{"id":29725,"date":"2021-06-17T07:41:19","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T15:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=29725"},"modified":"2023-09-26T14:58:25","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T22:58:25","slug":"atlantic-city-casinos-rebound-slow-thaw-in-massachusetts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blog\/atlantic-city-casinos-rebound-slow-thaw-in-massachusetts\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlantic City casinos rebound; Slow thaw in Massachusetts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Casinos in Atlantic City<\/strong> are finally catching up with the rest of gaming’s recovery. Last month they were only 3% off the 2019 pace. They grossed $213 million, a substantial improvement over April. Slot win was $158 million on 8% less handle, while tables won $53.5 million on 2% higher wagering volume. Borgata<\/strong> was a trifle unlucky, with table win down 6% and slots off 15% for a 7% overall decline. The Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> threesome slipped 13% but did fairly well at the tables, down only 2%, while slot win dropped 17%. Broken out by individual casino, Caesars Atlantic City<\/strong> held steady at -2% for $22.5 million, Harrah’s Resort<\/strong> slid 15% to $21.5 million and Tropicana Atlantic City<\/strong> stumbled 21% to $20 million. Borgata’s $49 million gross put it comfortably in first place but the only revenue-positive casinos were Hard Rock Atlantic City<\/strong>, vaulting 22% to $35 million and Ocean Resort<\/strong>, rocketing 51% to $24.5 million (a higher gross than any Caesars property, it should be noted). Resorts Atlantic City<\/strong> hung in there pretty well, down 5% to $15.5 million, while Bally’s Atlantic City<\/strong> skidded 21% to $12 million (to its credit, new management acknowledges that the place needs a refit) and Golden Nugget<\/strong> shed 23% but stayed out of last place with $13 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sports betting was feeling the same May slump-let as everyone else, although handle was a healthy $814 million, up April’s $748 million. NBA<\/strong> action can be thanked, what with the Philadelphia 76ers<\/strong>, Brooklyn Nets<\/strong> and New York Knicks<\/strong> all in the playoffs, engendering $217 million in handle. Major-league baseball was responsible for another $186 million in handle. FanDuel<\/strong>\/PointsBet<\/strong> was the revenue leader with $30 million, followed at some great distance by Resorts Digital<\/strong>\/DraftKings<\/strong>\/Fox Bet<\/strong>‘s $9.5 million. BetMGM<\/strong> held $5 million, Monmouth<\/strong>\/William Hill<\/strong>\/SugarHouse<\/strong>\/TheScore<\/strong> scored $2 million and William Hill’s Ocean Casino outpost snagged another $1 million. Nobody else came close to the million-dollar threshold. Internet casinos held steady, grossing $108 million. BetMGM came in first with $33 million, then Caesars\/WynnBet<\/strong> with $15.5 million, DraftKings with $14 million and Golden Nugget Online<\/strong> with $10 million. Concluded PlayUSA<\/strong> analyst Eric Ramsey<\/strong>, \u201cOnline revenue has clearly been resilient, but hopefully the retail market can sustain this return to pre-pandemic levels.\u201d Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Before we leave the Boardwalk, our A.C. bureau reports, “Caesars has some small areas of new carpet, and removed a bunch of slot machines, wow, such large improvements just as they promised.” Hard Rock’s players-club lounge was described as “busy” (we bet!) and Ocean was “not quite as crowded.” That was better than Philadelphia Live<\/strong>, which “somehow managed to turn a positive location near the Phillies stadium into a negative, as the casino was near empty.” There’s not even a lounge for members of the players club (Rivers Philadelphia<\/strong> has one) and “They served tiny burger sliders, a single shrimp on a cracker, plus an unknown something, this for the $1,000,000+ Jade Members. Wow, truly memorable, but not in a positive way.” We are underwhelmed, too. When we declined to cover a circus at Bart Blatstein<\/strong>‘s Showboat<\/strong> on the grounds that we have issues with clowns, a correspondent replied, “but without clowns there would be no government in New Jersey<\/strong>.” Touch\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Massachusetts<\/strong> casinos grossed $87 million last month. It was an 133.5% increase on 2019\u2014considering that Encore Boston Harbor<\/strong> wasn’t operational back then. On a same-store basis it was a 9% dip. Encore beat analyst estimates and scored $53 million, balanced between $30.5 million at the slots and $22.5 million from table games, while Plainridge Park<\/strong> eked out $12.5 million (-16%) and MGM Springfield<\/strong> took in $21 million, down 4.5%. That’s all a little better than April’s numbers but casino comebacks in the Bay State appear to be more of a thaw than a rebound, with casinos making a few million more each month. It probably did not help the May tallies that casinos were restricted to 40% of capacity. (Occupancy limits were lifted on May 29.) Meanwhile, Encore President Brian Gullbrants<\/strong> is moving out and up, on to run Wynncore<\/strong> in place of Marilyn Winn-Spiegel<\/strong>. His successor is Jenny Holaday<\/strong>, about whom CEO Matt Maddox<\/strong> didn’t have a lot to say, lavishing most of his praise on Gullbrants. However, this is far from Holaday’s first rodeo, having earned her spurs<\/a> with Mandalay Resort Group<\/strong> (long since subsumed into MGM Resorts International<\/strong>) and Caesars Entertainment back when it was still Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong>. She’s a second-generation member of the gaming industry and says that her first task will be to staff up Encore for post-pandemic business conditions. Can you say ‘job fair’?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purple is the new color of choice at Harrah’s Las Vegas<\/strong>, both inside and out, where the casino-hotel will be bathed in lavender light<\/a>. Although Harrah’s has long been one of our leading Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> candidates for implosion (not least because of its cramped interior), we’ll give its new-look incarnation the benefit of the doubt. The resort’s mammoth 2,542 rooms have been in renovation for the past five years, including a $70 million completion of the Mountain Tower. It sounds as though you should spring for a suite if you simply must stay at Harrah’s: “Those accommodations now feature oversized tubs, a separate living and dining room with a wet bar, and the option to connect to two bedrooms.” Try and schedule your visit around August 31, when Donny Osmond<\/strong> kicks off his residency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jottings<\/strong>: The owner of the Lucky Duck Internet Cafe<\/strong> in Madison<\/strong>, North Carolina<\/strong>, was a pretty unlucky duck<\/a>. The sheriff’s office nabbed him on nine counts of illegal gambling, including operating more than five video gaming machines. We’re always pleased to see law enforcement cracking down on black-market slots. Good going … Bill Hornbuckle<\/strong> may be starting to sour on Japan<\/strong> but Genting<\/strong> isn’t. It’s teaming<\/a> with Sega Sammy<\/strong> to propose a casino megaresort for Yokohama<\/strong>. Interestingly, the latest lowball estimate of the Nipponese casino market is $8 billion a year. No wonder there’s talk of cutting the three casino megaresorts to two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casinos in Atlantic City are finally catching up with the rest of gaming’s recovery. Last month they were only 3% off the 2019 pace. They grossed $213 million, a substantial improvement over April. Slot win was $158 million on 8% less handle, while tables won $53.5 million on 2% higher wagering volume. Borgata was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83928,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1728],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29725"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83928"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}