continues to be an issue (which we note is largely one of management’s own making). Also, promotional spending on sports betting is “unsustainable” and “leading to questions about a shakeout and more consolidation.”
I participate on the videopoker.com forum. On this forum, there are many recreational players. Some regularly go back and forth between Double Double Bonus (DDB) and Triple Double Bonus (TDB).
The games are not the same at all. To compare them, I had to pick pay schedules. I picked the second-best pay schedule in each case: 9/6 DDB returns 98.98% when played well and 9/6 TDB returns only 98.15%.
Las Vegas Strip room rates continue to demonstrate sustained strength through October and, get this, midweek traffic is driving the bus. Overall, weekday prices are up 22% versus 17% on weekends. MGM Resorts International is the pace car, +24% midweek and up 10% on the weekend for the Oct. 24-30 period. Caesars Entertainment is up 17% midweek and 24% on weekends, while Wynncore is surging 23% on weekdays but surprisingly off a point on the weekend. Another surprise is that Venelazzo is, compared to 2019, almost flat midweek, up just 2% but recoups that on the weekend, hopping 40%.
Analyst Joseph Greff and his JP Morgan colleagues recently studied the travel industry and were able to confirm that a recovery is underway but were unable to nail down a consensus for when it would leave the launch pad. Greff’s bottom line was “business travel restarts will occur over the next few quarters with a spike in 1Q22.” A plus for hoteliers: Room rates will drift upward after the pandemic. Not so good: Technological changes (as in virtual meetings) are here to stay. Not coincidentally, travel budgets for 2022 will be lower than expected. Resorts World Las Vegas can rejoice in the news that Hilton Hotels “was the clear favorite to gain share post-pandemic, surprising to us given the lopsidedness of the results.”
It didn’t take Blackstone Group long to start spending the ‘mad money’ it got for selling The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. It plunked down $305 million for all 15 hotels owned by Condor Hospitality Trust. Dare we suggest that Blackstone got more bang for the buck than did the buyers of the Cosmo? … We’ll have to wait until Nov. 17 to find out who gets the Terre Haute casino license but the early renderings are intriguing. Full House Resorts shows by far the most architectural imagination and flair while low-roller Premier Gaming Group brings up the rear, in more ways than one. All the contenders bring more credibility to the table than did Spectacle Entertainment or shiftless Lucy Luck Gaming … Churchill Downs is getting pretty in-your-face with its Derby City casino (in all but name) in downtown Louisville. Located in a former US Bank (above), it will feature a wraparound video marquee and a plethora of “historical racing” machines. Funding will come at least in part from the $197 million sale of an Illinois racetrack to the Chicago Bears … Awana Spa at Resorts World Las Vegas tops Business Insider‘s list of the 10 best hotel spas in the U.S. and is the only casino-based spa to make the grade. It definitely offers something different: “The spa showcases a theater-inspired heated room with aromatherapy, choreographed music, lighting, and dancing towels, and it’s as avant garde as it is relaxing.” You can keep the avant-garde, we just want the relaxation … Casino de Monte Carlois back as a must-see spot thanks to upcoming James Bond vehicle No Time to Die. Expressions of interest in the venerable casino are up 910%, although we think 007 would prefer someplace less trammeled … Sports betting went live at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort Casinoa week sooner than anticipated. Retail betting is a ‘go’ but OSB is still a ways off. The Connecticut Lottery will participate via 10 Sportech OTBs and five other locations to be announced.
Quote of the Day: “The time is always ripe to do right.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip grossed $626 million last month, 20% better than August 2019. Statewide, the jump was 22% to $1.65 billion but the real overachievers were locals casinos, leaping 41% (to $250 million) with a little help from end-of-July slot revenues that were literally dumped into the early August grosses. Locals also demonstrated more resilience, down just 3% from an epic July, whereas the Strip slipped 21% month/month. Strip slot win was $358 million, a 38% vault on 26% more coin-in (plus tighter hold). Table game win—$259 million—was relatively static, up a point, on 4% higher wagering. Subtract baccarat and it looked better, 7% more win on 12% larger betting. Not that baccarat was bad: Win was down 7% and play was 8% lower, pretty good when you consider the game’s high volatility.
The “covidiots” have struck. Yours truly has tested positive for Covid-19, despite having been vaccinated and being generally asymptomatic. This means no trip to Global Gaming Expo, and no collection of the sights and sounds of the Las Vegas Strip. I’ll post what I can from my sickbed but it’s just not the same as being there. Sorry, folks.
In the half century since Ed Thorp published Beat the Dealer, dozens of card counting systems have been developed and promoted. Any numbers nerd with a simulator and a couch can sit there and spit out card counting systems, complete with all the technical mumbo jumbo about the method of index generation, the true-count conversion, the optimal bet ramps, and don’t forget N0. From there the posers can endlessly debate merits of one system over another, without ever even having to suck a chip out of a casino rack.
When card counters suffer huge losses, they go back to those “experts” for an autopsy. Here it comes: Should I memorize more indices? Is my bet spread okay? What is the optimal wong-out point? Is HiLo good enough? Should I play on a card so I can get a buffet and a George Foreman grill?
Reflecting the irrational exuberance surrounding the Las Vegas Strip, it’s a done deal at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. The $3.9 billion resort’s physical assets sold for $4 billion, albeit to a cloudy “group of buyers that includes a Blackstone real estate investment trust.” So there may be some jiggery-pokery at work here. The big news was that MGM Resorts International was unable to resist the dangled bait that was the Cosmo’s operating company, paying a hefty $1.6 billion and change, plus $200 million in annual rent for the plum. Our sources say Cosmo cash flow is about two-thirds of pre-pandemic levels so either MGM CEO Bill Hornbuckle is taking a big gamble or an infusion of M Life is just what the doctor ordered. Regardless, Blackstone is making out like a bandit on a property it bought for $1.7 billion back in 2014, as in $4.1 billion in windfall profits. It also reduces its exposure in its #1 market, Sin City.
Among those paying Blackstone far more than the Cosmo is worth is investment firm Stonepeak, as well as Panda Express founders Andrew and Peggy Cherng. The real winner in all this may Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg, who can ask several kings’ ransom for whichever Strip asset he chooses to put on the sell block next year (right now it’s looking like Bally’s Las Vegas). Hornbuckle and CFO Jonathan Halkyard claimed the Cosmo would expand MGM’s customer base but it’s hard to believe it isn’t the other way around. Regardless, they had to justify the megabucks they poured into a non-core asset. University of Nevada-Las Vegas boffin Amanda Bellarmino defended the splurge, saying, “The acquisition could help MGM to target younger travelers by acquiring this successful and attractive property.” (Wasn’t that what Park MGM was supposed to do?) Unlike predecessor Deutsche Bank, Blackstone knew how to run the Cosmo and the $500 million capex it put into the old gal clearly paid dividends.
