{"id":855347,"date":"2024-03-13T11:03:59","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T18:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/?p=855347"},"modified":"2024-03-13T11:03:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T18:03:59","slug":"motown-and-more-stiff-of-the-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blog\/motown-and-more-stiff-of-the-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Motown and more; Stiff of the Month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Since the Great Pandemic<\/strong>, gambling has never been quite the same for Detroit<\/strong>. Last month’s casino tally of $105 million was flat with 2023 and 9% down from the pre-pandemic pace of 2019, a recurrent theme in Motown. MotorCity<\/strong> beat the odds and posted a 1% increase, hitting $31.5 million for the month. Hollywood Greektown<\/strong>, which had been on a tear, was flat at $24 million, leaving $49 million (-1.5%) for MGM Grand Detroit<\/strong>. As J.P. Morgan <\/strong>analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong> reminds us, this includes a Leap Day, which probably kept Detroit’s casinos revenue-neutral for February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Revenue comparisons fought <\/strong>to something of a draw in Indiana<\/strong>, where receipts were 2% down from last year but still 16% above 2019 (+1% on a same-store basis). Grosses totaled a healthy $194 million, not counting the tally from sports betting. Basically, February was a rough month for northern casinos, a good one in the south and so-so around Indianapolis. Surging was Hard Rock Northern Indiana<\/strong>, up 9% to $38 million. Former Chicago<\/strong> mayor Lori Lightfoot<\/strong> (D) had tried to paint a target on Hard Rock whilst juicing Bally’s Corp<\/strong>. into a Second City casino. Mission failed, undoubtedly. Less fortunate was Horseshoe Hammond<\/strong>, tailspinning 23.5% to $22 million. Ameristar East Chicago<\/strong> took a 9% wallop, down to $15 million. Blue Chip<\/strong> escaped damage, flat at $11 million. All of these casinos, however, outgrossed Bally’s Casino<\/strong> in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not even a relaunch could keep Harrah’s Hoosier Park<\/strong> from dipping 2.5% to $17 million, although maybe it lured a few players away from Horseshoe Indianapolis<\/strong> ($25 million, -2.5%). The biggest revenue leap\u2014oddly unmentioned on the latest Full House Resorts<\/strong> earnings call\u2014was the 23% vault of tiny Rising Star<\/strong> ($3.5 million), while Belterra Resort<\/strong> jumped 9.5% to $7 million. Bally’s Evansville<\/strong> recovered sufficiently from competitive pressures in Kentucky<\/strong> to hop 5% to $15 million and French Lick Resort<\/strong> climbed 7% to $7 million. The two biggest properties were strangely becalmed. Hollywood Lawrenceburg<\/strong> was flat at $13 million and popular Caesars Southern Indiana <\/strong>dipped 3% to $21 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sports betting yielded $38 million (a 37% leap) on handle of $409 million (+15%), on 9% hold. It was a close contest between FanDuel<\/strong> ($14 million) and DraftKings<\/strong> ($13.5 million). In distant third place was BetMGM<\/strong> ($3 million), followed by Bet365<\/strong> ($3 million), Caesars Sportsbook<\/strong> ($2 million) and Bet ESPN<\/strong> ($1 million). Between them, BetRivers <\/strong>and Fanatics<\/strong> barely grossed a million. Since Indiana legislators are allergic to i-gaming they will continue to miss out on the big enchilada.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sports wagering also grew<\/strong> last month in Maryland<\/strong>, where revenues were up 8% ($43 million), as was handle ($428 million, 32%). Despite high hold, it looks as though books failed to clean up on the Super Bowl<\/strong>, with its unexpected outcome. Freebies were pretty George, too, with $13.5 million going out to recruit players. FanDuel<\/strong> far outpaced DraftKings<\/strong>, $23.5 million to $13.5 million. The latter still crushed BetMGM<\/strong> ($3 million), ESPN Bet <\/strong>($2 million) and Caesars Sportsbook <\/strong>($1 million). Looking like dead meat were BetRivers<\/strong> and Fanatics<\/strong>, who could only scare up a half-million combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Down in the dusty<\/strong> state of Arizona<\/strong>, sports betting was good for $69 million in January, a 50% catapult. Handle was $704 million, up 19% as the books cleaned punters out. The operators then turned around and blew over $23 million on promos, so players didn’t make out altogether badly. Again, FanDuel<\/strong> was predominant, with $31 million to DraftKings<\/strong>‘ $23 million. BetMGM<\/strong> fared well, with $10 million, followed by Caesars Sportbook<\/strong>‘s $3.5 million. One needed a microscope to find ESPN Bet<\/strong> … or BetRivers<\/strong> for that matter.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Goodbye and good riddance<\/strong> to GamebetDC<\/strong>, the much-reviled, city government-owned sports betting app that dominated the District of Columbia<\/strong> for the past four years. Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the butt, Intralot<\/strong>, on your out back to Greece<\/strong> where you belong. In a decision embodying the worst of D.C. politics, Intralot was awarded the $215 million D.C. sports betting contract in sweetheart, no-bid fashion and delivered a product so dysfunctional <\/a>(infamous for going down on Super Bowl<\/strong> Sunday two years back) that the prospect of its renewal became untenable even in City Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So out goes Intralot and in comes FanDuel,<\/strong> which promises to be a far more competent operator of OSB, even if that’s not the compliment that it ought to be, given the local history. For instance, the D.C. guvmint boasted it would garner $84 million from its sweetheart deal with Intralot. It made $4 million, with GamebetDC posting a $4 million loss<\/em> in Year One. Nor was the city the only one on the outs, as bettors found the Intralot’s high hold percentage also made it a less attractive proposition, tech screwups aside. FanDuel inherits a near monolopy, as you can only log onto BetMGM<\/strong> or Caesars Sportsbook<\/strong> within the environs of Nationals Park<\/strong> and Capital One Arena<\/strong>. So FanDuel isn’t a solution for all of D.C.’s OSB ills … but it’s an awfully good restart.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Stiff of the Month<\/strong> goes belatedly to Resorts World New York<\/strong> City<\/strong>, which gypped a gambler on a massive scale. In 2017, New Yorker Katrina Bookman<\/strong> hit a $42,949,672 jackpot at the casino\u2014only to have it voided<\/a> by Resorts World and later by state regulators. Bookman was given a $2.25 voucher and the dusty excuse that the big win was a “malfunction.” Where have we heard that one before? Oh, and instead of a big payout, Bookman was offered … a steak dinner. She sued the casino and the case was ultimately settled out of court, undoubtedly for a lot more than the cost of a good steak. As Bookman’s attorney said, \u201cYou can\u2019t claim a machine is broken because you want it to be broken. Does that mean it wasn\u2019t inspected? Does it mean it wasn\u2019t maintained?<\/em>\u201d Good questions. Resorts World\u2014which just pitched a $5 billion redevelopment to New York City<\/strong> officials\u2014was good for the $45 million and should have put its money where its mouth was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the Great Pandemic, gambling has never been quite the same for Detroit. Last month’s casino tally of $105 million was flat with 2023 and 9% down from the pre-pandemic pace of 2019, a recurrent theme in Motown. MotorCity beat the odds and posted a 1% increase, hitting $31.5 million for the month. Hollywood Greektown, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83928,"featured_media":855359,"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":true,"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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mgm-grand-detroit-promotions.jpg?fit=415%2C362&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855347"}],"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=855347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}